Danish inventors produce first amateur rocket designed to send humans into space

Source

two Danish inventors hope to launch the world’s first amateur-built rocket for human space travel.

The homemade rocket is the brainchild of Danish firm Copenhagen Suborbitals, headed by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen.

It is due to launch from a submarine in the Baltic Sea on August 30th and, if successful, they will repeat it with a human passenger on board as soon as possible.

Madsen hopes to be inside the single-passenger capsule named Tycho Brahe for a manned flight in the near future if all goes well next week.

The team has been building their rocket since about 2004 and have been doing so without any national funding.

Copenhagen Suborbitals is a non-profit organistaion, based entirely on sponsors, donations and volunteers.

Denmark would become only the fourth nation to send a human into space.

This is incredible news ! Providing everything is in order and the rocket doesn't blow up 50 feet in to the air, this could be a new step towards regular human beings going in to space, or just very high up in the sky !

Peace !

Very interesting news Unium.

I'm intrigued that they plan to launch from a submarine...also, there is not a lot of room inside the rocket (looking at the source photos) but okay I guess for a short suborbital flight.

Cheers - kaybee5000

reply to post by Unium
This kind of story puts a great smile on my face. Sure, the reporter's talking out his ass and could be a freelance fashion-designer judging by his insight. Submarine launch? Suicide mission?

I knew nothing about them until your thread. Checking out their site is uplifting. They're non-profit, run by donations from hundreds of Danes and a few other folk. They also promise to share as much information about the technicalities as the law allows.

This is a non-profit suborbital space endeavor, based entirely on sponsors and volunteers. Our mission is to launch a human being into space.

We are working full-time to develop a series of suborbital space vehicles - designed to pave the way for manned space flight on a micro size spacecraft.

The mission has a 100% peaceful purpose and is not in any way involved in carrying explosive, nuclear, biological and chemical payloads.

We intend to share all our technical information as much as possible, within the laws of EU-export control.

MISSION

Daily Mail journalists never let research or facts get in the way of their stories and this one hasn't got past the homepage. Submarines?

We will be launching the HEAT-1X booster outside the 12 nautical miles border zone of Denmark in the period of Aug 30 to Sep 13, 2010. The launch will be done from a barge in the Baltic Sea in military test zones ESD138/ESD139.

Campaign

Now I know about this, I'm looking forward to the launch and hope they succeed. Stand by for UFO threads about sightings over the Baltic and south of Sweden.

didn't scaled composites / virgin galactic build a rocket and launch people into space privately like six years ago? And SpaceX has launched it's first Falcon 9 rocket into space. Once that has finished testing it will be used to launch people to the ISS.

How amateur does it have to be to count?

Originally posted by mdiinican
didn't scaled composites / virgin galactic build a rocket and launch people into space privately like six years ago? And SpaceX has launched it's first Falcon 9 rocket into space. Once that has finished testing it will be used to launch people to the ISS.

How amateur does it have to be to count?

Well, these guys would certainly qualify for that category. As to their design choice, I would suggest they stick to hot air balloons, this trial balloon is working its magic on some.

Originally posted by mdiinican
didn't scaled composites / virgin galactic build a rocket and launch people into space privately like six years ago? And SpaceX has launched it's first Falcon 9 rocket into space. Once that has finished testing it will be used to launch people to the ISS.

How amateur does it have to be to count?

Scaled Composites sort of lost its amateur standing when it was acquired by Northrup Grumman in 2007, although Burt Rutan still runs the company.