KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: If we wanted to fly into space, we
could either try to become astronauts.
Like, ha ha, good luck.
It is probably not going to happen.
You could also wait until maybe Virgin Galactic finishes
their project.
That's going to take a long time.
But wouldn't it be much more fun if you just created your
own spacecraft yourself, your own space rocket, fly into
space doing that?
-Go.
KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: Working metal doesn't sound very sexy,
but it's actually one of the best skills that I've obtained
through life, except sketching and drawing.
I mean, creating anything in metal is just--
there's no limits to what you can actually do
if you have an idea.
And of course, wood is nice, but you're not going to go far
in a space rocket made of wood.
Yeah, my name is Kristian von Bengtson.
I'm a co-founder of Copenhagen Suborbitals, a non-profit and
open-source DIY space program.
We're not doing open-source space flights at the moment.
We're not aiming for it right now.
We're doing suborbital space flight.
That's a parabolic flight where you go up and down, a
short trip.
Copenhagen Suborbitals was founded in 2008 by myself and
my partner, Peter Madsen.
I was back in Denmark after I've been working at NASA
Johnson Space Center.
And at that time, I read in an article that Peter was
launching his first and last submarine nautilus.
And in that article, I read that Peter had a prior history
doing rocket engines, and he wanted to work again with
rocket engines.
So I thought to myself, let me talk to Peter.
And I contacted him, and we met in his submarine.
And basically, within a few hours, we
decided to join forces.
He would be creating the launch vehicles.
I would be creating the space capsules.
And from that moment, actually, Copenhagen
Suborbitals was founded.
PETER MADSEN: My name is Peter Madsen.
I'm with Copenhagen Suborbitals.
My part of it is the rocket engines that propel the
spacecraft.
And it's also the construction of launch pads and all the
systems, essentially, that takes the spacecraft from
planet Earth and into Space.
Well, I'm not obsessed.
Not at all.
It's all the other people who are obsessed with footballs
and that sort of thing.
I'm just doing what I've always been doing.
I'm playing.
-[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
PETER MADSEN: This is the TM65 rocket engine.
It uses two components for its propellants.
The one is liquid oxygen.
And the other is alcohol, the same type of
alcohol that we drink.
But this is just slightly more concentrated.
So it's a schnapps locks engine.
This engine really works the same way as the engines that
originally propelled the Saturn V Rocket to the moon.
It's the same type of technology.
The difference from the Space Shuttle main engines to this
one is that while a shuttle engine consists of literally
tens of thousands of components, this one is a
couple of hundred components.
All the parts that this engine is consisting of--
primarily the valves, the actuator, the nuts and bolts,
the tubes and pipes and everything--
are all the products of modern industry, and they're all off
the shelf things.
If it wasn't used in this rocket engine, very likely
this component would have found its way into an ordinary
house for heating purposes or the water
mains used in a kitchen.
It's the sort of things that are completely normal that we
put together and turn into a rocket engine.
KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: Using off the shelf products that
you can buy in vast numbers are actually
very reliable systems.
Instead of trying to invent our own valve, for instance,
why not buy one that's been produced
maybe a million times?
When you're working a DIY project, the natural premise
is that you don't have much.
You don't have much money, funding.
You don't have, maybe, all the technology like the pro guys,
or the materials.
And then you have to come up with solutions.
And that sparks a lot of new technology, new ideas.
And sometimes it also takes the solution that you would
normally do--
very expensive, very complex in the professional world--
and bring it down to a level and show people that it's
actually possible to do the same--
come up with same solution for less money.
The first rocket we tried to launch, it contained a hair
dryer to keep one of the valves heated up so it
wouldn't freeze up.
It was actually a great solution.
PETER MADSEN: We have left the workshop now, and we have
walked about 100 meters to one of the two test stands.
And what we have is a steel gantry.
And up there, a room for the the four 16 millimeter bolts
that keep the engine in place.
And we have a crane that we use to hoist it up there.
