Category Archives: Community/Partners

An Urgent Need in Open Source Hardware

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I have just gotten back from the second annual Open Hardware Summit.  The organizers did a fabulous job, adding breakout sessions and project demos while handling a growing audience (in person and over the internet).  Kudos to the entire team.

As I flip through my notes from the summit, I find there are several themes which stand out.  First was the wider variety of projects from last year.  Second was the social impact of open source hardware from projects such as EyeWriter (a project to help people communicate using only eye movements) and Protei (a project to build autonomous boats to help with research and ocean clean up).  And third was the urgent need to fully document open source hardware projects.

This last theme seemed to permeate the summit, from the opening keynote to Mach 30’s demo booth at the end of the summit.  The Arduino Team expressed it as one of their lessons learned: “Document what you make.”  It is direct and simple, and it rolls off the tongue.  So much so, that I immediately thought, “there’s the tag line for Open Design Engine.”

http://twitter.com/#!/Mach_30/status/114346797945733120

Engineering Design Process, credit Amanda Wozniak

It didn’t stop there.  Bre Pettis of MakerBot went on to say “Publishing ideas is an urgent community responsibility.”  For Bre, this was partly as an inoculation against having someone else patent your idea and make it impossible for you to act on it.  I think it also speaks to the more fundamental idea that hardware only becomes open source when we publish it.  Of course, this begs the question, what does it mean to publish an open source hardware project.  At Mach 30, we believe it means opening up the entire design process, from identifying a need, to developing a concept, all the way to fabrication and test.  And, it turns out we are not alone.  Amanda Wozniak gave a brilliant presentation on how to start opening up the engineering design process as a means of documenting open source hardware projects.

To round out the day, Mach 30’s exhibit during the Cocktail and Demo Hour was a demonstration of Open Design Engine, a web portal developed specifically to address the urgent need to publish not only the final plans but the entire design process for open source hardware projects.  We like to think of it as the Source Forge for hardware.  And while sites like Source Forge and LaunchPad are focusing on features to support software projects (such as demo web and database servers for web site projects), Open Design Engine is focused on the needs of hardware projects.  The private alpha version is built on Redmine, and has support for common features such as source code repositories, wikis, forums, and issue tracking.  Open Design Engine also has full sub-projects so teams can breakout their work along functional lines (such as software, electronics, and mechanical engineering) all under the heading of the main project.  And Open Design Engine has a desktop like file management system for storing non-source files in a way that is more familiar to developers who come from disciplines beyond software development.  Check out the full list of features and the road map to see where Open Design Engine is headed.

So, the alpha version of Open Design Engine has the core project hosting features.  What’s next?  We want to open up access to any user who wants to host open source hardware projects.  Unfortunately, there are still a few features we need to make this practical, things like a strong terms of service workflow to make sure users have seen and agree to the terms of service, and a consistent way of identifying a project’s license.  And, we are rocket scientists, not web developers, so we have had to hire a development shop to help us implement these features.  Luckily, we found a great shop here in Dayton, Littlelines, and they have given us a discount since we are a 501(c)3.  But they still have to eat, so we still have to pay them.  We are currently raising the funds we need for the development of the public beta.  If you give $25 or more, we will give you an early access account on the private alpha so you can host your projects today, and help provide valuable feedback.  So, please donate $25 today and help us spread the word about the urgent need to publish open source hardware designs and the role Open Design Engine can play in filling that need.

Click Here to Kickstart ODE and start documenting your own Open Source Hardware!

A New Path to Space (for everyone)

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J. Simmons introduces Mach 30, a grass roots space program, and invites the space community to join this revolutionary movement.

Show your support by making a donation here.

Can’t watch the video right now?  You can read the transcript below.

If you don’t care about space exploration, this video is not for you. Feel free to stop watching now. But, before you do, I would appreciate it if you took a moment to send it to any of your friends who are into space. They might like it.

If, on the other hand, like me you grew up with Star Wars and the Space Shuttle, or going a little further back, with Star Trek and Apollo, then this message is for you.

Hello, my name is J. Simmons. I am the founder and President of Mach 30, a non-profit with a new approach to space exploration.

I have wanted to go to space my whole life. My earliest memory is sitting on my mom’s lap at a drive-in movie theater watching Star Wars. I was too young to really get it, but the images of ships flying through space and of traveling to other worlds stuck with me. As I grew up and the Shuttle program started, I believed people when they said the Shuttle was going to make the dream of routine access to space a reality. And yet, 135 missions, and 30 years later, and we are still only dreaming. Sure the ISS is an impressive feat of engineering, but it is not somewhere any of us can expect to visit.

We have waited too many years for someone else to change the course of human space exploration. Instead of again asking our representatives to increase NASA’s budget, or cheering on another rocket launch, we must take the reigns ourselves.

There has never been a more perfect moment for a grass roots space program. The Internet has changed the way we work, share, and support one another. The success of open source software is ushering in a revolution in the design of hardware. And, the gap in US spaceflight has opened the door to new directions in space policy.

