I'm a nice guy launching a nice little musical satellite.  But what if I were a super-villain?  What if _you_ were a super-villain and launching your own satellite?  Think-- and listen (or read) too-- how much damage can you do from (pico)-space, my latest podcast for "365 Days of Astronomy".  And now let's expand on that.

I like rocket photos and was getting a little jealous looking at all the Copenhagen folk's photos. Where were my rocket's photos?  I'm launching the Project Calliope music satellite with Interorbital Systems (IOS) and even I don't know what my rocket looks like!

Edges are where topics intersect.  Edges are where uncomfortable thoughts reside.  Edges define a topic by being just barely part of that topic.  They are the border between what is known, and what is speculative.

Working around edges requires new methods, disruption, and massive creativity.  Web2.0 is about breaking the border between reader and creator.  Science2.0 is about expanding the choices of how we do science.  The new space race and things like the X-Prize are about breaking down the old framework of space exploration to make new methods.  Heck, DARPA is about research at the edge of things.

The SpaceUpDC.org 'unconference' last week was all about edges.

"We're building a rocket.  We're building it bigger" -  Copenhagen Suborbital.
"We've got the biggest balls of them all" - AC/DC

I'll steal UniverseToday's summary, then tell you to skip reading everyone else's coverage of it (even mine):

Ah, summer, the time to neglect thinking and just build crap.  So, much as with the DIY Clean Room, I started gathering bits to make the DIY Vacuum chamber.

I'm building a vacuum chamber to make sure that my satellite doesn't go kablooey when it hits space. Vacuum is a nasty environment.  We have no pressure, we have outgassing, and (least we not forget) we have the simple removal of air.