Amateur space flight FTW

This is goddamn cool:

• Danish volunteers build manned spacecraft (Wired Science)

(Aside: I’m amused that Wired is still around, and also that their name has gone from techno-edgy to quaintly anachronistic in the span of 17 years.)

A team of Danish volunteers has built a rocket capable of carrying a human into space, and will be launching it in a week’s time. The project, which has been funded entirely by donations and sponsorship, is led by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen.

I have one small quibble with the article:

If successful, Denmark will be the fourth country to put one of its citizens into space, following the United States, Soviet Union and China, and the first in the world to do it without government funding.

“Denmark” is not trying to put a Dane into space.  A bunch of Danes are trying to put a Dane into space.  “Denmark” is (quite commendably) assisting by staying the fuck out of the way.