Enter Mach 30. Our goal is to design open source spaceflight hardware, and in doing so, create a world where the next “Facebook” is a space-based company whose business model is as inconceivable to us now as Facebook would have been in 1990. That’s the kind of world I want to live in. Where access to space is like the Internet: everywhere and a part of our daily lives.

We need your help to go from concept to reality. First, please share this video with all of your pro-space friends. We need to get the word out that there is a new path open to us, one that we have direct control over. Send it to your scifi buddies, post it on Facebook, tweet about it, share it with your Linux Users Groups…

Second, please make a donation to Mach 30. Hardware costs money, legal fees cost money. It turns out space is just really expensive. And remember, it all adds up. $5, $10, $25, and $50 at a time, from everyone who dreams of going into space could change the whole game.

Thank you for your help and support. Ad astra per civitas – to the stars through community

A Music Major’s Guide to Exploring the Galaxy

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In order to achieve the “become a spacefaring society” portion of the Mach 30 mission, we can’t focus our efforts solely on scientists and engineers; we must also tap into  imagination and spirit of adventure that will lead the rest of society to support our efforts to explore the galaxy.  To that end, we are excited to share today’s guest post from Molly Duncan, a former opera performance major and current English teacher, about what she learned in her college astronomy class.

My freshman year of college, I took a course called Astronomy of the Universe. I took it because I needed a lab science, and this one didn’t take a two-hour chunk out of my very busy music major schedule, since the labs were at night at the observatory. It ended up being one of the best classes I ever took, and sparked in me an interest in cosmology that continues to this day.

I was not a stellar astronomy student. The mathematical models were far over my head. I only barely comprehended things like the size of the universe and how it is expanding. But I found myself looking forward to it every week. I hung around the professor’s office asking questions and trying to deal with the largeness of it all.

What I loved about cosmology, and what I still love about cosmology, is how it makes me think. This is a science that is constantly trying to conceive of ideas that are literally too large for our minds to understand. Thinking about the size of the universe forces us to take what we already know and shape it into a radical new model.

For instance, science tells us that the universe is expanding. Picture that. Most of use will think of an image like a ripple in the water moving constantly outward. Then science tells us that the universe is expanding, but not from one central point. As a matter of fact, there is no central starting point of the universe. How do we picture that?

(Seriously, someone give me an image. I’ve been struggling with this one for 15 years).

The space program has given us many wonderful things; it’s greatest legacy, though, may be the expansive thinking it has inspired in us. We have a different perspective of who we are in the world and in the universe because of the Hubble space telescope, our Mars twins Spirit and Opportunity, the Voyager probes, Columbia and her sister shuttles, and Tranquility Base on the moon. I hope that as the shuttle makes it’s final orbit, we find ways to keep our minds journeying beyond the atmosphere.

Shared Challenges and Opportunities in Open Source Spaceflight

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Desert

Image by Jungle_Boy via Flickr

Yesterday’s discussion of open source spaceflight hardware groups reveals a number of repeated challenges facing this movement. These challenges include licensing open source hardware, the development of web-based project management tools for engineering, overcoming the costs associated with engineering software, and resolving the conflict between open source methods and export restrictions on spaceflight hardware. The good news for the open source spaceflight organizations is that they are not alone in addressing some of these challenges, which provides for important opportunities.

The first challenge is licensing open source hardware. Licensing software is a matter of applying terms of use to copywritten works. This is a process which is well understood in the software industry and does not involve any additional cost to the developers. However, intellectual property rights for hardware are more complex. Hardware is often protected by patents, trade secrets, and non-disclosure agreements. Each of these processes involves different laws and processes, and generally additional costs. These factors make developing open source hardware licenses difficult. This challenge is shared by the open source hardware movement as a whole, and is being addressed by other organizations. For example, the Tuscon Amateur Packet Radio Corp. (TAPR-OHL) and CERN (CERNOHL) have developed  open source hardware licenses similar to the GNU Public License 2.0.  Mach 30’s own licensing approach (Mach 30 Open Design Pledge) is modeled after the Arduino’s use of multiple licenses and is similar to the Apache Software License.

The second challenge is developing web-based project management tools for engineering projects. There are a number of web sites which fill a similar role for open source software projects, including Source Forge.  However, these tools are optimized for managing and sharing software projects, not hardware projects. So, at present, most of the organizations listed above are making due with a collection of disconnected tools. Which explains why a number of them are working to address this challenge.  And these organizations are not alone. DARPA, which is researching open source hardware, is soliciting proposals for the development of their own open source hardware project portal called Vehicle Forge.  And CERN has recently announced its Open Hardware Repository.  DARPA and CERN’s investments validate the efforts to develop such a portal, and may help pave the way for wide-spread availability in the near future.

The third challenge is overcoming the cost of engineering software. The ideal solution for these groups is to identify and adopt open source engineering tools. Using open source engineering tools first ensures the tools will continue to be available and at no cost to volunteers participating in the design process. Second, using open source engineering tools fits in with the over all philosophy of open source hardware. The second best solution is to find software which can be used freely for personal or not-for-profit use. Sites like the Mach 30’s Openeering Wiki and Develop Space’s Open Source Engineering Tools are both intended to catalog the available options as a means of addressing this challenge.

