April 2012 Meeting Minutes

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A few weeks late, but here are the meeting minutes for April, 2012:

We had productive and lively meeting, with 9 people attending.

Tom gave a brief on the results of the debate team’s trip to the final’s in New York. Tom’s wife Donna has been coached a local home schooled debate team regarding the role of manned space exploration. Our group has been helping along as we have seem these bright high school students rise up to the final 8 teams in the world and go to the finals in New York, an incredible achievement. Unfortunately, in New York they lost in the first round – luck must not have been with them this time. But we applaud how far they have got, and we all enjoyed the ride!

We also had a discussion of the Mars Society related materials owned by our late member, Roger Carr. It is Mimi’s wish to bequeath it to our Chapter: We discussed the legal aspects of this. Dan went over the material- ‘The Case for Mars’ books, convention T-shirts etc, and a Mars globe that will look great on our Moon Day table.

Tom showed us the banner and stand he had made using the design the Mark created. It is a stunning visual display, and will definitely give our table at Moon Day, the convention, or any other event (like our monthly meetings!) a distinctly professional and compelling appearance. As per the group’s approval, we reimbursed Tom for $100 towards the cost of the banner, and Tom picked up the rest of the cost (Thank you Tom!).

I talked about his annual talk at the SMU gifted boys program where he talked about Mars and Mars direct. The talk is always popular, and I had over 60 students attend in the afternoon session.

I also admitted that given my workload I will simply not be able give the time that it deserves to the book project of publishing all the past papers. I handed the CD’s over to Dan – Dan and Kris will work on organizing them now. Progress is slow but is still happening!

Plans were made for Tom and Mark to find a rover for Moon Day – according to the San Diego Chapter rovers are real attention getters both from the public and the media. Progress on that is promising and ongoing!

Kris and I confirmed that we will go out to MDRS to help with the University Rover Competition (it is now less than two weeks away!). This will the first time out to MDRS for the both of us.

Mark also took on working up a T-shirt design – the convention is coming, and a MSL themed T-shirt is sure to sell well this year.

Both Moon Day (July 21) and the Mars Society Convention (August 3 – 5) are coming up and registration for the convention is open!

till our next meeting on May 27!

Kurt

Why we shouldn’t wait to go to Mars

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Editor’s note: Robert Zubrin, an astronautical engineer, is president of The Mars Society and author of “The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must,” recently updated and republished by Simon & Schuster.

In the opinion piece “Mars can wait. Oceans can’t,” published recently on CNN.com, Amitai Etzioni says that we should defer Mars exploration because the seas have a higher priority. While I have the highest regard for ocean exploration, the fact of the matter is that there are numerous agencies – including the U.S. Navy, the navies of other countries, academic institutions, research organizations, corporations and James Cameron personally – that are more than adequately financed and equipped to carry it out.

The idea that we need to suspend space exploration in order to provide the necessary resources to probe the oceans is categorically absurd. So let’s call it like it is: The argument that we should explore the oceans instead of space is not a call to search the seas, but simply a disingenuous way to give up our effort to reach the Red Planet.

But why should we try? There are three reasons.

Full Story

March Meeting Minutes

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Yes, a bit late, but here are the March meeting minutes.

We had 8 in attendance, including Donna dropping in to give an update on the debate team’s progress. They sound like they are doing well and more than holding their own in the back and forth in the tough final written rounds. We should hear the results from the final oral arguments in NYC in the next meeting!

We were all saddened to hear of Roger Carr’s passing a few weeks ago, and the society chapter agreed to donate $200 of the chapter’s funds to the National Mars Society in his memory at the next convention. we will miss Roger in Pasadena.

We discussed preparations for a variety of upcoming events, including Tom’s search for a rover for moon day, possibly getting a Mars globe for our table, and Tom showed us some first class draft posters he made. This will draw attention to our table, and we can use it in other locations (like our monthly meetings!), outreach events, and the T-shirt table at the national convention!. We agreed to use $100 of chapter funds towards a display stand, with Tom agreeing to cover any charges above that (thanks Tom!).

Mark has been working with Tom to refine the poster image, and we hope to have a final version for the next meeting.

Other upcoming events include supporting the University Rover Challenge at MDRS in late May – it looks like Kurt and Kris are going to take the plunge and go – a first to MDRS for both of us. Kurt was gearing up for his annual talk to the gifted students program at SMU, and we discussed T-shirt designs.

We’ll hear progress on these fronts and more at next month’s meeting! We will gather together next week on Sunday, April 29 at the Spaghetti Warehouse on rt 75 and 15th street in Plano at 6:30. same time – same same place!

We hope to have a final version of our display poster, and discuss other preparations for our Moon Day display, such as a rover!

Also we should get a final report on the local debate team’s performance in the NYC finals from Tom.

