From: Jason Reskin – reskin@pol.net (Internet E-mail)
To: Allyson Barth – Real TV
1040 Las Palmas Avenue
Stage 2
Los Angeles, Ca 90038
213-860-5134
January 11, 1998
Ms. Barth,
This is in response to your letter received via electronic mail on December 15, 1997. We are glad you are interested in the footage of our ATL (all-terrain lander) space simulator that was designed and built by myself and my friends, and is currently housed in my basement. Enclosed is video of a flight from start to finish with myself and Ian Lambert at the controls (Ian Lambert is in the left seat, the active captain’s position) that was recorded on January 3, 1998, footage from a video with a guest star during a very turbulent landing and takeoff, interview with the individuals of the team, and some shots of construction of this model, and a clip of flight video from the previous simulator.
I apologize for taking so long to get this out to you, but with the holidays and all the time has just flown by.
The tape proceeds in the following order:
July 12, 1997: Ian and Jason are assembled for introduction (Chip has the camera) and then an inside tour of the simulator in a powered down state is conducted. Then back outside to show complex wiring and the sign showing the simulator’s christened name, Audrey. Next, some old footage of the construction is shown when a mini-lab was set up just outside the ship to do programming.
Then we go upstairs to show the dockmaster’s station where other vessels are controlled from during the simulation. This does not require a human, but the logic is more realistic when an extra hand is available.
August 3, 1997: Ian and Jason are doing a test flight when a component of the TC controller blew out.
To show that ready access is important, the panel is removed and the component is replaced
with little delay as would be required in a real vessel’s avionics bay.
January 3, 1998: Ian and Jason on another test flight, undocking procedure and orbital insertion. This is
interrupted but returned to later to complete the rest of the tape because of…
December 28, 1997: Ian and Joanna; a much more impressive planetfall ending in a crash landing and
then a takeoff after simulated repairs are made, both during simulated turbulence.
July 12, 1996: Footage from one of the previous (much larger) simulators with a full crew of 6 people,
Phillip, Bryan, Ian, Jason, Wade, and Robert conducting cartography and rendevous with a
Unistellar port in the Betelguese system.
The tape ends with the rest of the flight from January 3, 1998 including the shutdown sequence which I
thought may work well with your credits at the end of the program like you do.
Here are the facts, as requested:
The simulator is the 8th in a series of simulators we have made over the last 10 years. This one is the second smallest, and the only one that is completely self-contained (all of the components are enclosed within the framing so it can be moved, lifted, or even shook around on a 6-axis platform like the professional flight simulators use.
The simulator weighs almost 2000 pounds (a ton) and rests on 5 shock/strut assemblies taken right out of cars at a salvage yard. It is powered by eleven Intel 80486 computers on a 10 mega-bit network.
The simulator runs on 3 kilowatts of electricity an hour (about as much as 2 or 3 hairdryers) and has its
cell power supply, environmental systems (heating, air-conditioning, air-filtration, and ventilation) as well as lighting and supply boxes for rations (especially nice on long missions).
The simulator is housed in my parent’s house, where I still live while attending college. Our house is in Kansas City on the Missouri side about 5 minutes south of Kansas City International Airport under the runway 1L glide path. The exact address is listed at the top of this document.
The simulator can be flown by one occupant, but the workload is cut into a third if one additional person is available. A jump seat is available for a observer inside the cockpit itself. We also have a position for a dockmaster (kind of like an air traffic controller) when there are enough hands available.
Involved since the beginning are…
Jason Reskin, age 22, currently attending Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri as an Aviation and Flight Operations major in my 1st year. I currently hold an FAA private pilot certificate and, by the time you receive this, I should have my instrument rating added to that. I also have 4 years of programming and network experience with a company I owned between the ages of 17 and 21 that was a licensed Missouri corporation called Tyrell Corporation which is also the name of the company from the movie Blade Runner (1982, Harrison Ford).
My role is 90% of the programming, 100% of the hardware/software purchase and maintenance,
90% of the construction, and 100% of the cost involved (well over $40,000 including the other 7
ships that have been made), 75% of the design on this model, and since it is in my house, I am available for 100% of the flights we take.
Ian Lambert, age 21, currently attending Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas as an architectural major in his 5th year. He really doesn’t want to be an architect, he would rather make movies for a living when he is out of school. He has realized a lot of potential with set building as a result of his involvement. He also has an active imagination and helps give purpose to some of our flights by developing adventures and creating other ships and docks that we can interact with.
His role is 10% of the construction and 25% of the design of this particular model, 5% of the programming, and is available about 50% of the time, or whenever his girlfriend isn’t.
Wade Tripp, age 23, a graduate of the University of Missouri in Kansas City as a computer science major with an emphasis in software engineering. He works part-time at a local library and full-time at Park College in their CIS department. Wade is somewhat difficult to impress. He reads a lot and has the largest collection of books that I know of aside from the library he works for. He enjoys science fiction films and programming.
His role is 5% of the programming and is available about 50% of the time.
There are others that have had involvement at one point in their lives with our project, but had to move on with education, family, and employment. This may happen to everyone someday, but for now we are just having great fun. Included in that list is Philip LaFollette, Bryan Ball, Aric Wilkerson, Jonathan Lewis, Jeff Epperly, Casie Harmen, Amy Riley, Jenny Locks, Chip Fay, Joanna Keele, Robert Grabowski, and Rachael Grabowski.
We have 30 tapes each from different missions that we went on, all of them are hours long. I tried to send you as much recent and interesting footage as I think you could use. If there is any particular mission you would like to have the entire flight video for, I can copy it in an instant.
If there is anything else I can provide, explain, or do, please let me know! My home number (weekends) is (redacted) and my home number (at school) is 816-543-0183.
Jason Reskin
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