Non-Profit Space Rocket Launching In a Week

Plammox writes "A non-profit suborbital space endeavor lead by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen is trying to put a man in space. The first test of the boosters and space craft in combination with the sea launch platform will take place this week. The catch? All of this is a non-profit project based on voluntary labor and sponsors. How will they get the launch platform out in the middle of the Baltic sea to perform the test? With the founder's home-built submarine pushing it, of course."

Comments

A little background on the guy

[zill]

The project leader, Peter Madsen, reportedly commutes to work every morning in his miniture submarine.

Re:Suborbital

[Plammox]

Then consider this: The excitement of this single project will probably make many more kids in Denmark want to enter science than any previous marketing driven campaign for recruiting engineering students. It shows the awesome feeling of putting theory into practice and how far you can get if you have one determined team of talented folks.

If you like it, please, donate

[roger_pasky]

I'm proud to be a donor, and this is one of the best expenditures I've ever done.

Once I knew about them one year ago (through Slashdot, by the way) I told my wife: "If I stop being a rocket modelling fan forever, will you let me give them the money I planned to spend on rocket models for the rest of my life? It could be the way to be part of a really big thing".

And she said: "Ok, but I don't want to know if he dies or not".

I think it's a fair deal, so I gave them a huge amount of money and I won't tell her about the final result.

Re:I love these guys

[maxwell demon]

Yeah, but playing the guitar is useful. Manned space flight was a stunt then, it's a stunt now. It serves no purpose whatsoever, except to give hardons to nerds and deluded Space Nutters who think we'll be mining asteroids next.

So you think giving hardons is useless? I can tell you that a whole industry is built on it! :-)

On a more serious note: Where do you suggest we get our minerals from when we have used up all supplies of some element found here on earth, if not through space mining?