I am with Bob on this.

A month or two back I raised the question * about why we were not getting into HEO and got barraged with the same old excuses from the "old guard" about ITAR, Funding, etc. It was clearly distressing to me as a long time AMSAT member to learn that all the old guard can do is regurgitate the same mantra for 15 years. Meanwhile our friends on the other side of the globe have a GEO sat that anyone with a small amount of funds can use, and with no funds can listen to the downlink on the "internet".

Michelle sent me some information about ORI and the "progressive" efforts being made to get past the ITAR logjam. It was not shared with me the funding windfall that was becoming available which should wake folks up now. I voted for the progressive group. I don't see the shortfall in votes as being a "referendum" for the old guard, rather, they need to step up and accept that continuing the defeatist mindset cannot continue. Get on the ball AMSAD BOD!!!

* [amsat-bb] GeoSat OSCAR-2024 Positive comments, no whining....(Was need HEO..please..)

Joe K4SAT VERY Cautiously optimistic

Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2020 17:21:31 -0400 From: Robert Bruningabruninga@usna.edu

"I am disappointed to learn of these results. I thought the new progressive group was headed in the right direction.

Satellite research takes money and there is lots of it out there! I just retired from a "university" where I found it fun to try to build amateur satellites with available project funding. But My fun was building them, not trying to figure out how to pay for them. I was getting by on maybe a $10k per year budget.

But then more academic faculty came on board. They spent their time looking for grants and money and writing proposals and we were swimming in so much money we did not have the resources to spend it! For a guy who likes to build a cubesat on a table top,, I could not possibly spend even a fraction of it. BUT THEY WERE leading in the right direction. They showed how there is so much money out there that if you just direct your interests and proposals correctly there is plenty to go around and to cover the amateur interests as well.

I learned the lesson that academics is all about making proposals and getting BIG bucks to do things that meet your mutual interests. That is the only way AMSAT can survive is to have those people on the leading edge and making proposals where AMSAT and other interests overlap.

I really ignored all the AMSAT BB arguing going on, because I thought it was obvious that the progressives were on the right track and the status quo was just holding us back. I am shocked to see the progressives lost.

Bob, WB4APR"