Amateurs in Space (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Max Kestner
	Actors: Kristian von Bengtson, Peter Madsen
	Country: DK
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 01.11.2017, CineStar6, NFDL2017, Danish with English subtitle
Synopsis: When NASA sends a rocket into space, they have a budget of umpteen million dollars. Peter Madsen and Kristian von Bengtson plan to do it with a modest amount of money, a few volunteer helpers of the team Copenhagen Suborbitals, and materials bought at the DIY store. But they’re not complete nutcases. Madsen has already built several submarines and Bengtson worked in the space industry for years. So the two sometimes fanatic eccentrics, and the more prudent project benefactor persevere in the face of setbacks and a shortage of funds. They even manage to launch a rocket. But constant tension and arguments between the two unequal partners, and above all the increasingly erratic behaviour of the volatile Madsen, threaten to make the project collapse. – Peter Madsen is currently under investigation for the murder of Swedish journalist Kim Wall when he took her on a submarine ride.
Review: This kind of entrepreneurship story in the usually scared European space industry could not be missed! And the movie is really dealing with it. The focus is on the personal issues and its impact on the project. The way people drift away from each other while they both aimed factually at the same objective. The main advantage of not being a registered company is that many regulations do not apply and you have less paper work to do. Nevertheless the two engineers and their team worked professionally, e.g. following safety rules.  Nothing is told about the commercial issues whereas the team had nothing to sell but had to buy materials and collect money to pay it. Not much is told about the organisation of the team, about the project planing, about the technology used. I have seen the movie with passionate eyes and even so, many things are really missing to this space enterprise melodrama.  Then to know that both have continued their own way of further enterpreneurship is remarkable, still private-funded for Kristian von Bengtson in Objective Europa and the own rocket company RML Space Lab for Peter Madsen. A bit more info on the crowd-funding system used by Copenhagen Suborbitals can be found on the page of the programm.
Rating: 5 /10