[time-nuts] OT - but of interest?

[Daniel Schultz]

Jim Lux wrote:

>It's been challenging to find out information like Center of Mass position, 
>where the other GPS receivers are, etc. (complicated in part because half 
>of station is measured in inches/feet, and the other half in meters)

This reminds me of a story I heard about while building the packet module
power supply for the Russian module of the ISS. Apparently when the Russians
copied the type-N connector blueprints from the west, they used an incorrect
english to metric conversion factor, such that Russian-made type-N connectors
will not mate correctly with US type-N connectors (unless you use force). I
have not personally verified this story, just passing it along for your
consideration.

On the subject of cell phones in space, since the cost of placing anything in
orbit is approximately equal to the value of an equivalent mass of pure gold,
efforts to do extreme cost reduction at the expense of reliability seem
misplaced. A $100K Cubesat costs about the same amount to place into orbit.
Getting the cost of the satellite down to a thousand dollars makes little
sense when it still costs $100K to put that satellite into orbit. If the
satellite dies early from radiation exposure you wasted the money that you
spent to launch it. And it is unnecessary to adapt terrestrial consumer
products for satellites when there are other good options to obtain components
engineered for the space environment at reasonable cost. AMSAT has decades of
experience in this area. 

Cell phones are consumer devices, exquisitely engineered for mass production
with reasonably high reliability (when used on Earth as intended) at minimum
per unit cost. Consumer electronics is a highly specialized area of
engineering, but so is space flight hardware. Using consumer electronic
devices in a space flight environment is a misapplication of engineering
principles and is destined to be a technological dead-end. 

Dan Schultz N8FGV