Author Archives: J Simmons

The story of Mach 30 – Part 1: My Personal Motivation

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Today is Mach 30’s fifth birthday. On this day in 2009, the founding members of the Mach 30 Board received confirmation of Mach 30’s incorporation. Join us over the next three days for a special series of blog posts which tell the tale of how Mach 30 came to be.

J. at Spaceport America

J. at Spaceport America

There is an element to Mach 30’s story that is really my story.  To say that I have been interested in space my entire life is a dramatic understatement. Obsessed is probably closer to the truth. And I really mean my whole life. My earliest memory is sitting on my mother’s lap as a very small child (somewhere around the age of 2) at a drive in movie theater watching the original Star Wars. All I really remember is images of space ships and light sabers, but from that moment on, I was hooked on Star Wars, and by extension space. You can imagine my disappointment as I grew older and came to realize the Millennium Falcon was not real and that we could not visit other planets, let alone other star systems.

Fortunately, around the time I started to understand Star Wars was just fiction, the Space Shuttle program was really getting going (I was about 8 or 9, the Challenger accident had not happened yet), and my parents pointed my obsession in the direction of NASA. For a time I was hooked. I cut out newspaper clippings about shuttle missions and did school reports on NASA probes and the astronauts. And even through the Challenger accident and the gap in US human spaceflight that followed, I stuck with NASA. They were the ones who were supposed to bring us our future in space, and someday take us to Mars.

Somewhere along the line, Mars became the ultimate focus of my obsession with human spaceflight.  Like many space exploration enthusiasts, I believe Mars is the obvious destination for the next set of “first footprints” (though I do not believe we should jump straight to a Mars mission).  So, it should come as no surprise that I want very badly to go to Mars.  And, for a time (junior high school and high school and possibly through part of college) I assumed the best path, the only path to get to Mars, was through NASA and the astronaut core.

I mention this little detail because notes from the earliest days of Mach 30 talk about the mission being to “send J. to Mars.” It was mostly meant in jest, but there is no doubt that my personal motivation for founding Mach 30 is in part from a desire to build the kind of organization that can build a sustainable approach to exploring the solar system and that will ultimately send me to Mars.

Continue the story – read part 2 and part 3.

Open Source Development: From Software to Space

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OSHW Logo - credit the Open Source Hardware Association

OSHW Logo – credit the Open Source Hardware Association

It should come as no surprise that Mach 30 board members and volunteers have spent countless hours researching and discussing the value of open source in spaceflight.  After all, open source development is one of Mach 30’s core values.  It shows up in our mission statement and even has its own dedicated resource page on our website.    

Open source spaceflight is also one of the key ways new volunteers come to find Mach 30.  Such is the case with Matt Maier, an active voice in the Open Source Hardware movement.  Matt first approached Mach 30 during his graduate studies in space operations having found us courtesy of Google.  Matt’s research focus was on the potential for open source development to reduce the cost of space hardware as it has in other technical fields.  For months Matt, Greg Moran (Mach 30’s vice president), and I emailed back and forth about open source spaceflight.  And, this past spring Matt and I got to meet in person at the Open Source Hardware Doc Jam.  Since then, Matt has joined Mach 30’s Export Control Task Force where he has made invaluable contributions.

Last month Matt was gracious enough to share the results of his graduate research with Mach 30 at an On Air Hangout on November 14, 2013.  His presentation brought up a number of new and existing lines of discussion and is a great example of how important it is to bring fresh perspectives to the table.  Check out the Hangout’s video below (jump to 5:10 for the start of Matt’s presentation or to 12:10 for the discussion after) or review the slides and his report linked at the bottom of the post.

Thanks, Matt for an excellent presentation and for all of your contributions to Mach 30!

