Dragon Drop Tests and Heat1X-Tycho Brahe Set to Launch – SpacePod 2010.08.24

Home made rockets launched from home made submarines next to dragon wings floating in the ocean on your SpacePod for August 24th, 2010

Before we begin I just wanted to give a shout out to our new viewers on both Space.com and Universe Today. Hopefully you like what you’ll see and you’ll stick around for a while, check out some of our other videos and join us for our live weekly show all about space. For today though, lets start over the Pacific Ocean where SpaceX tested the Dragon’s parachute deployment system on August 12th, 2010.

The dragon spacecraft will initially transport cargo to the International Space station but is just begging to be human rated. That’s cool and all, but lets go to the fringe of NewSpace with Copenhagen Suborbitals.

This next Monday, right after SpaceUp DC, the non-profit team that is Copenhagen Suborbital will launch their Heat 1X rocket from the Baltic Sea. The ultimate goal is to put a human in to space, although it looks as though the accommodations may be a bit more restrictive than that of Virgin Galactic. This test flight will include a capsule with a human dummy that will float back down to the water. Well, we hope.

This particular mission should go as high as 93 miles or just under 1/2 way to the International Space Station. This is Denmark’s largest launch ever and should be awesome. How awesome? Well, they are towing the rocket out to sea using a home-made submarine that they built. If that’s not an epic awesome of epic epicness then I don’t know what is!

Of course when I watch their engine test firing I can’t help to think that it looks a bit rougher than would be required for human spaceflight. I guess we’ll see this Monday. And if you want to keep the conversation going, join us in Washington, D.C. this Friday and Saturday for your Space Unconference. Spacevidcast will be there, and I hope you will be too!