Mobile Twitter?
Why link to the mobile version of Twitter? It looks awful on a full size screen!
Surrey-based space boffins have put a Google Nexus 1 into orbit to see how an Android phone copes with the rigours of space - and whether they can hear it scream. The handset hasn't been switched on yet. It's being carried in STRaND-1: a 4.3kg microsatellite that was itself carried into space by an Indian rocket, ISRO PSLV-C20 …
Well if we've got that crap floating around the planet anyway, what's the reason for not shooting all our nuclear waste at the sun rather than contaminating Cumbria for the next 80-million years?
We could ask the Norks for a delivery system as we appear to have been unable to come up with that new fangled rocket stuff since 1971.
What's the worst that could happen?
Huh?
I'm not convinced that the WEEE regulation covers being burned up on re-entry. Still, is the requirement not on EEE producers to pay for an items "reuse, recycling and recovery"? If so, this could produce a whole new level (like out of this world) for people trolling these companies. (Could you collect my phone from the Lagrange2 recycling point please?)
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Sorry chaps, but:
Spaceships do make sound and explosions in space do go bang.
And you can even hear the noise pretty much as soon as you see the event.
It all just depends where you put the microphone.
(Though I'll grant you that fireballs don't collapse back in on themselves).
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From the news article:
"In theory, because space is a vacuum there are no molecules, so sound cannot travel as vibrations are not carried."
In my opinion as a native English speaker that's a silly thing to say. 'In theory' means 'not yet proven' or 'I think so'. The above sentence means that the author is not sure about either the lack of molecules in a vacuum or that the lack prevents vibration and thus sound. Either way it's silly. The matter is beyond dispute and has been for a long, long time. The first two words are misleading and should not be present. The third word should probably also not then be present since I was taught never to start a sentence with 'because' :)
Now going back to the original tagline one could debate whether 'in space' means 'in the vacuum of space' or 'not on the surface of a planet'. If the mobile was inside someone's spacesuit then the English language allows us to state it as being 'in space' but of course the suit wearer would be able to hear it scream. So the tagline might actually be wrong. If you are in an environment where you are capable of screaming then almost by definition you will hear it and there are several ways that other people could hear you :D
I agree - they also say "They hope to use a purpose-built app to test the theory, immortalised in the film Alien, that "in space no-one can hear you scream"."
Which again sounds more like "theory" in its sloppy non-scientific use, in particular, the way they say "the theory", suggesting there is a specific scientific theory of "in space no-one can hear you scream". It also again carries the implication that this is still a matter of debate.
Actually, as I understand it (and I'm one of the team, although I'm speaking on my own behalf), much of the funding came from Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., a commercial entity. The total cost of the satellite, according to the STRaND-1 FAQs, is "only slightly more than a high-end family car," so we're hardly talking big bucks.
In any case, that app was only one of a number chosen by open competition, and the mission itself is designed to achieve a large number of research, development and strategic objectives. By a successful launch, and our first telecommand/telemetry exchanges, we've already achieved a fair few of them. Screams in space is a nice publicity point, but hardly the point of the exercise.
Of course they'll hear it scream, the microphone and speaker are physically attached. Only when totally separated by a vacuum will they not hear it. They would need two satellites.
Astronauts are able to communicate on space walks without radio by making physical helmet contact and just talking.
The astronauts are talking into an atmosphere, which propgates the sound waves to the inside of their helmets. The helmet shell absorbs the sound wave and vibrates. Physically touching the helmets together allows that vibration to be propgated to the other helmet and thus into the atmosphere inside of the other helmet.
Whether the nexus screams will be heard will depend upon whether there is anyway for vibration to propogate between it and the device which is listening for the scream.
Given that both microphone and speaker are in the same craft* there will at least be an indirect connection so, depending on the sensitivity of the microphone it may well pick up something.
*when this mission was first announced, they were planning on using the microphone and speaker on the same device, which could be even more likely to pick up it's own vibration . It's not entirely clear from the wording this article ("microphone and separate camera") that this is no longer the case.
Check out:
< http://www.uk.amsat.org/ >, < http://www.360app.co.uk/ >, < http://www.screaminspace.com/ > (terrible web site contrast), < http://www.sstl.co.uk/Missions/STRaND-1--Launched-2013 >. Also: < http://amsat-uk.org/2013/02/26/radio-amateurs-asked-to-collect-strand-1-telemetry-data/ >, < http://amsat-uk.org/satellites/strand-1/strand-1-videos/ >, < http://amsat-uk.org/2013/02/07/isro-plans-sarl-and-amateur-radio-satellite-launch-for-february-14/ >.
You can use SkyGrabber software < http://www.skygrabber.com/ > (works with PC card or Dongle) and an appropriate antenna.Orbit map: < http://www.uk.amsat.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Initial-Pass-of-STRaND-1-640x451.png >.
...but one of the objectives of STRaND-1 is to test the WARP-DRiVE and pulsed plasma thrusters which will help to create a "de-orbit burn" to accelerate the satellite safely back into an atmospheric burn-out at end of mission.
For exactly the reasons you give, end-of-life planning's becoming far more important in mission planning these days. The irony is that in order to achieve a successful de-orbit sequence, we have to launch hardware and test the technologies we want to use on much more substantial spacecraft in future. Ground-based simulation and testing are all well and good, but you don't really know for sure until you try these things in the operational environment, and you don't want to find out for the first time that they don't work, when they're attached to something half the size of a bus!
STRaND-1 is only 3.5kgs all-up weight, and just three stacked 10cm cubes in size (before the solar panels deploy; add 20cm width afterwards). Whilst it would do serious damage at 28,000kph to a static target, the chances of an accidental collision are slight, and it has thrusters to move it out of the way of incident junk. It's meant to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
I know Surrey Satellites know their stuff BUT is the phone really unmodified? First of all it has to survive launch vibration. Once in space it will be exposed to radiation and be in a vacuum. Normal electronic don;t really work well in a vacuum. Circuit boards tend to arc so destroying themselves. Non radiation hardened parts will probably fail pretty quickly.
One of the objectives is to discover how well mobile phone electronics fare in space, as the compactness and low energy consumption make them - not necessarily attached to a phone! - very attractive for satellite missions. The phone really is pretty-much unmodified, software notwithstanding.
Radiation is an interesting question. Of course, STRaND-1 is in a low earth orbit, like most satellites, keeping it in a much lower risk region than geostationary or interplanetary space, but radiation affects all components to some extent and, with only a 3.5kg orbit weight, STRaND can't offer much shielding to any of its manifest.
The satellite has had vibration, vacuum and wide-range thermal cycling testing as part of its launch qualification, and the Nexus showed no issues I'm aware of. How well the LCD copes in the longer term will be interesting to see. Of course, in a large-budget commercial mission (as opposed to this research mission), there wouldn't be an LCD, so that's a bit moot. Everything other than the phone that can be conformally coated has been, and we've another on-board computer that's handling the first part of the mission, so even if the phone does fail there's plenty still running.