Space has always held a certain fascination for many people. "The final frontier," cliche, I know. There is something about it, new challenges, danger, new discovery.
I have been very interested in space since I was young. The Space Shuttle programme was in its early days, moon landings a recent memory to older people. For me, it really took off (bad pun) when I was about 1993 when I first read about model rocketry. Model rocketry is one of the safest hobbies. The rockets fly using mass-produced solid fuel rocket engines, electrically started. I now have three rockets, a space shuttle, a bull pup (only flown once), and a Navaho (two stage, not yet flown), and my brother also has three. This lead to an interest in astronomy. I have a 60mm refractor telescope and use it sometimes, and plans to build a much larger reflector (at some point). The most vivid image I remember from looking through my telescope is seeing the two separate stars of Alpha Centauri. They are 11AU apart and only 4 light years from earth. I remember thinking, "It is very close (stellar-wise), yet we don't know much about it."
Went I was in 5th Form (Year 11), I started to write a novel. I also used part of the plot for a short story for English class (probably my best English assessment item that year). The novel was to detail how a group of teenagers build a rocket to compete in the CATS Prize. The plot outline I still have suggests 10 chapters, of which I wrote about one third of one, plus sections of four more in the short story. I didn't get far and grew up faster than the story. I have thought about starting again, perhaps with uni students, but would I finish it? The story does have a rather "Open Source" feel to it. I also have the idea of a sequal book, this time paralleling this project. If you think I really should write theses, drop me an email.
The greatest catalysis for this project occurred at University of Canterbury (NZ). I took Newtonian and Relativistic Mechanics, a second year physics course, in my first year. This gave me a great deal of the physics required for a project like this. Two years later (about 2 weeks ago as I write this, 2003-05-15), I read an article in Science magazine (I think, will check) about NASA now looking at Nuclear Electric propulsion, ie, a sub-critical reactor and an Ion engine. I had been following DS1, the first space craft to use an ion engine and had been impressed. The article made me think about what could be done with that propulsion system, leading me to this project.
One ingredient was missing. I didn't have a book on it. Fortunately, UoC has a reasonable collection on Space related topics and I found a book.
I had thought, previous to the article, that this project might be a good university-wide project. Being an engineering/science type, this made sense. Physics, Chem, CompSci (my major), and Elec, Mech, Civil and NatRes Engineering could get in on it easily. Commerce could have a practical look at the management, marketing, etc of the project. BA students could help illustrate aspects of the project (and sweep the floors, j/k). POLS (political Science) could look at the international picture, Psyc could look at the effect on us (working on the project). Only Bio sciences, Forestry and part of Fine Arts would completely miss out.
The reason of not taking it to the high levels of the university is likelihood of it not been considered at all. My Uni is in fairly bad financial state (quite curious of a public (aka Government) organisation). My next idea was to Open Source it, but would it work there?
Well, if you are reading this, then you probably know the answer. Yes it could work. There are 61,000 OSS projects on SourceForge alone. So the software side is fairly safe. What about the hardware? Have a look at OpenCores. It's a Open Source Hardware project. Many CPU and other hardware designs are hosted there. What about the fact it's a huge project? Well, WorldForge is still around, over 4 years old and still going with its goal of a massively multiplayer role-playing game.
This will be a great project to put newly developed skills to the test. There should be something for just about everyone. Bored uni students come forth!