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Correction: I don't recall the celebration of
Gagarin's flight ever being a
SIGNIFICANT part of ARISSat-1's mission...
Although Gagarin's flight was undertaken at a time of intense and heated competition with the United States, it was still a significant accomplishment and one that the Russians have every right to be proud of. So I'm not going to begrudge them this.
I am more concerned about the inaccurate reports that say this spacecraft was built entirely by Russian university students. The project managers should write a polite note pointing out the facts of the matter -- that the spacecraft was actually designed and built by US volunteer radio amateurs under the auspices of AMSAT and NASA and with significant support from several American corporations. Only the *science experiment* it is carrying was built by Russian university students.
As I mentioned in another posting, in the NASA TV commentary, there hardly any reference to ARISSat as having anything to do with amateur radio others than AMSAT having contributed to its design and construction.
73s
Bernhard VA6BMJ @ DO33FL
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