[amsat-bb] Re: Phase 5

[MKM]

Just talking as usual....nothing gets done!

No more money for you!


On Dec 11, 2007, at 11:33 AM, Robert McGwier wrote:

> John Marranca, Jr wrote:
>> This is strictly opinion, but I think the Phase 5/Mars concept is  
>> foolish.
>>
>
>
> John, Fred, AMSAT members:
>
> Phase 5A is a dream of Karl Meinzer that has been adopted by AMSAT-DL.
> It is not a distraction from delivering communications satellites.   
> Many
> of the subsystems needed to support the P5A mission are being put into
> P3E for testing.  These include the IHU-3, the ultrastable oscillator,
> an all SDR telecommand link, etc.  Even though these are going into  
> P3E,
> they are not the impediment to getting HEO payloads up.  That said,
> nothing has been built for P5A while P3E is sitting waiting to be
> buttoned up for a ride to HEO to materialize.
>
> The space world has changed absolutely, totally, completely in a way
> that cannot be easily understood by those not living it daily.  For
> years,  space was an adventure for lots of engineers and developers.
> Either NASA or ESA was doing develop of rockets and it was easy to  
> work
> out some kind of relationship with the "steely eyed rocket men" to get
> our payloads hoisted into orbit.
>
> During the middle of the P3D campaign,  ESA handed over the Ariane to
> Arianespace completely.  ESA is "like NASA" and Arianespace is a
> purveyor of space services and they care about the quarterly  
> report. It
> left the hands of the steely eyed rocket men and went under the  
> control
> of the bean counters.  The concern of the latter group, being the
> counting of beans, is for the rider to make a business case for  
> riding.
>  Period, end of story.
>
> No one is better than Karl Meinzer at figuring a case for someone  
> giving
> us a ride.  He has done this again.  If you have N million dollars,
> where N is a number no one can afford,  you can get a ride.  When  
> all of
> this really began to become apparent to AMSAT leadership  
> everywhere,  we
> began to pursue all sorts of avenues.  For years we went down all  
> sorts
> of blind alleys desperately trying to find a way to get a bird into a
> usable orbit by any means that we could afford.
>
> Last summer, we heard of Intelsat's changed position on the ride-share
> situation.  We have relentless pursued this since we learned of the
> opportunity at exactly the same moment as THE REST OF THE WORLD.
>
> The all volunteer staff of AMSAT is trying very hard to finally pull
> together the complete tapestry needed to build a real mission to high
> earth orbit.  It is as close as I have seen it since AO40 barely  
> made it
> to orbit.  We need support to get some things done.  Either  
> volunteer to
> be useful, send some money, or find another way to use your hobby  
> hours
> and support that you can believe in.
>
> Bob
>
> -- 
> AMSAT Director and VP Engineering. Member: ARRL, AMSAT-DL,
> TAPR, Packrats, NJQRP, QRP ARCI, QCWA, FRC. ARRL SDR WG Chair
> “An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why
> must the pessimist always run to blow it out?” Descartes
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