DO-IT-YOURSELF: SPACE
HOW YOU CAN BUILD THINGS
THAT CAN FLY IN SPACE
LOOK ME UP
@motorbikematt
Where I Work
 Exploration Solutions, Inc.
 Sub-contractor at
NASA Ames Research Center
What I Do
 Exploration Solutions, Inc.
 Work for
Office of the Chief Technologist
Emerging Space Technology Office
Participatory Exploration / Planetary Analogs
Education Outreach / Visual Social Media
I DO NOT REPRESENT NASA….
…but I can tell you some personal stories!
 A History of Hacking
 Government’s Role
 What is happening now?
 What you can do soon
 A few other things…
Doing It Yourself
THIS IS NOT A NEW
PHENOMENON!
Participatory Exploration = A type of
Hacking?
Hackers= Tinkers =
Makers
Just other kinds of
explorers
Doing It Yourself
Albert Santos -
Dumont over
Wright Brothers here
at Tempelhof Field
Did it Themselves: Aircraft
 1914 WWI Starts
 1915 National Advisory Committee on
Aeronautics
UK beat us to it in 1909
 1918 WWI ends…
…Barnstorming Begins!
Hacked Surplus Curtiss Jenny JN-4
 1926 Air Commerce Act
Regulation: Safety & Licensing
Elsewhere…
Did it Themselves: Aircraft
 1920 Robert Goddard
“A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes”
1926 1st liquid fueled rocket launches
 1923 Hermann Oberth
“The Rocket into Planetary Space”
But these guys were not the first
hackers trying to explore space….
Did it Themselves: Space
Did it Themselves: Space
Humans have been exploring space…
…a LONG TIME!
“El Caracol” Mexico 600~800
AD
Did it Themselves: Space
Oldest Known Observatories
 Greeks: 150 BC
 Arabs: 825 AD
 Indians: 869 AD
 Chinese: 1276 AD
 Turks: 1577 AD
 Danes: 1580 Denfeng,
China
Jairpur, India
Did It Himself: Space
Galileo Galilei ~ the first documented
space hacker.
Hand polished custom built
telescope lenses
Discovered Jupiter’s moons
Re-ignited interest in
building
observatories!
Government Space
Royal Greenwich
Observatory
Leiden Paris Berlin
 Sad Facts
 Many of the ancient observatories were built to gain
tactical advantage during wartime
 Airplane development dramatically accelerated due to
the World War I effort.
 As we all know, World War II & the Cold War were
drivers of spacecraft development as well.
Big Brother Does It For You
October 1957
 Nikolai Kutyrkin
 Designed Sputnik-1
January 1958
 Werner Von Braun
 Designed Juno-I rocket
 William Pickering
 Designed Explorer-1
Government Space
#SomethingBetter
29-July-1958
National Aeronautics & Space
Administration
Werner von Braun
 Designed Redstone
 1st American in Space
 Designed Saturn-V
 “One Small Step…”
Government Space
Government Space
…to catch up with
the Russians
Saturn-V hacked to make a
space station…
Сделайте это сами: Kосмос
Russians are the ULTIMATE
space hackers
MIR Salyut
Big & Small
Satellites
Landers & Rovers
Government Space
Sojourne
r
Molniy
a
Telesta
r
TDRS
Lunakhod
1
Spirit &
Opportunity
Doing It Themselves: Space
Doing It Themselves: Space
Backed by very rich benefactors:
Scaled Composites (Virgin
Galactic, StratoLaunch)
Sir Richard Branson (Virgin Group)
Paul Allen (Microsoft)
SpaceX
Elon Musk (PayPal)
Bigelow Aerospace
Robert Bigelow (Budget, Comfort Hotel)
Blue Origin
Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
Doing It Themselves: Space
Mt Palomar (Rockefeller)
Lowell
W.M Keck Observatory
James Lick
Observatory
McDonald
Observatory
Do-It-Yourself: Space
Do-It-Yourself: Space
Building satellites out of
cellphones
Do-It-Yourself: Space
http://vimeo.com/13904353
Do-It-Yourself: Space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPyRXiOTlk
TechEdSa
t
Do-It-Yourself: Space
Do-It-Yourself: Space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPyRXiOTlk
Do-It-Yourself: Space
OSCA
R
And oh by the way..
21 Countries,
Dozens of satellites
Launched in 1961
Still not new…
Do-It-Yourself: Space
Space isn’t always up..
Western Australia
Do-It-Yourself: Space
United Arab
Emirates Arabian
Peninsula
Do-It-Yourself: Space
Mars Namibi
a
Mars
UAE
At NASA Ames, we’re making a Fab Lab
to standardize ways for you to make
spacecraft
Do-It-Yourself: Space
127 open/planned
Fab Labs
GLOBALLY
Dozens in
Europe
5 in Germany
Alone
Do-It-Yourself: Space
http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/fa
q/
Do-It-Yourself: Space
 What is a Fab Lab?
Laser Cutter
3D Printer
Desktop Mill
Vinyl Cutter
Shop Bot
Do-It-Yourself: Space
Our goal is to make satellite
construction as easy as
downloading 3Dfiles to be
printed, milled, & otherwise
assembled into functional
spacecraft.
@motorbikematt
Do-It-Yourself: Space
Thanks!
Motorbikematt@gmail.com

Do It Yourself: Space. How You Are Building Things That Can Fly in Space

Editor's Notes

  • #2 Space station
  • #9 1909 British Advisory Committee on Aeronautics1939 – NACA Ames Aeronautical LaboratoryGovernment demand for expensive researchRealization of Profit and industriesNACA Ames was bornConcerns about security
  • #12 Interesting Fact: Many observatories around this time were built to understand tactical advantage during wartime
  • #13 But he disrupted the status quo and powers that be hindered him
  • #14 Notice a pattern
  • #23 1909 British Advisory Committee on Aeronautics1939 – NACA Ames Aeronautical LaboratoryGovernment demand for expensive researchRealization of Profit and industriesNACA Ames was bornConcerns about security
  • #24 Notice a pattern