SHOOTING FOR THE STARS

Sending a Singaporean into space might sound like a pipe dream, but Lim Seng has been working to turn it into a reality.

Having made a career out of turning science fiction into reality, Lim Seng is used to being called “crazy”. Which is why the engineer-turned-entrepreneur is undeterred by scepticism about his latest endeavour — sending a Singaporean to the edge of space. The 58-year-old has poured buckets of sweat, tears and his own money into the project, which has been in the works since 2013 under the auspices of his technology firm, In.Genius.

It has been a bumpy ride. Besides the naysayers, Mr Lim and his team of volunteers have had to contend with limited funds, thorny regulatory issues and failed launches.

The latest setback hit in May, when Mr Lim came within a hair’s breadth of seeing his dream come true. A team flew to Alice Springs, Australia, to launch a manned capsule into nearspace — which refers to altitudes of 20 to 100 kilometres — from a site in the remote outback, using a high-altitude helium balloon.

But the plans were thwarted by unexpectedly fierce winds and the flight had to be cancelled just hours before take-off.

The company is also running low on funds — each launch attempt costs upwards of S$200,000. Mr Lim and his family have already poured “a few million dollars” into the project over the past five years.

Still, the team is pushing on. “We will not give up so easily,” Mr Lim says. “We are already so near to our goal. If the winds had been good, we would have taken off.”

PIONEERING SPIRIT

These lofty aspirations have humble beginnings. The third of four children born to a taxi driver and a seamstress, Mr Lim started taking up odd jobs at the age of 12 to help support the family.

He went on to earn government scholarships to study in France and the United States, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in mathematics as well as master’s degrees in electronic engineering, physics and computer engineering.

He was posted to the Singapore Ministry of Defence in 1987, where he worked on building the first Air Force Operations Command Centre. He eventually became involved in developing unmanned aerial vehicles.

In 1999, Mr Lim was nominated by then-deputy prime minister Tony Tan to set up and head Singapore’s first offshore Defence Technology Office for Europe in the Singapore embassy in Paris. He directed the office until 2004, collaborating with European counterparts on numerous technology projects. He was awarded an Administration Service Medal in 2004 for these efforts.

The following year, he left the public sector to join the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) — now called Airbus Group — as its senior adviser for global business strategy.

He became involved in a number of space-related projects — such as developing deep-space propulsion systems, navigation and guidance projects, as well as harvesting solar energy in space. “In my career, every project has been pioneering,” Mr Lim says. “[Some of these projects] might sound like science fiction but they are already being done.”

He was inspired to explore further possibilities in space while working on an Airbus project to develop a hypersonic space plane, which can take travellers to the edge of space 100 kilometres above earth.

A prototype for the space plane was developed in Singapore and a series of tests were conducted to assess its aviation electronics, aerodynamics and glide capability.

One of these was a “drop test” to demonstrate how a real vehicle might behave as it returned to earth. This involved a high-altitude helium balloon, which is often used to test payloads in near-space environments.

Mr Lim realised it might be possible to send a human to near-space using similar technology — and decided to resign from Airbus to pursue his dream.

ARDUOUS JOURNEY

The project involves using a high-altitude helium balloon to launch a tiny capsule — containing a Singaporean astronaut — into the stratosphere.

The capsule would ascend above the “Armstrong line” — an altitude of about 20 kilometres — and reach a height of some 25km before being detached from the balloon and descending to earth with a parachute.

Mr Lim threw himself into the project — officially announced in 2013 – working tirelessly and tapping on his wide network to obtain the necessary components and equipment.

For instance, to convince one of the project’s partners — the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, an Indian public research institution — to work with him, Mr Lim took an early morning flight to Hyderabad and camped outside the chairman’s office until evening.

“At first, he didn’t want to see me. I’m nobody — I’m not the government, I’m not from some big company. I flew in at 4am, took a twohour jeep ride, reached his office at 7am and squatted there until 7pm. ... He had no choice but to see me.”

Work on the space capsules also began almost immediately. “Now that I look back, I think I was quite crazy,” Mr Lim says. “At that point I had no idea if I would get airspace approval or whether I could buy a balloon or a spacesuit. I didn’t even know where I could launch.”

