SPACEHACK BLOG

Introducing astrotags

The Royal Observatory in Greenwish (which we had the pleasure of being invited to for the Citizen Science Alliance workshop last month), has put together a gorgeous animated video introducing astrotags:

“Astrotags are a new way to label your astronomy photos with their celestial subject and its location. This short film, made by Jim Le Fevre and Mike Paterson for the Royal Observatory’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition, shows you how. So have a watch, then astrotag your pictures at the Astronomy Photographer of the Year group on Flickr. If everyone joins in we can make a beautiful and accurate map of the night sky… so pass the word on.”

To learn more about the technology and data driving astrotagging, read up on this great interview of Astrometry.net by Flickr about how anyone can make contributions to astronomical science.

DIY satellite!

(via astracultura.com)

Welcome to the Spacehack blog! This will be a place for us to discuss stuff to get excited about around hacking space exploration.

We kick off our first blog post with a new project that is at the heart of what Spacehack is about: actual creation, participation and contribution to global space exploration. Recently, we have been pushed into a new age for making space accessible to all with the announcement that you can now build your own satellite and have it launched into space for $8,000 USD. From tracking migratory animals from orbit to conducting biological experiments, you’re given a kit and access to a rocket to do it yourself.

While $8k is not the same as the cost of owning your own iPod, it’s a huge step forward - one that was predicted by a Spacehack project earlier this year. Curated by Jane McGonigal at the Institute For The Future, the Free Space project was a massively multiplayer thought experiment game that asked people to forecast the positive and negative possibilities of what would happen if we lived in a world where owning your own CubeSat was as cheap and accessible as the web is today. You can still view all the forecasts and read some of the prediction patterns I observed from the collective.

Our current forecast is that the cost of creating your own satellite will continue to be driven down to a more consumer-friendly model soon. In the meantime, we’ve never been so tempted to spend $8k in one-go before!

Have thoughts on this project or plan to participate in it? Share what you’ve got to say with the Spacehack community!