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 While billionaires like Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos grab headlines with big-budget private space programs, others are taking a less glamorous approach: making space exploration so cheap even a college student can afford it. In fact, there are already a few individuals operating their own satellite — on a budget.  
Professor Chris Kitts of Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley, persuaded NASA's Ames Research Center to use his students to develop a new nano satellite. They became the first students in history to help develop a control system for a NASA spacecraft. After the launch in late 2006, NASA simply gave them the satellite. Today, atop a hill above neighboring Stanford University, a handful of guys in a trailer use their laptops to communicate with their own spacecraft, which drives by every hour and a half. They are the vanguard of a new public space movement.
One of them, Giovanni Minelli, says, "We're not there yet. This is a first good hack, though, at the public being able to get into space."
Giovanni and his pals are Robotics Engineering students from Silicon Valley’s Santa Clara University. They’re benefiting from the falling costs of space, due largely to a new breed of satellite, and new launch methods. The satellite is the size of a loaf of bread, the cost of a plasma TV, and is built with off-the-shelf parts. The one belonging to this team is called GeneSat, because it contains a biology experiment. But they also go by names like nanosat, PolySat, and CubeSat. "Even commercial companies, aerospace companies, and government labs in the US are starting to build these, because it's a very clever way to get some things done for low cost,” says Rex Ridenoure of Ecliptic Enterprises Corporation. "And there's probably about 2 dozen right now ready for launch, but they don't have launches.“
Ridenoure’s company hopes to serve the new satellite market in a big way. Ecliptic gained fame by making and mounting the cameras that take those rocket launch movies that fascinate us so much. The cameras are hidden in a tiny pod on the rocket skin. Ecliptic will now put your cubesat in the pod instead. A version of the pod with a spring-loaded paddle will ride into space on the outside of a rocket, and at the appropriate time, open a trap door. Then, the spring will launch a tiny personal satellite — a nanosat.
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