Dr. Dorin Patru was the guest for this program to discuss Project Meteor and the building of a small launch system using balloons for academic cube sats weighing less than 1 kilo. Dr. Patru explained the beginnings of this program, the student participation in it at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the status of the project, what each class builds and the fact that they hope to fly this coming summer. Several RIT students used chat to ask Dr. Patru questions, others asked questions about how a rocket is launched from a balloon, the characteristics of the balloon flight, and the usefulness of a cube sat. Dr. Patru also discussed why smaller is better, not only cheaper, why he believes the aerospace industry needs to change and will change its business model to smaller satellites (the science and research market in particular), and he used vivid comparisons with the semiconductor industry as well as the field of imaging science. We also talked about space exploration being much more of a collaboration among nations, not a race and we stressed the importance of education. Dr. Patru's program is a very exciting program and even more so because its a student teaching program! You can learn more about the project and see a concept video at http://meteor.rit.edu/. For further comments and questions, you can email Dr. Dorin Patru at dxpeee@rit.edu or meteor@rit.edu.
Guest
The Space Show
