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Kristian von Bengston's New Goal: The Moon

Posted by timothy on from the ad-astra-or-at-least-ad-luna dept.

Kristian von Bengtson, co-founder of DIY manned space program Copenhagen Suborbitals (which he left in 2014) writes with this pithy plug for his newest venture: "This year, we (a great crew) have been preparing for the next adventure with a mission plan going public Oct 1. Go sign up and join the project at moonspike.com." (You may want to check out our video inteview with von Bengston; he's a person who gets things done.)

24 comments

  1. gets things done, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, I assume he left due to boredom as Copenhagen Suborbital now has a profitable monopoly of the suborbital market?

    No? Because that's what "someone who gets thing done" would mean.

    1. Re:gets things done, eh? by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 2

      Copenhagen Suborbitals is a Danish non-profit aerospace organization that has constructed and launched several privately built rockets

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      It's geeks having fun, and launching a suborbital rocket as a private non-profit doing this for fun is quite an achievement.

    2. Re:gets things done, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People who "get things done" often are cowboys who disregard things like safety, reliability, employee morale, etc and many times are also bullies.
      They are admired in the arena of balls-out capitalism because such tactics often produce good results over the short term at the expense of long term success. Of course these days a long term planning horizon might be a whole calendar year out, and the MBA's who run things don't plan on being around any particular company longer than that ... it's the end result of a decades long race to the bottom and I'm really not even sure we've reached it yet.

    3. Re:gets things done, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's geeks having fun, and launching a suborbital rocket as a private non-profit doing this for fun is quite an achievement.

      It would have be an even bigger achievement, if any of the launches had been a success. None of them have reached their goal.

    4. Re:gets things done, eh? by rasmusbr · · Score: 1

      There is not really much of a market for suborbital spaceflight, it's just a few unmanned science experiments each year. I don't think that anyone is ever going to pay $100k to fly on a suborbital joyride either. Perhaps if they can get it down to 20k per ride.

    5. Re:gets things done, eh? by Teancum · · Score: 2

      It would have be an even bigger achievement, if any of the launches had been a success. None of them have reached their goal.

      But they have had launches. That is more than I can say about a few other people, including many posting here on slashdot.

    6. Re:gets things done, eh? by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 2

      Critics don't have to show proof they can do better. I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of those who said Star Wars 1 was bad can't produce a better movie.

    7. Re:gets things done, eh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of those who said Star Wars 1 was bad can't produce a better movie.

      Maybe, but since they aren't movie directors that's of no relevance.

    8. Re:gets things done, eh? by khallow · · Score: 2

      And most people on Slashdot don't launch rockets either. It's quite relevant to the argument that someone should receive special consideration because they do launch rockets.

    9. Re:gets things done, eh? by SustainableJeroen · · Score: 2

      That is not true. All launches so far have been test launches, testing some technology or other. Many flights have not been complete successes, but all have produced valuable data for use further down the line. The two founders leaving CS (and the turmoil leading up to that) have set them back a year or two, but they seem to have regrouped and from the outside it seems as if they're on a much more solid path than before. I've donated $ 25. This weekend they have a (test) launch planned of their Nexø 1 liquid fueled rocket. They'll stream the launch live, from their mobile launch platform from somewhere in the Baltic Sea. That "normal" (I wouldn't call them quite normal, but still...) can just do this shows that we live in fantastic times, I think.

  2. Mun by hooiberg · · Score: 1

    Or bust!

    1. Re:Mun by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      To the Moon, Kristian! To the Moon!

  3. Name the ship? by A10Mechanic · · Score: 3, Funny

    If he names the ship 'Alice' I'll consider a donation.

  4. Before I "sign up" with my email address... by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...can you at least give me a link to an "About" page? Maybe a paragraph talking about what you're expecting to do? It's a beautiful content-free single-page website, but come on, throw us a bone here.

    1. Re:Before I "sign up" with my email address... by jbengt · · Score: 1

      How about just figuring out how to spell his name, the editors can't even seem to get it consistently wrong.

