[Noisebridge-discuss] spacebridge? hackers(in)space?
Mikolaj Habryn
dichro at rcpt.to
Thu Dec 17 21:35:40 UTC 2009
On Thu, Dec 17, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Ariel Waldman <ariel at arielwaldman.com> wrote:
> I would be so excited to have a "spacebridge" of sorts. I used to work
> at NASA and created http://spacehack.org (a directory of ways to
> participate in space exploration) after I left last year.
Wow, that's fantastic :) Then I hereby declare the inaugural meeting
of Spacebridge to be held at Noisebridge at 6pm this Sunday (agenda
item 1 - entertain suggestions for a better name).
I propose modest goals: I expect we'll have any number of interesting
project ideas that could be usefully worked on by a group at
Noisebridge, so let's just trot them out informally so we can see
which ones gather enough collective enthusiasm for bringing us closer
to our medium-term goal of crushing the visible universe beneath our
booted heels. I'll bring beer.
m.
> I am new to hardware hacking, so I just got my arduino starter-kit and
> was considering eventually doing the "spaceduino" project you describe
> with it.
>
> I'm up for meeting up Sunday afternoon/early evening. If we confirm
> meeting up, I could try and invite some of my friends who are in the
> small spacecraft division at NASA. A lot of them got together this
> past weekend to do a NASA Hackathon and they often host "tiny hack"
> days in the south bay, so they'd probably be into it.
>
>
> Ariel Waldman | digital anthropologist
>
> [ http://arielwaldman.com | http://spacehack.org ]
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Mikolaj Habryn dichro at rcpt.to
> Thu Dec 17 10:44:43 PST 2009
> ________________________________
>
> Excellent! Is there any chance that we're all going to be around
> Noisebridge anytime this weekend to scheme? Late Sunday afternoon
> (6pm-ish)? (and do you all have wave accounts? My desperate search for
>
> a use case continues....)
>
> m.
>
> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Christie Dudley <longobord at
> gmail.com> wrote:
>> Yeah! As I was saying when we last spoke, I think this is a really cool
>
>> idea. I'm still waiting to hear back from my space people (they say maybe
>> by early January. I must confess that the longer I wait, the more
>> discouraged I get, but I'm still hopeful.) I'm terribly busy right now, but
>
>> I'd definitely be interested in looking at this.
>>
>> Christie
>> ---
>> Why I take the road less traveled? Oh, that's easy. I'm claustrophobic.
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Brian Molnar <brian.molnar at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>
>>>
>>> I have been *VERY* interested in doing this for some time now, so if you
>>> want some help, I'm definitely down. Plus I'm very willing to contribute
>>> financially.
>
>>>
>>> - Molnar
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 16, 2009 at 9:14 PM, Mikolaj Habryn <dichro at rcpt.to> wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> There's been lots of articles of late about school kids sending
>>>> weather balloons with cameras up to 100,000 feet for peanuts and
>>>> getting amazing pictures. These projects kinda lack ambition -
>
>>>> although I'll confess to being grudgingly impressed nonetheless.
>>>>
>>>> By contrast, these guys are my heros -
>>>> http://www.members.shaw.ca/sonde/ - they carry a glider up with a
>
>>>> home-built autopilot that navigates back to where they're waiting for
>>>> it (sometimes upside-down). Their stories are the reason that I have a
>>>> 2.6m r/c glider in my cube at work (that I'm too scared of to actually
>
>>>> fly).
>>>>
>>>> Also, a friend pointed out on the weekend that http://jpaerospace.com/
>>>> have somewhat stolen my thunder, but, dammit, I still think there's
>
>>>> some fun to be had here.
>>>>
>>>> Things I'm keen to work on:
>>>>
>>>> Buoyancy control for high-altitude balloons - most of these guys send
>
>>>> balloons up until they burst and then recover payload under a
>>>> parachute. It shouldn't be too hard to build something that can hold
>>>> altitude by moving gas between envelope and rigid container (a full
>
>>>> day-night cycle might be hard, but you never know - at lower altitudes
>>>> you could potentially condense water vapor and electrolyze to
>>>> replenish hydrogen supplies). Talking to the blimpduino guys at maker
>
>>>> faire a year or two back, they were also interested in the idea of
>>>> having a buoyancy control system at the smaller scale, but didn't
>>>> think it could be done in their weight budget. I think they're wrong,
>
>>>> and I even had the parts to prove it at one stage.
>>>>
>>>> 1kg of batteries has enough energy to accelerate a 10g weight to
>>>> orbital velocity. I had a napkin once that claimed that a reasonably
>
>>>> efficient motor could achieve that by spinning a reasonable length
>>>> tether at reasonable g forces, but I think I got the numbers wrong at
>>>> the time :P OTOH, yesterday I saw a tech talk by the quick launch guys
>
>>>> (giant hydrogen cannons ftw) where they mentioned trivially
>>>> g-hardening consumer electronics to 3200g, so maybe there's still a
>>>> way of doing it with a reasonable length of practical tether - not
>
>>>> that I know *what* tether, how it will behave when the outer section
>>>> of it is travelling at transonic speeds, drag losses at 100k feet, and
>>>> what kind of interesting payload you can fit into 10 grams, but these
>
>>>> are implementation details.
>>>>
>>>> Um. I had other ideas, but can't think of them right at the moment.
>>>> Anyone else have related projects or want to play? I intend to grab
>
>>>> some weather balloons from ebay, a cylinder of hydrogen and maybe some
>>>> ardupilots and carefully skirt various FAA regulations in the next
>>>> couple of months.
>
>>>>
>>>> m.
>>>>
>>>> PS: and Black Rock City Spaceport - 'coz fuck steampunk.
>>>> _______________________________________________
>
>>>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>>>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>>>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>
>>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>>
>>
>>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Previous message: [Noisebridge-discuss] spacebridge? hackers(in)space?
> Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]
>
> ________________________________
> More information about the Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
More information about the Noisebridge-discuss
mailing list