SpaceGAMBIT - Hawai'i based International Space Program for hackerspaces

[Jerry Isdale]

Aloha Hi Cap neighbors

Some of you may have heard the news (via fbook, hackerspace.org lists, etc) that our DARPA grant for the Hackerspace Space Program has concluded contract negotiations and been awarded the first year funding ($250,000), with 2nd year to come later (probably with some proof of performance.

We are organizing this program under the corporate name SpaceGAMBIT with the acronym standing for "Global Alliance of Makers Building Interstellar Technology".   It will be a Hawaii (Maui) based operation with world wide connections.  The idea is to provide small, short term grants to hackers and hackerspaces in USA (first) and worldwide (as we expand and figure out logistics of that), to do research and educational projects promoting space habitation/travel and humanity's long term survival in general.  Its pretty broad range, eh?

With the award starting the contract clock yesterday (19Sept2012) we start working hard.  The basic plan is:

1) conduct 'Kickoff Meeting' with DARPA (probably in DC area)

2) spend 3 mo getting corporate structures and 501(c)3 app in place

3) do an RFI for grants, expecting first round to be given out in early (January) 2013

4) plan more grant cycles, (perhaps a challenge/contest?) on roughly 3mo basis

5) SHOW SOME RESULTS

6) plan and conduct a year-end symposium in ~September 2013

7) do fundraising and awareness campaign

Actually the awareness campaign is probably first (and hence this email).

We need other makerspaces to get involved.  I would very much like to see Hi Capacity join and help out... especially as you guys are in same timezone and have more lawyer/biz folks locally accessible.

Hammering out the corporate and grant-making structure (what is a Member? Who is eligible for grants? etc) is first major priority (aside from kickoff meeting). 

Is there interest from Hi Cap - as a group/space and from individuals - in early participation? Grants next year?

Check out the web site (link below), sign up on the mailing list, check in on Facebook, etc.

Ask me questions!

Aloha

Jerry Isdale

isd...@spacegambit.org

USA Program Lead, SpaceGAMBIT

Global Alliance of Makers Building Interstellar Technology

http://SpaceGAMBIT.org

This email is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the human(s) named above. If intercepted by an extraterrestrial civilization, all opinions expressed in this email are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of mankind as a whole.

[Ryan Ozawa]

Wow, Jerry. This is incredibly exciting stuff. Firstly, congratulation on your funding!

I'm absolutely interested in this project and hope to hear more news and updates as things progress. I've signed up for the mailing list, requested to join the Facebook group, and of course if I can contribute in any way, just let me know.

When the time comes, will you be preparing a media release? Would love to cover this news as well as future milestones!

Mahalo,

Ryan

[Jerry Isdale]

Media release will be coming... I am waiting to hear directly from DARPA and get things rolling.

This whole thing kinda fell in my lap with others doing most of the proposal writing and meeting with DARPA late last year.

I am not sure of where DARPA sees this going since we were precluded from talking to them directly between selection and award (contract negotiation time).  I'm pretty sure they want to give us some basic parameters and send us off to do great stuff.

I look forward to talking with in more detail about it in the not too distant future!

Jerry Isdale

isd...@gmail.com

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[Burt Lum]

Wow Jerry, this sounds great. This might be the kickstarter for
Hawaii's grassroots space industry. Please let me know if I can be of
any help. I would love to help hack space! You need to connect with
Wayne Shiroma of the UHEE dept. We had him on last week talking about
Cubesat. There's got to be some opportunity there.

Burt

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 12:13 PM, Jerry Isdale <isd...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Jerry Isdale]

Thanks Burt

I remember seeing the UHEE Cubesat stuff a couple years ago when they hosted the FIRST robotics kids at UHmanoa.  They had a lot of rooms open with demos.  I spent a bunch of time looking that the cubesat.

Getting the word out on SpaceGAMBIT will be important.  We will be building up a PR campaign to raise awareness of the program soon.

A key aspect of the program is the direct involvement of hackerspaces - like Hi Capacity.  It will be a requirement that grant recipients be involved with/members of a local space (makerspace, tech shop, fab lab, etc), and possibly that the space be a member of SpaceGAMBIT (which will give some voting rights i think).    Details of this are vague and developing as we type.

A big help is if anyone knows a Hawaii lawyer with good non-profit grant making experience. I need some help there.

Or if anyone has some experience with grant making organizations, I would love to talk.

There is a fair chance I'll be coming over to Oahu early October. I'd love to meet up with HiCap follks.

Jerry Isdale

isd...@gmail.com

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[Jason Axelson]

Hi Jerry,

This is very exciting! I think HI Capacity can help out some, but need
to talk in more detail before we can sign up for anything
specifically. When I was a student at UH I was actually heavily
involved in the Cubesat/Nanosat program (I was the system engineer for
a nanosat that is now scheduled to be launched soon).

Jason

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[Jeremy Chan]

Not to mention Jason was the embedded Linux software guru for his project :)

Congratulations on the grant! This is a great opportunity you brought to our state.

When you have more details about what your proposals are, I'd like to see if there's anything I can do to help. I work at the UH Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory building science satellites. I used to be a student in the UH CubeSat lab, but I got the boot shortly after I graduated ;) There might be a good opportunity for us to collaborate.

Aloha,
Jeremy

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[Jerry Isdale]

I saw the CubeSat a couple years ago when UHManoa hosted the FIRST Robotics kids for a dinner event.

I spent an hour or so looking over the project.

There is a lot of information on the program at the web site ... the about page links to the proposal documents and I just posted a blog notice about the award and some of our initial plans.

Getting the UH HSFLab involved would be cool... it needs to be done via a hackerspace though... like HiCap.  Since you (Jeremy) are involved with both, that is a great start.   I wonder if HSFL could build a sat that could fly on the Citizens In Space XCOR slots if it was done by the citizen hackers.

Jerry Isdale

isd...@gmail.com

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