heinleinblog

• BBC: Amateur rocket fired into space

An amateur unmanned rocket has been launched into space from the Nevada desert – the first time this has been achieved by a privately-built vehicle.

The Civilian Space eXploration Team’s 6.5m (21ft) GoFast rocket is understood to have exceeded an altitude of 100km.

“It just roared off the pad and flew into space,” said rocketeer and CSXT avionics manager Eric Knight.

The GoFast vehicle and its payload sent back signals from space before falling down to Earth for recovery.
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The achievement comes at a time when it is widely expected that the first private astronaut will go into space in the next few weeks.

In the “The Man Who Sold The Moon” and “Requiem,” millionaire D.D. Harriman finances the first manned mission to the Moon. It was a private, not public, endeavor done for commercial purposes.

No human has stepped on the face of the Moon since the last NASA trip, financed by the U.S. government.