

Hackers said to be planning to Launch Satellites to Combat Censorship - okal
http://www.pcworld.com/article/247147/hackers_said_to_be_planning_to_launch_own_satellites_to_combat_censorship.html

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leoedin
The author has a sever misunderstanding of physics. A weather balloon can get
you to the "edge of space", yes, but orbit is an entirely different process.
To be in orbit, you need a rotational velocity (travelling around the earth)
in the order of 7.8 km/s. A weather balloon can't do that! If you were to
simply go to space vertically and turn off the engine, you'd simply fall
straight back down again - the only reason you can stay in orbit
"indefinitely" is because your rotational velocity is great enough that you're
constantly "missing" the earth. (see Newton's canonball -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_cannonball>)

The key issue with getting anything to orbit is the fuel cost. It's expensive,
and pretty much impossible to avoid. Micro satellites work by weighing very
little and fitting in spaces on the rocket that otherwise would be empty.
There's still a fuel cost in doing that (Most chemical rockets have a cost to
orbit of at least $10,000 / kg). It's unavoidable. The existing micro
satellites (ie AmSats) have been launched on the generosity of the launching
organisation (unlikely to happen with satellites designed to circumvent
governments) and have a very high failure rate.

It's not impossible, but the project would need serious backing. Even more
expensive than paying the cost of launching micro satellites would be actually
developing their own launch platform (another suggestion in the article).

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rbanffy
I wonder whether it would be feasible to accelerate a balloon to LEO using an
ion engine. It could use the hydrogen or helium in the balloon as reaction
mass to go around pressure differential issues and build up horizontal speed
as it goes up and loses lift.

Anyone wants to do the math? I'm a bit rusty.

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tocomment
I've had this smae idea many times! I really think its feasible but I can't do
the math* either :-(

I've come to think there are many ways to reach orbit with our current levels
of technology but it's just too expensive to do the R&D.

* I actually got suck on figuring out the helium required because everytime you add more helium it adds more weight which requires more helium and so on. It must need some kind of complex differential equation.

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skytrail
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation> Delta-V = v_exhaust
* ln( mass_initial / mass_final )

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rbanffy
It's bit more complicated than that. The balloon lift will decrease with
pressure, which will decrease with altitude but so will aerodynamic drag. Ion
engines design for satellite operation also prioritize low reaction mass usage
and I am not sure the low thrust is a hard limit or a design choice. The
device could also use vertical thrust to compensate for the loss of lift and
then gradually rotate until it reaches orbital speeds.

It's probably impossible with current propulsion technology, but it would be
useful to have a number when it starts to be possible.

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JonnieCache
Video of the actual 28c3 presentation here:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuwkzNjaPwc>

As for those asking about the feasibility, the HAM radio crew have had their
own satellites for years: <http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/index.php>