And on top of this steel structure, we have the
propellant tanks of, totally, 700 kilos of propellant that
the engine consumes in about 15 seconds.
[APPLAUSE]
KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: Launching rockets is actually
like anything else we're doing here.
It's tests of different systems.
We have to prove to ourselves that we are capable of
handling different technologies.
-[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: There's always certain things we are
testing on.
So it's all a part of the big puzzle ending up for a big
rocket with a capsule on top.
And of course, we're going to do more launches.
PETER MADSEN: We are aiming for a manned mission.
But of course, we are only flying the big rockets with a
crash test dummy inside.
We're not going to be flying any persons, any live human
being, until we believe that it's fairly safe.
KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: This is is our space capsule,
Beautiful Betty.
And it's the first prototype of this kind of capsule-type
space vehicle for one person.
Most of this--
the capsule--
I welded myself.
But I did the sign--
and some of the interior welding--
I did with a guy called Klaus.
He's my partner in doing these capsules here.
And we're also together developing the new capsule.
It was tested about two months ago.
It got pretty roughed up.
But it's still here.
And we can still do a lot of tests.
And it's a foundation of all the new capsules we're going
to do in the future.
Well, Randy, the crash test dummy,
was inside this capsule.
And, well, he lost a leg.
It's possible, actually, that he would have survived, only
because of the direction that it hit water.
But he might be in a wheelchair forever if it was a
live person.
Randy has been a good friend of ours.
He's been flying for the last two years.
So every time we have a capsule or a spaceship, he's
going to be in the seat, and he's
going to take the beating.
That's why you have a crash test dummy.
Keeping one person alive, even only for a 15 minute ride, is
a big challenge.
You need to create a reliable piece of confined room,
confined space for one person, where you have a small seat,
where you're comfortable but also work with all the
acceleration from launching the rocket but also when
landing on sea.
This is where you're going to be, and this is where you're
actually going to experience this incredible ride, where
you're going to feel the rocket lifting
you away from Earth.
And it's going to be so fast.
And eventually, you're going to see Earth
turning around out here.
And it's just an amazing feeling, actually, just to
have those thoughts.
When the US, they launched the first astronaut, Alan Shepard,
the whole countdown actually stopped because the engineers
suddenly became scared.
They realized they had a person inside.
And they weren't really prepared mentally for that.
So the countdown stopped until Alan Shepard--
he told them "light the candle"--
his famous words.
-Lift off.
ALAN SHEPARD: All right, there.
Lift off, and the clock has started.
KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: An organization like this--
I don't know what's going to happen when everybody had a
part in it, and they suddenly understand that this--
what they did--
if it doesn't work, it will have a fatal outcome.
Or maybe it's not going to be a problem.
Maybe everybody's just going to find it exhilarating.
PETER MADSEN: It doesn't take much courage to climb on board
a rocket and have the hatch sealed and somebody light it,
because it either works or it doesn't work.
And if it doesn't work, the period of time you'd have to
realize that is usually very short.
But it takes a lot of courage--
it takes an unimaginable amount of courage--
to be the ground crew, to be the commanders on the ground,
to make the decision, let's launch this thing
and see if it works.
And Kristian is one of the few people that I've ever met who
is courageous enough to do such a thing.
-T-minus 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
KRISTIAN VON BENGTSON: Human space flight has always had
this holy grail kind of sphere around it.
It's supposed to be expensive.
It's supposed to be very complex.
So you just completely just forget the notion or the idea
let's try and build our own space rocket.
People just don't want to touch it.
But I hope we can inspire people that space rocket, you
can actually build it yourself.
If there should be some kind of legacy from what we are
doing here on this DIY project, that should be
showing the world that human space flight can actually be
done on a completely different scale, on a completely
different level, with very simple technology.
You're welcome to come and join us.
You're also welcome to come here with a measuring tape and
your camera.
Take all the pictures or download all of the images and
sketches from our blog and just, you know, copy the work
or go from there from what we're doing.
Basically, everybody can do this if they want to do it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]