Building a rocket shell is probably just fine: you need to fuel yet - that you can't 3D print. probably fine...

Overall 3d printing is a lot more than ghost guns and ghost rockets. That the conversation dominates this small sub-section reeks of 'think-of-the-children' screeching that hides explicit power grabs in regulation and surveillance with the main intent seemingly to be 'enforce copywrite' (of only the big players that can afford to throw their weight around).

Fear pushes people's buttons.

i find these projects both fascinating and terrifying. seeing a single person building what normally involves huge defense corporations and government contracts, these things in their bedroom is amazing. it shows how information wants to be free and how ingenious people can get with whatever motivates them.

So the jump from the former to the latter is... significant.

This guy is widely respected in the hobby and this flight made it to 293k feet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmv7G6Rf5WE

Check out the liquid bi-prop engines the halfcat guys have, apparently they were just certified by the HPR hobby governing organization Tripoli which means they can be insured at sponsored launches. With a liquid fueled engine you can do thrust vectoring (nozzle gymbaling) easier than solid fuel motors so active stabilization is more feasible. If you have active stabilization then all you need is thrust to weight > 1, enough fuel, and you'll eventually get to whatever altitude you want. Orbit means orbital velocity and that's just a whole other ball game.

https://www.halfcatrocketry.com/

Model rocketry, as a hobby, enjoys a limited amount of regulation, at least in the US. In large part, that is because the community has been very good about self-policing. Most folks who are serious about the hobby closely follow the safety guidelines published by the two national organizations (Tripoli and NAR), and steer newcomers to as well. Serious accidents are few and far between, intentional damage even more so. Compare this to, say, drones, which seem to be more widely embraced by the public, but are much more closely regulated and have been implicated in a number of serious incidents like https://abcnews.com/US/drone-operator-charged-hitting-super-... . Model and amateur rockets are cool. Folks mis-using them are going to run into a lot of pushback from pretty much every direction, because it'd only take an incident or two to ruin the hobby for everyone.

to relate to OpenRocket, some people are into rocket powered gliders and use autopilots to make flying them after launch easier. It's basically a fly by wire setup so controlling the glider is on easy-mode with the autopilot doing most of the work keeping things stable while the human with the controller just focuses on making the slow circles back to the launch area. These autopilots are how typical quadcopter drones can be flown easily without the wind and 4 motors causing havoc constantly.

I think I need to go for a walk.

> a country as poor and as heavily sanctioned as Iran

It's one of the oldest civilization in the world

It's not poor by any means, it's the 20th economy in the world

They produce as many engineers per year as the US, and they're not financial engineers or saas coders, fyi:

> mid-14c. enginour, "constructor of military engines," from Old French engigneor "engineer, architect, maker of war-engines; schemer"

Sanctioned for half a century means they developed other ways to live and survive

this often happens when the wrong rocket finish is selected. Everyone chooses a polished finish when in actuality they've just sprayed the thing with paint.

Skin drag is real.