When I meet people with an interest in our DIY space project or if journalists are here I am often asked about our economy. There are some general things I can disclose but most details are completely unknown to me.

First of all, we are a legally registered Danish association and bound to produce annual information about the economy to our national equivalent of IRS. However, we are not registered to get tax benefits because this would require wasted and time consuming work. It’s not because it’s difficult – we just stay away from unnecessary administration.

Our income is mostly donations from various sources and it is all tax free. In rare occasions we provide a service for someone – perhaps a team building event or merchandise and this income must be cut in half for taxes (yes half, we live in a socialist country).

No one is getting paid at Copenhagen Suborbitals but anyone has the right to make use of the brand in front of third parties for income. If someone at Copenhagen Suborbitals created a communication system they are free to sell a similar product or service and claim the income themselves. Lecturing is the main source of personal income for both myself and Peter Madsen. We do this a couple of times a month and is done as a deal between ourselves and the company or party who requested the lecture.

So far we have done 130 lectures at schools, universities, conferences, private companies and groups. I love doing this, make people laugh, perhaps even be inspired and become wiser on the battles we are fighting with legal issues, volunteering work, technology development, milestones and dreams of the future. I have long accepted that I pretty much make a living in showbiz – nothing more.

The monthly sponsor income for Copenhagen Suborbitals is mainly divided in these areas: (Please note that these monthly numbers are estimates).

Copenhagen Suborbitals Support (app 900 members) – $20,000

Paypal one time donations – $2,000

Direct personal donations – $1,000

Merchandise – $1,000

Total – $24,000 per month ($288K per year)

Any donation is transferred directly and uncut into Copenhagen Suborbitals for housing, production, development and operations – and is roughly equivalent to the monthly coffee budget at NASA.

We have been relying solely on crowd-funding since 2008 and even more so today. This kind of continuously running crowd-funding require constant momentum and presentation of results and milestones. We have deliberately avoided public support based on state tax income. The potential public debate about the use of tax-money for this project may harm the project and I believe that donations based on a personal choice are worth much more – and has special dedication attached to it.

I also believe that the many reasons why people decide to donate for any kind of project including ours must be based on mutual agreements of trade. One thing is to buy a poster or cap, but being a steady supporter at Copenhagen Suborbitals has to be based on other factors.

The transparency of our manned space program is quite a contrast to other manned space programs. Good luck finding information on how rocket engines and capsules are built at SpaceX, Boing or NASA. They are either commercial projects or public funded with interests to protect during all development phases. We do not have such “problems”. We have no commercial intentions and providing a chance of following the development may be one of the biggest benefits we have given ourselves in relation to funding and creating a international interest.

I hope people donate to our project with a smile and find it to be a profitable investment returning knowledge and excitement.

But who are these amazing people donating to Copenhagen Suborbitals?

I have been looking at statistics on various sources from both our 1000 rock solid support members and our facebook group. The statistics shows the same so I will give you the data from facebook – which I have access to while writing this.

Out of 8.900 followers on our facebook-site the majority is men in the age of 25-44 and this is also the case for our support members. I have reasons to believe that the average age might be a bit higher on Peter Madsen blog – but that is just speculation. I’m no criminal profiler but I think the average person interested in our project and donating is male, 35, some kind of engineer, perhaps highly educated, generally interested in space and like the excitement in the uncertainty of powerful machines.

However, the bell curve has more to offer and I am always interested in the outskirts of normality. So, I found four individuals who privately donate to Copenhagen Suborbitals and I am proud to have been given a GO to post their reasons on this blog.

Heidi Neilson, Artist, New York

“I found the Copenhagen Suborbitals through my artistic research into independent space exploration. I find their efforts to put a person into space truly inspiring. They have chosen to ignore the surface absurdity of the goal, and instead break down the big task into individual physical and mechanical problems, and tackle them, one by one. I find their open approach of sharing their development with the public very refreshing—not only have I learned a great deal about the engineering issues at hand, I have gotten a peek into the staggeringly complex world of space exploration. I think it is important that independent non-profit-driven organizations are pursuing space goals and sharing them publicly—and anyway, why should big and powerful governments and corporations have all the fun?

I was a bit surprised when Kristian asked me to write a bit about being a supporter, as the amount I donate is very modest. It is great to know that every little bit helps, and while I am confident that my small contributions are going to hardware, utilities or other critical budgetary items, I think of the gesture as like buying one Suborbital one beer a month, as this is what I am motivated to do after reading about all of their efforts.”

