Rocket Men

Copenhagen Suborbitals is the world’s only volunteer-run, crowdfunded space program. Based in Copenhagen, the group's 70 volunteers are building a DIY spacecraft to send a person to suborbital space.

In this episode, we meet the group's parachute systems lead, Mads Stenfatt, who shares the project’s origins, its shoestring budget (“10% of NASA’s coffee budget”), and the challenges of launching from international waters. He reflects on his journey from skydiver to potential astronaut.

The conversation highlights creativity, community, and Denmark’s unique culture of volunteerism, proving even audacious dreams can begin in unlikely places.

Visit copenhagensuborbitals.com for more information.

Visit www.archipelagoaudio.com for more information.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Abbreviated transcript

Mads Stenfatt: Our project is running with an extremely low budget. We have around 10% of the budget that NASA has for coffee. That means you have to think differently.

James Clasper: Hello and welcome back to Archipelago, the podcast about arts, culture, and ideas in Denmark. I'm your host, James Clasper. Last time we met someone whose wanderlust couldn't be contained by earthly borders, but what happens when the urge to explore pushes beyond the limits of our planet itself? Today we're heading to an industrial harbor on the outskirts of Copenhagen, where an extraordinary group of volunteers is doing something that was once the exclusive domain of superpowers and billionaires.

Mads Stenfatt: We are the world's only manned space program entirely run by volunteers in Copenhagen. Our aim is to send a person to space and safely back again in a DIY rocket spacecraft.

James Clasper: That's right. They're building a rocket—an actual spacecraft designed to carry a human being to the edge of space and back. It sounds impossible, doesn't it? A manned space program, run entirely by volunteers, funded by crowdsourcing, operating out of a converted warehouse. No government backing. No corporate sponsors. Just a collection of engineers, tinkerers, and dreamers who looked up at the stars and decided that space shouldn't be reserved for the chosen few. This is the story of Copenhagen Suborbitals, and it's about more than rockets and engineering. It's about what happens when a group of people refuse to accept that some dreams are too big for ordinary citizens to pursue. It's about community, shared ambition, Denmark, and the belief that the most incredible journeys often begin in the most unlikely places. To find out more, I spoke to Mads Stenfatt, Copenhagen Suborbitals' 47-year-old parachute systems lead. I began by asking him what that title means.

Mads Stenfatt: I design, build, and test the parachutes we're using for our spacecraft and the booster. For what it's worth, in my jokingly called paid part-time job, I am a pricing manager responsible for optimizing net sales and profit.

James Clasper: For anyone who's not familiar with Copenhagen Suborbitals, what is it?

Mads Stenfatt: Well, we are the world's only manned space program entirely run by volunteers in Copenhagen, crowdfunded by people from all over the world. Our aim is to send a person to space and safely back again in a DIY, rugged spacecraft. It is all built by volunteers in our spare time.

James Clasper: So much to unpack there. In layman's terms, what is suborbital flight? What does it mean?

Mads Stenfatt: You can start with the word most people are familiar with, which is orbital—that means going around something. In this context, the Earth. Suborbital means less than orbital. We are not going entirely around the Earth but only making a short trip. In our project, we are basically replicating the very first space launches that the Russians and the Americans did. We're doing more or less a vertical trip to space and back. You could also compare it to throwing an arrow as hard as you can up into the sky and watching it go up and come back down.

James Clasper: It’s kind of like dipping your toes in space. Is that one way of putting it?

Mads Stenfatt: Exactly. Even though by today's standards, by the “grownups” as we lovingly call the professionals, just sending a person on a suborbital flight is difficult enough. There’s a reason only three countries in the world have so far succeeded in doing this: the Russians, the Americans, and the Chinese. We are actually in competition with India to become the fourth nation to send a person to space. Their budget and team are slightly bigger than ours, so we do expect them to win. But when we get the fifth place, we’ll still be very proud of that position.

James Clasper: Okay, so suborbital space. You said you're replicating what was done by the Soviets and the Americans. So I’m thinking of Alan Shepard in 1961, if that’s right. And then I guess more recently the reference would be Katy Perry and her fellow travelers in 2025. They went to suborbital space, is that right?

