Amateur rocket reaches 121,000 ft

On September 30, 2011 at 11:08am, Derek Deville's Qu8k (pronounced "Quake") launched from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to an altitude of 121,000' before returning safely to earth. Above 99% of the atmosphere the sky turns black in the middle of the day and the curvature of the earth is clearly visible.

This happened back in the fall of 2011. Since then we had Felix jump from a balloon that reached  an altitude just a little higher than this rocket at 124,000 feet. The balloon took two hours to reach that altitude, the rocket took a minute and a half.
    This is a dumb rocket, it has no provisions for steering or course correction. All the electronics in the nose cone are simply recording instruments. You point it in the direction you want it to go, light the fuse, and get away.
    Since they were going for high altitude, and they were using a metal rocket, they must of had a special dispensation from the Pope, otherwise I suspect DoD would have been down on them like a ton of bricks.

Original website with a bunch of photographs. From Scott.