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Where No Plywood Has Gone Before: A Space Agency Will Launch A Tiny, Wooden Satellite

 

Earth-orbiting satellites usually end their lives in a fiery reentry — but a tiny CubeSat scheduled for launch by the European Space Agency later this year might put off a warmer glow than most in its final moments.

 

That's because WISA-Woodsat is made mostly out of plywood.

 

It's not such a crazy idea: Since it became widely available about a century ago, plywood has been prized for its strength, rigidity and durability — three things that are good in a spacecraft.


Woodsat is designed to test how well WISA plywood — a special high-quality variety produced by UPM Plywood in Finland, one of the project's sponsors — can withstand the rigors of space.

 

It's the brainchild of Jari Mäkinen, a writer and broadcaster from Finland who co-founded a company called Arctic Astronautics, which markets fully functional replicas of orbit-ready CubeSats.

 

woodsat_in_orbit_wide-fcb15eceaa3c61f7b7

 

"I've always enjoyed making model planes, involving a lot of wooden parts. ... [This] got me wondering; why don't we fly any wooden materials in space?" he said in an ESA news release.

Plywood could be a cheaper alternative to traditional materials


Believe it or not, plywood for small satellites "could be a great low-cost alternative to traditional materials and is absolutely feasible with the right testing and modifications," Michelle Johnson, an associate fellow in materials and process engineering at Lockheed Martin Space, tells NPR.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Not sure why anyone would hope for a space vessel like this to implode

 

You may not agree with these people but wishing for a catastrophe doesn't sit right with me

 

I hope it succeeds and he can get space working. Lot of money in space.

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4 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

Is it bad that some part of me wants something catastophic to happen to one of these "space billionaires"?  Like it feels too easy for them to just "go to space"... space flight should not be so casual...

Um 

 

yes?

 

why the **** would you want that to happen?

 

in what reality is space travel pioneered by anyone other than the richest of the rich? NASA wasn’t going to do it. Were you expecting a Kickstarter or gofundme project?

 

i understand hatred for rich people when they get away with doing something illegal with a fine with lots of zeros that ultimately is a slap on the wrist for them (hello sackler family)


but for spending their own money pioneering something like space travel when NASA initiated it by turning these things over to private sector….

 

you just want to see it fail miserably to kill someone for being rich?

 

and whoever else is on board?

 

don’t get it. 

 

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If you have any hope for a space faring humanity like in sci-fi novels and movies then you kinda need for these things to work out. I dont really see the point of rooting against it. Could lead to a change in everything down the line you never know. 

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As a southern New Mexican, I was tickled pink when Branson finally went (almost) to space.  We've invested a whole **** ton of taxpayer money (monorails and such don't come cheap) into the space port.  And while it's an exceptionally cool building, out in the middle of nowhere, we need some to see some sort of promise of future return.  The attention and glimmer of hope was much needed.

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44 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

Is it bad that some part of me wants something catastophic to happen to one of these "space billionaires"?  Like it feels too easy for them to just "go to space"... space flight should not be so casual...

 

Thats Underestimating the amount of work and sacrifice folks like Elon put into this.  He almost went broke doing SpaceX. 

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Reading lots of stuff 

 

people really live in this fantasy world where someone other than the richest of the rich further space exploration

 

its like these people haven’t paid attention to anything over the last 20 years. NASA’s budget has been cut year after year. They don’t even supply the ISS anymore. 
 

some people just don’t live in reality. If you want space exploration this is how it happens. 
 

Don’t get me wrong I’d prefer a fully funded nasa doing this. But I live in reality, and that’s not going to happen…

We can’t even get funding to fix crumbling infrastructure and these people think we can fully find nasa for hard core space explorations 😂 

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@ixcuincle

@tshile

It seems strange to think we have tamed the technology but at the same time it was a 10 minute flight.  62 miles high.  The moon is 238k miles.  So they traveled .026 percent of the way to the moon.  

 

Commercial flight at under 35,000 feet amazes me.  Maybe these are closer to the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk. 

 

I don't desire to watch anyone die -- and to think they would take that type of risk is silly also.  Badly phrased to say, "I want something catastrophic to happen". 

 

The worst thing that could happen would be devastating and the billionaires also know this.  It just seems a little too casual, and maybe we are at the point where manned missions like this should be deemed as safe as walking 10 blocks away.  But even if it was a fraction of distance to the moon, nature and space deserves respect.  Let's not assume the risk is zero.

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