All right, are you ready for something epic and wonderfully engineered? How about a homemade rocket that was capable of reaching a height of 121,000 feet? Don’t believe us? Check out the photos below after you’ve read a bit about this awesome rocket. It was built by Derek Deville in an attempt to win the John Carmack’s 100kft Micro Prize. The Qu8k rocket was able to attain this amazing height after a flight of 92 seconds and while doing that, it was able to record some quite breathtaking video footage as well.
The rocket Qu8k (pronounced as Quake to pay tribute to Carmack’s id software classic game) was launched from a custom-built tower and returned to the ground by employing a parachute in about 7.5 minutes. The rocket was recovered from a site that was 3 miles away from the launching point. The Prize requirements indicate that the intact rocket must be recovered within 24 hours of the launch.
The rocket measures in at 8-inch diameter and a length of 167.5 inches and has been created from aluminum. The rocket used APCP rocket propellant to achieve the velocity of 3,200 ft/s. The rocket was embedded with 4 GPS devices, two timers and an accelerometer apart from the Go Pro Hero HD video cameras and a Flip HD camera that was able to record the complete footage of the flight.