CubeSat launch.An American who recently completed a personal mission of carrying a 40-pound cross around the world and made the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's longest trek, will next send a four inch version of the cross into space. The cross is fashioned from the first cross he carried, which measured 12 feet by six feet, and will accompany a tiny Bible, to orbit the world. When evangelist evangelist (ĭvăn`jəlĭst) [Gr.,=Gospel], title given to saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four evangelists are often symbolized respectively by a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle, on the basis of Rev. 4.6–10. Arthur Blessitt Arthur Blessitt (born October 27, 1940 in Greenville, Mississippi, United States) is a travelling Christian preacher, most famous for being involved with George W. Bush's conversion to Jesus on April 3 1984. , 60, returned from his most recent trek in March, across Cocos Island
Cocos Island (Spanish: Isla del Coco) is an island located off the shore of Costa Rica. , the Coral Sea Islands Coral Sea Islands, external territory of Australia, comprising scattered small islands and reefs spread over c.400,000 sq mi (1,035,995 sq km) of the South Pacific Ocean, E of the Great Barrier Reef, off NE Australia. and Tasmania, he created the smaller cross, soaked it in a preservative preservative Any of numerous chemical additives used to prevent or slow food spoilage caused by chemical changes (e.g., oxidation, mold growth) and maintain a fresh appearance and consistency. Antimycotics (e.g. , and placed it in a transparent Plexiglas cube, called a CubeSat. Mr. Blessitt, who began his country by country trek in 1969, has walked through 290 nations with the large redwood cross on his back over a period of 31 years. He has been arrested 24 times and said he has walked across all seven continents. In his trip notes contained on his website, Mr. Blessitt said that over the years he has been turned away from half the churches where he requested a place for the cross overnight, but that the cross was never refused an overnight stay at a bar or a nightclub. In November, the small replica of Mr. Blessitt's larger cross will be one of nearly two dozen payloads launched into Earth orbit from Russia aboard a decommissioned SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile intercontinental ballistic missile: see guided missile. . The missile will blast off from Kazakhstan in November, 2001. It will be the first cross ever sent into orbit. "CubeSats provide access to space for a mission at approximately $45,000, which is millions of dollars lower than anyone else," Mr. Blessitt said in an interview with a U.S. writer. Few organizations will launch two-pound (four kilogram kilogram, abbr. kg, fundamental unit of mass in the metric system, defined as the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram, a platinum-iridium cylinder kept at Sèvres, France, near Paris. ) satellites, he noted. Bob Twiggs, director of Stanford University's Space Systems Development Laboratory, invented the CubeSat as a way to help doctoral students take a satellite project from concept through launch in less than a year. "I needed to find a quick way to build a satellite and a way to launch them at a reasonable price," he said. Most CubeSats will orbit at low altitude and be taken out of space in a year or two to minimize orbiting junk, but Mr. Blessitt's is set to go to 350 miles and stay up 150 years. |
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