Category Archives: Space participation

Activism, DIY space, Space participation

Space Hacker Workshop – Dallas, Texas July 20-21, 2013

An announcement from Citizens in Space:

Citizen Science and Space Exploration in the Lone Star State
Space Hacker Workshop to Take Place in Dallas

Dallas, TX (June 14, 2013) – Space isn’t just for governments and large corporations.

Citizen scientists and hardware hackers will learn how to do “space on the cheap” at a two-day Space Hacker Workshop in Dallas. Participants at the workshop will learn how they can build and fly experiments in space, and even fly in space as citizen astronauts, through the Citizens in Space program.

The Space Hacker Workshop takes place July 20-21 at the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field.  The workshop is sponsored by Citizens in Space, a project of the United States Rocket Academy, and SpaceGAMBIT, an international collaboration of citizen scientists operating through makerspaces, hackerspaces, and community groups.

Citizens in Space has purchased 10 flights on the XCOR Lynx spacecraft, now under construction at the Mojave Air and Space Port, which will be made available to the citizen-science community.

“We’re looking for 100 citizen-science experiments and 10 citizen astronauts to fly as payload operators,” Citizens in Space project manager Edward Wright said. “The Space Hacker Workshop will provide participants with information and skills needed to take advantage of our free flight opportunities.

“This is an opportunity for citizen scientists to develop and test new technologies in space, to collect microorganisms from the extreme upper atmosphere, to experiment with new processes for creating new materials; and do many more cool things.”

Space is no longer the exclusive domain of NASA and university scientists. A previous Space Hacker Workshop in California attracted a standing-room crowd of men and women from every walk of life. High-school students sat next to medical doctors and astrobiologists. Tinkers and hobbyists worked alongside engineers and physics professors, a heart surgeon, and a NASA astronaut.

“These are the makers of space,” said one participant at the California workshop. “This event is about making and doing, rather than talking and talking.”

“Thanks to modern technology, citizen scientists can build and fly fully functioning space experiments for a few hundred dollars or less, ” Wright said. “With components available at Radio Shack or Fry’s Electronics, citizen scientists can build instruments and experiments with more power than a NASA satellite from a few years back. ”

The Space Hacker Workshop will provide hands-on exposure to a variety of microcontrollers, sensors, imaging systems, and other components. With these components, participants will learn how to design and build microgravity, fluid-physics, life-science, and engineering experiments. Each paid participant will receive a hardware package to take home after the workshop.

Khaki Rodway of XCOR Aerospace will be on hand to discuss the Lynx spacecraft. Experts from NASA and industry will discuss the research professional scientists have done in the past, prospects for new research on low-cost suborbital spacecraft such as Lynx, and opportunities for citizen scientists to build on the shoulders of NASA giants.

Three citizen-astronaut candidates will also be on hand, to discuss the Citizens in Space astronaut selection and training process.

Admission for the event is $129 at the door. Super Early Bird tickets are available now for $79. Tickets are limited and the event may sell out. Online registration is available at spacehackerdfw.eventbrite.com.

DIY space, Rockets, Space participation

Copenhagen Suborbitals: Upcoming launch of Sapphire guided rocket

Copenhagen Suborbitals is gearing up for the first flight of their Sapphire guided rocket during launch windows on the weekends of June 22-23 and June 29-30:

Activism, DIY space, Space participation

Darwin One – crowdsourcing space exploration + Update on Arkyd Kickstarter

Here’s a proposal to crowd source a space science mission has been posted on the Will This Fly?, site where people can comment and vote on the viability of projects: Darwin One: A Crowdsourced Space Mission ~ Will This Fly?

Darwin One is a proposed project to develop a space mission without government funding or assistance. Its goal is to generate interest in the idea, develop a mission in public, raise funding and then successfully launch.

It is loosely based on the failed Beagle 2 mission that developed a low-cost probe destined for Mars. While a failure the model was a good one and, with better oversight, a worthy starting point.

It is international in nature; anyone can become involved.

What problem does it solve?

Space exploration is currently in the hands of governments, and as a result is often slow, bureaucratic and subject to the whim of politicians.

In the 21st century there are more direct ways to fund space missions, although it is difficult for enthusiasts to find somewhere to focus their attention, especially for an international project.

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Meanwhile, the growth of the Planetary Resources crowd-sourced ARKYD A Space Telescope campaign totals have slowed but they are making a big effort to speed them up again: Planetary Resources offers a stretch goal to reinvigorate its crowdfunding campaign – NewSpace Journal.

