Rongai's rocket man with Mars on his mind

KENYA: As he assembles his tools of trade to build a rocket, Eugene Awimbo is optimistic that he will get into orbit one day.

Awimbo's dream to become a rocket scientist started at the age of five and today the 28-year-old from Ongata Rongai, Kajiado County has built rockets that are several metres tall.

"I came across a documentary on TV and was fascinated by German V-2 rockets. I then started building a foot-long rocket and stuffed it with with a mixture of ground charcoal, sulphur and potassium nitrate," he says.

Though he had a lot of failures and few successes, the successes led him to start a series of heart-quake rockets.

"I named them heart-quake because of the power they generated and the noise they made during testing," he says.

In November 2009, while living in Mombasa, Awimbo launched the first heart-quake rocket.

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Incidents of terror were not common then and so when he sought permission to fly from the local administration, they connected him to air traffic control.

"I was granted permission on condition that I would not hit people's homes. I put a cat inside the rocket because I wanted to know if my rocket could carry a living, breathing organism and also what effect this would have on its performance.

The rocket disappeared never to be seen again but the cat came back after five days," he says.

Awimbo immediately set on Heart-Quake Two, which was 4.5 metres tall but did not do well after the ignition burnt up. Heart-Quake Three was 2.5 metres tall, cost him a lot of money and time to build but its performance was much better.

"It also carried a cat and soared 100 metres high. The cat looked confused when the rocket came down but it recovered after a few minutes," he says. He went a notch higher with Heart-Quake Four, which was 3.75 metres tall and soared 200 metres high.

He has spent more that Sh800,000 building the rockets and says everything he uses is improvised. His work has captivated people who approach him to build rockets for them for display.

"I would like to send one to orbit and be the first African to land on Mars one day," Awimbo says.