Evadot

Getting to where we’re going means something new

2012-05-15T19:15:20Z

I’ve spent the last few days reading the Omni Magazines from 1978 and 1979. All of them in fact.

I’m struck by something: we’re still talking about most of these same ideas as things for the future…

In those magazines, there are spaceships in your garage. Critisisms of NASA’s inability to attract a younger crowd. Ray Kurzwell is talking Singularity before he called it that. You know, we’ll live forever if we can just live long enough. Moon mining is just a few years away. In 1978.

As someone who was pre grade school during those two years, I’m a little tired of hearing the same story being told over and over.

“Our project will start in just two to three years” they always seem to be saying.

We’ll get the same results if we keep doing the same thing, but that’s not really what we all want is it? Don’t we want something bigger?

It’s pretty obvious these days that the hey day of the American Space program is way behind us. No amount of pleading, lobbying, or rhetoric is likely to change this. The rest of the world doesn’t seem poised for much better either. Sorry folks, but that’s where we are.

So what’s a wanna be space explorer to do?

One solution is to explore space with a small team on a small budget. Thanks to the drastic drop in electronics prices and a concerted effort to make multiple cheap launch solutions available to anyone with a few hundred thousand dollars, it is easier to launch your own space mission today than it has ever been.

Got 300 dollars? (that’s not a typo). You can get started for just 300 bucks. My local HAM radio club even went in on one of these. At 100 members, that’s 3 bucks each to have something in space. If you can afford an overpriced coffee, you can get something into space.

Just think about that for a second.

I know it’s a small mission to send a postage sized circuit into space that sends out a very short message, but it IS a mission to space for a few days.

Successful missions on a small budget have several upsides.

First, you’re doing real exploration. YOU are doing it.

Second, doing meaningful research on a small budget helps potential investors (and don’t rule out the government here) get comfortable with easing into an industry long thought too expensive and much too risky to take seriously in the past. Just ask Dave Masten what small teams can do with relatively small amounts of money. Big, big things.

There have been hundreds of “amateur” missions over the years. From communications satellites to scientific research, people all over the world are building exploration systems.

So where is one to start?

Try

AMSAT
nasa challenges
Join a Google Lunar X PRIZE Team
Find a local hackerspace
Find a participatory exploration project to join

Even better, you can create your own project. Launch a balloon, build a rover, create a high speed wireless network, go get your HAM license. DO SOMETHING other than watch other people tell you about what they will be exploring “in just a few years”.

Your time is right now.

What are you waiting for? If you want to be a real life Captain Kirk, you’re going to have to go out there and make it happen yourself.

And don’t forget to tell us about your awesome project!

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FIREFLY: Your DIY exploration platform

2012-05-03T14:37:01Z

We’ve partnered with Kentucky Space to bring you a flexible DIY exploration platform.

It’s available for pre-order now!

Firefly is a flexible-use fully assembled board that can serve as the basis for the brains, fuel, and voice for many different applications including:

high-altitude balloons
suborbital flights
CubeSat class satellites
small payloads for the International Space Station

as well as terrestrial applications such as

a weather station
robotics platform
remote control home automation
education and classrooms

Features:

Solar Rechargeable: Add your panels and go
Self powered command and data handling system: Easy to program Arduino compatible software
Onboard storage: Upgradeable too!
Onboard wireless communications: 70 cm HAM Band (Psst, you need a license for this)
Arduino Compatible: All of your Arduino breakout boards will fit right on top

We’ll be setting up some places to share software you can run on the device soon!

We need your help! We need to pre sell 100 units to produce the first batch. You like space and DIY don’t you?

Check out the web store for more technical details or email mike@evadot.com for more info!

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What bell does Planetary Resources ring for the Google Lunar X PRIZE?

2012-04-24T23:20:02Z

Unless you’ve been trapped underground this week, you’ve probably heard that some billionaires are planning to mine some asteroids. Well, they are planning to launch a telescope in a few years, and then mine the some asteroids. Probably. You know, in the future. But Larry and Sergey are behind it, so there’s that.

This is exactly the kind of revolution the space industry has needed since the 1970s. Crazy ideas of this scale need wide-eyed hopeful billionaires behind them to work.

If it works and they can manage to pull off mining asteroids in the next decade or so, then it’ll be one of the the biggest advancements in the history of mankind.

We should all be excited. Hell, I’m ready to buy asteroid futures.

The co founder of the newly announced company, Planetary Resources, is Dr Peter Diamandis. Peter is probably best known for the Ansari X PRIZE, and the X PRIZE foundation.

Several years ago Peter started a new X PRIZE challenge, the Google Lunar X PRIZE, where all you have to do to win 20 million dollars is land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, travel 500 Meters, and send back some high definition video. Easy right?

It hasn’t been.

The hardest part about getting to the moon is the first couple hundred miles. 26 teams remain in the competition, slated to end in 2015, and are struggling for funding. Most are probably not even close to being on the moon by the end of 2015.

I’m close to a number of the teams, and acquainted with most of them. To say that this announcement makes many of them uneasy would be understating things just a little.

My first round of questions about the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) in light of this announcement are:

How does the announcement of this venture help the GLXP?
How does the announcement of this venture possibly harm the GLXP?
Do we still NEED the GLXP if people are going to create a commercial venture in space anyway?
The X PRIZE Foundation was modeled after a prize put on Raymond Orteig, who commissioned a $25,000 prize in the 1920s, famously won by Charles Lindbergh. Dr. Diamandis doing a space company in the middle of running a space prize is a little like if Mr Orteig started an airline in 1925. Would that have been okay back then, and is it now?

Is this the death knell for the Google Lunar X PRIZE or will this be the spark the prize has needed all along to work?

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Evadot Podcast #94 – MAKERFAIRE NC

2012-03-21T13:06:39Z

Guest: Jonathan Danforth

There are MAKERS in North Carolina, for real! Join many of them on June 16 in Raleigh NC for MAKERFAIRE, NC!

Every year at Maker Faire North Carolina Makers, Crafters, Inventors, Evil Geniuses, Scientists and Artists come together for a day of family-friendly fun and inspiration. From home-made cookies to home-made robots, Maker Faire: NC promises something for everyone in a showcase of the American creative spirit.

Host: Michael Doornbos

Email podcast@evadot.com or leave a comment and let us know your thoughts.

Subscribe to the Evadot Podcast via iTunes and all other podcast players

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Evadot and Kentucky Space think YOU can hack space

2012-03-07T16:06:58Z

In just a little while, when the Umpa Lumpas finish manufacturing the first batch, we’re going to start offering CubeSat prototype kits for a fraction of what it costs today.

Meet Firefly

Firefly is a flexible-use printed circuit board that can serve as the basis for the brains, fuel and voice for many different applications including

high-altitude balloons
suborbital flights
CubeSat class satellites
small payloads for the International Space Station

as well as terrestrial applications such as a

weather station
robotics platform
remote control
home automation
education and classrooms

Some features you may like

solar-rechargeable
self-powered Command and Data Handling System
onboard storage
onboard wireless communications (70 cm HAM Band)

We’ll be taking pre orders soon at a discount to get this thing launched. Email mike@evadot.com for more information.

Happy hacking!

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Evadot

Getting to where we’re going means something new

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FIREFLY: Your DIY exploration platform

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What bell does Planetary Resources ring for the Google Lunar X PRIZE?

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Evadot Podcast #94 – MAKERFAIRE NC

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Evadot and Kentucky Space think YOU can hack space

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