D.I.Y. CRUISE MISSILE SHOT DOWN

The New Zealand web devel­oper who was build­ing a cruise mis­sile in his garage — and let­ting the online world know how he was doing it — has aban­doned the project, cit­ing pres­sure from the Kiwi gov­ern­ment.
Bruce Simpson, in an inter­view with the BBC, claims American author­i­ties are to blame for the clamp-​​down. After a U.S. offi­cial called Simpson’s efforts were “extremely unhelp­ful,” the New Zealand gov­ern­ment went after him for back taxes.
What’s more, Simpson asserts on his web­site, the gov­ern­ment has “even gone so far as to delib­er­atey scut­tle a licens­ing deal I had arranged with a US com­pany who was to begin man­u­fac­ture of my X-​​Jet engine.“
“The strange thing is that just a mat­ter of months ago, they told me I could export the very same tech­nol­ogy to Iran — despite the fact that it is widely con­sid­ered to be a ter­ror­ist spon­sor and sim­i­lar exports are pro­hib­ited in the USA,” he con­tin­ues.
The garage-​​made mis­sile is basi­cally com­plete, Simpson says. But, to ensure it’s safety, he’s given it away. It’s now in the hands of a friend, he tells the BBC, “for safe keep­ing.“
(via /​.)

December 9th, 2003 | Missiles | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.