Per aspera ad astra, or how I built a rocket. Part 1. Making engines and launching rockets

02.03.2017 14:26

Eureka » Discoveries

The development of science and technology poses more and more questions to scientists and engineers related to the problem of dual use of their discoveries. Thus, until quite recently, the favorite character of novelists was a certain evil sociopathic scientist, whose genius serves not to benefit humanity, but to its detriment. However, today you don’t have to be a professor to build something killer from the most accessible materials. And then there will be even more technical innovations with “dual purpose”, so you need to think about the fact that it’s high time to do something about this now...

Photo source: svoboda.org

“As they looked into the water...”

When the Strugatsky brothers wrote their science fiction story “Predatory Things of the Century” in 1964, many people perceived it as... pure science fiction, a social forecast that would not come true. Meanwhile, the authors foresaw in it not only that girls in the future will begin to wear shorts and T-shirts that reveal their bare navel (which, by the way, is quite difficult to imagine), but also the very vector of human development (which, we note, is even more difficult). But mobile phones turned out to be beyond their capabilities, but they guessed the contents of, for example, the same modern press exactly the same.

And they also wrote the following: “When Mkhagana and Buris appealed to the UN with a complaint that the separatists were using a new type of weapon - freezing bombs, we rushed to look for underground military factories and even arrested two of the real underground inventors (16 and 96 years old ).

And then it turned out that these inventors had absolutely nothing to do with it, and the terrible freezing bombs were purchased by the separatists in Munich at a wholesale warehouse of refrigeration units and turned out to be defective superfreezers. True, the effect of these superfreezers was truly terrible. Combined with molecular detonators (widely used by underwater archaeologists in the Amazon to scare away piranhas and caimans), superfreezers were capable of instantly reducing the temperature to 150 degrees cold within a radius of 20 meters.

Then we spent a long time convincing each other not to forget and always keep in mind that in our time, literally every month, a mass of technical innovations for the most peaceful purposes and with the most unexpected side properties appear, and these properties are often such that violations of the law prohibiting the production of weapons and ammunition become simply meaningless."

"If you don't have an aunt..."

But we have all the same things practically today. True, without these same... superfreezers. However, even without them, humanity today has enough worries. Let's say that you are a single maniac or dream of sending your aunt, insured for a million dollars, to the next world. You know that your aunt can’t swim, but she loves cruises on small, cozy ships.

You also lack any moral principles, so all you have to do is purchase a large-diameter metal pipe, weld two metal cones to it, place carbon dioxide cylinders in it, and behind it a pneumatic drilling machine, on the shaft of which a propeller from Yamaha boats. The explosive you will use is a mixture of some fertilizers with diesel fuel, but in order to prevent your air motor from freezing during operation, the gas pipeline to it will need to be placed in a tank of boiling water, which will be heated by an ordinary boiler! It's troublesome, but very reliable. Now all that remains is to heat the water, turn on the gas and... point this floating projectile at the ship with your aunt.

Well, if you don’t have an aunt (as the famous song from “The Irony of Fate ...” says) and if you belong to the Yemeni rebels, then the Saudi frigate anchored in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait not far from Djibouti. So how can we prevent the creation of such a “device”? After all, all the parts for it are sold in regular stores!

Origami rocket with diagram

Well, now one more craft for children using any technique, yes - this is origami. Sometimes it’s ordinary, sometimes it’s modular. So, what a wonder! And these photos will definitely help you and everything will work out perfectly.

And this is precisely modular technology; of course, here it is necessary to prepare many modules in order to build such a thing.

Kits for children's technical creativity

Terrorists from ISIS (an organization banned in Russia) have already begun to actively use cheap UAVs as weapons: they attach ordinary hand grenades or RPG grenades to them with insulating tape and launch them so that they simply hit the target! At the same time, people die, equipment is disabled, and although this pleasure is expensive, they do not refuse it, since they have the money received for oil. In addition, today there are already relatively inexpensive plastic UAVs, and tomorrow there will be even more of them!

That is, it is necessary today to think about how to prevent the supply of such dual-use products to rebellious areas of the planet.

At one time, the USSR produced so-called DOSAAF package kits for the production of flying model aircraft. Modern analogues of those models are practically no longer necessary to assemble. Charged the battery, practiced acquiring piloting skills, hung something explosive under the model and go launch it. At the very least, panic can always be caused, which means that the purchase of such potentially dangerous aircraft would also be worth tracking.

How to create a space rocket from scrap materials? Step-by-step instruction

1. Take a plastic bottle, wash it and dry it. Place a colored sock over a clean, dry container. Then tie it with a thin cord under the bottom of a plastic bottle and cut off the tail.