Mads Stenfatt: Absolutely. It's the exact same trip as Blue Origin is doing, except we have another challenge. Because Denmark is such a small place, we cannot do it safely anywhere on land. So we sail out into international waters and have our launches from there. We also had to build a mobile launch platform that can sail by itself, from where we then do our launches.

James Clasper: You mentioned Denmark. That’s the other half of your name, Copenhagen Suborbitals. So you’re in the Danish capital. Kind of paint a picture for me of where you’re based, its location in the city, and the history of that area.

Mads Stenfatt: We are based in an area called Refshaleøen, just east of the center of Copenhagen. It used to be a shipyard back until the eighties or maybe nineties. Today we use their painting sheds, which are actually big buildings. Back in the day, it was pretty abandoned. We were pretty much alone in the area. We could have a lot of engine tests and crazy stuff without bothering anyone. In recent years, Refshaleøen has become more and more of a popular place for street food and other venues. So today we are actually competing with concerts, among other things, in the area to have our engine tests. We have to look at the calendar and figure out when we can do our stuff.

James Clasper: Copenhell’s the annual heavy metal festival. I would have thought that might be a good time to do the engine test—you know, no one would know it was happening. It’d be drowned out by the music.

Mads Stenfatt: We do care a lot about safety here, and that means no people can be in the vicinity of the engine when we are testing it. So we have to pick a better time than Copenhell, unfortunately. But you’re right that the sound, the beat, the mood, the feeling of having this rugged engine roaring is really intense. It’s like feeling the deep sounds of a rock concert.

James Clasper: Some might mistake it for music and start moshing, is what you’re saying.

Mads Stenfatt: Yeah.

James Clasper: All right. Let’s go back a step. Tell me the origin story of this. How does the world’s only amateur space program emerge, and how does it emerge in Denmark of all places?

Mads Stenfatt: It started in 2008, basically led by two guys in a garage. Christian had just come back from the US after working as an architect for NASA. He and Peter met up and decided, why not do this crazy adventure and try to see if we could send a person to space? From those two guys in a garage, this has become a project that now entails around 70 volunteers working in their spare time.

James Clasper: Two guys in a garage makes it sound like Facebook or some kind of Silicon Valley startup.

Mads Stenfatt: It took off quite quickly and became a thing that many Danes followed as a crazy adventure. Back in 2011, when we had our first launch from the Baltic Sea, we quickly became recognized not only in Denmark but also worldwide for being able to launch a very big, rugged rocket at sea. We were fortunate enough to show very early on that this is serious and we are capable of doing some quite difficult things.

James Clasper: So how did you get involved?

Mads Stenfatt: I was, and still am, a skydiver. I remember at the time following this project as a big fan. I saw a picture they posted of the space capsule with a camera placed just under the parachute hatch. As a skydiver, what I saw was… not terrifying, but it was obvious there was a problem: the suspension lines from the parachute could get entangled with the camera. I thought I’d better warn them, since I knew this, and I didn’t want it on my conscience that I could have prevented a problem. So I wrote the team an email telling them what I saw and how I thought they should change it. They wrote back saying, “If you’re so damn smart, why don’t you come join the project?”

James Clasper: That’s a challenge.

Mads Stenfatt: Yep. Challenge accepted. I went to the workshop with my sports parachute and showed them how such a thing works, how to pack a parachute, and what to watch out for when working with parachutes. That immediately got me enrolled in the project. At the time, there was another guy on the team who made the parachutes, so I was more or less just the theoretical guy. But two years later, he left to prioritize his time elsewhere. Then I had 35 members of the project all looking at me and saying, “Mads, you’re the only one in your department now. You’re the one who has to make them.” So I had to call my mom and say, “That old sewing machine you have—can I borrow it?” She said yes, and then I had to figure out how to actually make a parachute myself. That’s very fundamental to how our project works because we constantly face challenges we don’t know how to solve. Someone just has to figure it out. And in this case, that someone was me.

James Clasper: And you said it’s grown to 70-something volunteers now. How do they get involved? How do you recruit them and know they’re the right people—not someone who’s just crammed their brain full of Wikipedia entries?

