January 28, 2013 at 16:43Interplanetary automatic station "Habr-1"
Discussing "Questions to the Mars Rover Driver", we slightly touched on the topic of self-sending to Mars an apparatus that will look at Curiosity and go further to explore the Red Planet. I was interested in this topic before, I thought: would we shrug at William our Shakespeare? Today, amateurs and non-governmental organizations are more and more actively going out into space: SpaceX, Planetary Resourses, Bigelow Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace, Deep Space Industries ... So far there are not thousands of them, but the total bill has already exceeded ten. So now I propose to arrange a “brainstorming” and think: maybe we should go too?
True, everything is far from Mars. But asteroids are much closer. Actually, the ongoing competition among asteroid hunters pushed me to this post. So far, their competition is expressed only in high-profile statements, but Planetary Resourses talks about a practically finished model of a space telescope, the size of a coffee machine and weighing 11 kg:
Textual description
And the next day, their competitor, Deep Space Industries, appears, which proclaims even more active activity outside the Earth's orbit.
Full-size pictures of all their concepts .
And the DSI is about to start with a 55 kilogram FireFly reconnaissance vehicle, built on the basis of CubeSat technology. They are going to send the first “Fireflies” in 2015, and by 2017 they will send the first automatic DragonFly prospectors.
The cost of launching into orbit is now an average of $ 3,000-4,000 per kg, and it may turn out to be cheaper. That is, for 100 kg of apparatus 300 thousand dollars. If we attach some kind of Roskosmos device, then maybe they will make a discount. Or, by that time, Musk would have performed a miracle and still reduced the cost of launching into orbit.
What can be done here, and how to make money on it?
For example, we follow the path of Planetary Resourses, but we borrow the experience of Curiosity. The satellite can be made on the basis of a telescope equipped with a laser. And not so as to use for long-distance space communications, as suggested by Planetary Resourses, but such as to fry stones. We select a target that is more interesting and massive, like Tautatis , who flew in December.
We put the device into orbit of the asteroid, and begin to fry with a laser. If a ChemCam Curiosity-type spectrometer is installed on the apparatus, then information on the chemical composition of the asteroid can be obtained. Already this information can be sold by the same Planetary Resourses or Deep Space Industries, if you call the price just below the cost of their device. And it doesn’t matter if there is platinum or not - they will save anyway.
Additional income can be obtained if not just frying, but with the meaning:
Does any world trading giant really want its logo to appear on a space object and, in the future, be preserved in the space of a century or more? Excellent PR, and, relatively, it will not cost much, considering how much money is invested in the same Olympics.
Red Bull showed how you can promote your brands in space.
The giant does not want to, you can sell small records online. Turn an asteroid into a park bench with "Petya + Masha =" and "Choi is alive." No harm, but people are pleased.
Well, that’s true, my thoughts, I’m sure, many will be able to express themselves more meaningfully, both in terms of the prospects of such an amateur project and in the methods of its payback. How much it is possible to grind wooden mice with space accuracy and disassemble cell phones under electron microscopes, let's do something innovative and epoch-making, I believe in Habr!
True, everything is far from Mars. But asteroids are much closer. Actually, the ongoing competition among asteroid hunters pushed me to this post. So far, their competition is expressed only in high-profile statements, but Planetary Resourses talks about a practically finished model of a space telescope, the size of a coffee machine and weighing 11 kg:
Textual description
And the next day, their competitor, Deep Space Industries, appears, which proclaims even more active activity outside the Earth's orbit.
Full-size pictures of all their concepts .
And the DSI is about to start with a 55 kilogram FireFly reconnaissance vehicle, built on the basis of CubeSat technology. They are going to send the first “Fireflies” in 2015, and by 2017 they will send the first automatic DragonFly prospectors.
The cost of launching into orbit is now an average of $ 3,000-4,000 per kg, and it may turn out to be cheaper. That is, for 100 kg of apparatus 300 thousand dollars. If we attach some kind of Roskosmos device, then maybe they will make a discount. Or, by that time, Musk would have performed a miracle and still reduced the cost of launching into orbit.
What can be done here, and how to make money on it?
For example, we follow the path of Planetary Resourses, but we borrow the experience of Curiosity. The satellite can be made on the basis of a telescope equipped with a laser. And not so as to use for long-distance space communications, as suggested by Planetary Resourses, but such as to fry stones. We select a target that is more interesting and massive, like Tautatis , who flew in December.
We put the device into orbit of the asteroid, and begin to fry with a laser. If a ChemCam Curiosity-type spectrometer is installed on the apparatus, then information on the chemical composition of the asteroid can be obtained. Already this information can be sold by the same Planetary Resourses or Deep Space Industries, if you call the price just below the cost of their device. And it doesn’t matter if there is platinum or not - they will save anyway.
Additional income can be obtained if not just frying, but with the meaning:
Does any world trading giant really want its logo to appear on a space object and, in the future, be preserved in the space of a century or more? Excellent PR, and, relatively, it will not cost much, considering how much money is invested in the same Olympics.
Red Bull showed how you can promote your brands in space.
The giant does not want to, you can sell small records online. Turn an asteroid into a park bench with "Petya + Masha =" and "Choi is alive." No harm, but people are pleased.
Well, that’s true, my thoughts, I’m sure, many will be able to express themselves more meaningfully, both in terms of the prospects of such an amateur project and in the methods of its payback. How much it is possible to grind wooden mice with space accuracy and disassemble cell phones under electron microscopes, let's do something innovative and epoch-making, I believe in Habr!