September 30th meeting minutes:

There were 10 members at our September meeting.

The discussions opened with a report on the royalty from t-shirt sales at the Mars Society convention. 39 out of 41 t-shirts sold at the conference. We recieved a royalty from the Zazzle order. The group was pleased at the quality of the t-shirts which were ordered from Zazzle custom t-shirts.

A new case of Dr. Zubrin’s book The Case for Mars was received this month. The books will be given to new members and educational events.

The group discussed Perry Middle school’s space station week which is coming up in March of next year. Last year the Dallas Mars Society, the Dallas chapter of NSS, and Bent Tree Bible Fellowship church supported the design and construction of a moc-up walk in space station and a moc-up of mars with a remote control rover. Perry applied for a grant to expand the design for next year but the grant was not awarded.

We talked about the possibility of providing some of the chapter’s funding to support expansion of the design for next year. We talked about expanding on the moc-up of mars and potentially providing another rover which the kids could maneuver through obstacles. We plan to make a decision on donation at next month’s meeting.

We also talked about a new company which has opened up in North Richland Hills called The Astronaut Training Center. Kurt mentioned he would swing by there to learn more about what they offer.

We plan to print some more handouts describing the Mars society local chapter to distribute at events. Cost for printing the handouts will be reimbursed from the treasurey.

We also talked about the Augustine commission and the Summary Report of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans. The summary report has been released and is at NASA’s website Here