Forty years ago, the future seemed just around the corner—and the vehicle that was going to take us there was NASA's Space Shuttle. Originally envisioned as part of a larger integrated space transportation system, the shuttle was billed as a fully reusable vehicle, totally unlike the one-and-done capsules of the fading Apollo era, capable of making monthly (and perhaps even weekly) ferry flights to low Earth orbit.

The shuttle, it was hoped, would transform human space flight from extraordinary to mundane. Brands like Coke and Pepsi were quick to hop aboard and expand the Cola Wars into space, and there were even plans to blast Sesame Street's Big Bird into orbit.

The loss of Challenger in January 1986—carrying educator Christa McAuliffe, who would have been the first private citizen in space—put the kibosh on all of that. The shuttle, while fantastically advanced, would never be the vehicle to help humankind slip all of our surly bonds, so to speak. Even operating at its most frantic peak in 1985 just before Challenger's loss, the shuttle hardware managed a maximum of nine flights in one calendar year; for most of the 1990s, it performed at five or six flights per year. Civilians in space—to say nothing of Big Bird—would have to wait.

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Ever since the first Linux capable single-board computers came out, there have been projects turning them into handhelds. The Raspberry Pi Zero and in particular the Compute Modules are ideally suited to this. While there are more common projects that find their way into our feed we’ve certainly seen a few of them in our time, enough now that a new one has to be special to really catch our eye. Which brings us to the PiBrick from [Ahmad Amarullah], which sets the bar pretty high.

The device is a Compute Module 5 smartphone sized computer with a 3.92″ OLED touch display and the ubiquitous BlackBerry-derived keyboard. It’s drawn together with a PCB that holds all components and peripherals, and this and the 5000 mAH battery fit in a 3D printed shell that gives it the form factor of a chunky smartphone. You can see it at the link above, and also find it in a GitHub repository.

Handheld computers always represent something of a compromise as they can only ever offer relatively small screens and keyboards. But they live or die on their versatility and robustness, both of which this one has in spades. We like it, a lot.

Thanks [Nick] for the tip.