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Make Your Own Sputnik
An anonymous reader writes "What better way of celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sputnik than by making one of your own. The BBC says that you can build your own Sputnik satellite from stuff lying around the house. The BBC quotes an electronics hobbyist: "Technology now is way ahead of what was available in 1957, and making your own fully functional Sputnik would now be very simple indeed. I wouldn't be surprised if you could build one in a container smaller than a matchbox, weighing about as much as a wristwatch. The components, including a transmitter, battery and the sensors you'd need would probably cost less than 50 pounds [about 100 US dollars]. It really shouldn't be a problem to build and program the whole thing in under a day." Unfortunately, the BBC article doesn't go into technical details." And of course, actually getting it up into orbit might take a little more work.
I misread the word 'Sputnik' and sat here thinking "But I already do that every night"...
So, do I make my own Helicopter or my own Sputnik? Hmm...
I say Helicopter. Cooler and Deadlier.
"And of course, actually getting it up into orbit might take a little more work. "
I know a guy that makes home-made helos' that has the first 7 feet covered - after that...two words: space elevator.
Wouldn't it be cooler to build it with authentic to the era parts and pieces? It would be like a scavenger hunt meets science class. Sadly, it's beyond me and my capabilites.
I do have a line on a bunch of old vaccum tubes that have been in storage for years....
WTF? Over?
...back in the last Sputnik story that the entire idea of a real science probe was pretty much scrapped due to time pressure, and that they launched pretty much only a radio transmitter? Building that primitive beacon wasn't the impressive thing at all, putting it into orbit was.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
...is there really any possibility to launch it to the orbit from my backyard?
Can I do it with, say, $10,000 and without getting caught?
(rolls eyes)
Anybody with a public school education can outclass Werner Von Braun or Sergei Korolev with chewing gum and duct tape!
Please.
...may be expensive but if you can fit the electronics inside of a ping pong ball you can at least get it close for free.
The article is not remotely about building a sputnik, but it is about how technology in sputnik served similar purposes to things used in the home. Using a baby monitor as a transmitter? a domestic thermostat? a balloon? a mercury thermometer? "4x large batteries"? come on. This sounds like the losing science fair project of a seven year old.
~Phil
Make your own Internet! You will need 100 feet of twine, 4 dixie cups, and some duct tape.
"And of course, actually getting it up into orbit might take a little more work. "
Actually, it is probably a crime in most jurisdictions.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Home-made Sputnik, I Laika!
And have it play "Orange Crush" by REM... It would drive the RIAA totally insane if there is a pirate signal from space they can't find to take down... Heck, some solar panels expanding from the altoids tin, and an ipod shuffle, it could really be an achievment...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
Entirely feasible, the Sputnik was basically a low power (QRP) transmitter. AFAIK it had no other payload. Ham radio operators have been making these for years:
http://www.arrl.org/tis/info/qrpprojs.html
It did beep faster/slower as temperatures rose/fell, I think, which you could basically implement using normal temperature variations in off the shelf resistors and capacitors.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
The filk song "You can build a spaceship from the things you find at home" comes to mind.
http://www.khaosworks.org/filk/spaceship.html
Now next on my agenda was to find a rocket drive
Strong enough to launch the ship and still keep me alive
I found the right propellant when I scouted out the bars
Six kegs of Old Peculier that will shoot me to the shtars! *hic*
(chorus) Lockheed, Bell and Boeing, MDC and Grumman too
Pratt and Whitney, BAE, they'll keep it all from you
They make big bucks off NASA so they never want it known
That you can build a spaceship from the things you find at home!
Oh, that old meme.
Trivia: What is the probability that off-the-shelf microelectronics (like wireless routers) will work in space? Answer: Roughly zero.
Why? Look at the information starting at page 23 on this document: Spacecraft Charging and Hazards to Electronics in Space:
3. Radiation Effects on Spacecraft ElectronicsThe radiation sources discussed are hazardous to electronics since energetic particles can deposit energy inside microelectronic circuitry and disrupt their proper operation. Energy deposition in electronics is measured in rads(M) where M is a specific material being considered (1 rad = 100 ergs/gm). Energy deposition can be in the form of ionization or atomic displacements, which can permanently damage electronics, or it can be in the form of single events, which can cause transient or permanent damages depending on the severity of the event.
NASA doesn't ship Xeon processors into space, not because of budget cuts, but because they don't work reliably (if at all) in space.
http://outcampaign.org/