Many people have now hobbies that they spend many hours on every week, and built jet engines, model rockets, and other things. Also there are many students out there who build their own satellites and so on. One thing all those people have in common is that they all say that there is not too much useful material available to them. Most of the research conducted during the space race is not confidential any more, but still the various governments are trying to keep all this information under seal. They say they do so in the interest of national security, this may be true, but mainly they do so to keep new competition to start in the Aerospace industry, and because they may not be interested in people settling outside this world. (So far, colonies required huge initial investments, and Political uncertainty would follow eventually).
All the materials and technologies that where hard to get when the first rockets where built are now available by mail order. Tiny Gyros, Acceleration measurement tools, titanium and high precision mechanical machining tools are easy to get nowadays. Computer simulation programs enable virtual prototyping and testing of the system. This allows rapid development of Hardware. It is always necessary to have people on the team that are able to see what is actually manufacturable, though.
Goal of this project is to build a fully open source system that consists of a Satelite and a Rocket that is able to put the satellite into a stable Orbit. Once this is completed successfully, more things may be targeted.