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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."
Check out the spacecraft: http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/spacecraft.php
Sven the crash test dummy is in for a wild ride!
The pace at which they've managed to do this work is phenomenal.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The project leader, Peter Madsen, reportedly commutes to work every morning in his miniture submarine.
Nonprofit space exploration? Is there any other kind?
If you build it properly does it matter where you build it?
I caught this story on Fark, and they linked to a really good thread over on the Something Awful forums with posts directly from these people.
We've made the world's amateur largest space rocket
If you don't want to read all 17 pages, just skim through looking for posts by user frumpykvetchbot.
This is completely awesome, and I wish them the best of luck with the test launch this weekend. :D
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
It matters where you test it - and how willing are you to break N custom-built pieces to ensure N+1 and onwards won't crack under pressure.
Say what you want about greedy manufacturers trying to lower costs, but proper QA requires economies of scale - there is a reason prototypes ended up in museums and not flying to the moon.
Considering they are launching it from a sea launch platform they built, which will be towed to sea with the submarine they built, I'd say this is several orders of magnitude more awesome than what anybody else ever did.
Let's see, how many orders of magnitude harder things have you ever done? Links, please.
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.
More pics from saturday here: http://ing.dk/artikel/111189-se-den-danske-rumraket-blive-soesat
They have been running a blog since the beginning on ing.dk (in danish only, unfortunately). Openness is key to the project, that's how they attract the donations that make up all funding.
The astronaut sitting upright is a key part of the design. The spaceship is 60cm in diameter. If he lies down the spaceship needs to be much wider, around 2 metres, and then require a much larger booster rocket.
They aim at a constant acceleration of 4G, which is not very much for a rocket, but this is to make it liveable in the upright position.
Another key part of the design is that it is a hybrid rocket, which has high power, is controllable, and is almost without dangers compared to traditional liquid and solid fuel rockets.
The fuel is actually some rubber substance (not entirely unlike tyre rubber), with liquid oxygen being pumped through to make it burn at high temps. Totally harmless substances, except when you ignite them, produces great thrust, and is even variable, so they can just turn it off if something goes wrong.
Until now they have only been doing static booster tests (all successful). The upcoming launch is the very first flight test. They only aim at going to some 20 km's altitude. The eventual goal is to replace Sven the test dummy with Peter Madsen, and thrust him to above 100 km's - and get him down safely.
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.