This upcoming Saturday is the 50th anniversary special of the amazing British sci-fi series Doctor Who, one of the longest-running British shows on television. Personally, I thought I could not possibly be more excited about it, until I found out about this Kickstarter campaign, which is launching an actual TARDIS into space.
For those of you who are unfamilair with Doctor Who, TARDIS stands for “Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space.” It’s a time machine, disguised as a police call box. Using it, the Doctor (Doctor Who, you ask? Apparently we’ll find out Saturday) can transport himself and its occupants to any point in time and space. It looks like this, normally accompanied by beautiful, talented actors like David Tennant, Matt Smith, and the newest addition, Peter Capaldi:
TARDIS with its eleventh doctor, Matt Smith. Don't worry, it's bigger on the inside
One of these will be put into orbit after Doctor Who's 50th anniversary, thanks to this Kickstarter campaign by 3 Stags Production, which raised nearly triple their campaign goal on the crowdfunding site. The creators have built a real replica of the TARDIS—not a small plastic model, a huge replica—that they will be putting into an actual rocket and launching into a Low Earth Orbit, so it will orbit by the International Space Station. According to the countdown on the project's personal site, the launch will occur in 38 days, 12 hours and 34 minutes.
“Seriously,” says the campaign page. “The guys on the International Space Station will be able to look out their windows and say “Check out that police call box floating by.”
Their TARDIS is built from lightweight aluminum and has been scaled down to about 1 foot to compensate for the weight issue of launching it into space. It comes with solar cells that will power the light on top of the box so it will blink as it orbits the Earth. Furthermore, the creators of the project also installed the TARDIS with a GoPro Hero 3 camera, also charged by the solar panels, that will take photos of the Earth from orbit, complete with a magnetic passive attitude control system to keep it pointed toward the Earth. The creators are using SSDs for memory, as typical hard drives cannot operate in zero gravity. The TARDIS is also equipped with an ISIS antenna system and a CubeComputer to control operations on board once it is in space.
The creators will send their TARDIS to an aerospace company that will launch it into orbit, for the very low price of $33,000, as it will be sharing space with other satellites currently being put into orbit. During its funding period, this May through June, the campaign raised $88,880 — which means, barring unforeseen complications, it will be launched!
So just to recap: not only are us Doctor Who fans getting an anniversary special this Saturday complete with appearances by David Tennant and Billie Piper, we will also soon be launching a real-life TARDIS into orbit, one that will soon bring us pictures of the Earth as it loops around our planet.
We'll get to see space from the TARDIS, guys. Pretty much living the dream–at least until we can build an actual functioning TARDIS.
To find out more information about the 3 Stags TARDIS, visit their Kickstarter campaign, or the project’s own site!
Source Kickstarter
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