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Flat Earth Theory / Re: SpaceX commercial satellite launch
« on: December 12, 2013, 07:24:31 AM »"High-Power rockets in the United States, are only federally regulated in their flight guidelines by the FAA"
the FAA, because they regulate pretty much anything big that flies, they're not a fan of you flying stuff into planes, it makes for depressing headlines.
All you need is a license, a flight plan and proof your contraption is safe, same as a helicopter, plane, or zeppelin.
Incorrect. Military airspace starts at 65,000 feet. The FAA isn't going to let you go into military airspace with a device nearly identical to an ICBM based on a flight plan.
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The plans for NASA's specific rockets are kept confidential yes, but then are the plans for pretty much all commercial craft, that doesn't mean other people can't build planes, helicopters or rockets. You just can't build the governments specific rockets (unless you can somehow reverse engineer one).
See Markjo's post above. Rockets past a certain thrust power are regulated.
You're right Tom, liquid fuel rocket engine technology is super-duper-tippy-top-hush-hush-secret.Would you care to cite this law, please? To the best of my knowledge, rocket engines above a certain thrust level are regulated, but the technology itself not secret.
Just as you said, rockets past a certain threshold are restricted. See the wikipedia page on Model Rocket Motor Classification. Anything past O requires government oversight.
Since the engines in these professional rockets operate differently, it constitutes a different rocket technology. The Saturn V rocket (A U class rocket) isn't using the same engine design as an O class rocket available to hobbiests. O class rockets are typically solid state or hybrid engines, while the Saturn V's rocket engine is a specially designed liquid rocket with special fuel injector pumps, heat exchangers, turbines, pressure tranducers, etc. -- all researched to a tune of many millions of dollars. It was not a matter of taking a high powered model rocket motor and scaling up.
The blueprints for the custom development of the Saturn V rocket engine are not available to the public, locked away as a state secret.
http://heroicrelics.org/info/f-1/f-1-supp.html
http://hackaday.com/2011/09/01/engine-hacks-liquid-fuel-amateur-rocket-roundup/
http://www.gramlich.net/projects/rocket/
http://store.fastcommerce.com/SystemeSolaire/liquid-propellant-rocket-kit-ff8081811928eb610119331daa8d6729-p.html
BTW, the space shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters and several ICBMs and IRBMs use similar solid rocket technology that amateur rocket enthusiasts use.
I did not say that liquid fuel technology was secret.
A gasoline powered drilling machine which could drill through the earth and send a nuke to china would be a government secret. Inferior gasoline engines are not. The fact that the public has access to both gasoline and lesser drilling machines which could drill sewers and subway terminals is inconsequential. It is not the same technology.