[amsat-bb] Re: FLTSATCOM Hacked

[Gordon JC Pearce MM3YEQ]

On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 17:19 -0400, Robert Bruninga wrote:
> > A school to provide the $50,000 launch.....
> > Anything from keeping 50 hams from donating 
> > $1000 a piece and just buying a launch 
> > - no school involved?
> 
> Sure, anyone.  I havent priced the latest launch integratiojn
> costs from the Cubesat Program recently, but the $50k was their
> original plan...

The first thing that occurred to me was that if people like Mark
Shuttleworth and Richard Garriot have got $20-odd million to throw
around on space tourism, then perhaps they might be amenable to making a
hefty donation to amateur satellite launches.

I can see packet cubesats being a great help with communications for
things like the OLPC project.

Furthermore, the cost of launching is (for the moment) only going to go
down - can we get a discount for buying a batch of launches?  Has anyone
priced up getting flights from the Iranians?

Gordon