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ITAR and amateur rocketry YouTube have a strained relationship.
by sklargh 2y ago
ITAR and amateur rocketry YouTube have a strained relationship.
- mrguyorama 2y agoI don't think it's that strained. BPS Space for example spends a lot of time talking about how "This is not a tutorial" but there's a massive gulf between what is currently published information that is available to people like him and what is actually meaningful to regulation. If you are buying your propellant components in small bags off the internet and mixing it yourself in stand mixers and casting it yourself in your garage and using niche open market servos to build your stuff with homemade guidance, the gov is not looking at you. ITAR isn't about keeping every precocious kid from building small volume guided munitions; It's about keeping shithole states from building ICBMs. It's about keeping former SpaceX personnel from spending time in Best Korea. This is especially true in a post FPV drone world, where putting 1kg of explosive anywhere you want in a 10km radius is a $500 purchase off alibaba. Precision munitions have accidentally been democratized.
- bragr 2y agoI'm not sure that's an accurate characterization. He's specifically voiced concerns about the ambiguity of whether what he's doing violates ITAR, even with the "this isn't a tutorial, I've left out information" and that if the feds launched an investigation, he'd be crushed by the process even if they found no wrongdoing in the end.
- edm0nd 2y agoYet anyone can buy a consumer drone and strap homemade explosives on it and do a lot more damage VS a college kid with an engineering background who is into rocketry.