Res Communis

Russia, the US, China… now Denmark to send man into space

by Sara M. Langston with the blog faculty

Source: The Independent (UK)

Duo prepare to launch £41,000 rocket that will eventually fly one of them 100km high.

If all goes to plan, the 9 metre-high rocket will burn through its fuel of liquid oxygen and solid rubber in about 60 seconds to propel the craft at 1,250mph to a height of more than 100km where it will experience weightlessness for about five minutes before drifting back to the Baltic sea slowed by a parachute.

All this for approximately €50,000 (£41,000) paid entirely by donations of between 10p and £2,000 from members of the public and sponsors. The cost is about 0.02 per cent of the £290m average cost of a Nasa space mission.

Mr von Bengtson, 34, who once built the world’s largest home-made submarine and co-founded the Copenhagen Suborbitals organisation behind the plan with Mr Madsen, told The Independent that their mission was driven by a desire to prove that the cosmos is accessible without the backing of a multi-billion dollar state space agency…more