Now Everyone Can Build a Satellite Like NASA: Online!
“Make your game choices carefully and you could build a satellite very similar to NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, the original inspiration for this game. …Build It Yourself: Satellite” gives everyone a chance to be an engineer and an astronomer by learning about the different instruments that can go on different kinds of space-observing satellites, and seeing what kind of cosmic discoveries they might make. Hopefully it will inspire someone to become a real engineer or a space scientist.”
Keith’s note: Too bad this game is not totally realistic so as to let people play with schedule and cost. This way they’d REALLY learn how NASA satellites are built (or not built). Another useful feature would be the ability of one game to affect other user’s games when costs go up to mimic the ability of Webb to suck money out of other projects. What SMD should have chosen for emulation is one of the Mars Science Rovers – THAT is good spacecraft design – one worthy of use in inspiring the next generation – not the bloated and tardy Webb.
“It’s a Mess!” is the result I keep getting.
Maybe it isn’t so far from reality after all.
Wonder how much it cost to create this game??? And what budget it came from?
Can’t wait for the J2X Build it Yourself: Rocket Engine! site. So SpaceX can finally learn how to spend billions of dollars and over 20 years designing a rocket engine. Oh wait, they just tested the Merlin 1D with about a 40% improvement in performance. What a bunch of show offs.
I hear SpaceX wants to build a LH2/LOX engine. If they do, expect it to not be cheap.
I’d still expect it to be at least 10x cheaper than the Arsenal Space version.
Does the game allow you to use the same infrared instruments as the WISE satellites?
Well, I played with it for a few minutes, and I’m not impressed. I have the feeling that it was a game that was developed by web game experts with little or no insight from the science community.
OK, so I wanted to look at exoplanets with IR spectrometers. I was pretty much told that I couldn’t use a segmented mirror, and that I needed to use a single element aperture. Huh? So I need aperture to do high resolution spectroscopy, but I’m stuck with a single element telescope that will have to fit in a modest sized launch shroud? I hope this game doesn’t inspire any engineers that we’re likely to work with.
No one who does exoplanet IR spectroscopy wants to be told that a large collecting area isn’t advantageous for them. Now, if I was told that I can’t afford a large collecting area, because a segmented aperture turns out to be kinda pricey, then I’ll still do good stuff, but that’s a different decision.
I should say that, aside from the written descriptions, there appears to be little real science that is offered to students here. This is one of those web instructional games that simply isn’t worth being done as a web game. Pretty sad.
Actually, maybe the joke is on JWST. JWST will be doing IR spectroscopy of planet formation, and I guess this handy tool is saying that we don’t need JWST to do it. Horrors!
Steve Jobs thinking put a computer inside a mouse and gave us the iPhone. Elon Musk thinking put all rocket component production under one roof and gave us the Falcon 9. Emory Stagmer actually works for Northrop Grumman. He is bucking the typical Silicon Valley miniturization trend. He is claiming that simplification of satellite design is more cost effective than miniturization of a large complex folding mechanism for JWST. He says make JWST simple, and launch it fully deployed, with no complicated folding mechanisms at all, on top of a huge rocket, like the Sea Dragon. Dana Andrews thinks a smart big single stage booster with pre-existing engines is a better idea is a better idea than a big dumb booster like Sea Dragon. Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We need to end the insanity of the senate launch system. Or we need more degreed aerospace engineers in congress.