2. Cut out 2 circles with a diameter of 5 cm from red felt. Next, glue the figures onto the base of the rocket - these will be the portholes. Using a glue gun, attach the same round foil parts to the red circles, but with a smaller diameter (3.5 cm).

3. Draw three “fins” on a piece of white cardstock. Cut out the shapes, then glue them to the rocket on 3 sides, point down.

4. Cut a ring from a cardboard tube (from paper towels or toilet paper), 5-6 cm wide. Take thick foil and wrap the part. Wind red woolen threads around your palm, then glue the resulting skein on one side to the previously prepared part.

5. Do the same with yellow yarn. This way you will make the bottom of the rocket with unusual decorative flames. Use a glue gun to secure the part to the bottom of the bottle. This completes the step-by-step master class for parents and children!

"Kassams", take off!

However, the same Palestinian militants, for example, have long ago created several types of homemade Qassam missiles. They are named after al-Qassam, an influential Islamic priest and leader of the Black Hand terrorist organization in Mandatory Palestine.

We open Wikipedia and read: this is an ordinary metal pipe filled with a mixture of white granulated sugar and potassium nitrate KNO3. The explosives for it are also often homemade, which is why the damage radius is, fortunately, small.

In total, from 2001 to 2012, about 6,280 such missiles were fired into the territory of the State of Israel, of which the air defense system managed to destroy only 439! 27 people were killed and 700 people were injured. Plus to this should be added the costs of intercepting these missiles and the enormous moral damage they caused.

How to make a rocket with your own hands?

First of all, you need to understand: there will be no complex chemical processes in the “engine” of the rocket, like in a real one. This is due, first of all, to the fact that there are simply no suitable resources at home. Also, a real rocket can be dangerous for a child. In general, the safety rules for interacting with such a homemade toy should be discussed separately. But first you need to figure out what materials you will need when assembling the “engine” and the body of your own rocket.

Necessary materials

In fact, you don’t need many things to create a rocket at home. First of all, stock up on thick and thin cardboard. You can take colored ones, but it makes sense to take craft ones. Then you can write the name of your starship as clearly as possible - children have a blast coming up with them. You also need to take:

• Scissors or a stationery knife for cutting parts;
• Empty plastic bottle with a volume of 500 to 1000 milliliters;
• Colored tape, can be replaced with electrical tape;
• A simple pencil for creating markings;
• A durable wine cork and a needle for piercing it;
• Liquid silicone or durable construction adhesive;
• Plasticine, preferably it matches the color of the cardboard;
• Bicycle wheel pump.

A little about safety

First, you need to direct the rocket away from people when launching. If a bottle or cardboard tip hits you, it can cause serious harm to the health of a child or any adult nearby. Secondly, do not trust children to use the pump or needle to pierce a wine cork. Both require a certain amount of physical strength. In addition, it is really difficult to pierce a cork product, and it is unlikely that a child will cope with this mission. Have you repeated the rules? In this case, you can start assembling your homemade rocket.

Build process

• Roll the thin cardboard into a cone, carefully trim the edge so that the shape becomes even;
• Cover the cone in several layers with electrical tape or tape, this will protect the rocket body from water and damage;
• On top you can stick an inscription with the name of your interplanetary transport;
• Wash and dry the bottle, paint it any color you want and make the images you have in mind;
• Using glue or silicone, glue the cardboard evenly to the main part of the rocket - the bottle;
• Cut out three right-angled triangles from strong cardboard and glue them on as tail keels;
• Weight the bottom of the rocket using pre-prepared plasticine;
• Pour water into the bottle, you want it to fill it almost completely, ideally one liter;
• Use a needle to pierce a hole in the wine cork; its diameter should not exceed the needle from the bicycle pump;
• Insert the cork into the bottle so that it fits as firmly and reliably as possible;
• Secure the bicycle pump needle into the plug and make sure that it does not pop out at the wrong time.

Then you can proceed to launching your rocket. You need to turn it upside down and connect it to the pump. Position the ship so that it does not accidentally shoot at you or other spectators of the launch. Pump air into the rocket. When you realize that there is not enough room for gases, stop holding the rocket and fix it not too tightly, for example, with the help of two stones or bricks placed on the sides. The homemade device will take off exactly at the moment when the plug stops holding air masses.

There are also more modern options for building a rocket. For example, modern experimenters use sugar and caramel fuel. But making them costs significantly more than making the rocket I described. If you're ready to splurge and experiment with science with your child, check out the following idea: