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Actions & Discussions Town Meeting Discussions Elections 2010 Moon Miners' Manifesto, other Publications Chapters & Outposts International Presence Events Publicity Meetings Calendar Pre-Frontlines Reports 2008.02.15 2006.01.30 All Reports |
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The President reported on a proposal he has sent to the American Lunar Society (amateur astronomers who enjoy viewing and studying the Moon) upon their invitation, to begin work on defining standards and proposing protocols for a National Park System on the Moon. The proposal is published online here. If there is sufficient constructive feedback, it would be revised and distributed to a wider circle of interested parties. This is an attempt to act preventively to avoid another "Tragedy of the Commons" type disaster-in-the-making that we have with Space Debris.The Administration's "change of direction" detailed in the proposed 2011 NASA Budget. Many members, and some leaders, are still in shock about the cancellation of the Constellation-Moonbase program. The Committee feels that we must act quickly to change this atmosphere to one of optimistic anticipation. There is an amazing list of forward-thinking measures in the Obama proposal, and we want members and visitors to know that in that light, the future for a lunar frontier has never looked better. We are just going to reach that goal by a better route, one in consonance with traditional American free enterprise values.There is no timeline for this project. The idea is first to protect sensitive areas from development by a system similar to our national parks, monuments, forests, etc. and to have this in place prior to any re-discussion of a brand new Moon Treaty that allows creation of a lunar frontier, but preserves the appearances of the Moon, both as seen from Earth and from lunar orbit, and also on the surface. Such a regime, if adopted prior to discussion of a new Moon Treaty, would belay the reasonable fears of many that we would "trash the Moon."To get this message across, on May 8th, we released a top-of-the-list front page announcement. In the first few days this announcement has gotten more positive feedback than all the announcements of the past few years put together.
A Lunar Frontier - Things are Looking Better than Ever!With the 2010 International Space Development Conference in Chicago coming up at the end of the month, we have been revising our Exhibit "message" and handout "flyers" accordingly.Proposed Collaboration with the Planetary Society: There has been no response to the two collaboration proposals (listed below) that we sent to retiring Planetary Society Executive Director Louis Friedman. We are determined, however, and will look for other cosponsors for the second of these.
The next Management Committee Meeting, an official Board Meeting, will be on May 19th
- promoting a NASA demonstration of beaming laser power from ground to space for propulsion of the new solar sail to fastest ever speed, to catch up with the Voyagers in a few years, bound for interstellar space.
- cosponsor an engineering competition for a lander-rover that can winch itself down a lavatube skylight (on both Moon and Mars) and produce radar maps at intervals of the skylight shaft and the lavatube, based on NASA's Axel design concept.
If you would like the Management Committee to consider a new initiative or idea, contact president@moonsociety.org
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The time is Time: 9-11 pm ET, 8-10 pm CT, 7-9 pm MT, 6-8 pm PT Wed = 2-4 am Thurs UT (GMT)
Town Meetings will be held the week before the Board Meetings in February, May, and August - that is, three times a year - There is a calendar listing Society Meetings at the bottom of the Conferences 2010 page. You may download this one-page ready-to-print calendar with several artwork options from the bottom of our Downloads Page.
The ballot has been set, published in the May issue of Moon Miners' Manifesto, #235, and sent by email to all members for whom we have valid email addresses. Note: if you use an aggressive spam filter such as Earthlink's, and do not "white list" the following email addresses, you will not receive timely information:toppresident@moonsociety.org - messages from the Society PresidentMoon Society Officers:
kokhmmm@aol.com - messages from the Society President
wsd-admin@moonsociety.org - notices that the latest edition of our newsletter is ready for downloag
President: for a two year term, ending in 2012: Peter Kokh
Secretary: for a two year term, ending in 2012: No candidate was nominated. If you are interested in this position, please contact president@moonsociety.org with "Moon Society Secretary" in the subject line, and we can inform you of duties and other details. The Board can appoint someone to this position.
