Build an accurate $ 5000 cruise missile with a 100 mile range in your garage!

[astro]

Weekend fun for the whole family!

‘It Is Surprisingly Simple’

TO PROVE his point, Simpson, 49, a New Zealand Internet publisher and jet-engine consultant, is assembling a cruise missile—the same type of weapon used by U.S. forces to help win the war against Saddam Hussein earlier this year—in his garage and documenting his progress online (interestingprojects.com). He says he’s trying to show governments how easy it would be for terrorists to build the low-cost but lethal missile so that they will put more effort towards preventing such an attack. It’d be easy to dismiss him, as the FBI and Department of Defense apparently did when he contacted them initially with his concerns, if he weren’t well on his way to completing the missile and for less than $5,000. Simpson hopes to test launch the missile at the end of September if he can get the New Zealand authorities to take him as seriously as readers—including some military personnel—have since he began his project online. NEWSWEEK’s Jennifer Barrett spoke to Simpson about the details and dangers of assembling a do-it-yourself cruise missile. Excerpts:

   Why build a cruise missile?
   It was a follow up to an article I wrote over a year ago [on my Web site] in which I presented the possibility that, given improvements in today’s off-the-shelf technology, almost anyone could build their own cruise missile that could be quite effective against soft targets on U.S. soil—soft targets meaning, basically, any nonmilitary installation.
   Most people agreed, but there were a number of people who claimed I was overstating the case and that it’s not possible to build a real cruise missile without access to sophisticated gear, specialist tools and information not readily available outside the military. So, in order to prove my case, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and build a cruise missile in my own garage, on a budget of just $5,000. I had to make some modifications for that price. It’s got a limited range, but it’s at least 100 miles, a limited payload of 10 kilograms and limited accuracy of about 100 yards. 

[astro]

Link from MSNBC for quoted article text

[Sunspace]

The problem is, he’s also showing terrorists how to build it…

[dropzone]

They already know. But they don’t need cruise missiles because car and truck bombs work well enough.

[MarkofT]

The price has come down in the last few years. I know an aerospace engineer that was part of a team that designed and built a cruise missle posing as college students. At one point they needed assistance calculating some ballistics and posted their problem on Usenet. They received a response from an Australian professor who later stated he did nothing wrong as the answer could be found in an publically available textbook.

I think they had a $10,000 budget for the project.

[Ferris]

Rats - there goes our secret ‘National Missile Defence Shield’.

[wolfman]

Does anybody else have a really bad feeling about someone named Simpson building and testing a Cruise missle?

[lokij]

The US military is getting in on this to some extent. They are funding the Affordable Weapons System program to the tune of 26 million dollars in an effort to develope a cheap cruise missile built with off the shelf components for about 50,000 a pop. The AWS will have a 600 nautical mile range and a 200 pound payload so it’s roughly comparable in price to this guy’s project when you consider the increase in capability. I’m not at all surprised that it’s possible to build a limited one for 5,000 in material costs.