J. Simmons. Export Controls and Open Source Hardware – Open source space flight –
If humanity is to become a space-faring society, these key tenants will be the center of every program. While there will always be some risk inherent to spaceflight, our commitment to safety means that every effort shall be made to ensure there are non-catastrophic failure modes designed into every system. This is critical if the public and private sectors will eventually become involved.
Becoming routine specifically refers to the technological limits of the design accommodating the increased flight tempo of up to a flight per week, thus driving the corresponding increase in economy. It also refers to the intensity of operational procedures being able to support this increased level of activity as well.
To us, a reliable system demonstrates that there is adequate margin in both the technical design of the systems and in the procedural maturity used throughout operations. If we say we’re going to fly every one to three weeks, then a reliable system will achieve it. We believe the goal of sustained access to space has been left to the non-profit sector. The economic and political conditions of the past decades have prohibited both public and private enterprise from attempting this for several reasons.
Adafruit will be at the Open Hardware Summit — September 6, 2013. Becky Stern, Director of Wearable Electronics will be speaking – Wearables at the intersection of electronics and craft. Adafruit is sponsor and supporter of the Open source hardware association and the Open Hardware summit. Our posts are all here and follow the action on twitter with #ohsummit.