Episode: Confederate Rocket

Original Air Date: October 26, 2005

Myths: Confederate Rocket

The Myth:  Did the Confederate Army build a rocket that could fly over one hundred miles?



The Experts:

Erik Gates - Expert in Amateur Rocketry

Steve Harrington - CEO-Flometrics, Teaches Rocket

Propulsion class at San Diego State



Memorable/Quotable Moments:

Rob Lee (Narrator): Denial is a river in Africa.

Jamie: This is some laughing gas and some plumbing fixtures and if it actually goes someplace, um, that's kind of scary!



The Action/Results:

First, Adam and Jamie decide to build models of rockets that were used in the Civil War, so they know what the possibilities were.  Jamie works on the Hale rocket, and Adam works on the Boxer rocket. It is determined that the Boxer, while originally thought to

be a two-stage rocket, is actually a compound rocket, with one stage that burns through the other. This becomes important later, when they build the mythical rocket.



When the rockets are built, they go out to the Mojave Desert, near Edwards Air Force Base, to fire them.  They find out that the Hale goes about 800 yards, and the tail fins that make it spin do actually work!  Adam's Boxer rocket goes even farther (1317 yards).

After Jamie digs the Hale out of the ground, they decide to continue work on the mythical 100-mile rocket.



After some advice from Steve Harrington (see above), the guys decide to go with the following list of things they need:

1) Liquid Oxygen - purportedly made by Lord Kelvin

2) Gyroscopic Stabilizers - made by Ernst Mach

3) The barrel of a cannon - for a straight flight path

4) Gun Cotton - for an explosive launch

5) Ethanol (moonshine) - for fuel



Grant tries to make liquid oxygen from scratch, first getting oxygen from mercuric oxide and the heat of the sun, and then trying to liquefy it.  Unfortunately, it turns out that oxygen can't be liquefied above -118.6 degrees Celsius - and there is no way that they could have gotten things that cold back in the Civil War era.  So, they try again.



The second time, they decide to make the rocket a hybrid rocket, and to use liquid nitrous oxide instead of liquid oxygen, and solid paraffin wax instead of ethanol. Grant gets to make the liquid nitrous oxide, and manages to do so with no further problems.  Kari makes the gun cotton, and Adam molds the paraffin wax into the correct size cylinders for the rocket.  Finally, Adam makes the graphite nozzle for the end of the rocket, and Jamie makes the tanks for the liquid nitrous oxide and the paraffin wax. They decide to test it in the bunker in the shop, rather than driving all the way back out to the Mojave Desert.  So, they set it up, anchor it down, and fire it up.  It works perfectly, melting the bottom of Adam's hovercraft and destroying several cameras, but sounding just the way it should, according to Adam. So, they put it in a bright red casing, engineer some more Hale tail fins for the bottom end, and take it out to the desert.



Once there, they set it up on Tory's custom-built launcher, put all the component parts together, and launch it! It flies about 500 yards, shooting out fire and smoke. As Jamie and Adam sit together on the top of the 200-pound rocket, they decide that, while it was amazing that they put this thing together in two days out of some plumbing parts, the myth is BUSTED, because there is no way that this rocket could ever fly over 100 miles.