rocket starchaser

April 3, 2003 8:21 PM

UK rocket builder Steve Bennett is working on the worlds first private maned spaceship built by his company Starchaser with the Nova II announced Thursday. The new rocket will be shipped to the United States and dropped unmanned over the Red Lake Drop Zone in Arizona from 14,000 feet to test its landing systems. If successful, a manned test will take place before the summer, making it Britain's first ever manned rocket capsule. The tests will allow the team to move on to building their ultimate rocket, Thunderbird. Starchaser is confident that Thunderbird will blast off into the history books in 2005, netting the company $10 million from the X-Prize. Others say it's suicide.
posted by stbalbach (4 comments total)

Clearly, Mr. Bennett is fearless. If he survives his homegrown rocket, perhaps he can be the test pilot for Project Orion, the rocket that is to be propelled by a consistent stream of nuclear explosions that occur two hundred feet behind the vehicle.
posted by samuelad at 10:22 PM on April 3, 2003

That is just whacked...

More power to him, but he sounds like he's a disaster in the making.
posted by Windopaene at 12:16 AM on April 4, 2003

Thunderbirds are go!
posted by jpburns at 4:55 AM on April 4, 2003

From what I understand, John Carmack (Doom, Quake) is also trying to win the X-prize.

My money is on Carmack.
posted by bondcliff at 6:54 AM on April 4, 2003