Ejnar Fjerdingstad, retired assoc. prof., Phd, Denmark

“I was born in Copenhagen in 1937, and graduated from Birkeroed statsskole (high school), Birkeroed, Denmark in 1955, studied cell biology at the University of Copenhagen (M. Sc., 1962), and got my Ph.D from the University of Bergen, Norway in 1975. I have been employed (as research associate, assistant professor, or associate professor) by the following universities: University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Duke University, Durham, N.C., USA, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA, University of Tennessee Medical Units, Memphis, Tenn., USA, and Aarhus University, Denmark.

I support the efforts of Copenhagen Suborbitals to put a man into space because I think that the future of the human species lies in space. As the Russian rocket pioneer Tsiolkovsky said, “Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one does not stay in the cradle for all of one’s life.” I also agree with the point of view of the physicist Nobel laureate Stephen Hawking that as long as mankind lives only on Earth, we will never be safe from extinction (which might happen because of asteroid impact, or from some human-engineered disaster).

I think that it is important to have private organizations like Copenhagen Suborbitals working on the means of bringing man into space both because history has shown that the governments cannot always be counted on to do so, since space research is low on the agenda of most politicians, and support fluctuates. Furthermore, the efforts of a lean, private organization such as Copenhagen Suborbitals may be important in showing that the required launch vehicles may not have to be so enormously expensive as those produced by massive government-run institutions such as NASA. In order for space travel to become a common occurrence, the cost of the means of transportation into space will have to be brought down to the price level of that of an airplane, and I believe the efforts of Copenhagen Suborbitals may become a very important step in demonstrating that this is actually possible.”

Renke Brausse, Germany

“Full disclosure: The spam filter ate KvB’s mails, so my entry was delayed…

Probably I’m one of the most generic supporters: Thirty-something, university graduated, and grown up with SF and a fascination for engineering and science – though I’m based in Germany and not Copenhagen 🙂

I started following CS a few months before the launch of HEAT1X in 2011 and was instantly hooked. Rockets are great and I love the sheer madness of the whole venture: A transparent, crowd-supported, open-sourced manned space mission – how cool is that? Instead of a dry text in a history book the project is a reenactment of the 50s and 60s:

The pioneering works all over again, but with the possibility to share the excitement! (Though I have to admit I would rather see something new, e.g. a space elevator project (Quito Geostationary?) :)) On special request a short (droll?) story: Besides my monthly membership fee I donated twice out of the row, both with a handcrafted amount and payment reference. “1 cent per reached meter of altitude” to celebrate

Sapphire-1 and “1 cent per estimated cubic meter” to support the new building – no idea why Kristian liked it so much; did you never pay invoices with purposes like “<reference ID> Whoever reads this is stupid.”?

Lorentz Wolf Rasmussen, 1st grade school, Denmark (7 years old)

“I have decided to give 20 kr. ($4) of my allowance to you because its cool. I love to see your rockets and capsule at the facility and I am really looking forward to see my first rocket engine test. I really wanna work for NASA and help building stuff, especially being in that room with the big screen where they are controlling the missions. I’m not sure I wanna be an astronaut – I think it may be to dangerous. I read a lot of space books about space rockets, capsules and the solar system.”

I know Lorentz personally as a classmate from my son Bertram’s school. They are really good friends and today when Lorentz was at our place we talked space yet again and looked in his book about space history and the solar system. There might be things that Lorentz can see and learn when visiting our facility once again tomorrow – at our housewarming – but I learned things as well from Lorentz today. Who knew that the Cosmonauts has a really weird ritual before flying, initiated by Gagarin (related to a car tire). I wont go into details. Do you know what it is?

I salute both Heidi, Ejnar, Lorentz and everyone else for not only supporting us but for their interest and curiosity which are the foundation of humans and which are the core abilities that will bring us to new places.

I am also proud that Copenhagen Suborbitals still has the ability to strike a nerve inside people all over the globe. It is a truly mutual bond – no Copenhagen Suborbitals, no Copenhagen Suborbitals sponsors and vice versa!

Tomorrow we have our house warming for the new facility and I hope to meet all of you for a talk about space, letting you climb into space capsule and talking details of engines and future missions.

For now – Happy New Year and Ad Astra

Kristian von Bengtson