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View Winners → Monrovia Inventor Develops International Space Station Locater System for Your Home
Monrovia Weekly Apr 19, 2016
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On Friday, April 15, Kennedy installed his special little gadget which brought forth the ISS live into Pam Thompson’s astronomy class at Monrovia High School. – Photo by Terry Miller
Monrovia High School Accepts Gift of ‘ISS-Above’
By Terry Miller
There is something truly fantastic going on about six to eight times a day, miles above Monrovia and all around the globe. You can actually see it with the naked eye once a day. However, up until now, you could not see the absolute wonders that the astronauts witness every day onboard the International Space Station (ISS) in real time.
Enter British native Liam Kennedy who has a passionate curiosity about life and loves fiddling around with electronics/computers, as well as writing code. He has figured a way for all of us to see our planet as the highly trained astronauts on board the station do.
On Friday, April 15, Kennedy installed his special little gadget which brought forth the ISS live into Pam Thompson’s astronomy class at Monrovia High School.
The 17-year-old students expressed their elation as they watched the space station fly right over Monrovia at about 1:40 p.m. There were some minor glitches when NASA cut off the live feed for whatever reason, but the image of the earth as the six astronauts see it was clearly visible for some time.
The 17-year-old students expressed their elation as they watched the space station fly right over Monrovia at about 1:40 p.m. – Photo by Terry Miller
After two years in the development stages and a Kickstarter campaign, plus a big plug from Bill Nye, Kennedy’s dream is now a reality. Kennedy has already shipped over 1,200 of these devices worldwide – and his dream is to have one in every school in the country, perhaps the world.
As an aside, Kennedy tells us that Bill Nye has applied to go aboard the space station more than 20 times and, unfortunately, NASA says sorry Science Guy.
A dream? Perhaps! However, stranger things have happened. Remember Bill Gates’ famous quote over 30 years ago that has now become far more than a reality?
“Early on, Paul Allen and I set the goal of a computer on every desk and in every home. It was a bold idea and a lot of people thought we were out of our minds to imagine it was possible,” Gates wrote. “It is amazing to think about how far computing has come since then, and we can all be proud of the role Microsoft played in that revolution.” – Bill Gates.
La Canada, La Crescenta, Pasadena schools, and now Monrovia High are all excited about this wonderful little gadget that is about the size of a GoPro camera but lets you see your world exactly as the six astronauts see it from about 249 miles above the earth.
Even though the ISS is travelling at 17,150 miles per hour, you can see the earth in all its wondrous glory as if you were piloting the Space Station yourself.
The remarkable images from the ISS will hopefully give us all pause for peace.
The back story to this is how Kennedy created the first units because he wanted to inspire his grandkids – and how that became a Kickstarter crowd-funded success, ultimately becoming Bill Nye “the science guy’s’’ latest obsession:
Kennedy was invited to NASA’s Johnson Space Center to meet with astronauts and other key people at NASA … now NASA is buying his invention for their own use.
Kennedy’s passion not only for the product but for humanity came out during his presentation at Monrovia High. Describing how incredible it is to have six astronauts manning ISS 24 hours a day, Kennedy says it is a great example of how peace can be achieved with international cooperation.
Currently there are three Russian astronauts, two Americans, and one British astronaut keeping a watchful eye on our planet from almost 250 miles up.
The ISS-Above is a single-board computer with a program that calculates where the ISS is at all times. Hook it up to a TV and it displays screens with information that show you where the ISS is and when you can see it in your skies.
The ISS-Above is a single-board computer with a program that calculates where the ISS is at all times. Hook it up to a TV and it displays screens with information that show you where the ISS is and when you can see it in your skies. – Photo by Terry Miller
Where is the Space Station right now? How fast it is going? When will it be in my skies? Can I see it? When? Who is on board?
These are just some of the questions that the ISS-Above answers, albeit with a little help from our friends at NASA. As Kennedy so rightly says, “We are One Earth….”
When you have one in your home, school or office, it is an ever-present reminder of the ISS, its location, the humans onboard, the view of the Earth “from there,” and facts and figures about this most significant of human scientific achievements.
For more information visit www.issabove.com.
