[amsat-bb] ARISS funding

[Zach Metzinger]

On 2019-08-22 10:58, Frank Karnauskas via AMSAT-BB wrote:
> Before anyone writes a check for a rented transponder, please
> consider sending your check to help keep the ARISS Outreach for
> Students program funded.
> 
> A total of $150,000 is needed to replace and upgrade the aging
> equipment on the ISS.  After eight months, the amateur radio
> community has contributed only $33,000 of which $6,500 came from
> AMSAT-UK and another $6,000 came from AMSAT officers.

Frank-

I suspect that this will generate a plethora of responses, so I've 
changed the thread title.

Respectfully, I've considered the use case for ARISS, both now and in 
the past, and I don't see a huge value proposition. The equipment seems 
to be rarely used, as evidenced by the crowd-sourced data:

https://www.amsat.org/status/

Even the AMSAT web page lists most of the services as "rarely used":

https://www.amsat.org/amateur-radio-on-the-iss/

It is important to have school outreach and get youngsters introduced to 
the hobby, but it seems that $150k isn't going to work for us 24/7/365 
like a repeater or linear transponder. Imagine how cool it would be to 
say to students "Yes, we are going to bounce our signals off the ISS. An 
astronaut might also be around to say hello too!" at any time of the day 
or night?

If you told me that ARISS is going to put up a 5G/10G package on the ISS 
and open it up for near-continuous access (subject to power budget), I'd 
be the first to donate. However, if you are asking for a sizeable chunk 
of change that is used sporadically at the whim of whatever astronaut 
happens to be there, I can't see myself donating.

How can we get a more usable (and automatic) station on the ISS?

73,

--- Zach
N0ZGO