Sealand and Experimental Rocketry

[Jim Choate]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Ken Brown wrote:

> Nope, I was right. (It is around 20 miles from where my mother lives).
> They have a postal address at Felixstowe, which is a port in Suffolk
> near the town Ipswich. See the quotes from their website below

Well I'd have to bow since I couldn't find a lat/long on Sealand or
Havenco and I'm not sure of their exact location other than N. Sea.

> A rocket going into orbit would be pointing east for all the usual
> reasons & would be heading straight for Russia.

Bullshit, We're talking AMATEUR ROCKETS here folks. Beside, irrespective
of the actual size of the rocket it will be in LEO way before it gets to
CCCP.

Clearly you folks have no clue to the distinction between government,
commercial, amateur. 

> A deeply uncool place to make launches from.

Russia, I agree. Europe is uncool. Hell the Germans outlawed amateur
rocketry in the late 30's and haven't looked back once.

> Anyway, we aren't talking a production platform here. Sealand is an
> anti-aircraft gun turret.  It isn't really very big. Sticks a long way
> out of the water, but then you have to in the North Sea  (not like those
> little weeny platforms you get in the Gulf of Mexico :-)  Imagine two
> factory chimneys connected by a deck at the top. 

The Gulf is deeper than the North Sea and I'd bet the rigs we got out here
are just as big.

> If you want to launch from the sea you need a big platform. And you need
> to put it somewhere else.

No, you need a boat. Sealand is more than sufficient for putting a Amateur
rocket up. Hell, I could fire one from my back yard as far as that goes.
Though I think the launch tower might give somebody a clue.

While the rest of you folks sit around telling yourself the same old
matra, "It can't be done. It can't be done. It can't be done." We're going
to do it.

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