Mr Lim’s original plan was to launch the flight from Singapore on the country’s 50th birthday in 2015. However, the firm ran into delays when it was unable to buy a space capsule component and had to design and build it from scratch.

The Civil Aviation Authority also did not approve plans to launch the balloon, citing possible safety risks to aircraft in Singapore airspace. This forced the firm to head to Alice Springs instead.

The project reached a major milestone in 2015 when the company successfully sent three laboratory rats to space using stratospheric balloons. The flight lasted 110 minutes and achieved an altitude of 29.5 kilometres before all three rats returned safe and sound. Still, the problems kept coming. Some candidates who applied to pilot the craft expressed concerns about the technology firm’s efforts. Among the 20-plus people shortlisted, at least three dropped out after being asked to pay for training, which included a helium balloon pilot course and para-jumping.

Despite the snags, In.Genius went on to conduct two successful space flights at altitudes of more than 30 kilometres in 2016 in Alice Springs. The company also obtained a space suit and selected an astronaut — Singaporean air force pilot, Maj Yip Chuang Syn. Maj Yip is an F-15 pilot who has been in the air force for more than two decades.

FUNDING STRUGGLES

A team of 16 Singaporeans — including Mr Lim and his wife Polly — travelled to Alice Springs for the long-awaited launch on May 15.

But the firm was forced to cancel the plan just hours before take-off due to unusually fierce winds. The cancellation came at a cost of “several hundred thousand dollars”.

Still, Mr Lim appears undaunted by this latest setback.

“We have been given more time to prepare,” he says, adding that the firm is in the process of further fine-tuning its software and equipment.

Instead of waiting another year to attempt the next launch, Mr Lim intends to try again in six months — around November or December. This is in the hope of “keeping the whole team (of volunteers) together, which as you can imagine is very difficult”.

“We will do our best. We will not give up so easily,” he says. There is, however, a “small caveat — our [bank] account is almost depleted”. The team launched a campaign on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo earlier this year in a bid to raise funds for the project, and managed to bring in about S$20,000 — a fraction of the millions spent to date.

During the interview, Mr Lim waves away further questions about funding, saying he “does not want to talk about money”.

A blog post on the project’s website, GoSpace. sg, offers more insight into his fundraising struggles: “I would be dishonest to pretend that the emotional fabric of my family has been unassailable. Along the way, there were many setbacks both technically and especially in the area of fundraising. Indeed, many with the power to say no, could not bring themselves to say yes.”

NOT GIVING UP

Mr Lim is pressing on with the project partly because he believes it could yield economic opportunities for Singapore.

“The next frontier for Singapore is in space,” he says. “Singapore has the potential to become a future space hub — especially when it comes to near-space.

“This zone is not good for aircraft because there is insufficient oxygen, making the air there too thin for their engines. It’s also too thick for satellites to spin because of the drag.

“[Near-space] is the remaining virgin land we can conquer if we are brave enough — no one has claimed it yet.

“If we design and innovate and get to know this area better, we can develop disruptive technologies — platforms that are better than aircraft and satellites.”

Beyond the economic potential, Mr Lim says the project is his way of giving back to society and upholding national pride.

“I wanted to do this to give back — I am where I am with all this experience and this network, thanks to the education system here as well as the scholarships given to me.

“I have worked with all nationalities and in many sectors on all kinds of projects. ... If there’s someone capable of pulling off something like this, I might be one of the very few with the broad technical knowledge and the network.”

He also wants to prove that Singaporeans are capable of achieving this feat. “I want to show that with the mind, the heart and the guts — with enough grit — we can do it. It’s not to show other people that we’re better than they are, but to demonstrate to ourselves that we can.”

The lack of wider support for his project has been frustrating, Mr Lim concedes.

“When you’re too passionate about something, people always read into you and think you have some deep devious agenda. I have suffered from this a lot throughout my life,” he says.

“I’ve been asked how I feel about all the comments both positive and negative. My answer was, if I were concerned about public opinion, I would have joined politics.

“I just do what I think is right. If you want to help me, help me. If not, wish me luck.”

Business Times, Singapore

In my career, every project has been pioneering. [Some] might sound like science fiction but they are already being done