Kip Daugirdas

University of Michigan alumnus and self-funded amateur rocketeer - no company, no government contract, a home-built two-stage rocket.

In December 2019 he became the first self-funded private citizen to reach the edge of space - about 90 km, captured on a GoPro (the video is titled '56 Miles (90 km) Above Earth'). He then spent three years building MESOS (12.3 ft, 87 lb, O4500 booster + M830 sustainer). Flight 1, 1 Oct 2022, Black Rock Desert: GPS-verified apogee 293,488 ft = 89.5 km, Mach 4.18, 15.6 g, safely recovered. Flight 3, 4 Oct 2023: 89.5 km again. The GoPro (Hero-9 with a low-distortion rectilinear 4.35 mm lens) shows the curve of the horizon whether the horizon sits above or below the frame centre.

Built on decades of amateur rocketry and on the GPS that verifies the altitude - the same system the /asteroid and /near-earth commands use. Enabled a public, verifiable record of the horizon's curve at 89.5 km: the case card walks the flights, and MCToon documented the footage with timestamps.