Space - The Vinyl Frontier

If you've ever thought that NASA was the last word in space exploration and that we've lost our commitment to that grand adventure, think again. It is now officially the age of consumer space travel and I'm not just talking about Scaled Composite's Spaceship One and Two or Blue Origins New Shepard or any of the other commercial outfits that are charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for short suborbital flights.

Have a look at this video of Derek Deville's Qu8k (pronounced "Quake"). Deville has been building and launching rockets for quite a while and it's not a surprise to find out he worked for DARPA and helped design SpaceShip One's rocket engine.

This particular rocket was built in an attempt to win the Carmack Prize which awards $10,000 to the first person or team to launch a vehicle that achieves an altitude of over 100,000 feet. Deville's rocket made it to 121,000 feet, but alas, the GPS crapped out on him.

I think it's important to note that this is how the personal computer started out.