Mads Stenfatt: It’s very different how people come on board. We have people who see something they believe can be done better or who have skills they don’t see being used in the project. Then they just contact us or show up at the workshop and say, “Hi, I can do this and that. Can you use me?” We have people from a lot of countries—I can’t even remember how many anymore. We have a wide range of skills represented, from kindergarten teachers to highly educated engineers. I’m educated in economics. We even have artists. So it’s not just education that gets you in the door. That’s not how it works with us. It’s typically the odd ones out who succeed because they have the original ideas we need.

Our project is running with an extremely low budget. The comparison I usually use is that we have around 10% of the budget that NASA has for coffee. We really have no money, and that means we have to think differently. Creativity is more important than higher education in what we’re doing here. It seems true in everything—we typically don’t use standard solutions.

James Clasper: Am I right in thinking that you “forage” materials and scrap parts—anything useful that someone might stumble across? Do you bring it to the hangar thinking, “This could come in handy”?

Mads Stenfatt: It sounds almost as if you’ve been standing in front of the gate watching what comes in and out on a Saturday. Yes. Given the budget we have, we have to be mindful of how we spend our money and how we get our materials, both for building and consumables. Even the tools we use are often foraged or scavenged.

Sometimes we get an email or a phone call—or someone just shows up—saying, “This company I work for will be putting a machine of this or that kind outside the workshop on Saturday. We won’t mind if it’s gone by Monday.” That’s how we’ve gained a couple of tools for our workshop. It’s the way we work. We have good friends all over the place.

James Clasper: And going back a step, you talked about launching at sea. Paint a picture for me of what you mean. You said international waters earlier—where on the map are we talking about?

Mads Stenfatt: Depending on how familiar you are with Danish and international waters, we have Bornholm, which is just south of Sweden. East of Bornholm there’s a military naval exercise area called ESD139.

James Clasper: This is in the Baltic Sea, for clarity?

Mads Stenfatt: Yes, in the Baltic Sea, international waters. That’s where we go for our launches, roughly 30 kilometers east of the island of Bornholm.

James Clasper: You mentioned the capsule and the seat. This isn’t just an amateur rocket program—it’s a manned rocket. That’s the goal, not just sending something up to suborbital space but sending someone. Who’s going to do that? What’s the process for figuring that out?

Mads Stenfatt: We don’t have a process yet. We don’t even know how to get that process up and running. Recently I was in dialogue with a psychologist who works in the space field, who might be able to help us think about how to evaluate potential astronauts.

Currently, three people have raised their hands and volunteered to take the seat in the end. I’m one of them. The other two are Carsten and Anna. There’s a standard joke I tell: Carsten is Anna’s father, and of course he’s pulling the “her safety is more important to me” card, so he won’t allow her to take the flight. While they’re having that fight, I’ll just sneak in behind them and close the hatch.

James Clasper: Why did you sign up?

Mads Stenfatt: We’re well aware, all of us, that whoever takes the flight will likely become a household name in Denmark, maybe even the world. Many of us have been part of this for years, and we don’t consider anyone less important than anyone else in terms of contributing to the end goal. One criterion we have is that we want the astronaut to be someone who has also been part of actually building the rocket. That way, they’ll have a share in making sure everything works.

That’s one of the unique things about this project compared to professional flights: the person taking the flight will be able to look every team member in the eye and ask, “Are you comfortable with me taking this flight now?” Instead of statistics and other metrics, I think that’s the best way to know whether this is a safe flight.

As for why I did it, I think it goes back to when I was about six years old. One of my earliest memories is sitting in a library, looking at a book about space travel and astronomy. It’s always been magic to me. As I grew up, I kept hearing about astronauts describing the “overview effect,” that holistic perspective of Earth. I want to feel that too—to look back at Earth and experience that overview effect.

James Clasper: And you’re in middle age, like me. Are there physical limitations on who can go up to suborbital space? Do you worry about that putting you out of contention?

Mads Stenfatt: The older I get, the more I use the argument in the project that I’m getting more and more “disposable.” So if anything should go wrong…

From a physiological perspective, though, there aren’t really limitations for a flight like ours. Blue Origin, for example, has flown passengers without special clothing, and they sent William Shatner at 90-plus years old. So for us, there are more or less no physical limitations.

