Danish Team's Homemade Space Capsule Blasts Off

**American Patriot** · June 3rd, 2011, 18:21

Danish Team's Homemade Space Capsule Blasts Off

Published June 03, 2011
| FoxNews.com

Copenhagen Suborbitals

The first ever amateur spacecraft -- designed to carry one tourist briefly into orbit -- was succesfully tested from a submarine in the Baltic Sea Friday, June 3.

A Danish group has a simple mission: launching a human being into space.

And they just took one giant step towards their goal.

Copenhagen Suborbitals, a non-profit space venture founded by Danish inventors Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen, successfully launched its handmade space capsule from a boat in the Baltic Sea Friday, June 3.

The rocket soared about 2 miles into the air -- somewhat more sideways than anticipated -- before deploying its parachute and falling back into the water, reported Danish website ING.dk. It suffered minor damage upon landing but was largely recovered.

The team counts the test as a complete success. And Dr. Bruce Betts, director of projects for The Planetary Society, was impressed as well, though he cautioned that homemade one-man rockets are on a far different scale from NASA's launches.

"It's really big for an amateur rocket -- and really small for thinking about humans," Betts told FoxNews.com. "But this is a big accomplishment for a non-profit group."

Over the span of three years, the team has developed the launch vehicle and crew capsule for one brave astronaut (known as the Tycho Brahe), undertaken more than 30 static engine tests, and raised all the money from donors and sponsors to keep the launch attempts coming, reported Popular Science.

"We aim to show the world that human space flight can be different from the usual expensive and government controlled project," the pair wrote on the website for their ambitious venture. That's for sure: von Bengtson and Madsen claim to have spent only about $60,000 a year on the craft, thanks to simple materials and normal production methods.

"We are working fulltime to develop a series of suborbital space vehicles designed to pave the way for manned space flight on a micro size spacecraft," they wrote.

"The space industry is expanding in more and more different ways," Betts told FoxNews.com. He called the rocket "part of a larger picture of different kinds of groups entering into the space arena in different ways."

From within the Tycho Brahe capsule, the lone adventurer will see the Earth fall away beneath him through a polymer plexiglas-dome, allowing the brave soul to see and experience the entire ballistic ride.

Madsen's ultimate venture: a manned rocket ride from a steel catamaran parked in the Baltic Sea past the 62.5 mile mark that roughly constitutes the boundary of space before riding back down into the atmosphere and parachuting to safety -- much as Al Shepard’s first Mercury mission did.

That's still off in the distance, Betts noted, pointing out that the group has yet to reach the 10 mile high limit. But the ship is certainly intriguing.

"Who knows where they may go with this? The journey starts with one step -- and this is a big step," Betts said.

**American Patriot** · June 3rd, 2011, 18:21

Coffin..... with a glass bubble so the dead can see where they are going....

**American Patriot** · June 3rd, 2011, 18:23

2 Danes launch home-built rocket over Baltic sea
By JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press – 27 minutes ago
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Two Danish space enthusiasts on Friday successfully launched a homemade unmanned 30-foot (9-meter) rocket over the Baltic Sea.
Peter Madsen and Kristian von Bengtson used a barge near the Danish island of Bornholm as a launch pad for their 1.6 ton rocket, which flew some five miles (eight kilometers) high into the blue sky.
"It was a fantastic flight," Madsen said after the projectile took off at 1432 GMT following an earlier ignition failure. "The joy was huge. I looked back at the launch ramp and then I realized it had gone."
The team, which calls itself Copenhagen Suborbitals, watched the takeoff quietly and then suddenly burst into jubilation and started hugging each other.
Their plan was for their 1.6 ton rocket, which they have named after a 16th century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, to reach a height of 10 miles (16 kilometers). Their hope is that one day their spacecraft can send a human to the edge of space, commonly said to begin at about 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level.
The team recovered the rocket almost intact in the sea. "All we're missing is a top lid," von Bengtson said.
It was the second time the amateur engineers attempted a launch after a faulty fuse thwarted an experiment in September.
The team was given permission from the Danish navy to use a military test zone where they anchored their floating barge, 18 miles (30 kilometers) east of the port of Nexoe.
The booster was jettisoned after it used up its fuel of liquid oxygen, while the spacecraft continued to ascend until it reached its maximum height. The capsule with its dummy descended but the parachutes failed to open properly.
"We had some recovery problems with the parachutes," von Bengtson said.
The project, which so far has cost more than $53,000 (euro37,000), is being financed by private sponsors and a few dozen companies, including Air Liquide SA, one of the world's biggest makers of industrial gases and Swedish specialty car maker Koenigsegg.

**American Patriot** · June 3rd, 2011, 18:24

Copenhagen Suborbitals
Launching a Homemade Spacecraft Is Not Easy

By Adam Clark Estes 12:58 PM ET
A group of Danish rocket scientists just offered hope to amateur astronaut wannabes worldwide with the successful launch of what they hope will be the world's first homemade spacecraft for human passengers. Under blue skies Friday, the open-sourced, donation-funded Copenhagen Suborbitals fired a rocket off of a platform in the Baltic Sea towards the heavens at supersonic speeds. It's arguably their most significant step yet in making it accomplishing their goal of sending tourists into space in their sort of scary-looking space capsules at a reasonable price. The rocket soared two miles into the air, breaking the sound barrier during its 21-second flight, and fell back to Earth sustaining only minor damage. The team celebrated by drinking champagne in boats.

Led by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen, the sixteen-person team built the rocket in an abandoned shipyard in Copenhagen using "'ordinary' materials for cheaper and faster production." Named Tycho Brahe after a mustachioed Danish nobleman who made a number of breakthroughs in astronomy during the 16th-century, "the micro-sized spacecraft" is designed to carry one passenger into space on top of a high-powered rocket called the HEAT-1X. Last year, heavily publicized but unsuccessful launch attempt sent the team back to the lab to make improvements, and though the rocket can now fly, at least one set of burners malfunctioned. Instead of adding lift as the rocket flew up, the fired on the way down, sending the spacecraft and "Rescue Randy," a dummy aboard, hurdling Earthward at Supersonic speeds.

Misfires aside, the seemingly ramshackle team's accomplishment could one day be viewed as a milestone in the world of space exploration. (It's like that Billy Bob Thornton movie but with less government intervention.) The plexi-glass domed spacecraft is designed for affordable trips to the cosmos, and with a budget of only about $60,000, a ride on the Tycho Brahe could be a bargain compared Richard Branson's galactic tickets. Check out the full explanation given by the founders at a TED talk:

**Ryan Ruck** · June 3rd, 2011, 19:18

No damn way you'd EVER catch me in something like that!

**American Patriot** · June 3rd, 2011, 19:24

hehehehe me either. I don't like the idea of standing up in a widdle wocket shipp and blasting off with a glass bubble over my head.....

Could you imagine rushing back down and it melting?

"OW! MY HAIR!"

**catfish** · June 3rd, 2011, 20:01

Flying coffin is right! And what the hell kind of sub was that? When they said launched from a sub, I figured it was from the missile silo of a sub, not off a platform attached to a mini sub. Everything that was cool about this story disappeared when I saw the picture of the ice cream cone shaped coffin and that ridiculous submarine.

I especially liked how one of the burners malfunctioned on descent, propelling the craft towards earth at supersonic speeds. Lmao! However, I do give them credit for trying. Maybe 10 years from now they will be laughing at me from orbit.