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Terra Bella

terrabella.google.com

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Re: Terra Bella

#111

Post by owenversteeg »

frisco wrote: post #15

Hold on hold on. This is a big swarm of satellites and (I assume) a forthcoming API and the comments are "the scrolling sucks"? They could have used tables and comic sans for all I care. This is awesome. Though Planet Labs will always be my first affection in this space. Talk about a hard and interesting problem. This data takes you to so many different places.

Normally I'd agree, but in this case I literally tried on three devices -- two Google Android phones and a very powerful laptop running Google Chrome on a fast connection and it not only took forever to load but was completely nonfunctional when it finally did. I literally couldn't access the content whatever I did. This is one of the most ridiculous examples of a site not working that I have ever seen. If I had not opened this thread I would have literally no idea what the site even was. If I were able I would fire the person responsible for the site, no questions asked. This site is so far past "nonfunctional" it isn't even funny. I agree that "They could have used tables and comic sans for all I care. This is awesome.", but there's a huge difference between "somewhat ugly presentation", "horrible presentation", "unusable for most people", and "a professional web developer with three devices and many web browsers could not make your page load".

Regarding the content of the page, which has been summarized at http://pastebin.com/raw/kYpdLgYg by commenter Raphmedia, I'm impressed. 90cm resolution in a 100kg package is pretty crazy. That they control the multimillion dollar satellite through a web interface is interesting. One clear advantage they have over governmental systems is their ability to do international launches (their initial launch from French Guiana certainly gave them some significant boost of tangential velocity compared to say, Russia, which is geologically screwed.) If anyone wants to see a visualization of that, see http://i.imgur.com/6c9Edge.png

Re: Terra Bella

#114

Post by [deleted] »

Klathmon wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space is big, but low earth orbit isn't as roomy.

But isn't it? I mean low earth orbit is at least as much space as we have on the surface, which is already pretty damn big. Yeah, speeds and orbits and stuff change the game a bit, but i can't imagine even a few thousands of satellites cramping a space that large.

[deleted]

Re: Terra Bella

#115

Post by namenotrequired »

Klathmon wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space is big, but low earth orbit isn't as roomy.

But isn't it? I mean low earth orbit is at least as much space as we have on the surface, which is already pretty damn big. Yeah, speeds and orbits and stuff change the game a bit, but i can't imagine even a few thousands of satellites cramping a space that large.

Oceans also have more space than we have on the surface (given its third dimension) and we manage to ruin those pretty badly.

Re: Terra Bella

#116

Post by loudmax »

Klathmon wrote: post #48
ceejayoz wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Space is big, but low earth orbit isn't as roomy.

But isn't it? I mean low earth orbit is at least as much space as we have on the surface, which is already pretty damn big. Yeah, speeds and orbits and stuff change the game a bit, but i can't imagine even a few thousands of satellites cramping a space that large.

I support the collision risk management system for a few of the Earth observation satellites at NASA. Pollution of low Earth orbit is a big deal. There are thousands of individual objects being tracked up there. Some of them are satellites that have exceeded their lifespan, some of them are parts of later stage boosters, and some are debris from previous collisions.

When a satellite nears the end of its life expectancy, US law requires that the remainder of the propellant be used to decelerate it so it disintegrates in the atmosphere over the ocean. Presumably European and Asian space agencies have similar rules. These rules didn't used to exist, and there's stuff that's been up for decades.

Yes, these objects are very far apart, but they are moving very fast, and there are surprisingly many of them. Operational satellites are extremely valuable, and if we anticipate anywhere close to a 1 in 1000 chance that one of these objects will collide with one of our satellites, we will burn some of the irreplaceable propellant to avoid it.

Re: Terra Bella

#117

Post by david-given »

knappe wrote: post #77
Cshelton wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just do it. You'd be surprised at what money and support may come your way ;) It's very much possible.

I can't encourage this enough. It was one of the most rewarding things I did in college. We launched a cubesat and used it to capture images of the curvature of the Earth and measure the Earth's magnetic field. The work to build the cubesat was tough, but extremely rewarding. Edit: Check out http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/programs/national/spac... and see if you can find a local Space Grant program. They'd mor…

While it's still very cool, hanging a sensor off a balloon in the upper atmosphere isn't quite the same thing as launching a satellite into orbit (by about 8 km/s).

Re: Terra Bella

#118

Post by iconjack »

dbcurtis wrote: post #43

Is there a readable version of the web site that doesn't have obnoxious scrolling? Someone needs to tell their designers about the Principle of Least Surprise. I'll look at this after they fix this so it doesn't give me a headache.

I normally frown upon people getting too hung up on page design on HN, but this one I gotta admit is a real WTF'er. When you "scroll" down, it's doing page loads, and filling up browser history. Back back back back back back. Worse still, you think you've backed through all those page loads, and you find out it's one of those sites that keeps you from backing out of their site! We used to call this "breaking the back button" and Google used to discourage it.

Re: Terra Bella

#120

Post by peterwoo »

manaskarekar wrote: post #4

This post makes me wonder about space pollution/saturation. Are there any resources that talk about what is a safe number of satellites for different altitudes and the effects of space pollution? I have heard of the Kessler Syndrome, any suggestions that discuss this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

The ESA has a really interesting segment on the space debris problem and possible solutions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN_CvGJKMOs

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