Putting 100,000 items in space is a non-starter. The existing space trash is already a big concern, and there have been seriuous proposals for missions to clean it up. An iPhone, travelling at orbital velocity, has a lot of kinetic energy!
There was an uproar years ago when the Westford Needles experiment was launched, and those had a known mechanism to de-orbit the things. As to tossing one out the docking port, unstabilized objects will tumble. The chances of getting a useful picture of the area of interest are small. YMMV, -John ============== > On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Gregory Muir <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I'm curious if they ever have any problem with earth-based commercial >> component >> outgassing clouding the camera optics. > > I went to a lecture on the idea of putting a cell phone like object in > orbit. The idea was that it should have a cost and size about like a > phone. This is very different from a pico-sat (a 4 inch cube) > because the pico sat costs $100,000 or more and the phone is under > $500 The idea is that $500 satellites you don't have to care about > failures. The plan was to place maybe 100,000 devices in orbit and as > they fail just launch another 1,000 or so at a time. The proposal was > to launch them from a rocket carried under an aircraft. > > The goal was an un-jamable world wide data network. The phones would > self-organize into a mesh network. But no one is going to do this. > But still the question lives on: "What could you do with a iPhone in > orbit?" One idea was diagnostics. A big spacecraft like a space > station of crew capsule headed to mars might toss a few outside so > they could get photos of the exterior if they suspected a problem or > if the phone is cheap just to get snapshot. But I'd bet a bunch > they'd use a $100K pico sat for that. > -- > > Chris Albertson > Redondo Beach, California > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
