Kiwi-built amateur rocket reaches space: 'Pretty amazing'
A Kiwi-built amateur rocket is believed to have set a record as not just the country's first but one of the fastest launched into space — all with home brewed beer and gin onboard.
Meraki II, a 4-metre long rocket, launched near Arthur's Pass on April 19, reaching a peak altitude of 121.6km.
The two-stage rocket travelled at mind-boggling speeds of up to Mach 5.6, or around 1.9 kilometres a second — fast enough to cover the distance between Cape Reinga and Bluff in just over 12 minutes.
"It's the first successful amateur non-US spaceshot, and the new velocity record-holder"
https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/04/30/kiwi-built-amateur-rocket-reaches-space-pretty-amazing/Open linkView original on lemmy.ca
The fact that it was done by a bird is even more amazing
If you read the article you will see it was done by a fruit
I would be happy to just dream in this kind of joy.
Wow, that's awesome! New Zealand has a surprising amount of spaceflight activity...
Wasn't it New Zealand that had that old rocket builder guy who drove around in rocket propelled gocart? V1 styke but still.
I think it was also a New Zealander who was running a project to make their own cruise missile (before the government asked him to stop)
Yeah that's the same guy!
Oh he's awesome!
One of these numbers is wrong, as the mach number is defined using the local speed of sound, which changes a lot as you go further up in the thinner atmosphere.
If anyone tried to do this here, they would put him behind bars and let him rot.