[Server-sky] Cubesat funding and flight opportunities

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Sun, Jun 30, 2013 at 01:29:58AM +0900, Michael Turner wrote:
> Admittedly, Sprites, being SMT PC boards, are still orders of
> magnitude thicker than true thinsats as Keith envisions thems. I don't
> think the significance of the KickSat mission for Server Sky is
> entirely negligible however -- when Keith speaks of a constellation or
> cloud of tiny satellites capable of computation, storage and ground
> communications, a successful KickSat mission would give him an answer
> to skeptics who object, "But has anyone done anything remotely like
> this yet?" And that success might be only six months away now.

Every grain of knowledge is soil for new ideas.  If KickSat succeeds,
we get credibility.  If KickSat fails, we learn something.  

I've been learning about testing on ISS;  seemingly "zero gee", 
the actual acceleration ( ram drag air friction ) is high enough
to accelerate 3 meters per hour squared;  actually rather difficult
for a poor light sail ( inside a ram drag tent ) to keep pace with.
Thus, not a very accurate model for 6400 km altitude.

So whatever test environments we can learn from, great!  

Keith

P.S.  There are good skeptics (whose objections are well thought
out and instructive) and bad skeptics (who object to anything 
that taxes their weak minds).  Bad skeptics have two comments
about everything:  "never happen" and "what happened?".  Bad 
skeptics are safe to ignore - they might produce random threats,
but those threats will be weakly conceived and easily parried.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993