Using an Old Space-Suit as a Satellite

Andrew-Unit writes "The ARRL has an interesting article about an amateur satellite project where some amateur radio electronics will be crammed into an old spacesuit and chucked out of the window of the International Space Station."

Comments

Space Junk

[laursen]

Do we really need more space junk orbiting Earth?

Re:Space Junk

[ColaMan]

Thousands of tons of crap enters the atmosphere every day. You could probably make a suit out of ,say, plutonium and still have negligible effect considering:

One spacesuit+electronics - 50kg, tops.
Atmosphere - 5,000,000,000,000,000,000kg (by most estimates).

Even guesstimating that it might incinerate and cover an area 1/8th the size of the globe during re-entry, that's still pretty much SFA. Even with plutonium being the nasty thing that it is.

Of course, the associated problems of dealing with 50kg of plutonium in one place at the same time is left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Space Junk

[Iron Sun]

Oh, please. Get a sense of proportion.

Hey, I peed in the ocean the last time I went swimming. Call the EPA!

ok the spacesuit is feasible

[nietsch]

But throwing it out of thewindow of the ISS? come on, this must be a joke. why would you want to do that? It costs (hundreds of) thousands of dollars to get a few kilo's in that orbit. If you are able to spend such an amount of money, surely you can make/buy something better than that? If this is real, then maybe the russians don't have such a crisis with paying for their progress supply ships after all. I propose reducing ESA's budget by the estimated worth of this frivolous spacesuit in orbit.

On the other hand, if the spacesuit is already up there and needs to replaced anyhow, then I'd say go for it. It certenly tickles the imagination as the following discussions will prove..

Re:ok the spacesuit is feasible

[LiquidCoooled]

Space(no pun intended) on the station is at a premium.

The suits are not being used and have been declared as surplus, might as well let the school kids get involved in something than just wasting an opportunity :)

Re:Why a spacesuit?

[LiquidCoooled]

The spacesuit is already onboard the ISS and has been declared as surplus.

quarter inch steel plate has the disadvantage of sitting on Earth, and would take up valuable space on a supply rocket.
They might as well use the suit for something.

Re:Why do we need a spacesuit??

[AtlanticGiraffe]

Perhaps to keep the whole thing together and provide minimal protection, in case it bumps into another amateur radio space-suit?

"The preamp has landed on the moon. End of transmission."

Re:Amateur radio??

[Adrilla]

If I was one of those students, whether it's being transmitted or not, I'd think it's much more awesome that my art is orbiting space rather than just hanging on the class wall or in the hallways or even on the fridge (which they may also be). Can you say that your schoolwork got to hitch a ride on a spaceship then got to float in orbit in a spacesuit for a while? It's not necessarily important, but for a few kids, on a scale from 1 to Cool Shit: I'd say it ranks, Cool Shit.

Re:Amateur radio is pretty interesting.

[Secrity]

It is cool for hams to get satellites into earth orbit. Amateur Radio is perhaps one of the first examples Open Source or community development. From the very start; amateurs developed radio circuits, techniques, and standards that were openly published for anybody to use. Some of the right people understand the usefulness of Amateur Radio and the need for such projects.

In most cases the people building ham satellites are hams, with some corporate support. The really cool part is that the various national space agencies allow / takes part in the deployment of the ham satellites.