Made of Lego?

24 August 2010



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Denmark Joins Space Race

First, it was the Soviets. Then came the Americans. Decades later, the Chinese put a man in orbit. And now, the nation about to join the superpowers of space flight is . . . Denmark. Yes, that Denmark, Hamlet, Lego, Tuborg Gold beer, just north of Germany. An entity called Copenhagen Suborbitals is working on a series of booster rockets designed to put a man into space aboard a pressurized capsule the Tycho Brahe-1, named after Denmark's most famous astronomer.

Copenhagen Suborbitals will launch its first rocket, called the Hybrid Exo Atmospheric Transporter (HEAT) 1X, from a floating barge 12 nautical miles from the Danish coast -- that is, in international waters. This way, the Danish government has no control over the launch. HEAT1X will be towed to the barge by a submarine built by one of the project's leaders, Peter Madsen (who also apparently lives onboard). The launch window opens August 30 and closes September 13.

Should all go according to plan, the rocket (built for 50,000 euro) will burn up its liquid oxygen and solid rubber fuel in about 1 minute, putting the capsule 100 kilometers above the earth. It will be weightless for about 5 minutes before it returns to the planet to splashdown in the Baltic Sea. The first flight will use a crash-test dummy.

Kristian von Bengtson, Mr. Madsen's partner in the project, is a former NASA employee, and he will be the first man to fly after the tests are complete. He expects to be in space within the next 3 years. He has said:

I think our entire budget would barely cover the cost of the key hole on the space shuttle. We want to show people that space doesn't need to be the exclusive domain of big money investments where everything is made out of titanium in clean rooms by people wearing white slippers. We want to give space another face.

It will be a very big day for us to launch the rocket. We have made the project as open as possible. People make suggestions via our website and some come down to volunteer and work in the workshop. It has been a kind of collective effort. It sounds strange for a scientific project but it is like an artistic endeavor trying to bring it all together.
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© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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