  5. SCAM ALERT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This guy Kristian von Bengtson is an advisor of Mars One. Watch your pocketbooks.

    1. Re:SCAM ALERT by Teancum · · Score: 2

      He is just as duped about Mars One as all of the "spaceflight participants" that have signed up. His involvement there is mainly to make Mars One look good, not the other way around.

    2. Re:SCAM ALERT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No he is an ADVISOR, not a "participant". Why would he agree to advise an obvious scam? I know he is probably your buddy, but I say watch out.

  6. Premature much? by phayes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You cannot pretend to "Get things done" until you have achieved the promised milestones. Before aiming for the moon he needs to perform a manned suborbital flight to be taken seriously.

    --
    Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    1. Re:Premature much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's just normal Space Nutter mentality. Hey let's colonize the galaxy even though only a dozen people ever have gone to the Moon for a few days at great expense, almost half a century ago.

    2. Re:Premature much? by SustainableJeroen · · Score: 1

      Do you know much about the Copenhagen Suborbitals project? They've launched quite a few test rockets over the past couple of years, each a milestone of its own. They launched these from their mobile launch platform from the Baltic Sea, and streamed all them live over the internet. Quite an achievement in itself, I believe. I do agree with you that it's quite a leap from a not-completed suborbital test program to a (manned?) moon landing. I'm curious to see how detailed the information is we'll get to see on Oct 1st. Will they just be beautiful drawings - Kristian is an awesome artist - or will we get to see technical and financial details?

    3. Re:Premature much? by phayes · · Score: 1

      We have more than enough beautiful drawings and pie in the sky dreams, these do not advance the end goal of having and regularly using cheap manned access to space. Having built & launched the largest amateur rocket is indeed quite an achievement but gives them nowhere near the credibility of what they needs to change his objective from a still unrealized manned suborbital flight to the moon. If he's doing this for himself & just enjoys building castles in the sky, using his own resources, more power to him. If he's asking for support, achieve manned suborbital before moving on.

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    4. Re:Premature much? by Teancum · · Score: 1

      We have more than enough beautiful drawings and pie in the sky dreams, these do not advance the end goal of having and regularly using cheap manned access to space.

      These guys are not just making beautiful drawings, and I fail to see how they are not advancing the end goal of having regular and cheap crewed access to space.

      I don't know what their end goal actually is, assuming they can actually put capsules into space. I think that issue is something which legitimately needs to be brought up. There is a history of some "open source projects" (Gracenote comes to mind) where once a pile of money starts flowing and the project gets on a firm footing financially that the volunteers get left behind in the dust. The Wikimedia Foundation is another such project that isn't quite so bad, but Jimmy Wales definitely could have completely sold out the community in the past and definitely did in some ways too so far as there are some people making a huge pile of money off of Wikipedia content, even if indirectly.

      I don't mind the fact that Kristian Von Bengston is dreaming big. We need that in this universe, where people who dream big can actually accomplish things. If he tries and fails, he is but one more person who has definitely been in that situation before. Jim Benson was another such dreamer in commercial spaceflight that tried and failed.... but provided the groundwork for others to follow that really did help. I could name a great many others that can definitely fit in that list, including I might add Werner Von Braun..... who even got his start from Hermann Oberth if you want to follow an interesting engineering pedigree. We won't get into space without folks like this. I'll even say that Kristian Von Bengston is leading a resurgance of private spaceflight for the European Union, which I find awesome in so many ways for just that point too.

      And the really amazing thing is that Copenhagen Suborbitals is doing all of this with very minimal amounts of tax dollars involved. There is a sort of libertarian side of me that is just screaming "He gets it!" on that point too. This could be a huge government boondoggle with pork flowing all over the EU as yet another ESA project for going to the Moon or something like that. Instead, it is private money that is paying for the bulk of what is going on, even if it is donations. That by itself is proof of some significant support for spaceflight