I once launched a large homemade “space shuttle” from Lauderdale By The Sea beach.
We used pipes and made our own propellant from homemade black powder. We rolled it in toilet paper and shoved it up the pipes.
We launched just after dawn. We used an electrical trigger and were about 100 feet away, hunkered behind a concrete seawall.
The sucker shot into the air maybe 200 feet and then exploded. Loudly. Very loudly. We heard pieces of it ricocheting off nearby hotels.
There was a news report of a mysterious explosion that night on the Ralph Renick report, but authorities had no leads or clues as to what it was or who caused it.
Thank God!
You are so busted now, though.
I got to mess with poly butadiene and ammonium perchlorate. Under the science teacher’s supervision. The static test was outside behind a wall.