Kiwi-built amateur rocket reaches space: 'Pretty amazing'

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www.1news.co.nz/2025/04/30/kiwi-built-amateur-r…

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"

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The fact that it was done by a bird is even more amazing

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If you read the article you will see it was done by a fruit

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Two minutes into its flight, the rocket reached the Kármán line, the internationally-recognised border for space at 100km. A minute later, it reached it's peak altitude of 121.6km.

I would be happy to just dream in this kind of joy.

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Wow, that's awesome! New Zealand has a surprising amount of spaceflight activity...

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Wasn't it New Zealand that had that old rocket builder guy who drove around in rocket propelled gocart? V1 styke but still.

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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)

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Mach 5.6, or around 1.9 kilometres a second

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.

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If anyone tried to do this here, they would put him behind bars and let him rot.

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