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Mach 30 at the 2013 Open Hardware Summit

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One of the things I look forward to the most every September is the Open Hardware Summit. From the first year, the Open Hardware Summit has been a critical event for Mach 30 team members to attend, and 2013 is no exception. This year involved a number of firsts for Mach 30 including our first opportunity to speak at the Summit, another speaker mentioning Mach 30 and its work, and meeting makers who are using Open Design Engine to host their project.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the Open Hardware Summit (at least personally) was being included as a presenter. As part of our work to develop export control policies to deal with ITAR and similar regulations, the Export Control Task Force decided to submit a proposal to give a presentation on export controls and open source hardware. The topic was accepted by the Summit organizers for its timeliness (Defense Distributed’s 3D printed gun has thrust the topic into the limelight) and the quality of the task force’s export controls research. I must say the task force did a great job preparing the materials, and I can’t thank them enough for all of their support. And I am happy to report our message of preemptively addressing export controls was well received. For those who missed the presentation, we expect the Summit organizers to post videos of the presentations and we will be sure to share the video as soon as we see it is posted.

https://www.instagram.com/p/d7BKaRtT9j
w0z talks OSHW project management and ODE

w0z talks OSHW project management and ODE

No less exciting for Mach 30 was seeing Open Design Engine (ODE) mentioned in someone else’s presentation. Mach 30 friend Amanda “w0z” Wozniak gave another impressive engineering process presentation . In previous years she has discussed the design process, and this year she discussed project management. As part of her presentation, she discussed the importance of project management tools, highlighting ODE for its lightweight setup and ease of use. She went on to create a project (a laboratory EKG pre-amp) in ODE as a living example of the value of sharing open source hardware projects on sites with builtin project management tools. She even found an answer to an unsolved design problem she had been working on as a side effect of publishing her documentation. Thanks w0z for using ODE and sharing your experience!

??? and Greg show off the Photosynq

Robert and Greg show off the Photosynq

Last but not least I got to meet Greg Austic and Robert Zegarac in the Open Hardware Summit Demo Hall. Greg and Robert are working on a hand-held, low cost, open source photosynthesis measurement platform called Photosynq. Photosynq is hosted on ODE, and this was the first time I have been able to see (and touch) hardware developed outside the scope of Mach 30 which is hosted on ODE. It was a real thrill to see hardware come to life which was birthed on our project hosting portal. Congrats to Greg and the whole Photosynq team. Keep up the great work.

So, there you go. It was certainly an exciting year for Mach 30 at the Open Hardware Summit. The only thing which could have made it better is if we had fired off the Shepard Test Stand. Hmmm. Maybe next year…

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New Space 2013 Wrap Up

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J. Simmons at New Space 2013

J. Simmons at New Space 2013

As I mentioned in my last post, Mach 30 had a booth at the New Space 2013 Exhibit Hall.  This was our first time as an exhibitor at a major space conference, and it was time and money well spent.  We got to share our open source mission, demo two of our hardware projects, and meet some really great people.

The display materials in the booth, prepared by our graphic design ninja and board member Rebekah McGrady, covered our mission, open source hardware, Open Design Engine, the Export Control Task Force, and our current open source spaceflight projects.  One of the big surprises for me was just how well people responded to our mission.  Just a few years ago we would routinely be greeted with blank stares when we explained our mission is to develop open source spaceflight hardware.  This week I saw only one blank stare.  And everyone else was so excited by open source spaceflight that I got more than one high five.

I think part of the change in attitude was due to the fact that we had hardware to show.  Our booth included demos of two of our projects:  the Shepard Test Stand and our first ground station prototype.  More than a few people stopped mid stride when they saw the hardware on the table.  Those were always the best conversations.  The feedback we heard from the attendees about our hardware projects was extremely valuable.  For Shepard the big lessons were we should stick with the Arduino for our data acquisition system (teachers in STEM environments are already learning about Arduinos) and there is much more interest in Shepard at the collegiate level than I realized was out there.   For the ground station the big lesson is just how much demand there is from individuals and educators for this version of the ground station.  It is so high, I already have a number of emails already from people asking for a link to the project website.

