[amsat-bb] Re: Why should we support AMSAT?

[Daniel Schultz]

Stefan,

I wasn't trying to diminish the students, but I have worked with a student
satellite project where they literally took a chip maker's application note
for a baby monitor or cordless telephone transmitter and made a satellite
transmitter out of it, and it didn't work on orbit.

I appreciate the students energy and enthusiasm, but in some cases they do
have much to learn about RF. I also remember how valuable my amateur radio
background was to me when I was an engineering student, when some of my
classmates couldn't even read the color bands on a resistor and had no idea
how the theory that we were studying was applied to real world applications.

I am also concerned about whether the students are receiving the right kind of
experience to prepare them for the aerospace industry. They get to make all
the design decisions and direct their entire project, but when they are hired
by Lockheed Martin or some other large aerospace company they will be doing
mind numbing paperwork and will have little power to make engineering
decisions, particularly on government contracts. I also know about this from
years of experience. They also are not learning the political skills that they
will need to have to survive in the corporate world, where career success
depends more on how you suck up to authority than on your ability to design or
build anything.

I am not diminishing the students, I love the students and want them to
succeed better than I did, but I have much experience, not all of it positive,
that I feel I should share with them during their formative years.

Dan

------ Original Message ------
Received: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 09:18:48 AM EDT
From: Stefan Wagener <wageners at gmail.com>
To: Daniel Schultz <n8fgv at usa.net>Cc: amsat-bb at amsat.org
Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] Why should we support AMSAT?

> Hi Dan,
>
> You have some good points and your thoughts are appreciated. But why
> are you diminishing the students efforts by making these statements:
>
> At least they are building, studying, learning and actually many times
> successfully have an operational satellite.
>
> Thanks for reading.
>
> Stefan, VE4NSA