Huston We Have A Problem! - SuitSat is Dead

I usually am in bed by 11. Your point?

 

I believe you meant the other definition when you told me that in an earlier thread.  You know, about leaving BU at such an early age.

Something about "We Cohens retire early" in response.  Nope.  Not your bedtime.  Unless, of course, that meant you didn't retire from BU in your early '40s afterall, and was just a generalization about Cohen family bedtimes to veil the real story.

So, if its early to bed, well, that's quite funny.  I thought astronomers were supposed to be night owls.

Telescopes don't work too well in broad daylight.  
Ah, but maybe the fractalized ones do.

 

Oh THAT retire.

Sure; we do. And then take on new challenges which help others.

I'm glad my brother spends a goodly time skiing though--its not a challenge to ski with him otherwise;-)

Of course telescopes work well in the daytime. My thesis was a set of daylight observations.

I most certainly did not retire from BU in my early 40's.

Why do you get so many FACTS wrong??

BTW, returning to the topic, the defining post now appears to be accurate--if you substitute in orbit 220 or such...

Suitsat is now not only FAILED but D-E-A-D.



My telescopes work in daytime. Don't yours?

 

All the hams in hammville
did line upon the hills and listen
with their scanners tuned to outer space,
for the wonderous SuitSat Mission.

So when the signal weak and small
failed to reach the scanner aeriels
the hammies declared the mission, "success!!"
when it really needed a burial.

Thus the lesson learned by all
do your planning from the very start,
for when the SuitSat signal is gone,
what's left is the smell of Rusky f@rts!

 

Jeez Charlie,

With that cold war attitude we'll have to bring back Ronald Reagan!

The Russians are FRIENDS.

OK?

73,
Chip N1IR

 

Chip, in reading through these pages and seeing much more positivity than I did before, you have proved me wrong. Please accept my apology if I have offended you, it was sincerely not my intent to do so.
Personality conficts aside, hopefully all of us as Hams can move forward for the sake of technology and Ham Radio. I want all of us to have a thirst for education and the ability to think things out more thouroughly before we have an automatic conflicting view. We are all human and not exempt from error. To take a few moments to get our facts and our words straight before we post something that may not be correct or offend others is a good trait to have in general, not just here on these forums.

 

Welcome back OM.

73,
Chip N1IR

 

After 41 pages of this, what did we decide? Is Suitsat a failure or not?

Might be a good idea to have an arbitrator come in now.

 

In a technical sence it failed, the power didn't appear to get to the antenna system. as an experiment there have been partial successes, the telemetry and sstv signal worked as did the batteries untill the 17th, this is a lot longer then predicted, in the end the batteries showed the typical behavier you get from memory effect, they decharched slowely till 26.3 volts and then droped rapidly, not all that strange seeing they where old.

As for they question if they should have kept the internals ready just incase nasa changed their minds and aproved the mission afterall like they did.. I think if I worked on a workproject that the client canceled just in case the client changed their mind my boss would get very angry.

 

Well Chip, as I read the last of these postings it looks like you have managed to rally your troops and score another win for your side. In reality, those of us who really understand the real world have just decided to shake our heads in shame and just walk away.

Now wait a minute before you get too jovial about this, we walk away, not because we give in, no, we walk away in disgust because an educated (?) man failed to understand what SuitSat was really about.
rally.

Enjoy your hollow victory.  

 

Now there's cynical view of reality...

OM, go back to bed and get up later. I promise the world will look better.

73,
Chip N1IR

 

Perhaps, if you had kept the original, unedited, unredacted posts, you might have reached a different conclusion.

And, as I say this, it applies to me, as well.  Its not often times what the opinion is, but how one approaches its criticism or its defense.

Suit sat was an accomplishment.  As PE1RDW reminds us, how long can NiCads be expected to last, under load, without some source to recharge them?  Oh, sure, add a solar panel to the suits outer layer.  We could go on and on.

If this were a treatise on the performance of NiCd batteries, well, why wasn't there telemetry to monitor each cell, including individual cell temperature and voltage?

