[helldritch]

Cheers for this, I'll get in contact with them over the next month when I have some more concrete plans. I was thinking it would end up being the peak district/lakes district/Lancashire moors/Scottish highlands we would be launching from.

[arethuza]

The 'spaceport' in Sutherland is quite a long way from actually being operational:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-17/the-u-k-s...

[dmurray]

He only needs a field and benevolent landowners though, not the rest of the spaceport infrastructure.

[helldritch]

This is pretty much right on the money. The expected worst-case failure state would be a rupture in the Kerosene canister resulting in a high pressure, high heat ignition. Infrastructure and support needs are minimal, spatial radius needs are maximal.

There would be bits of rocket everywhere in a 20m radius (which we would be dutiful in picking up since it's useful to study for next time) and there is unlikely to be any sort of crater, but there would be a small kerosene fire we would have to put out (so providing and testing fire suppression equipment in the form of extinguishers and blankets will be important).

Realistically, we'll be flying something around the 30-40KG mark so we'll have to get it certified by the CAA: http://www.largemodelassociation.com/resources/over-20kg-sch...

I feel like with a youthful charm and the right paperwork from all the respective government divisions (The Explosives Division at the Health and Safety Executive, a certified model design from the Civil Aviation Authority, and our insurance as operators / flyers with the CAA) it won't be too hard to talk a field landowner in to it, in return for a token payment and an offer of a few cool afternoons seeing model rocket launches on the back-end of one of their fields.

[dmurray]

Well if you're in need of someone with no particular rocket science skills, I'd be happy to come along and help pick up the pieces. Email in my profile.