The world of space travel has taken yet another innovative turn, as a team of volunteers from Denmark have now successfully created the world’s first space rocket to have been funded entirely from donations and sponsorships. The entire project led by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen envisions sending a man into space and this incredible home made rocket will be going on its maiden launch in about a week’s time.

The all new HEAT1X-TYCHO BRAHE space rocket is scheduled to take off from a floating launch platform in the Baltic Sea, that has also been specifically designed and developed by the project team. This launch platform will be towed by a submarine called, ‘Nautilus’ which was part of the team’s ambitious submersible project some time ago. However, considering the security implications of sending a human into space in a backyard made space rocket, the team has decided to run the first launch with life sized crash dummy. The entire team of the this incredible project is comprised of member from the SomethingAwful web community and the team expects to see the rocket hit a suborbital altitude of 150,000 meters to complete the test. One the target altitude is achieved, the rocket will descend back to earth with the help of parachutes and the vehicle will be tracked by the team, using a GPS link.

According to the project members,

“Unlike Columbia we’re not moving at orbital speeds so ‘dying a gruesome death burning up on re-entry’ with our kit has a very low outcome probability. We should be able to receive a descent plot which can be used in projecting a splashdown ellipse pretty accurately, if we factor in wind speeds and so on.”

Via Wired & Copenhagen Suborbitals