Astronomy, Education, Space participation

Exoplanet search stretch goal for Planetary Resources Arkyd telescope Kickstarter

The Planetary Resources crowd-funding campaign for the ARKYD Space Telescope has reached 9,558 Backers, $858,127 pledged of $1,000,000 goal with 19 days to go. To boost pledges far beyond that goal they have posted an ambitious Stretch Goal:

Planetary Resources Needs YOUR Help to Hunt for Alien Planets

Asteroid mining company announces new crowdfunding goal to enhance
the ARKYD telescope with capability to search for alien planets around distant stars

Bellevue, Washington – June 11, 2013 – Alien planets are out there and Planetary Resources needs your help to find them! That’s right, the same high-powered telescope technology being used by Planetary Resources to identify near-Earth asteroids can also be used to hunt for what scientists call extrasolar planets or “exoplanets” – which are very much alien worlds. For the first-time ever, this capability will be placed directly into the hands of students, researchers and citizen scientists.

Planetary Resources recently launched a campaign on Kickstarter for the ARKYD – the world’s first crowdfunded space telescope accessible to the public. In only 13 days, the company has already reached well over 85 percent of its original US$1 million goal. Today, the company is announcing that if the total amount pledged exceeds US$2 million in the 19 days remaining in the campaign, it will invest the additional funds to enhance the ARKYD space telescope technology to enable it to search for alien planets!

Visit Planetary Resources’ Kickstarter Page to Pledge Your Support: http://bit.ly/ARKYD-100

These upgrades would add exoplanet transit detection capability by enhancing the telescope’s stability systems and dedicating time to monitor candidate star systems.  A special bonus is that this upgrade would also allow for better measurement of the spin-properties of asteroids, using the same technique.  “While the ARKYD won’t rival NASA’s US$600 million Kepler spacecraft, which may have to end its mission due to a recent equipment failure, the enhanced ARKYD will be a huge step toward important new scientific discoveries enabled by citizen scientists,” said Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, Planetary Resources, Inc.

The company is partnered with one of the world’s leading exoplanet scientists, Sara Seager, Ph.D. of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Seager, Professor of Physics and Planetary Science at MIT stated, “We’re excited about this game-changing approach that could transform how we do science in the future.  It’s not just about advanced technology in a small satellite, but a crowdfunded approach to space science that could be revolutionary. The enhanced version of the ARKYD telescope will be an important source of data for exoplanets that can only be obtained from space, above the blurring effects of Earth’s turbulent atmosphere.”

Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Planetary Resources Co-Founder and Co-Chairman said, “We’re confident this campaign will exceed the original goal of US$1 million dollars. We’re now focusing on enhancing the capabilities of the telescope and creating meaningful and epic crowd involvement.” He continued, “We’re a hardware and inspiration company, and we’re thrilled to provide a new generation of space pioneers with the ability to take a hands-on approach to exploration.”

To date, more than 9,400 people from around the globe have pledged their support for the ARKYD.  Over 8,000 have requested their very own #SpaceSelfie, another 900 people have donated time on the ARKYD to education and many others are looking to gain access to the telescope to explore the cosmos on their own!

Planetary Resources, Inc. was founded in 2009 by Eric Anderson and Dr. Peter H. Diamandis. Our vision is to establish a new paradigm for resource utilization that will bring the Solar System within humanity’s economic sphere of influence. The company will conduct low-cost robotic space exploration beginning with the Arkyd Series of space missions that will identify the most commercially viable near-Earth asteroids. These initial missions will assist the company in enabling the retrieval of raw materials from these select asteroids, including water, precious metals and more.

Planetary Resources is financed by industry-launching visionaries, three of whom include Google’s CEO Larry Page & Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt; and Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group; who are committed to expanding the world’s resource base so humanity can continue to grow and prosper for centuries to come. Some of the company’s partners and advisors include the Bechtel Corporation; film maker and explorer James Cameron; former Chief of Staff, United States Air Force General T. Michael Moseley (Ret.); and Sara Seager, Ph.D., Professor of Planetary Science and Physics at MIT. Members of the company’s technical staff have worked on every recent U.S. Mars lander including Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity, and include other key non-aerospace and safety-critical disciplines. For more information, please visit www.planetaryresources.com.

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Education, Space participation

Routes to a space career

A UK university student visits Reaction Engines Limited and asks about the skills and training needed for someone interested in a career in the space industry: Space… it doesn’t have to be your final frontier! – Moving On magazine

Moving On: What is the space engineering industry like as a whole? Is it quite a big community?

Anthony Haynes: The space industry isn’t very well known, because the UK has never developed its own consistent launch system. A lot of people think because there aren’t regular rockets taking off that the UK must have a small space industry and that if you want to be an astronaut, you have to be American. But we have a healthy state of satellite technology in particular.

At Reaction Engines Ltd we have employed quite a lot of people through knowing them already, with us being part of a small team – how we work together is really crucial.

That’s why networking and space societies are so useful.