Meeting Sun March 30

All:

A long month, but it is time again! This Sunday, I hope to see you all at the Spaghetti Warehouse at Plano, 6:30 pm, Sunday, March 30th (yes, I know it is the season finale of the Walking Dead, but sacrifices must be made!)

Aeola Mons Crater on Mars

Curiosity is working its way towards the final push up Aeolis Mons in Gale Crater. New data is out on radiation exposure on and on the way to Mars. And we have seen new impetus towards US based launch vehicles due to world events, even as the ISS operations stays above (figuratively as well as literally) above the fray.

Closer to home, we have convention and Moon Day planning, URC coming up, T-shirt ideas (yes, that time of year again)… For the T-shirts I think we need to have some internal discussion about alternate vendors or price hikes, as we barely broke even last year.

There is a lot to talk about, and lots to do! See you Sunday!

Kurt

Minutes for our May 2012 meeting

Seven members attended this May. We had a great meeting which opened with excited and lively discussions of SpaceX successful mission to the International Space Station. Congratulations SpaceX!

Thanks to Tom and Mark for bringing in a new remote control rover and camera. We had a great time experimenting with the rover and planning exhibits with the rover for Moon day and other chapter events.

We also discussed t-shirts for the upcoming Mars Society Convention. Thanks Mark for your creative work on the t-shirt design, it looked great!

We also talked about the university rover competition at MDRS. Kurt and Kris are planning to help out with the competition at MDRS this year.

We also discussed the upcoming Dallas Museum of Nature and Science Discovery days. Curtis mentioned NSS is planning a table at this event.

Last we discussed the AIAA awards banquet on June 7th at the Crowne Plaza. Mr. Ralph Heath is the distinguished speaker for the event. Mr. Heath recently retired from Lockheed as the executive vice president of the Aeronautics Business area.

Kris

Meeting This Sunday May 27th

All:

Yes, time for another meeting, this Sunday, 6:30 PM, Spaghetti Warehouse, Plano, TX off of Rt 75 at the 15th street exit.

Mark and Tom have been working on getting a rover and camera for moon day, and we will have a demo this Sunday.  (Dan:  please if you don’t mind to bring your monitor to see if it will work with the camera).  Plans are coming together for a great presence at this year’s Moon Day!   And I hope to hear the latest regarding T-shirt designs, and any progress on our e-publishing efforts.

Kris and I are counting down to going to MDRS to help with the URC, and expect to have much to talk about when we return for our June meeting.  Note that our June meeting will be the LAST meeting before Moon day!!  Time flies!

Registration for the conventing is open, and we should have a great line up of speakers in JPL’s backyard.  MSL continues its flawless journey to the Red planet, so let’s hope it keeps up for the nail biting entry descent and landing this August!

And, of course, SpaceX did it!!! They launched Tuesday morning and are on their way to a hoped for (and i expect they will do it) docking with the Space Station Friday.  This is a very big moment for commercial space, space exploration, and our hopes for moving forward in space exploration.

See you all Sunday!

Kurt

SpaceX Falcon 9 Has Wings

If you’ve been paying any attention, you probably already know
that SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9/Dragon to the
space station this morning. If all continues to goes according to
plan, the Dragon will rendezvous and dock with the station on
Friday.

For what it’s worth I did stay up late and live tweet the Falcon
launch for DMS on our twitter page (was glad to do it:)

http://www.twitter.com/dallasmars

Mark