Exciting new developments in ultralightweight materials and powerful rocket motors now give amateurs all the tools they need to venture toward the final frontier. And people are responding. At least one rocketeer's creation recently reached an altitude of 36 kilometers, and other attempts to fly small payloads to 100 kilometers are tugging on the coattails of space with rockets that cost just a few thousand dollars. That announcement has started a citizens' space race, one that is open to anyone with the desire to participate. This month's column points the way for interested amateurs to get involved quickly and safely.
Safety is an important concern.
A rocket motor, after all, burns a volatile fuel together with a separate oxidizing agent to produce gases at dangerously high temperatures and pressures. These gases blow through a nozzle at the rocket's tail and, in one of the most visible displays of Newton's law of action and reaction, propel the rocket forward. The fuel and oxidizer may be liquid or solid, or a combination of both. The space shuttle's main engines, for instance, combust liquid hydrogen with liquid oxygen, whereas its solid-rocket boosters burn a stiff matrix of synthetic rubber and aluminum powder, with ammonium perchlorate grains as the oxidizer. Much smaller solid-propellant motors operating on the same principle are commercially available from several companies.