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Comment by zacharycohn | Hacker News Reader

The compelling advantage is that they're making it available to the public to use.

If you add up the total time the telescope will be available to the public in minutes (please, correct me if I'm wrong) you get:

30 * 1000 + 3 * 30 * 500 + 3 * 30 * 500 + 10 * 30 * 100 + 25 * 30 * 50 + 25 * 30 * 50 = 225000 minutes = 156.25 days

This is not really a lot. The remaining time will be used by Planetary Resources. There is no way for public to continue using the telescope after that.

Assuming this is where they stop, and they don't build a system for purchasing time later on...

But what I'm saying is the public can just get a 200mm telescope on the ground themselves. No need to launch it into space.

I live in Portland, Oregon. Every time we wanted to use a telescope to see some planetary wonder it has been cloudy. Hard to keep my kids excited about space without seeing much of it :)

You can rent time on a telescope in another hemisphere and timezone right now, over the Internet.

Atmospheric interference makes it impossible to observe in some wavelengths on the ground.

The public is already allowed to use the Hubble. You just have to send a proposal that is compelling enough for them to grant you time on the scope.

Do you really think that they will be able to upload a picture, display it on a LCD, snap picture of their setup and send it back to Earth and do it hundred of times with a prototype full of untested tech?

Yes.

a) The vast majority of satellites are "prototypes." They're built a few at a time, extensively tested, then launched. In the case of satellite frameworks like Cubesat, they're open source and tested every time someone launches one.

b) This is not untested tech, at all. Cubesats have been using consumer technology in satellites extensively, both by startups, hobbyists, and academia (doing advanced stuff like orbital reconfiguration, atmospheric sampling, telecommunications, etc). Combined with NASA's existing suppliers for aerospace grade components, these satellites which have a really high success rate.

Cubesats don't use LCDs. mainly because LCD won't work under low temp conditions, so that's problem number one. Problem number two - we don't know how Arkyd will be propelled. They are selling possibility to point the telescope anywhere but what about changing it's direction? How many maneuvers they can do with limited amount of propellant on board? There is more questions, but really what's the point?

LCD temperature specs are for ATP, where heat transfer functions very differently from vacuum. With radiation being the only way energy enters or leaves the satellite's thermal system, all the satellite has to do is heat the LCD faster than it is radiating heat. This is the case for most instrumentation on satellites and thermal is one of the most important and well understood systems.

Colloid thrusters (or other ionic propulsion), or even a chemical hybergolic propellant (hydrazine + oxygen for example) would work perfectly for propulsion. This is a solved problem, so much so that there are off the shelf modules for cubesat propulsion.

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