The fourth challenge is resolving the conflict between open source methods and export restrictions on spaceflight hardware. In the United States, there are a number of export restrictions which affect almost every type of spaceflight hardware, regardless of use or intent. Put simply, these export controls forbid United States citizens from sharing any material concerning spaceflight hardware. Failing to comply with these regulations can carry severe penalties, making it essential that anyone working in spaceflight hardware follow them. However, following these kind of restrictions is in direct opposition to the open source philosophy.

While it is true these challenges are significant, most of them are shared by the larger open source hardware community, which means we are not alone in facing them.  The key to overcoming these challenges, and making open source spaceflight successful, is to work together to address these challenges, both within the fledgling open source spaceflight and with the larger open source hardware community.

Want to join Mach 30′s team in the Open Source Spaceflight Revolution?  Learn more here.

Introducing the Open Source Spaceflight Revolutionaries

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Robert-McCALL--mainstation

Image by x-ray delta one via Flickr

At Mach 30, we dream of a world where people live and work on other worlds and in space stations.  When we say people, we don’t mean six at a time, we mean hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands. One of the keys to making this dream a reality is to share the technology of space as widely as possible, and so we are doing all of our engineering work as open source hardware, and we are not alone.  In the last four years nearly one dozen groups have formed with the stated purpose of developing space flight systems in a manner similar to that of open source software projects. These groups intend to develop and then share the designs of a wide variety of space systems including launch vehicles, satellites, and lunar probes.

The path in front of all of us is a steep one.  Tomorrow, we’ll discuss the challenges and opportunities on our shared path  to a strong open source spaceflight industry.  Today, let’s meet the revolutionaries of open source spaceflight.

Copenhagen Suborbitals

Copenhagen Suborbitals is an all volunteer Danish organization founded by Kristian von Bengtson and Peter Madsen. The mission of Copenhagen Suborbitals is to launch a human being into space. They are currently developing a sub-orbital spacecraft composed of a one-person capsule called the Tycho Brahe, and a booster called HEAT.

The Collaborative Space Travel and Research Team

The Collaborative Space Travel and Research Team (CSTART) is an all volunteer organization with members throughout the world. CSTART was founded in 2009 by a group of space enthusiasts who met in an online community site called Reddit. The mission of CSTART is to organize and finance open source spaceflight projects run by space enthusiasts. Current CSTART projects include a cubesat called COSMoS, a high altitude balloon called Cloudlab, and a hybrid rocket called Chimera.

Develop Space

Develop Space is a 501c3 non-profit organization founded in 2007. Its mission is to enable human exploration and development of space through open collaboration. Develop Space projects include an architecture study for a minimalist human mission to Mars, the development of a space exploration reference library, and research into engineering tools that are licensed as open source software.

Mach 30

Mach 30 is a non-profit organization incorporated in 2009. Our mission is to hasten the advancement of humanity into a spacefaring society. Current projects at Mach 30 focus on developing a strong legal and organizational foundation for running open source spaceflight projects. These projects include the Openeering Wiki, a community portal documenting the existence of and experience using free and open source engineering tools, Open Design Engine, a web based engineering project management portal, and research into licensing and management of open projects within the boundaries of export control laws such as ITAR.

Open Aerospace

Open Aerospace was founded by Ralph Ewig in 2009. The mission of Open Aerospace is to be the organizing framework for space enthusiasts to collaborate on human activities beyond Earth. Open Aerospace’s projects focus on defining an end to end architecture for space exploration.

OpenLuna Foundation

The OpenLuna Foundation is a 501c3 non-profit organization founded by Paul Graham and Gary Snyder. The mission of Open Luna is to return humans back to the moon through private enterprise. Early projects at Open Luna are focusing on a series of robotic missions and public outreach. Their eventual goal is to build a small human outpost on the moon.

Open Space Movement

Open Space Movement was founded in 2010. Its mission is to provide a collaborative engineering environment, educational resources, and organizational framework for a public space venture. Open Space Movements current primary focus is the development of their collaborative engineering environment as a web portal similar to those used to host open source software projects.

Portland State Aerospace Society

The Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is a student organization at Portland State University. PSAS projects center around the development and operation of low cost open source rockets. Their most recent launch, held in October of 2010, was a complete success.

Team FREDNET

Team FREDNET is an official competitor in the Google Lunar X-Prize. Team FREDNET is incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit organization. As a competitor in the Google Lunar X-Prize, Team FREDNETs projects all center around the development of a prize winning lunar rover.

Ultra Light Space Flight

The Ultra Light Space Flight (ULSF) group is a community of individuals who are working on developing open source space probes.  Their core value is to “to the smallest possible craft operating on the smallest possible budgets” and they believe that robotic probes have been and will continue to be the backbone of space exploration.

WikiSat

WikiSat is an international group of volunteers and students. Their mission is to make access to space open to everyone. Their current projects include a high altitude balloon that will act as a proof of concept for their engineering processes, and a ultra-small scale satellite launcher as an entry to the N-Prize.

Want to join Mach 30’s team in the Open Source Spaceflight Revolution?  Learn more here.