suitsat launched today (well yesterday)

I failed to see its purpose, other then being a big joke.

I think that suit was a terrible thing to waste.

being in the same orbit as the ISS, just what did it really prove ?

well it was old, worn out, and no longer useable. either chuck it out the airlock or pay to have it sent down to earth to be overhauled or chucked out to a landfill.

Didn't prove anything. they had it there, tacked some ham radio gear to it and chucked it. got a few hundred ham radio operators off their butts to listen for it.

but no, there wasnt a purpose. bit it did do more than you did towards anything.

Hi Tater, Please don't get all spudded up on me ;)

I just wanted to voice my opinion on the suit issue.

by being chucked out , the suit added to the growing list of space junk in orbit.

it is a problem that is growing and was one of my concerns.

Since it didn't involve a school or even grown ups learning to make a microsat, I didn't see the purpose of adding another number for norad to track.

the ISS allready has tons of Ham gear on board for tracking and contacts.

I personally like the Ham contacts ISS does with the schools. I have helped other hams learn how to do this. I have helped many become hams to do sat work.

Hams can get off their butts and go to amsat.org and find lots of stuff to hear and even talk to in orbit !

Well, I didn't have anything to do towards helping with ISS, But I have helped with many Amsat programs in the little ways I can.

Echo was the last Amsat program I donated to.

It's actually supposed to re-enter the atmosphere pretty quickly. My guess is that's why they were willing to do it -- orbital lifespan was very short.

Agreed; it's a serious problem. They need to figure out a way to bring satellites back down after they're expired, or eject them out away from the planet.

-Kevin

Hi Tater,

after being pissy all week about the suit,

I think it finally dawned on me that the suit did do something.

it did PR for space and ham radio.

also I found it will burn up next month so won't be a dead weight in space after all !

;)

Hi Kevin,

Yea, I just finally looked it up, by getting up off my ass as tater put it ;)

Guess it did do some good PR.

sorry, was on the sci.space groups and they tend to get me wound up!

yeah, i read your other comments in this thread. don't worry. I got a plan for that too.

some people think its a RUFN (Are You Freakin Nuts?) project, but I think i got a planned for a manned booster.

If I ever get it close to being orbital, I'll attempt to recover some of that space junk. the resulting sales in ebay should pay for (some) future flights. or at least some beer money.

well, like you agreed, it generated PR, also showed to some space nuts that they should get into being ham nuts so they can get some ragchew with astronauts

You've had better luck than I have. being the eternal cheapskate, my tri-band doesn't have enough juice for the cross band repeat signals. cant seem to have the ISS overhead when someone is free to listen on the 2 meter uplink, and I play with computers enough that I really don't want to sully my ham hobby with packet.