Satellites on the Cheap

An anonymous reader writes "At a cost of just $50,000 - including plane tickets to the Alaska launch site - it was constructed using off-the-shelf parts not designed to withstand the rigors of space. Its life span was only expected to be a few months. Six students put together the satellite last year after a three-year research and design project made possible with a grant from Boeing Co. The Department of Defense (news - web sites) Space Test Program approved the project and put it on a launch list"" Beats doing the egg drop.

Comments

Re:The $50,000 is a misnomer

[Overzeetop]

This kind of headline really rubs me the wrong way. It compares with building a car for $500. Sure, it can be done. You use the spare parts you've got lying around the house for the chassis and wheels, head down to the local scrapyard for what you don't have. Don't count any minor capital costs such as tools. Count the 18 man years of labor that you and your friends spent as "volunteer" work for $0. Oh, and don't forget that a friend a Ford who thought the project was neat donated the engine. Puh-leeze.

If you had to count the cost of the project, it would be quite high. It fall into the "college students are free labor" category. Wonder why colleges get grants? 'Cause you get third-world child labor rates for your technical experts. Why spend up to 100 grand a year (burdened labor) for a lab tech, when you can get one free at the local university. If prisoners all had Master's degrees in technical fields, we'd doubtless have high tech grant money going there, too.

If you think this didn't cost any real money, think again. I'll bet the launch space was "donated" and written off. Congratulations, the US Government just paid (40% corp tax rate * 500,000 secondary payload lauch fee) for this $50,000 satellite.

Now - don't get me wrong - with the brave 5XX folks we send to D.C. spending two trillion dollars a year this $200,000 is small potatoes, but it's still _our money_. If whomever provided launch services didn't pay it, that money's got to be made up somewhere.

I applaude the learning experience the cadets got, and I'm glad it worked. I know the rush you get when they flip the switch and your satellite comes to life. I'm not knocking the opportunity these kids had - I'm just asking for a bit of genuine disclosure when you talk about the money involved.