Kris and Kurt have committed to going to support the annual University Rover Competition at the MDRS hab in Hanksville, Utah in late May (but after our May meeting).

Kurt will give a outbrief of the talk at the SMU gifted boys program for 7th graders (my talk on Mars – it went very well, and had over 60 students in one session).

We also need to start on T-shirt designs and orders in earnest….

Mars continues to be in the news, or rather the threat to the entire Mars exploration budget for the next several years. NASA looks to be trying to push any new starts in Mars exploration out to beyond 2018, but the fight continues in congress. I’m sure we’ll hear more from Bob at the convention. In the meantime MSL continues its travel to Mars flawlessly, and MAVEN – the next and last planned US Mars mission – an orbiter looking at Mars’s atmosphere, is preparing for a 2013 launch.

The sign up for the Pasadena conference is open – I hope we can have a big turnout to see MSL land! This will be the biggest Mars event for many a year – i am looking forward to savoring it.

Kurt

ZUBRIN: Obama shoots down Mars exploration

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Space community outraged as real missions are replaced by simulated science

In its budget submitted to Congress Feb. 13, the Obama administration zeroed out funding for NASA’s future Mars exploration missions. The Mars Science Lab Curiosity is en route to the red planet, and the nearly completed small Maven orbiter, scheduled for launch in 2013, will be sent, but that’s it. No funding has been provided for the Mars probes planned as joint missions with the Europeans for 2016 and 2018, and nothing after that is funded, either. This poses a crisis for the American space program.

Continue Reading at Washington Times

Donation in Memory of Roger Carr

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All:

At our last chapter meeting, on March 25, we agreed to donate $200 from chapter funds in a donation in Roger’s name to the National Mars Society.  We will give a check from our account to National during the fund raiser and dinner banquet at the next national convention in Pasadena this year.

For those who wish to donate towards this gift, you can give money to our account by giving them to Dan, our treasurer.  If the amount given for this purpose exceeds $200 then we will give the total given to National.  (Note that money given to our chapter is not tax deductible as we are not a registered charity.  Donations given directly to the Mars Society are of course deductible.  Please e-mail me directly if you want more details.)

Kurt

Godspeed, Roger Carr

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I have the sad news to tell all of you that Roger Carr passed away last week after a battle with cancer. Many of you remember Roger as one of the founding members of our chapter, and a founding member of the national Mars Society, a faithful member, stalwart soldier of T-shirt sales, and a tireless activist for space. He passed away in Maryland, where he had moved after he retired from the Dallas area. He was 68 years old.

Kurt

Meeting Minutes for February 2012

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All:

Our attendance was 14 at last month’s meeting – a near record.  Of course, that is one more than the current record of people in space at one time, something to think about:  we’ve come a long way (we had 13 people in space at one time!) and have a long way to go (the largest number sent into space at one time could fit in a restaurant room).

We welcomed Ken R., President of the Dallas Chapter of the National Space Society, who gave a very broad and informative overview of the space program and the different directions it could go after the Shuttle.  There is an old saying ‘a seed must die for a flower to bloom’, and while the Shuttle was inspiring in its day, its passing will enable new adventures.  Ken’s discussion and slide show set a new standard for our group. Thank you Ken!

We also welcomed the three students and their coaches from the student debate team. The team is one of 8 finalists debating on an international level, discussing whether human travel should play a significant role in space travel: our group has been helping them prepare. Good luck and go get them in New York!

We also discussed Dr. Zubrin’s talk on the Space Show on February 21st (http://www.thespaceshow.com).

We then closed the meeting with a discussion of Kurt’s upcoming presentation for gifted students at SMU, and Moon Day which will be held at the Frontiers of Flight Museum on July 21st .

Next month we can continue our plans for Moon Day, supporting the University Rover Competition, the preparation of the papers from the past conventions (still moving forward slowly), and of course the upcoming national convention in LA, coincident with the landing of Mars Science Laboratory.  On a more serious note, we have to still keep up the struggle to bring back Mars funding into NASA’s budget.  The issue is not dead, and the battle is still undecided.  More on that later.

See you in a few weeks!

Kurt

Meeting This Week, Sunday, Feb 26!

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All:

Yes, it is time again!  Meeting this Sunday, February 26, at the Spaghetti Warehouse in Plano, off of rt 75 at 15th street, at 6:30pm.

Ken of the NSS will be there to give a 60 – 90 minute talk about space exploration – everything from near term to space based solar power and whatever.  He brings his own projector and so this promises to be a good show.

Tom brings us news of success with the student debating team arguing the issue of manned space exploration (I won’t tell all the details, but they have won an all expense paid trip to NYC, so they are doing mighty well!)  our dallas chapter has had the opportunity to help coach them on the next round as the argue for ‘The Case for Mars’.