As is always the case when we attend conferences, I met a number of great people at New Space. First is Liz from the Space Frontier Foundation’s Teachers in Space program. They are running teacher workshops about spaceflight and raising money to send teachers on sub-orbital flights. It’s a great program and we are talking about how the Shepard Test Stand and other Mach 30 open source projects could be used in their workshops. Next is Reuben who I met over drinks Friday night thanks to an introduction by Ethan, a Mach 30 volunteer. Reuben has experience in fundraising and has been sharing links with me for the Revenue Generation Committee.

Ground Station Demo

Ground Station Demo

Finally, last but far from least, is Tim from Southern Stars.  Southern Stars KickStarted a cubesat last year, the SkyCube, and he brought the engineering model to the conference.  It did not take the two of us long to realize he had a satellite and I had a ground station, and that clearly we should see if they could talk to each other. Within an hour we were sending messages from the SkyCube engineering model on one end of the exhibit hall to the Mach 30 ground station at the other end. And then, as if that was not cool enough, we decided to use the two projects to run an impromptu demo during a panel Tim was on later in the afternoon. Check out the very excited celebration of the demo over on Google+.

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Achievements Unlocked!

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It’s been a very exciting month at Mach 30.  We have made amazing progress on the Shepard Test Stand, gotten accepted to speak at a conference, and exhibited at another.  If life were a video game, Mach 30’s volunteers and partners would have just earned a whole slew of achievements.   Check them out.

Replication – Have your OSHW project built by a third party

This month, the Coca Cola Space Science Center (CCSSC) became the first group outside Mach 30 to build a Shepard Test Stand. I am particularly pleased with this achievement since it is such a concrete demonstration of our open source principles at work.  Here’s CCSSC sharing it with us over a Google+ Hangout.

CCSSC's Own Shepard Test Stand

CCSSC’s Own Shepard Test Stand

I’m not the only one who is happy about this news.  Here’s what Matt Bartow, the educational services support specialist at CCSSC, had to say.

“Congratulations to all of you at Mach 30, because I know you were very excited about seeing the first one externally built.  It was a great success, and thank you for all your help through our build process.  We will start posting our data, and, as we begin using it for student educational programming, we will also be posting about that as well.

If you need anything at all, please let us know.  Thank you so much for letting us be a part of the Shepard Program, and we are very eager to watch as everything develops for the betterment of STEM education.”

Smoke and Fire – Complete first test firing of a rocket test stand

This achievement actually goes to our friends at CCSSC. Not only did they build their own copy of the Shepard Test Stand, but a few days later they successfully fired it. Plus they were able to collect data from their tests and as you can see below, it looks very good (the flat spot in the graph is from a known bug in the Data Acquisition (DAQ) software which should be fixed shortly). Congrats to CCSSC and the Shepard project team!

CCSSC Shepard Test Fire 1 - E12-8 engine

CCSSC Shepard Test Fire 1 – E12-8 engine

Spread the Word – Get accepted as a presenter at a conference

OSHW Logo - credit the Open Source Hardware Association

I am also happy to announce that Mach 30’s Export Control Task Force has had its presentation on Open Source Hardware and Export Controls accepted as a topic at the 2013 Open Hardware Summit in Boston. The format for the presentation is a 6+1 (6 minute presentation followed by 1 minute for questions). The task force is currently working on the presentation materials, which of course will be openly licensed. Stay tuned for more details.

Show and Tell – Attend a major conference as an exhibitor

To top off the month, I was able to attend New Space 2013 where I ran Mach 30’s booth. This is the first time Mach 30 has exhibited at a major space conference, though not our first exhibit experience (we have taken the Shepard Test Stand to both the Open Hardware Summit and a regional Maker Faire).  Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers, Mach 30’s booth included display materials and two hardware projects: Shepard and the first ground station prototype. Sadly, due to fire restrictions I was not able to run a test fire on Shepard at the conference.  But New Space and Mach 30 are already talking about what needs to be done to conduct test fires next year.

Look for a complete report on the conference later this week.

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