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Wed May 18 15:18:47 CEST 2016

"A few were wild successes. Like the 3d printed telescope."

Open Space Agency's Ultrascope? Very pretty website. But still no complete
instructions for making your own robotically controlled telescope, from
start to finish.

"Wild success"? No, it could still fall apart. Since they've only released
the manual for the 3D printing and the laser cutting, and there are quite a
few more instruction manuals to go, it looks to me like the chances of the
project falling apart are not exactly zero.

Also, what was promised? A robotic telescope that would be significantly
cheaper than a commercial model of the same capability. That's also in
question, from what I see in the forum. The answer seems to be, if you made
large batches of parts, you'd be OK on cost per telescope. Um, but what was
the question again? Oh yeah: can you make your own robotic telescope much
cheaper than buying what's on the market?

The answer to that question is NOT, "Yes, if you make hundreds of kits,
exploiting economies of scale in parts production, then sell all but one of
the kits." Then you're running a business, in a competitive market, with no
brand power for marketing purposes, no track record as a reliable product
supplier. Good luck with that. Here's a way to cut your costs if you want
to try anyway: revise the design so that you can use standard plastic
injection molding, not 3D printing, for the plastic parts you're making in
big batches for your customers' kits. Much cheaper. Much faster. But now
you've got a kit to sell with no need for hackerspace equipment -- maybe
the buyer only needs a screwdriver. Is someone really going to invest 200+
hours in 3D printing (which for them might also require investing in a 3D
printer) when they can get a cheap kit in the mail containing
injection-molded parts, shipped to them in a fraction of the printing time?

"Wild success"? No, I'd say the jury is still out, deliberating on this
one. They've been in that room for a long time, too ....

Regards,
Michael Turner
Executive Director
Project Persephone
K-1 bldg 3F
7-2-6 Nishishinjuku
Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0023
Tel: +81 (3) 6890-1140
Fax: +81 (3) 6890-1158
Mobile: +81 (90) 5203-8682
turner at projectpersephone.org
http://www.projectpersephone.org/

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 1:36 AM, cole santos <cksantos85 at gmail.com> wrote:

> It was a giant mess we had very little experience. I didn't run it. I
> dumped the project on a friend who used to work at DarPA. But by and large
> it was fun. Most projects were failures but that's probably expected. A few
> were wild successes. Like the 3d printed telescope. Getting  the government
> to sponsor makerspaces is critical to imementation of the singularity. I'm
> interestsd  in trying again with a new agency. Talking to uscg this time.
> On May 16, 2016 10:51 AM, "gmc" <gmc at hackerspaces.org> wrote:
>
>> Yay, drama. It's what hackers are best at! Bye bye mailing list.
>>
>> On 16 May 2016 18:26:04 CEST, Michael Turner <
>> michael.eugene.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 12:55 AM, cole santos <cksantos85 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Actually we took the DarPA money and the project was a great success.
>>>> Www.spacegambit.Com
>>>
>>>
>>> A great success for some people, I suppose.  In a certain sense.
>>>
>>> I pick a project at random.
>>>
>>> http://www.spacegambit.org/satstatsim/
>>>
>>> Funding: $20,000
>>>
>>> SpaceGAMBIT claim: only open source projects will be funded.
>>>
>>> Reality: well, ta! ke a look.
>>>
>>>   http://satstatsim.blogspot.jp/
>>>
>>> Excuse: "schedules slip". OK, but you can't check in any code, anywhere?
>>>
>>>   https://code.google.com/archive/p/satstatsim/source
>>>
>>> At least, that's the only repo I could find.
>>>
>>> There's nothing in it.
>>>
>>> It was largely because of my concerns about openness, clear
>>> communication, democratic process, and leadership accountability that I
>>> decided to have nothing further to do with SpaceGAMBIT. This was after
>>> feeling enthusiastic about it and even defending it against what I thought
>>> was unfair criticism.
>>>
>>> Really, I'd prefer to have been wrong in my suspicions.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Michael Turner
>>> Executive Director
>>> Project Persephone
>>> K-1 bldg 3F
>>> 7-2-6 Nishishinjuku
>>> Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0023
>>> Tel: +81 (3) 6890-1140
>>> Fax: +81 (3) 6890-1158
>>> Mobile: +81 (90) 5203-8682
>>> turner at projectpersephone.org
>>> http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>>>
>>> "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
>>> together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Monday, May 16, 2016, Michael P Weber II <michaelweberii at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 3:05 AM, Michael Turner
>>>>> <michael.eugene.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> > Whether intentional or not, the choice of watercress could be very
>>>>> > space-relevant.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > (1) Biosphere II saw the direct participation of the late Roy
>>>>> Walford, MD, a
>>>>> > pioneer self-experimenter in CRON (calorie restriction with optimal
>>>>> > nutrition) as a strategy for life extension. This research
>>>>> interested the
>>>>> > Biosphere II organizers because, in feeding long-duration space
>>>>> mission
>>>>> > participants, fewer calories eaten means, to a good first
>>>>> approximation,
>>>>> > less mass for the ecological life support system, leading to lower
>>>>> mission
>>>>> > cost, etc.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > (2) Research into how CRON appears to increase lifespans (in part by
>>>>> > reducing cancer risk -- a big issue in space travel because of space
>>>>> > radiation) reveals that it's more about protein restriction than
>>>>> about
>>>>> > calorie restriction per se.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > (3) Further research has suggested that it's specifically reduction
>>>>> of
>>>>> > methionine intake that is the main driver of life extension in CRON
>>>>> (hence,
>>>>> > presumably, lower cancer risk);
>>>>> >
>>>>> > (4) High-glycine diets sop up excess methionine. (To be sure:
>>>>> methionine is
>>>>> > an essential amino acid; glycine is not. But it seems that with
>>>>> methionine,
>>>>> > you can get too much of a good thing.)
>>>>> >
>>>>> > (5) Watercress is very high in glycine, quite low in methionine.
>>>>> Watercress
>>>>> > might be ideal for offsetting the cancer risks from space radiation
>>>>> in
>>>>> > long-duration space missions.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I think a good next step in such work would be to try to optimize
>>>>> watercress
>>>>> > production in an aeroponic rather than a hydroponic style.
>>>>> Hydroponics is
>>>>> > great, highly productive, but ... water is heavy. Aeroponics can
>>>>> give you
>>>>> > much of the benefit of hydroponics but with a fraction of the
>>>>> equipment
>>>>> > mass. Aeroponics should be more adaptable to low-g and microgravity
>>>>> > environments since it's not gravity-dependent -- it's basically just
>>>>> the
>>>>> > deposition of nutrient-enriched mist droplets on plant roots.
>>>>> Aeroponics may
>>>>> > have gotten its start from NASA funding.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Regards,
>>>>> > Michael Turner
>>>>> > Executive Director
>>>>> > Project Persephone
>>>>> > K-1 bldg 3F
>>>>> > 7-2-6 Nishishinjuku
>>>>> > Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0023
>>>>> > Tel: +81 (3) 6890-1140
>>>>> > Fax: +81 (3) 6890-1158
>>>>> > Mobile: +81 (90) 5203-8682
>>>>> > turner at projectpersephone.org
>>>>> > http://www.projectpersephone.org/
>>>>> >
>>>>> > "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking
>>>>> outward
>>>>> > together in the same direction." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On Mon, May 16, 2016 at 4:35 PM, Michael Turner
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Michael,
>>>>>
>>>>> Are you going to take over the list then?
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> SpaceProgram mailing list
>>>>> SpaceProgram at lists.hackerspaces.org
>>>>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/spaceprogram
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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