Kris brings us more on the slow but still moving forward saga of publishing the past Mars convention papers, and the URC competition.

Also on our minds is the fateful 2013 NASA budget, which promises to knock back Mars exploration by years (that is a lot of extra spaghetti dinners till our last meeting – we’ll have that one while watching the first human set foot on Mars).  We really do need a call to arms on this one, and we can discuss what we have done and will do.  If you have already written your congressman or the President, please bring a printout of your letter to share with the group.

See you this Sunday.

Kurt

Urgent Call to Save the Mars Missions

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Dear Friends:

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has zeroed funding for NASA’s future Mars exploration missions. The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity is en route to the Red Planet, while the small MAVEN orbiter is scheduled for launch in 2013, but that’s it. No funding has been provided for the Mars probes planned as joint missions with the Europeans for 2016 and 2018, and nothing after that is funded either.  This poses a grave crisis for all of us hoping for a human future in space.

NASA’s Mars exploration program has been brilliantly successful because, since 1994, it has been approached as a campaign, with probes launched every biennial opportunity, alternating between orbiters and landers. As a result, combined operations have been possible, with orbiters providing communication links and reconnaissance guidance for surface rovers, which in turn can conduct ground-truth investigations of orbital observations. Thus, the great treks of the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, launched in 2003, were supported from above by Mars Global Surveyor (MGS, launched in1996), Mars Odyssey (launched in 2001), and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO, launched in 2005). But after serving 10 years on orbit, MGS is now lost, and if we wait until the 2020s to resume Mars exploration, the rest of the orbiters will be gone as well. Moreover, so will be the experienced teams that created them. Effectively, the whole program will be completely wrecked, and we will have to start again from scratch.

Furthermore, if the OMB cuts are allowed to prevail, we will not only destroy America’s Mars exploration program, but derail that of our European allies as well. The 2016 and 2018 missions have been planned as a NASA/ESA joint project, with the Europeans contributing over $1 billion to the effort. But if America betrays its commitment, the European supporters of Mars explorations will be left high and dry, and both the missions, and the partnership, will be lost.

America’s human spaceflight program is currently completely adrift. Unless it is reorganized as a mission-driven directorate committed to efficiently achieving important objectives within a meaningful timeframe, it may well prove to be indefensible in the face of the oncoming fiscal tsunami. But the Mars program is defensible. It has real and rational objectives, reasonable costs, and a terrific track record of success. It can and must be saved.

There is no justification for the proposed cuts. The U.S. federal government may be going broke, but it’s not because of NASA. Since 2008, federal spending has increased 40 percent, but NASA spending has only increased 5 percent. Trillions of dollars of out of control entitlement spending cannot be remedied by cuts in NASA, or even in the entire discretionary budget, defense included. Rather, the financial bleeding needs to be staunched where the hole is, and nowhere else.

In any case, cost is not the issue. With the Europeans putting up their share, a matching $1 billion contribution from NASA spread over the next six years would be sufficient to fund both the 2016 and 2018 missions at a level of a billion dollars each. This would require less than 1 percent of NASA’s current budget. There is no excuse for not doing this.

The Mars program is not being terminated to make funds available for future missions to other planets. In fact, there is no money in the OMB plan to fund any of them, either.

America’s planetary exploration program is one of the great chapters in the history of science, civilization, and of our country. Its abandonment represents nothing else than an embrace of American decline. This is unacceptable.

Mars is key to humanity’s future in space. It is the closest planet that has all the resources needed to support life and technological civilization. Its complexity uniquely demands the skills of human explorers, who will pave the way for human settlers. It is, therefore, the proper goal for NASA’s human spaceflight program, and the proper priority for its robotic scouts. The human spaceflight program may be in disarray, but the scouts have been making progress, and are set to make more, if only we continue with them.

If we allow the OMB to shut down the Mars exploration effort, NASA will lose its most effective endeavor – one of the few that delivers the goods that justify the entire space program as a national enterprise, the nation will lose one its crown jewels, the scientists will lose their chance to find life beyond Earth, and humanity will lose the one significant effort that is making real and visible progress towards opening the frontier on another world. We can’t let that happen.

So friends, here is where we need to make a stand. There is no excuse for wrecking the Mars program. The nation can afford it, and walking away from it is walking away from success, from our allies, from science, from greatness, from the pioneer spirit, and from our future.  Everyone needs to mobilize now to save the 2016 and 2018 Mars missions!   Write your congressman, or better yet, call up his or her local office and set up a meeting.  Have a talk with your Senators’ local staffers as well.  Write the White House, and let the people there know what you think.  Write to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.  He needs to hear from you too.

This is a fight we can and must win. It’s time to speak up!

Robert Zubrin

President, Mars Society