Red Echo

March 24, 2013

Home-made rocket fuel

Grant Thompson cooks up four different variations of solid rocket fuel using sugar & potassium nitrate. And I do mean “cooks” – his lab equipment consists of a portable two-burner stove, a skillet, and a spatula. Slick production, and he actually builds a small, working rocket using his homemade fuel at the end.

Also useful is his video explaining how to build a fuse, which begins with the immortal words “When experimenting with homemade pyrotechnics” and proceeds with a level of fearlessness I haven’t seen since a ’50s-era science-experiments-for-kids book I checked out of the library back in the ’80s.