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Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

copenhagensuborbitals.com

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Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#41

Post by larkeith »

imglorp wrote: post #28

I'm curious how a volunteer organization will achieve the culture and technical maturity to make human rated hardware without a high probability of a horrible death. Think about all the conditions in a long chain of events that must all go right, in a launch, to avoid cooking, freezing, squishing, cratering, asphyxiating, poisoning, exploding, or drowning your crew. After decades of practice, NASA ended up under 1:10…

It should be noted that, being strictly suborbital, both the challenges and risks are orders of magnitude lower than even a launch to LEO, and that unlike many space programs, they have quite a bit of prior history and information to draw on. I don't know whether this will be enough to reduce risk to near-NASA levels, however.

I am curious as to whether those odds cited are of partial successes, safely-aborted launches, or fatal failures.

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#42

Post by darkmighty »

xae342 wrote: post #36

Cool project, but I always find it amusing when the word “suborbital” is used since it’s sort of a fancy way to say normal or not space. Reminds me this Feynman story: > Or his questioning of space shuttle engineers: ''They kept referring to the problem by some complicated name - a 'pressure-induced vorticity oscillatory wa-wa,' or something. I said, 'Oh, you mean a whistle!' 'Yes,' they said; 'it exhibits the charac…

I find the term is apt here, because 'space' is roughly defined as anything beyond 100km from Earth's surface (which they're aiming for). But reaching space is vastly easier than reaching orbit, which requires reaching a speed of about 28000km/h or 17000 mph, which they're definitely not aiming for!

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#43

Post by gpm »

13of40 wrote: post #40
xae342 wrote: post #36

Cool project, but I always find it amusing when the word “suborbital” is used since it’s sort of a fancy way to say normal or not space. Reminds me this Feynman story: > Or his questioning of space shuttle engineers: ''They kept referring to the problem by some complicated name - a 'pressure-induced vorticity oscillatory wa-wa,' or something. I said, 'Oh, you mean a whistle!' 'Yes,' they said; 'it exhibits the charac…

They also seem to be taking some liberties when using the term "manned". But yeah, cool project.

Hmm? The goal is to stick a person at the top of it. That's pretty much the definition of manned as far as I'm aware.

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#44

Post by 13of40 »

gpm wrote: post #43
13of40 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also seem to be taking some liberties when using the term "manned". But yeah, cool project.

Hmm? The goal is to stick a person at the top of it. That's pretty much the definition of manned as far as I'm aware.

"Copenhagen Suborbitals is the world’s only manned, amateur space program."

The way this is phrased, it sounds like they've already achieved it, and I feel like that's a little bit intentional. They could have easily called it an "amateur manned space program", which would have lessened the ambiguity.

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#45

Post by Symbiote »

13of40 wrote: post #44
gpm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm? The goal is to stick a person at the top of it. That's pretty much the definition of manned as far as I'm aware.

"Copenhagen Suborbitals is the world’s only manned, amateur space program." The way this is phrased, it sounds like they've already achieved it, and I feel like that's a little bit intentional. They could have easily called it an "amateur manned space program", which would have lessened the ambiguity.

They are writing in a second (or third+) language.

People learning English have to learn adjective order — it's a big, red bus; not a red, big bus – which could have contributed.

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#46

Post by TulliusCicero »

gpm wrote: post #43
13of40 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also seem to be taking some liberties when using the term "manned". But yeah, cool project.

Hmm? The goal is to stick a person at the top of it. That's pretty much the definition of manned as far as I'm aware.

Writing it that way makes it sound like they've already achieved the goal, that they're already putting humans into space.

Like, if just having it as a goal is sufficient, well heck, I could step onto my lawn tomorrow and declare my household a manned amateur space program.

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#47

Post by TulliusCicero »

gregschlom wrote: post #39
imglorp wrote: post #28

I'm curious how a volunteer organization will achieve the culture and technical maturity to make human rated hardware without a high probability of a horrible death. Think about all the conditions in a long chain of events that must all go right, in a launch, to avoid cooking, freezing, squishing, cratering, asphyxiating, poisoning, exploding, or drowning your crew. After decades of practice, NASA ended up under 1:10…

Climbing the Everest has a 1:10 chance of death, yet many people try their luck every year. It's the same thing.

Fair, although I feel like with Everest, the fact that it's so risky is part of the point. Like, if hiking up Everest was perfectly safe, would people still treat it as some huge accomplishment?

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#48

Post by yellowapple »

Arkight wrote: post #27
draugadrotten wrote: post #7

One of the founders of Copenhagen Suborbitals are the now infamous Peter Madsen https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jan/07/copenhagen-ki...

Aye, sure, he might be a murderer. But is there any evidence to suggest his murderous behavior makes him a poor engineer? I do agree that it is good he left the project long ago, though.

Same thing happened to Hans Reiser; ReiserFS was at one point pretty popular among Linux users, and would probably still be if he hadn't murdered his wife.

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#49

Post by TulliusCicero »

mrfusion wrote: post #16

What actually makes them amateur at this point? Wouldn’t it behiove them to incorporate as a non profit perhaps?

> What actually makes them amateur at this point?

That they're hobbyists doing this in their free time? It says:

> We’re an association of 50-60 unpaid, volunteering members and we build our rockets in a workshop in Copenhagen, Denmark. That requires many different skills, so we’re a very diverse group, from blacksmiths to rocket scientist. We all do this in our spare time, working regular day jobs on the side.

Re: Copenhagen Suborbitals: The world’s only manned, amateur space program

#50

Post by ChuckMcM »

These guys are super amazing! I worry that they will run up against the MTCR[1] in their next step between their unmanned and manned version, since driving out to international waters is 'exporting' as is flying above 100km :-) It would be awesome if the Danish government would come out and publicly sanction their efforts to cut off that potential mess.

[1] https://www.nti.org/learn/treaties-and-regimes/missile-techn...

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