Joann Evans wrote:
[...]

   Which is one of many reasons many of us want to reduce the cost of
space access so that interesting, but currently unaffordable ideas of
all kinds canbe tried.

   The AMSAT (Amateur Radio Satellite) people know that a satellite
itself need not be expensive, it's getting a free/cheap ride with
someone else's payloiad, and being small/light enough to ride in the
available volume, that's hard. Reduce cost, volume and weight
constraints, and it could be done...

A UK group even managed to hitch-hike a 'cheap' ride to Mars!

(Beagle2 on Mars Express. Is it lander, is it a bolt-on 'instrument', is it a UFO, no... It's Beagle! (:-((


Regards,
Martin