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Legal Issues
Staying out of trouble
If you live in the USA or are a US citizen living abroad rocketry requires approval from the FAA and depending on your propellants, the ATFE.
FAA
The size of your rocket and type of propellant determines the paperwork requirements. This site has a good table showing the rules.
The FAA recognizes and encourages large amateur rocketry flights. The Supplemental ApplicationGuidance for Unguided Suborbital Launch Vehicles allows us to fly without requiring us to apply for a full-fledged launch license.
Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Technology.
Defense Trade Controls - Reference Library Stay on top of the regulations, this covers exports.
Other Agencies
The Office of Space Coommercialization
ATFE
The Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency regulates Ammonium Perchlorate as an explosive. The rulings are not applied evenly in all parts of the country, but you should be prepared to have a properly inspected storage magazine, a Low Explosives User Permit and a Low Explosives Manufacturing Permit.
An Introduction to Space Law
by I. H. Philepina Diederiks-Verschoor
Kluwer Law International; 2nd Revision edition, October 1, 1999
ISBN: 9041112618
Origins of International Space Law and the International Institute of Space Law of the International Astronautical Federation
by Stephen E. Doyle
Univelt; December 2002
ISBN: 0912183179
Space Transport Liability: National and International Aspects (Utrecht Studies in Air and Space Law, Vol. 15)
by R. James Bender
Aspen Publishers, Inc.; October 1995
ISBN: 9041101063
International Space Law
by Boris Belitsky
University Press of the Pacific; October 2000
ISBN: 0898750865