Also check out these hackers who want to go to the moon:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmgzrDCrP30>

~~~
Iv
Don't forget people who have built a working manned submarine, sea-based
launch platform and plan a suborbital flight at 100 kilometers. Their last
launch had the biggest amateur rocket yet reaching 3 kilometers of altitude :
<http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/>

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giberson
It's a great idea as far as creating your own communication system--definitely
innovative. However, it's still not a solution to SOPA. Why? Because SOPA is
legislation--and if they'll pass bad legislation against the internet they'll
certainly pass bad legislation to govern anything else related to the
internet. If such idea's like DIY networking that operated outside of
government fiddle-able channels really caught on--you'd be certain there would
be legislation to prevent individuals from using such technology.

The only way to stop things like SOPA (legislation) is to stop the people that
support such legislation. Unfortunately, such a matter will require far
greater innovation considering the scope of corruption in politics. By
corruption I refer simply to the adage "money is power".

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jfoster
"... outer space isn’t actually governed by the countries over which it
floats."

At the moment it sounds as though no single country's legislation would be
able to stop this, but perhaps countries could prevent users from connecting
to it.

The other part is that the act of launching the satellites is likely outside
of the law in most countries, at least without some form of permission.

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giberson
My whole point was not the method they'll use to legislate such activities--
it's that they will find a way. Don't to try slither around crappy
legislation, focus on getting the proposers and supports of crappy legislation
out of office.

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ntkachov
So suppose these satellites do go up, If they aren't in the jurisdiction of
any single country, whats stopping the US(or any country) from just shooting
them down?

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atakan_gurkan
The debris would be harmful to other satellites in orbit. Since it introduces
significant risk, they cannot just shoot them down without a good reason.

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hahhichood
I would imagine they are working on, or already have, methods for disabling
satellites without blowing them up and nudging them out of a stable orbit.

Must be a way to ruin the solar panels with a laser or similar. I assume non-
state actors won't be able to launch satellites that use a nuclear energy
source?

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tomjen3
A group that can launch a satellite in orbit is also capable of launching a
nuclear weapon in orbit. (That is the reason the US was so freak by Sputnik).

So presumably the US is smart enough not to mess with such groups (even if
they don't actually have nuclear weapons they would still be able to do great
damage with conventional explosions or even a piece of rock).

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JabavuAdams
This makes no sense.

If I declare that tomorrow I'm going to launch a satellite, without going
through official channels, I go to jail.

If I don't announce it beforehand and just launch, then I'd better hope I
don't start a nuclear war.

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jonbro
As far as I know, those "edge of space" low cost weather balloon experiments
are a long way from putting something in orbit. The cost to put something in
orbit is in the 1000s per pound range right
(<http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=301>)? I remember hearing
something about ranchers putting up satellites in the early naughts, but I
don't know how feasible that is.

Seems like a better solution would be strengthening the protocols, figuring
out mesh networking solutions, rather that chucking cisco routers into space.

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Intermediate
Even if they will manage to launch these satellites into orbit I still don't
get how they going to get satellites connected to the internet? In order to be
connected to the internet you need an IP addresses, but ip space actually
ruled by american IANA organization and by a couple of RIRs. So, what would
stop IANA from shutting down satellites ip addresses? Sure, these guy can
setup an internal network between satellites and ground stations, but every
attempt to connect this network to the internet will result in gateway
shutdown most likely. Sorry for my english :-)

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tomjen3
You can't shut down an IP. An IP is like a phone number, so you could close
the subscription or even bust through the door and shoot the guy with it. But
it makes no sense to talk about shutting down the phone number.

However assaulting something that is presently in space is really difficult
and it is likely that physical violence would do no good at all.

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sp332
IANA could "officially" revoke the ip block assignment, or even reassign the
IP block to someone else. Then backbone router admins would have to decide
whether to route the packets toward the satellite or toward the new owners of
the IP block.

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shazamjad
If we are able to get satellites into a low-level orbit, with the technology
to connect those on the ground - surely a bigger risk is space debris and the
possibility of colliding with other objects in space? From what I understand
most, if not all space agencies do spend a fair bit of resources tracking and
projecting the trajectories of all objects in space - and constantly altering
the paths of those under their control to avoid such items? ... not saying it
isn't impossible - but surely that's another challenge to take into account?

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olliesaunders
How feasible is this actually?

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jfoster
Hackers/engineers have been doing this for a long time already. It's just that
they've been doing it with the backing of large governments or organisations
until now.

The two types of feasibility that become important when you lose that backing:

Cost: can it be done cheaply enough?

Legal: not so much when the satellite is up, but the act of getting it up, and
the act of communicating with it from the ground.

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JabavuAdams
Completely unrealistic.

It can take up a couple of years to get a frequency allocation for your
satellite to communicate on.

Amateur HAM radio satellites operate under fairly strict rules that could be
revoked by the powers that be at any time.

There are few technological artifacts _more_ vulnerable than a satellite.

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adrianwaj
It's being called the "Hackerspace Global Grid."

If they want my domain orbit8.com, it's theirs.

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tintin
Why not create a Wifi network? There are plenty of router upgrades making this
available.

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felixfurtak
nice idea, but bandwidth would be severely limited

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felixfurtak
bandwidth is only really a function of the number of base stations ;)