There’s one requirement, though, that surprises many people: you need a good stomach. You must be able to handle being at sea. If you get seasick, you cannot be our astronaut. That’s because our launches are from a platform at sea, which bobs up and down in the waves. Our astronaut will have to wait on top of the rocket for about two hours while we fill it with fuel. If you’re seasick, that’s a big problem. This has already ruled out a few hopefuls in our project.

James Clasper: You mentioned Anna, Carsten’s daughter. The description of the workshop— in my mind, it sounds a little like a boys’ club. What’s the gender balance like? Is Anna alone, or are there other women?

Mads Stenfatt: We have a couple of women—there could be more, and I think it’s a shame. It easily gets the flavor of a boys’ club because it’s very much a workshop, and that seems to attract guys more than women for some reason. But we have more than a handful of women in the project, so Anna’s not alone. We are attracting more all the time, fortunately.

When I work at home, my dining table is either used for having dinner with the family or as my workspace for making parachutes. Sometimes when I’ve assembled many components and it’s taking up a lot of space, I get “the look” from my wife. Then I know it’s time to finish up quickly, otherwise we can’t have dinner.

James Clasper: How does your family feel about you being on the shortlist of candidates to go up? Does it depend on the day?

Mads Stenfatt: When I first introduced the idea to my wife, I was about 15 kilos heavier than I am today. Her very blunt reaction was, “If that capsule is supposed to reach space, you might need to lose a few kilos.” I took that as a challenge. But other than that, I think she understands my dream. She understands that being able to take part in solving all of these ridiculously difficult challenges is deeply meaningful to me. To be able to inspire people all over the world is very fulfilling.

We have a lot of people who join the team, and fewer who stay. The ones who stay are the ones who see this as a longer journey, making it worth their while—not just the end goal. We’re very much in it for solving these challenges. That’s what motivates us, though of course we all work toward sending a person to space. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth it.

James Clasper: Tell me how you stay crowdfunded and get the word out—how you publicize your existence and this extraordinary journey you’re on.

Mads Stenfatt: We have different types of followers and donors, each with their own reasons for supporting the project. Some are technical people who love seeing how we solve these engineering challenges. Others are inspired by seeing such a small country, such a small group, attempting such a big adventure.

We are 100% funded by individuals all over the world. They each pay 20 or 50 euros a month, and if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have anything to show. More than half of our money goes directly to renting the workshop. Every new donor helps us buy materials or rocket fuel for the next test.

James Clasper: I want to ask about the “Danish-ness” of the organization. To what extent is this something that could only exist in Denmark, and why?

Mads Stenfatt: It’s an extremely Danish thing to build volunteer organizations for everything. There’s a joke in Denmark that if two people meet, within 10 minutes they’ll have a volunteer organization.

Had this been done in the US, within a month we’d probably have been offered millions of dollars for a business plan, with deadlines and an expectation that we’d send a person to space—preferably the owner of the company. For us, what we want to show is that this can be done by volunteers in their spare time. I know of no other place where this belief in volunteer organizations is so well-grounded.

Our organizational structure is also extremely flat. Even if you’re the chairman, you might still be the one cleaning the toilets. That mindset runs through everything we do. Of course, you need the skills for certain tasks—I’d never weld a rocket engine—but if the floor needs sweeping, anyone can do it.

We rely on people seeing for themselves what needs to be done. If I have a parachute problem, I don’t just look at my department. We use a mailing list to ask the whole organization for ideas, and sometimes solutions come from unexpected places. For example, the opening sequence of my parachutes is now controlled by an electronics system designed by our electronics team, not the parachute team. I doubt that would happen in most other organizations.

James Clasper: If I’ve understood you correctly, you’re saying you’re tapping into the collective wisdom of the crowd—both within and beyond the organization. So it’s very much about democratizing knowledge, information, and ideas.

Mads Stenfatt: Yes. Sometimes we even go beyond our own organization. If we’re really stuck and don’t know how to move forward, we can ask our more than 70,000 followers on various channels for advice. I don’t think we’ve ever asked a question without getting a good solution in return.

