Of course, lets get more Universities involved and build more Leos satellites to fill those small ballast spots on new satellites.
The Moon option could be cheaper than a HEO's, if we can get it in as Public Relations NASA project. The cost to get a ride on a HEO satellite is multiple millions just for the ride into space. Amsat paid over a million dollars just to ride a Prototype Rocket (AO-4). If you want to ride a Non-prototype rocket to high orbit, add another 20 million. Cheap High orbit rocket rides are few and far between. The Moon is the most affordable ride option this decade.
20 years ago NASA was looking for ballast for the TDRS satellites. We had the opportunity to put a ham project on a few GEO satellites and missed the opportunity. Lets not miss the Moon.
http://www.marexmg.org/fileshtml/ArissRebuild.html
--- On Thu, 7/2/09, David - KG4ZLB kg4zlb@googlemail.com wrote:
From: David - KG4ZLB kg4zlb@googlemail.com Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: The Moon is our Future To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Date: Thursday, July 2, 2009, 11:15 AM On the contrary, we need more LEO's to augment and replace the existing aged fleet.
Whilst AMSAT works on the HEO's lets put some of our efforts towards the Universities who seem to regularly put up 2/70 satellites!
-- David KG4ZLB www.kg4zlb.com
Jack K. wrote:
I heard the same things when the first HEOs went up.
It takes to much
money, it takes to much specialized equipment, it
takes to much
knowledge, it is for elitists only... The bottom line
is a LOT of hams
used them and it took some ingenuity, some new
equipment, and yes we
all had to learn now things to use them. the bottom
line is they
worked and worked well... My suggestion is quit
looking at pitfalls
and problems as reasons not to do something, but as
opportunities to
learn to accomplish new things (or improved
communications anyway) and
move forward... We can put up all the leos we want,
but until someone
makes something like B. Bruninga's cell concept work,
we are only
going to have more of the same, We don't need more of
the same!
DE - KD1PE
----- Original Message ----- From: kd8bxp@aol.com To: bruninga@usna.edu;
"'Joe'" nss@mwt.net; "'MM'" ka1rrw@yahoo.com
Cc: "'Jack K.'" kd1pe.1@gmail.com;
kg4zlb@gmail.com Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 8:28 AM Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Re: The Moon is our Future
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
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MM