EDIT: If you want to stay updated, send an email to [email protected]. Now we will gather the interest, later on we will meet up and focus on developing this concept.

I have contributed to CSTART (an existing open source space program), but things are not moving forward. There are no real life results. There are only ideas and halfway completed CAD models. I think the largest reason for this is due to lack of participants and a lack of organization.

Is there interest to start fresh? We can, of course, transfer the good that came from CSTART, or even build upon what is existing. I have the desire to somehow make it to space on my own, but it will be much more fun if this can be done as a collaboration.

If there is interest, I would like to propose an organizational structure like this. We can modify this to include other things that interest people, such as rovers, but let's try to keep it realistic.

The CSTART Strategy Team. This team is responsible for various things, such as, communicating to the organization as a whole, keeping the website and blog up to date, ensuring that all programs are aligned (Chimera, Cloudlab & Cosmos), filing for non-profit status (which will allow us to sell t-shirts) and general marketing to get others interested.

• Program Chimera is a program dedicated to developing hybrid rockets, starting with a rocket with the sole goal of reaching space (100km altitude).

• Program Cloudlab is a program dedicated to creating high-altitude weather balloons. The idea behind this program is to test various components at high altitude, which will then be used in other programs such as Chimera.

• Program Cosmos is a program to develop CubeSats. Not much has been done on this front, but this should change.

So, what do you think? Is it a good idea? Open source space and hardware is not realistic and we should leave it to the professionals?

Sorry if this is getting across your subreddits. I have posted to r/space, r/science, r/engineering, r/spaceflight, r/AskEngineers and r/SpaceCenter.