Three Moon Society Director Positions:
For a two year term: Ben Nault, Fred Hills
For the second year of a vacated two year term: David A. Dunlop
Ballots must be returned by August 1st to be counted
Ballots can be emailed to secretary@moonsociety.org
Or mailed to The Moon Society, P.O. Box 940825, Plano, TX 75094-082
All "M3IQ" issues may be freely downloaded from this addressMMM Themes Collections - http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/mmm_themes/
http://www.moonsociety.org/india/mmm-india/
The following issues have been published:Introducing new, special "Vector" pages:
We are working on the following
- Mars 1 & 2
- Eden on the Moon 1 & 2 (environmental themes)
- Select Editorials
- Asteroids
- Tourism
- Research
Next on the list are
- The Lunar Economy (Exo-economics)
- At Home on the Moon
These Theme Issues are, like the Classics, free access pdf files, no member username and password needed. See download address above.
- Lunar Resources & Industries
- The Lunar Homestead
- Arts & Crafts, Performing Arts
- Health, Sports and Exercise
- Other Destinations: Mercury, Venus, Europa, and other Solar System Destinations
These publications will appear as we find time to put them together. A fringe benefit of organizing all past articles by theme, is that it can serve as preparation for an eventual “MMM the Book.” That is a project title, not the book title, which will be determined later.
Members and visitors may wonder what the Moon Society stance may be on interrelated space issues. The following pages are now online:
Yet to come:
- http://www.moonsociety.org/mars/
- http://www.moonsociety.org/asteroids/
- http://www.moonsociety.org/tourism/
- http://www.moonsociety.org/research/
- http://www.moonsociety.org/art/ - the idea behind this page is to help members and visitors visualize the possibilities!
- http://www.moonsociety.org/astronomy/
- others?
We hope to make these pages accessible by direct link from our homepage. The current idea is to add a "Vectors Menu" just below the "Destinations Menu" in the right hand column of our homepage.
If you have a "high frontier" tale in you, work it out and email it to moonbeams@moonsociety.org2010 1-sheet Meetings Calendars have been published, in 7 artwork versions, 4 horizontal, 3 vertical
To download the first four issues, go to the archive site. Moonbeams issues are freely available in pdf file format, and members and visitors are welcome to circulate them freely and widely. The purpose is to provide fictional illustrations of what life could like on the Lunar Frontier and elsewhere within the Solar System.
Just print on card stock and frame
A new issues of Selenology has been published.
The Fall 2009 issue of this newsletter from our affiliate The American Lunar Society can be downloaded from this directory, using your Moon Society member username and password - http://moonsociety.org/members/selenology/
An updated look at chapter events.An Outpost consists of one or more members in a local community that serve as (a) local contact(s) for area members and prospective members of the Society, and which have not yet met the qualifications to be given a chapter charter. To establish an outpost and become a local contact person for the society, write the Chapters Coordinator. There is no reason why a prospective campus chapter cannot start as an outpost, one or more not-yet-organized members.
LATIN AMERICAEvents: Annual Events, ISDCs and more.
Puerto RicoThe Moon Society is cosponsoring the Puerto Rico Space Congress to be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, October 23-27, 2010. It is hoped that this event will advance ongoing sputtering efforts to create a Latin American Space Agency. Initially, we were aiming at an October 2010 time frame, but realizing that does not give us enough lead time, we are now looking at a 2011 date.MexicoMexico has finally approved its own Space Agency, AEXA, and is deciding on a headquarters site. The government and has picked a launch site in Quintanoo Roo State in the Yucatan Peninsula on the Carri bean Coast just north of Belize.Chile (see below)
The state of Jalisco (Guadalajara) is bidding for the AEXA HQ site, and is considering a space theme park north of Guadalajara that will include a lunar analog facility open to tourists; the MexLunarHab. We have been working in Mexico through our agent, Jesus Raygoza.Our decision to spin off a Spanish Language Moon Society website and to create a number of papers and flyers in Spanish, should help promote this effort, as well as to promote the creation of Spanish-language Moon Society chapters in Mexico and in Chile, the two nations in which our efforts are currently concentrated.
