Re: CONC^4 Re: "NASA Ends Project Intended to Replace Shuttle"

From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Sun Mar 04 2001 - 14:42:48 MST


Devil's advocate: so, how do you keep your legos from exploding and
showering junk all over mine? Also, how do you get your system up and
running before you have the transmitter/receiver pointed the right way
and powered up? (Aside from being there, but it'll probably be less
than 10% of humanity, even industrialized humanity, that gets a chance
to be up there in the next few decades even if space colonization is
wildly successful.)

"Michael M. Butler" wrote:
>
> Yes yes yes yes.
>
> Spitballing: I'd like to co-opt some of the energy from AMSAT and the
> LEGO Mindstorms types. Imagine a space-rated set of Mindstorms-like
> components for power, thermal management, horizon finding, moment
> analysis and attitude control, apogee kick, sensing, telemetry. Open
> source firmware, of course.
>
> Mike
>
> Greg said:
>
> > What's missing is a unifying vision for creating a space infrastructure that
> > isn't so completely dependent on NASA and doesn't require the unreliable
> > support of a political world that has no appreciation for the enterprise of
> > moving beyond this one planet. In this regard, designing and building some
> > basic building blocks for creating space infrastructure out of very small and
> > light elements should be a high priority, as well as developing reliable and
> > robust self-assembling systems.



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