Building a spaceship at home is easy and cheap. Reach supersonic speeds and thousands of feet in altitude with a little bit of work. With PVC and some chemicals from a local store, it is possible to build a rocket. Anybody can complete the process of putting one of these motors together. Building a working rocket includes making the rocket motor and constructing the rocket's body.
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The Motor
The motor is the most crucial and complicated component of a rocket, and the most important part of the motor is its propellant. The type of motor we will make is called a solid rocket motor. Unlike a liquid rocket engine, it has no moving parts and is much safer and reliable. It works by burning a solid propellant that is designed to release rapidly expanding gases and direct them quickly out the nozzle of the rocket. A rocket propellant needs two things to function: fuel and an oxidizer. A specific ratio of these two ingredients is imperative. Too much fuel and the motor burns too slow, causing too little thrust to get the rocket off the ground. Too much oxidizer and the rocket motor will explode, and nobody wants that. The rocket motor will use powdered sugar as fuel and potassium nitrate as an oxidizer. Every grocery store has powdered sugar. Also, every hardware store has potassium nitrate marketed as a stump remover. These ingredients need a container to hold them when they are in the rocket. A six-inch length piece of three-quarter-inch diameter schedule forty PVC is perfect for casting and securing the fuel. The pressure from the burning fuel will melt and burst the PVC if it is thinner than schedule forty PVC. To get the most thrust without exploding, mix the fuel and oxidizer in a 35:65 ratio. A hundred grams of propellant will roughly fill the six-inch piece of PVC. It is best to ground the potassium nitrate into a powder because it comes clumpy from the store. Blend thirty-five grams of sugar and sixty-five grams of potassium nitrate together. Put the mix into a pan. Now that these two ingredients are together, it is paramount to treat the mixture with care. Make sure to keep it away from any ignition sources like a flame because it is now ignitable. Heat the pan at low-medium heat over a stovetop. The sugar caramelizes at 366.8 F (186 C), potassium nitrate melts at 633.2 F (334 C). The goal is to caramelize the sugar while the potassium nitrate stays solid. The caramel will hold the potassium nitrate particles in suspension. Since this is a sensitive process, there is a chance the sugar is not caramelizing and is burning. In this case, add two grams of glycerin to the pan. The glycerin will make the mixture stick to the pan less and become more liquid. If this is necessary, buy glycerin for cheap at Walmart or many other stores. A light brown mixture of potassium nitrate, sugar, and sometimes glycerin should remain in your hot pan. This goop is your rocket propellant. Treat the fuel with prudence.
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Rocket propellant is nothing without the proper shape and casing. When the fuel burns, it gives off gases that need to be channeled toward the end of the rocket. The shape of the propellant in the casing determines where the gases are directed. A motor casing can make or break a rocket. A rocket casing needs to withstand high-pressure gases created from the burning propellant. A rocket casing is shaped like a cylinder. The six-inch PVC described earlier will work as the walls of our casing. One end of the PVC can be fitted with a ¾ inch coupling so more PVC can be added on later as the rocket body. The other end will use a ¾ inch PVC coupling that has one threaded side. One end of the PVC will be the nozzle. The other will be closed off to make sure no gases escape from that side. The side of the motor with the threading will have the nozzle. The other end will be completely blocked off. Quick set cement is strong enough to withstand the pressures. One problem that sometimes arises is that it will be pushed out of the end of the rocket. The threading on the nozzle end will make sure the cement stays put. The closed-off end, called the endcap, does not need threading. This is because there will be a layer of propellant between the endcap and the core. This layer adds extra strength to the end. The steps to make the final motor are: make the end cap out of cement, set the propellant inside of the casing, attach the threaded coupling to the end opposite the end cap, make the nozzle, finally attach the coupling to the end cap side of the casing. The closed-off end will be filled with cement, ¾ inches thick, inside the end of the 6inch PVC. To set the cement, place the flat end of the PVC flush on a flat surface. Pour in the cement and add water. Give it the recommended amount of time to set. After it has set, reliquidate your propellant and pour it into the rocket casing. There are many methods of coring propellant. The best is to press a metal rod in the center of the propellant while it is cooling and hardening. We will secure the rod to a wooden dowel to keep it in the center. Get a dowel from any hardware store and buy about two feet of metal rod. Find a drill bit that is the same diameter as the metal rod. Drill into the end of the dowel. Secure the metal rod in the dowel using glue. Cut the metal rod three and a half inches from the end of the dowel. When it is pressed into the propellant the rod won't reach the cement end cap. If the dowel is smaller than the inner diameter of the PVC, then wrap the dowel in tape until it fits snug into the PVC. Put the rod in the propellant. Do not leave it in until the propellant has finished cooling because it will be hard to pull free. But don’t pull it out so early that the propellant would lose its shape. To attach the threaded PVC coupling to the casing wall, use PVC primer and PVC cement. Once the PVC cement and the propellant dry, it's time to get started on the nozzle. Get a piece of the metal rod about ten inches long. On a stable surface with the end cap down, place the PVC vertical. Fill the cavity with cement and wait. When it is strong enough to hold its shape but soft enough that the rod is not stuck, slowly remove it. A washer with the same inner diameter as the rod and a larger outer diameter than the PVC will work. Slide the rod through the washer. Then pull on the rod while using the washer to keep the cement in the casing. Finally, you have a completed rocket motor. If lit, it will violently shoot in whatever direction it is pointing.
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