There's been a lot of New Year's blathering about the Chaos Computer Club manifesto for a hacker space program; i.e., the Hackerspace Global Grid. It must be a slow news month since the original document was published back in August 2011 and seems to be more recently driven gaining a few points against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) than a basis in reality. Numerous challenges exist, but there's already been one big mistake made.

The big mistake falls into the prime directive of Fight Club. "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club," said Tyler Durden. "The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club!"

Governments large and small are already particularly touchy about unfettered and "uncensored" communications, be it for the potential to enable terrorist groups to seamlessly communicate or protest movements to escape the watchful eye of the secret police.

If you want to avoid attention from "The Man," you should very quietly conduct your business out of the public eye. Standing in front of TV cameras and announcing public goals to subvert monitoring by national authorities would seem to be a standing invitation for attracting scrutiny -- not avoiding it. 

Needless to say, the current flurry of news activity has added some documents to files around the globe, but after you clear the "Everyone's now watching/monitoring" hurdle, there's the not-insignificant issue of putting a satellite or a dozen into orbit. Putting payloads into space is currently expensive and highly regulated. While there are currently 37 (yes, thirty-seven) accessible amateur radio projects currently into orbit, each one had to jump through numerous safety and regulatory hoops to be put onboard a launch as a secondary payload for a larger (paying) customer.

About the easiest task may be actually building the satellite.   The world has standardized on the "cubesat" form factor and a number of institutions and universities have built one to three kilogram pico-sized satellites measuring 10 centimeters a side. Many of the current devices put into orbit in 2011 have used off-the-shelf components, including GPS receivers, MEMS-based IMUs, lithium-polymer batteries,and CMOS-cameras.

Next-generation cubesats are blending the established physical form factor (10 cm x 10 cm x 10cm building blocks, plus 1 kilogram or so per cube) with off-the-shelf Android (News - Alert) smartphone components. STRaND-1, built by Surry Satellite Technology (SSTL), is schedule to be launched early this year and incorporates a full-blown Google (News - Alert) Nexus One Android smartphone into a four kilogram package. Once in orbit, the phone will get a full workout of its camera, screen, processor, and onboard sensors. If all goes well, control of the satellite will be handed off to the phone to handle all operators.

If STRaND-1 works as anticipated, it will likely be the starting point for future "Hackerites." But getting them to orbit will still present a challenge.