The great thing is, people want to help because we’re a volunteer, nonprofit project. If we were a for-profit company, people would just say, “Hire someone to fix your problem.” But because we’re doing this for free, people feel inspired to lend a hand. They like being able to say, “I contributed, even just a little, to that journey.”

James Clasper: Where do you see yourselves in the global space industry—especially in the context of this new wave of private spaceflight?

Mads Stenfatt: We’re an inspiration. Many of us have received emails from people saying we’re the reason they chose their career paths. I heard from an Indian guy who said my parachute videos inspired him to work on decelerator systems at university.

Locally, we also help feed the Danish space sector with passionate, skilled people. We’ve already seen some of our members go on to work in commercial space companies. So we’re part of the ecosystem that provides talent and know-how.

James Clasper: If you succeed in sending a person to space, what impact do you hope it will have—on the public, on Denmark, and on the future of amateur spaceflight?

Mads Stenfatt: If you look back at how flight was perceived in its early days, it was pioneered by individuals trying out different things in their workshops. I hope we can show the world that there are many ways to reach space—not just the paths already taken.

It’s a politically hot topic, of course. But look at how SpaceX started out. Their approach looks a lot like ours: trying things, learning from mistakes, and moving forward. We want to show that if you dare to try mighty things, you might succeed in doing mighty things.

James Clasper: So if you were a betting man—and I hate to ask—what timeframe are we looking at for Copenhagen Suborbitals?

Mads Stenfatt: That’s the question I always avoid. My default answer is we can do it within 10 years. The problem is I’ve been saying that for more than five years already.

For a long time, we’ve been focused on building infrastructure and tools, which took longer than expected. Very soon, we’ll be back to building the actual rocket, and once that gets going properly, it’ll be easier to estimate the time needed. But for now, I’ll stick to my answer: within 10 years.

James Clasper: My last question then: In the face of setbacks and the slow, methodical pace of progress, what keeps you and your colleagues motivated to keep going?

Mads Stenfatt: The goal is there. We’re about 70 members now, and I think you could find 75 different reasons for why we each do this.

Being able to do something that only three countries have done so far, as a volunteer group in our spare time—that’s such a crazy thing that I know I’d regret stepping away from it. Once you’ve joined and found your feet, it’s sort of addictive. You constantly want to help solve the next problem, to get one step closer to space.

And there’s phenomenal support from around the world. Even when a test keeps failing no matter how many times you run it, you get good advice and encouragement to try something else. Being part of that process—it’s almost like a drug. I can’t give up now. I’m hooked.

James Clasper: Fair enough. So if you did achieve your goal and got someone into suborbital space, what would happen next? Would you become Copenhagen Orbitals overnight and go further?

Mads Stenfatt: I think we’ll take a day off. Then, yes, the standard joke is that we’ll change our name to Copenhagen Orbitals. But people need to understand that suborbital spaceflight is already crazy difficult. There’s a reason only three countries have succeeded.

That said, we’re all addicted to solving difficult challenges, so I think it’s impossible to imagine us not continuing with an even harder project. Most likely, it would be Copenhagen Orbitals. But right now, in our daily lives at the workshop, all we focus on is the next small step toward sending a person to space.

James Clasper: Your immediate goal is hard enough. Well, if you’ll excuse the pun—watch this space. Mads, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for coming on Archipelago.

Mads Stenfatt: It’s been a pleasure to be here.

James Clasper: You’ve been listening to Archipelago, produced and hosted by me, James Clasper, for Archipelago Audio. You can learn more about Copenhagen Suborbitals and their mission at copenhagensuborbitals.com. If you’re inspired by their work, they’re always looking for new volunteers and supporters.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who’d love hearing about incredible journeys. Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe so you don’t miss the rest of this season—stories about finding the extraordinary in unexpected places.

Next time on Archipelago, we’ll visit a Danish school where teenagers spend their days negotiating with fictional kingdoms and learning history, science, and maths through magical quests.

Mathias Granum: The strength of a LARP is not so much in learning basic academic skills. It’s really hard to learn proper punctuation or the chemical properties of metals through a LARP. But what it is good at is consolidating these skills and combining them with 21st-century skills like negotiation, public speaking, and so on.

James Clasper: That’s next time on Archipelago. I hope you’ll join me.