The Next Big Mac – The ISEE-3 Reboot Project, Inside GNSS
“Here’s the coolest “technology-meets-ingenuity-meets-sustainable-economics” story that I’ve heard in a long time: the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3 (ISEE-3) Reboot Project, a crowd-funded rescue mission to repurpose a 36-year-old NASA spacecraft. Operating out of an abandoned McDonald’s restaurant near NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, a team led by former NASA employee Keith Cowing and “space technologist” Dennis Wingo cut a deal with the U.S. space agency. The group would try to wake up the ISEE-3’s onboard systems, refire its engines, bring the craft back into Earth orbit, and put the ancient mariner to work on new tasks. That’s probably the best use of an abandoned McDonald’s hamburger stand that I’ve heard. (Actually, it’s the only one I’ve heard of. Who could imagine a place and people without the need for a Big Mac?) Perhaps the Golden Arches caught their attention, but in place of the iconic curved brandmark, these visionaries saw the arcs of possible trajectories, intersections in space and time.”