If the suit made it through a couple of orbits and still was being heard (it did), then I say it was a success.

Perhaps our astrophysicist friend here who apparently still likes to play ego chess, really just dislikes all the publicity.  Doubt it was all the expense.

Plus, in the end, was it his postulate that finally prevailed (suitsat is dead) or that of the author that deserves accolade?  All things eventually come to an end.  Even we mortals.

Lee
W6EM

Charlie:  Good poem.  Please repeat on the 146.88 repeater!!

 

PE1RDW said

"As for they question if they should have kept the internals ready just incase nasa changed their minds and aproved the mission afterall like they did.. I think if I worked on a workproject that the client canceled just in case the client changed their mind my boss would get very angry.'

And this is a valid point of view.  In retrospect I have to agree that given the way this project was planned it might be that the planning never went beyond the "concept" or "idea" stage initially. And when they were told "NO" it is probable that they "shelved" the pre-planning notes. Then at last minuet (relatively speaking), when given the "go ahead", perhaps they over looked critical info, had no time to walk through the whole event, or preform other long lead time processes to insure success.

I am still very disappointed, but admit I have no inside knowledge how the time line unfolded.

There are possible sequences of events that can make me look at this from another point of view and I thank PE1RDW for not taking my rants and ramblings personally and sticking with it.

The bottom line for me right now is that Suit Sat did not live up to my high standards, it was a failure in fully engaging students world wide. I accept that there are some folks in here who choose to see this as a success but I still reject the notion that Suit Sat was a "over all success", or "complete success".

I can accept that there are some folks involved with this project that could see the experiment as a success from their very narrow point of view. In fact there are some folks involved with the project that are entitled to be very proud of their accomplishment.

    However, from an ARS "We need positive press", "We need young minds", "We need relevance", "We need respect",  point of view; There are a few of us in here that pointed out the failure from those perspectives.

It is obvious that several here objected to that characterization of the event and choose to attack the person, wrongly assuming that the negative post was somehow and indictment that was calling for the heads of the Suit Sat team.

 

ARRL has messed up so many of your stated needs of the ARS, I won't even get started. No question that ARS credibility is also brought into question whenever boastful claims are made that cannot or could not be met. Especially in public media.

Sorry if you feel or felt 'attacked' personally by a comment about 'blithering', which I said applied to my former remarks as well. I think I apologized for any ill will a while back, and asked for a detailed explanation, but got none.

"Shoulda, woulda, coulda," however, without a complete description of the project team members, their responsibilities and resources, is an indictment without a lot of substance. So, if NASA and RSA folks were listening, I don't think it mattered too much to them.

From a continuous improvement perspective, what's to prevent this deployment from happening again with, perhaps, more time to ensure that all the systems in-suit are a "go"? After all, there has to be more than one surplus Russian space suit sitting around collecting dust.

After all is said and done, this is AMATEUR RADIO.
We shouldn't lose that perspective.

 

Lee

I try hard to not take your postings too personal but you and I do have a rocky history. Thanks for the apology and thanks for forcing me to strive to craft my words better. I do appreciate that, fundamentally, you have many of the same attitudes about the future of the ARS that I and others profess.

As you (apperantly) do not like my way of communicating my thoughts, opinions, and ideas, I too do not like the way you usually respond. Not really an issue of right or wrong, just a matter of perspective most of the time. I admit that most of the time, I do not fully read and re-read your "blitherings (grin) because I already have a pre-conception of your attitude toward me or some other(s) here.

Always, when you do "attack", I do a complete re-read of the entire thread to see how on earth you could jump in with your instantly antagonistic attitude. This almost always causes me to re-state my point of view or lend an opposing perspective supporting whoever you are "blithering" (grin) at.

It is my nature to want to be a fraternal brother with ALL my fellow ARS members, you included. I take no pleasure in being adversarial. I pledge to try harder to see your point of view in the future here. But I am certain that you and I will "do verbal battle" again (grin)

OK "Blither" mode off.

73
Fred

Ref Suit Sat: I hope they get a second chance and I pray it has complete success.