Kenya’s Elon Musk? Meet Rongai man building rockets for learning and leisure

And because the apartment is isolated, with little vegetation cover around it, the wind has made this place its playground. And today it’s on steroids. 

Eugene Awimbo lives in this apartment with his young family; wife and three kids. The youngest is yet to join school, the wife is a stay-at-home mom. Eugene is a roofer. When he is not helping new homeowners get roofs, he is on his laptop engaging in online jobs like transcription. These are the two activities that put food on the table for him and his family.  

Yet, Eugene has a passion for rocket science. During his free time, and for the last 15 years, he has been studying space science and exploration, admiring the likes of billionaire Elon Musk and his SpaceX project. 

Using an open space outside the apartment, Eugene now makes his own rockets, funding his hobby with money he gets from his roofing and transcription work. 

“I am a hobby rocket builder,” that is how he describes himself. 

Space science thrills him. And he wants to achieve greatness with his newly found hobby. 

“I started building rockets in 2009, I was just interested in everything that flies. And it’s not just rockets, I could build planes and sell them to my friends and people in the offices to use them as decoration.”

Along the way, Eugene started engaging school kids in his hobby, building small rockets in a bid to help them learn more about space science. 

Using cardboard, he built the rockets and identified a nearby open field that would serve as a launching ground for them propelled by water pumps. The school kids helped him to launch the rockets as he pumped the pressure.

From videos he shared with Citizen Digital, the small rockets are seen airborne for a distance of approximately 100 metres before gravity brings them down to the ground, rather awkwardly, a few metres away.

“The very simple ones I launch with pressurised bottles, whereby I put some water into a 2-litre bottle and add a substance that can make it a bit denser, like salt or soap. So those are the relatively safer ones that I teach the kids with. So when I go to schools I launch the rockets with water. I pump air into it and there is a release mechanism which I pull and it goes up.”

Eugene then improved on his skills. Today, he is building a SpaceX Falcon-like rocket, which is more sophisticated; bigger, powerful, heavier and able to launch 3 kilometres into the atmosphere. 

When complete, he says the rocket will weigh 250kgs. As at now, it weighs 90kgs.

We find him 20% done with the rocket. A keen look into it shows how detailed he has been with this project. Well cut pieces of wood have been finely put together into a cylindrical large object, with aluminum sheets covering it. 

The rocket is also fitted with carbon fibre flaps which he says will help it launch properly. Inside, it is hollow. Eugene said he will fit this space with the launcher and material that will help it cover more distance. This material is very expensive. 

“I made a choice of light wood and regular metal sheet. The interior, I will use a relatively powerful motor, and it will go about 3km in about 5 seconds. This is an experimental rocket, if it succeeds I will go ahead and build one that can go 40,000ft into the atmosphere.”

Eugene says his goal is to launch the rocket at the Luigi Broglio Space Center in Malindi. He says he has made the local authorities aware of his activities, and is seeking the help of the national government through the Kenya Space Agency, to actualise his dream of building rockets.

He says his aim is to help the country in space exploration, to collect data that will be helpful especially at this time when climate change is a major concern across the world.

“I aim to pass the knowledge I have accumulated in rocket science to other people. That is why I want to partner with schools to teach kids this knowledge. In future I want to play a part in general space exploration.”

Eugene also looks forward to building a space park where people walk in, witness rocket being launched and learn more about space exploration. 

His biggest challenge, however, is a lack of resources and support to actualise his dream. For instance, he has spent KSh300,000 to build his latest rocket, and he estimates that the cost will go as high as Ksh 1M by the time he is done. 

He says this has eaten into his pockets, but his passion for space science keeps burning on.