Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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ISON
is up!
The original DreamCatcher Concept, with ten 3000gm weather balloons instead of 15.
Original launch platform concepts. Staggered weather balloons as to reduce structures size.
ISON is not only about launching a rocket into space, its objective is to inspire the next generation of explorers, innovators and dreamers.
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ISON
temperature sensors. This will be designed by Douglas Evans, who I previously worked with on the British Council project Monroe 1. All recorded data and images will be released publicly for free, as to encourage people to take an interest in STEM subjects. The team is organised into a pseudo company, where everyone has roles and responsibilities, in an effort to reduce excessive workloads for individuals as well as prevent work from being duplicated. We have a good exchange of ideas between all members of this project. Regular meetings are scheduled between the British and American Team. Once the final design has been submitted, it will then be manufactured by The Hack Factory. This is a non-profit organisation located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which encourages the local community to learn and take a hands-on approach to engineering. Engineers and enthusiasts alike will come together to manufacture ISON, before it is shipped off to the launch destination. We are in talks to launch from the Mojave Desert, and possibly from a location within Europe.
Volunteers
Because of the lofty ambitions of this project, in particular with reaching out to the public, we have had to ask for help from various volunteers, such as, but not limited to, Dundee Photographic Society for their help with pictures of Dundee, and Chris Harrison and the team from the Planetfall movie for their help in promoting ISON. ISON, will also be working alongside Project Mobility charity which helps disabled veterans by enabling them to build and race rally cars. Project Mobility will assist ISON by providing transport and aiding in the design of the launch platform ground retaining mechanism, which will dock with and secure the Launch Platform safely to the ground, whilst its weather balloons are being inflated.
Concept picture of a top down view of the High Altitude Launch Platform in flight.
Early concept for lightweight structure. This design would also be used as a test bed.
STEM
In my view, one of the greatest failings of engineering is its inability to clearly express its objectives to the general public, without swamping them in technobabble. It may be of interest for an engineer to hear the detailed technical specifications of a device, but to the general public this is not only of no interest, it will actively discourage some of them from engineering, as well as the sciences. To counter this, one of our main aims is to help promote the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. We aim to achieve this by providing regular updates to our blog which will filter out the heavily technical elements of our project, so most people can understand what is happening, presenting our data with pictures and media, instead of a wall of text. At present I have contacted various STEM bodies throughout the UK, and hope that they will get onboard with us and use ISON as a vessel to reach out to people and encourage people to take an interest in science and engineering.
The team is organised into a pseudo company where everyone has roles and responsibilities, in an effort to reduce excessive workloads for individuals as well as prevent work from being duplicated.
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ISON
Concept art for a side-on view of the DreamCatcher High Altitude Launch Platform.
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