Want to Look Inside a Burning Rocket Engine?

Here’s a bit of pretty amazing hobby rocket porn. Ben Krasnow walks us through — in a rather matter-of-fact way — of how he built a hybrid rocket engine in his shop using a piece of acrylic so he could see inside and watch the gaseous oxygen burn. As one commenter on You Tube described it, “Hey guys, I was bored, so I built a transparent rocket engine in my garage. No big deal.”

“This engine is only meant to run for 10 seconds at most,” says Krasnow in his video, “and so this construction isn’t going to last long enough to make a reusable rocket, let’s just say. This is definitely for demo only!”

Next up, Krasnow will travel through time to contact Montgomery Scott to find out how to create transparent aluminum. If seeing this video makes you want to do an impression of Tim the Toolman Taylor, Krasnow also has a video tour of his shop.