See NUSAT project spawns satellite company \ y eber State and a small satellite manufacturer in California have joined forces to transfer academic development to the marketplace. Intraspace of La Mirada, Calif. and Weber State announced a joint venture to develop small satellites for commercial purposes, an effort that will result in $650,000 worth of funds to the college, an opportunity for students to work in the latest space technology, and will give the California company a chance to use small satellite technology developed at the college. “We see a broad, growing program with Weber State,” said Robert D’ Ausilio, president of Intraspace. Technology students at the college manufactured this country’s first collegebuilt satellite nicknamed NUSAT, or Northern Utah Satellite, which was launched from the space shuttle Chal- lenger in 1985. The satellite was built to help the Federal Aviation Administration better adjust the radar tracking system they use to control the nation’s airways. That launch marked not only a first for the college, but provided a surprise for the satellite industry by showing that orbiters need not cost millions of dollars, D’ Ausilio said. ““When the work at Weber State came to our attention we were justamazed. A typi- cal satellite costs $100 million, not including the cost of the launch. A little satellite (like the one constructed by WSC students) costs in the $500,000 to $1.5 million range,” he said. Prior to the college’s satellite, the space industry considered the relatively cheap satellites an impossibility. “Nobody did it the way (Weber State) did. They broke every rule in the book, but it worked, and it caused us to rethink how we build satellites. Now there’s a wide spectrum: of possibilities open to us,” D’Ausilio said. Those possibilities spawned the new company, and the benefits could well be felt world-wide, he said. “A lot of things we’ll do differently than the rest of the industry because of what we’ve seen here. We think industry _ will be surprised once we get our product in the air,” D’ Ausilio noted. Intraspace has announced a$15 million contract with Star Find, a company in California that is developing a tracking and locating system for satellites, and Intraspace is in the midst of negotiations with a third world government to build small satellites for communications purposes. The third world country expressed interest in the satellites when they saw a video tape of how Weber State students, with no prior experience, assembled a suc- cessful satellite for approximately $1.2 million, he said. “If our current negotiations are successful we have a first quarter of 1989 target date for the launch of the first satellite,” he said. The satellite company plans to move its manufacturing plant to Utah, and for at awarded $125,000 at that time to the “Nobody did it the way (Weber did....... every ficiaries of this. We already have students working on their projects, getting the kind of education and experience it would be impossible for them to get in a strictly academic setting,” Twiggs said. Utah established a Centers of Excellence funding program two years ago to encourage the transfer of ideas and products generated at state colleges and universities to the marketplace, and the state college’s aerospace center to foster small satellite growth. The Centers of Excellence program took advantage of the announcement of the agreement between In_ traspace and Weber State and awarded the State) They. .broke rule in the college another $175,000. book, but it worked, and it caused us to rethink how we build satellites.” least 18 months they will have a develop- “Utah is the 10th state in the number of new patents, and third in the number of new businesses developed on campuses. The Centers of Excellence program is an attempt to heighten those efforts, and a champion of that process has been Weber State,” said Lynn H. Blake, director of the Centers of Excellence program. “This college is recognized throughout the world for its innovation to build and fly ment site on the Weber State campus. That, said Robert Twiggs, executive director of the Center for Aerospace Technology at the college, will provide students has caused a revolution around the world in theclassroom and in technology,” Blake with a tremendous range of possibilities. said. a small satellite for a specific interest. It “The state of Utah, and especially the students of Weber State, will be the bene- Computers talk back to blind students Computers have always caused acertain degree of frustration, but now Weber State has a computer that is a step higher up the annoyance ladder. This computer talks back. The IBM machine has a computer-generated voice that tells you to “Please Wait” or when “No Such File Exists.” But the specialized equipment, that is part of the services for the physically challenged department at Weber State, is more than just an exercise in frustration. The school bought the machine to help blind students become more independent. “Y ou have to take the time to learn it, but once it’s learned then you have more freedom,” said Patricia Hashimoto, a senior who is blind. “This can do any thing any other computer can do, but this one can also talk,” said Don Guthrie, a student assistant who helps visually handicapped students work on the new computer. Besides talking, the machine can also greatly enlarge words, giving those who have some vision achance to see what they are writing, Guthrie said. “In many labs on campus the students use computers. That is hard for a blind person because they have to have an interpreter. This way the student can do their papers on their own,” he said. That independence is not easy for those who are blind, he said. Learning the program and then preparing papers and reports without being able to see requires dogged determination. The talking computer isa great asset, but even with it assignments are difficult, he said. “It’s easier for me to do the papers for the students,” Guthrie said, “and some would rather have me do itso they can save their time for other things. But these students will not have the benefits of our office out in the world. They need to be able to use the computer themselves.” “You may be lazy and think that everything will come to you, but it doesn’t,” said -Hashimoto, who is majoring in computer information systems. “It takes work.” The computer is linked to a braille printer and once a document is prepared the student can have the printer punch out acopy of their work. At that point they can check their document before they ready a final copy for their professor. “Some professors use materials prepared on computers for their class handouts or tests. In those cases we can get a copy of the faculty’s computer disc and print the handouts for the students in braille. That is a nice benefit,” he said. The blind students can adjust the computer’s voice to talk slow or fast, at a low or high pitch, and it reads documents by words, not letters. “Blind students learn to listen incredibly fast,” Guthrie said. The entire system cost close to $14,000, but a number of organizations both on and offcampus contributed enough to cover the cost of the machines and computer programs, with $1,500 left over. “Where everybody else has had the opportunity before to work on computers, I never have,” said Hashimoto. “The technology is here now so that the visually impaired can survive.”