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ROCKET man: Steve Bennett.
The man who'll fall to earth
31/ 1/2003
ROCKET man Steve Bennett is taking one giant step closer to
space by plummeting 14,000ft back to the earth in his own special
capsule.
Steve has been designing and building rockets for the past 11 years
in the hope of becoming the world's first man to pilot a
privately-developed spacecraft.
And in a rehearsal for the real thing, his two-and-a-half metre
capsule will be launched from a high-flying aircraft - with
Dukinfield man Steve inside.
From inside the capsule, which will reach descent speeds of up to
150 mph, Steve will activate a series of three specially- designed
parachutes.
The chutes are initially to slow his descent then to enable him to
steer and balance the capsule in readiness for landing.
The capsule, which is made from composite materials, will be
shipped to the United States to be fitted with the parachutes
within the next few weeks.
Then in April, Steve will fly out for the testing session at Lake
Wales, near Orlando in Florida.
Father-of-two Steve said: "What we will do is physically push it
out of an aircraft with me inside it.
"The capsule will go into freefall for a few seconds, then a small
parachute will come out of the nose to stabilise its fall.
"When it's stable, I will fire a drogue parachute, which will also
come out of the nose cone, to make the craft stable.
"Then at 5,000ft, I'll deploy a big square parachute, like the ones
that skydivers use, so that I'll be able to steer it back."
Steve has already completed trial landings from much lower down
using all-terrain vehicles, similar to large quad bikes.
Steve said: "When you land one of those vehicles there is a bit of
a bump, but the capsule will be going quite a bit faster when it
comes down to earth. "It's going to be fitted with wheels and it
will still be doing around 40 to 50mph when it lands on the
runway."
Steve and his team at Starchaser Industries in Hyde are still
developing the set of five, three-tonne engines aiming to thrust
the Nova rocket to a height of 25,000ft next year. But these tests
are designed to simulate everything that will happen after the
rocket has reached its highest point.
Steve has dreamed of launching rockets since he was a boy, when he
was inspired by the Thunderbirds series on TV. He first came to
public attention in 1985, when a 10ft 5in rocket fuelled by sugar
cane soared to 2,500ft.
Since then, he has launched test rockets, trained alongside Russian
cosmonauts and completed more than 100 skydives.
"Everything we do gets us a little bit closer to realising our
goals," he said.
"And I'm determined to make it happen.
"I'm going to make sure I do it safely and legally.
"I still get excited, but I try not to get carried away."
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