The Biggest Bang

The other thing that agitates rocketeers: regulations.
To get permission to launch his record-setting Go Fast, Michaelson underwent an epic two-and-a-half-year bureaucratic struggle with an obscure federal entity, the Office of Commercial Space Transportation. The civil servant who held up the launch for a year reportedly told him, “We’re not happy unless you’re unhappy.” To which Michaelson replied (to the enduring satisfaction of high-powered-rocketry enthusiasts the world round), “We’re not happy unless you’re a little bit worried.” And the feds are worried. In the fall of 2001, two agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives paid a call to the Whitmore residence to examine his propellant-storage facilities.

Since 9/11, anything that smacks of do-it-yourself pyrotechnics is viewed with suspicion. Officials have suggested that a homemade rocket could be used by terrorists. Rocketeers retort that any terrorist who attempted to deliver a deadly payload with a rocket, which doesn’t have a guidance system, instead of a Stinger shoulder-to-air missile (or a rental truck or suicide vest) would be a terrorist in the wrong line of work.

Still, officials at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives maintain that they have the authority to regulate rocket motors because the oxidant used in solid propellant, ammonium perchlorate, has been on the official explosives list since the 1970s. The government requires that high-powered rocketeers get burdensome explosives permits. Rocketeers are disgusted. “No one’s ever built a bomb with this stuff,” says attorney Joe Egan, who represents Tripoli and the National Association of Rocketry, “but hundreds of bombs a year are made from gunpowder, which is easy to obtain.” Seconds Doug Pratt, a rocketeer and hobby-industry consultant, “We’re offended by the suggestion that we’re doing something unpatriotic.” At the otherwise jolly LDRS banquet, there are “council of war” moments, with a passing of the hat for the legal defense fund.

The feds’ attack on solid fuel has led some rocketeers to try hybrid motors, which burn rubber or plastic using a liquid oxidizer. Hybrids are nothing new, but until now they were a solution in search of a problem. Post-9/11, they became a way to legally sidestep federal oversight, since nothing in them can be remotely considered an explosive. (Ironically, while one arm of the government harasses rocketeers, another solicits them. NASA has purchased two launch systems—for its educational programs—from Doug Pratt, who makes them in his basement and sells them over the Internet in his spare time.)

Hybrids have a crucial safety edge, which derives from their combustion of two components—an oxidizer, usually nitrous oxide, and a fuel source, usually a machined chunk of PVC plastic (although most anything, including a hard salami, has been used)—both of which are chemically inert at less than superhigh temperatures. Within the high-powered-rocketry community, a zealous minority sees hybrids as the wave of the future, while an as-yet-unpersuaded majority is unconvinced because of the hybrids’ finicky resistance to ignition and their hollow, flatulent sound (it’s hard to let go of the solids’ manly roar).