Advertisement

Thrusting the Throne: Michigan rocketry club launches porta-potty

The porta-potty being moved into position, with the rocketeers. (Rick Krumbacher/Facebook)

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a porta-potty?

On Saturday in southwestern Michigan, at an event dubbed Thrusting the Throne, Michiana Rocketry club members successfully launched a 10-foot, 450-pound porta-potty into the air.

Thirty-eight seconds later, it landed 2,000 feet away, narrowly missing a pick-up truck on its way down.

The rocket enthusiasts are hoping their launch of the portable toilet, which was donated by Joy’s Johns, will raise awareness of rocketry as a hobby.

The club members spent more than two years planning the launch, with about 30 people working on the rocket before its inaugural flight.

After working with scale models to perfect the rocket’s design, the final craft was an aluminum airframe rocket with a porta-potty bolted to it. Plexiglas fins were added, and two skydiving parachutes were installed to help with its descent, the Herald-Argus reported.

The rocket was lifted by 2,865 pounds of thrust. Just six seconds of thrust cost about $2,600 in fuel.

"I like odd rockets," said project coordinator Larry Kingman. “It’s a thrill. It’s a challenge. Every rocket’s different. And you never know where they’re going to come down.”

"We’ve got T-shirts that say: ‘As a matter of fact, it IS rocket science.’ There is a science to it,” Kingman told the Detroit Free Press, adding that he once made a rocket out of a sombrero. “I have an affinity toward the odd rocket. Just about anybody can take a traditional nose cone, round airframe and four fins and make it fly…When you start doing the odd rockets, things start getting a little more complex.”