We're all familiar with Space Marines from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 setting. They're undeniably cool, and pretty much everywhere you look. Well, they were ALMOST everywhere, but they had never been into space... yet!
Micheal, from Nat 1 Videos, set out to solve this contradiction, by launching the first ever Space Marine into space* and The Army Painter was along for the ride. Metaphorically, we didn't actually go into space ourselves, despite how much Bo wanted to.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself, your channel, and your hobby journey?
Michael: My hobby journey is a bit long and meandering. I used to make things a lot as a teenager, I made my first piece of terrain probably around the age of 14 for a friend who had lots of little 10mm green soldiers, and the terrain was terrible. Over the years, I have picked the hobby up and put it down again, but I have always enjoyed being creative. My hobby started getting "serious" back in 2020 during lockdown.
I started making dioramas and painting minis again, as many people did during that period. For some reason, I started making videos of the process, and luckily, a few of those videos were popular. I picked up some subscribers, and my channel began to grow, so of course I started taking it a bit more seriously, trying to make useful and hopefully entertaining content around terrain building for DND, Middle Earth Strategy Game, etc, and mostly leaning into dioramas of scenes from the Lord of the Rings.
Where did the idea of launching a Space Marine into space originate from?
Michael: The idea itself has been bubbling away in the back of my head for a couple of years now. I always thought it would be cool to send a Space Marine "home". I had actually visualised the image of him floating at the edge of space, almost exactly like the final footage that we achieved, which is very cool. If I am completely honest, I have never been massively into Warhammer 40,000, although I do really like Age of Sigmar. So, until this project, I had never even painted a Space Marine. I had always had it in my mind that if I was ever going to step into that side of the hobby on my channel, I would have to do something unique. There is no point in me trying to look like I know something that I don't and there was certainly no point in me doing painting tutorials for a community that already had numerous amazing Warhammer-based creators doing a far better job than I could achieve.
So, I was telling myself to think outside of the box for a project... then I thought what if we think outside of the atmosphere, that might be worth attempting. I had been looking for a cool way to do a project video with my brother Steve for ages anyway, so in the end, sending a Space Marine to the edge of our atmosphere seemed like a perfect combination of our respective skills/nerdiness. My love of miniatures and his ability to send things up on Weather Balloons, and honestly there is no way I could have ever done this project without my brother's help. There were so many hoops to jump through, flight predictions etc... Stuff I just didn't have a single clue about but he knew exactly what to do, and of course, it had to be a Space Marine. There would be no point in sending a miniature of Aragorn into Space, although now we have finally achieved success, who knows what we will do in the future?!
What was the most challenging part of this endeavour?
Michael: There were so many challenges along the way. This is by far and away the most difficult project I have ever attempted on my YouTube channel, and if I had known quite how hard it was, maybe we would have decided not to attempt it. Everything from figuring out exactly what we wanted to go on the payload, how heavy it should be, what size of balloon, what size of parachute and how much helium we were going to use. Numerous flight simulations and predictions were made, but in the end, the main challenge was fighting against the weather. You can't just release a balloon whenever you like. There are a lot of regulations and red tape that you need to adhere to so that things are done legally. Primarily so that a balloon does not become a hazard or risk to flight paths of aeroplanes and also the risk of balloons travelling across international borders and causing trouble. So, you have to apply for your launch a month in advance of your preferred date, and it is virtually impossible to predict weather accurately that far out.
We had back-to-back application after application over almost a year, with failure after failure due to the weather wanting to send our Space Marine into the ocean. Then, when we finally got some favourable weather predictions, we still had to get past the approval of air traffic control. You can see in our video how we even got up to the last few minutes before our launch and Air Traffic Control shut us down after we had virtually no sleep trying to get everything ready for launch. Not to mention the challenge of the cost of the whole project. We knew that we wanted to achieve some very clear footage of the Space Marine, so we wanted to buy gear that was high quality and unfortunately costly. Thankfully when we pitched the idea to Adam over at The Army Painter, he loved the whole project idea, and we managed to secure The Army Painter as a sponsor! Without that extra budget, we would never have achieved the final stunning footage that we managed to capture! The answer is basically everything about the project was challenging, I wouldn't recommend it to the average mini-painting hobbyist! Although I guess we have now set a record, maybe someone out there wants to attempt to beat our final maximum altitude of 27.135 Kilometers Space Marine flight.
What most surprised you about the whole process?
Michael: Personally, I was surprised at just how much Helium it took! In the end, we used 4.2 cubic meters of helium to send our payload to just over 27 kilometers. That's 10 large cans of party balloon helium. It was also interesting to learn how the relationship between gas volume and balloon size affected the predicted altitude. For instance, if we added more gas, the balloon would ascend more quickly but this would also mean that the gas would expand more quickly in the balloon, resulting in the balloon exploding at a lower altitude. So, my brother Steve had to get the calculations just right for us to achieve an optimum altitude that would also result in our balloon falling to a location where we would be able to retrieve it. More helium does not mean more height... weird.
Was there any damage to the paint job from his decent back to earth?
Michael: I used mostly Speedpaint from The Army Painter for the main portion of the paint job, a very simple but neat paint job, definitely not going to win any prizes! But the Speedpaint was perfect for the job, so easy to use and I am really happy how he turned out for my first Space Marine. I was actually very curious if this would chip at all, but not a scratch! I was expecting to find a mangled Space Marine at the end, with missing limbs and a scratched paint job, but luckily he ended up landing nicely in a field amongst long grass and leaves. A perfectly cushioned landing but definitely a tip of the hat to The Army Painter for durable paint! He is now sitting in my kitchen on a shelf. I'm curious now because he is the only Space Marine in the world that has reached the edge of our atmosphere... Does that make him, like, super valuable? I mean other than the sentimental value that he now holds!
Now that the Marine has safely landed back on Earth, what’s next for you?
Michael: We have some crazy ideas lined up, things that we don't think other people have tried before, but that's all pretty top secret. For now, it's back to normal content for me. I am waiting for a small studio to be built in my back garden for filming and terrain building, but it is taking time. So, there is a new chapter coming soon for Nat 1 Videos - lots of projects I would like to make, and part of that is finally stepping into building some epic terrain for Warhammer 40K alongside more DND and Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game stuff. I am hoping that the new year will see a new lease of life for projects and hobby-related content!
Where can people follow you?
Michael: You can follow me on Youtube at Nat 1 Videos and also on Instagram.
*technically the stratosphere, but that's pretty dang close!
