Korean Artist's Intentionally Useless Satellite To Launch This December 151
An anonymous reader quotes the introduction to Inhabit's article on the upcoming launch of an art project cum satellite intended to be as different as possible from conventional space hardware: "South Korean artist Song Hojun has created his own DIY satellite from scratch – and he's planning to launch it into space this coming December. Song created the satellite from assorted junk he found in back-alley electronics stores in his home town of Seoul, and over the course of six years he has finally managed to complete his space-bound project. Song's satellite cost just over $400 to make, however the cost of launching it to space is going to be a lot, lot more – over $100,000."
I get it! It's waste of space AND it's space junk! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am really, really trying to find some kind of justification for this "art" project and I'm coming up with bupkis.
OK... It does nothing scientific. But it does nothing artistic either.
It's about as artistic as painting a rock and dumping in the Marianas Trench.
For something to be considered art, it has to be able to communicate to other humans a message beyond just its own physical existence.
This satellite is supposed to send messages transmitted to it by blinking its LEDs and "People will be able to see the blinking lights with the naked eye or through a telescope".
Visible from the Earth's surface. With naked eye. LEDs. A 10x10x10 cm cube. Hanging in low Earth orbit. 600-2000 km from the surface. Right.
I can't really be bothered to look it up, but something tells me that you can't really see a 10 cm cube, 600-2000 km away, with an amateur telescope.
Besides, shouldn't Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) [esa.int] "ground" this project?
Also, WTF is "Science is Fantasy" supposed to mean?
That science is unattainable and/or imaginary? Not real? With no real function or application?
Just dumping that "is" and it would make SOME sense. Or reversing the order of words in the sentence.
This... this is just half-thought through crap.
All I see here is rich, privileged parents, buying their rich, privileged, spoiled kid his 15 minutes of fame since he can't get there with his own effort and talent.