INDIA
See MMM-India Quarterly - a free access pdf file newsletterCHILE - Moon/Mars Atacama Research Station - Right now, in the aftermath of Chile's recent Earthquake, focus is elsewhere, but behind the scened, organizational activities of a Chilean Center of Excellence continue.
MMM-India Quarterly #6 was published April 1st. M3IQ #7 is set for July, #8 for October.
The Newly announced Moon Society India is moving swiftly to come into its own. Indian writers have contributed a major portion of the 5th issue of Moon Miners' Manifesto - India Quarterly - "M3IQ" as we have come to call it.Eventually, M3IQ will either become an all-India publication or be replaced with a new publication put together inside India. This is as it should be, and we in the Moon Society look forward to the Moon Society India organization coming into its own, with pride and satisfaction.(2) From Moon Society India leader Pradeep Mohandas
The Moon Society India is in the final stage of incorporation, and had a major presence at the SEDS India Conference April 11-12, in Vellore, 113 km west of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state, and 150 km east of Bangalore. Together with the Moon Society (International), they have started a Book Drive to collect (from US/Canadian members) books on Space, the Moon, even Mars, that we no longer need to keep in our personal libraries. For information, contact president@moonsociety.org. We hope to collect a bunch at ISDC 2010 in Chicago at the end of the month.
Those interested in helping create Moon Society chapters in India should contact
Contact: moonsocietyindia@gmail.comCurrently our focus is on firming up the organizational structure needed to build and operate this facility; to complete a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation to fund a team trip to Chile.
This project promises to be much larger than first conceived, and much more difficult to launch. It is understandable, then, that dates are slipping. We hope that this does not cost us essential support locally and nationally, in Chile itself.
MMARS will not only be a research facility, it will be an anchor for involvement of students at all levels. From the ranks of students will come the future leaders who will return us to the Moon to Stay. We hope that the MMARS project will enthuse students the world over.
We have identified a very varied list of research opportunities. Which directions MMARS will take will depend on which support facilities (labs etc.) are funded and built first and which researchers join the team first.
Our time spent on brainstorming and designing MMARS is gaining us many great and improved ideas that will be applicable to a Lunar Analog Station in the US someday. Identification and acquisition of a precise site is the first hurdle to be vaulted. Then comes finding funding for a startup.
As to Chile itself, while this country does not have the population nor the economy to become a space-faring country, it does have the Atacama Desert, arguably the premier location for both Moon and Mars analog research, and already the host of a growing complex of world-class astronomical observatories. Given the importance of analog research to prepare the way to the Moon and Mars, this role is not an insignificant one
If the Moon Society's role in Chile is to expand beyond a merely advisory one, we need to develop a family of chapters within Chile to play a supporting role at MMARS. And we need to clone the Society "in Espaņol."
SPINNING OFF A Spanish version of the Moon Society Website, and a Spanish language edition of Moon Miners' Manifesto - "Sociedad Lunar" y "Manifesto de Mineros de Luna" (the editor's amateur translation attempt.)
The Moon Society Management Committee has given its support to this proposal. But more than a vote is needed. We do not have the team to pursue this goal. Instead, we must recruit such a team. We have recruited Jesus Raygoza of Mexico City who has both a wide knowledge of and interest in Space affairs and is fluent in both English and Spanish to start the process as soon as we send him a list of web pages and documents needing translation. Jesus has been working in Mexico build a Moon Society presence there as well as campaign for the creation of AEXA, a Mexican Space Agency with a small but effective budget. (Espaņol)SWEDEN
We are looking for proficient English to Spanish Translators, webmasters, and editors.
On December 17th, we put up a temporary Spanish Homepage placeholder
The Society is involved in Mexico and Puerto Rico, as well as Chile, it makes sense to prepare outreach materials for Spanish speaking countries, including the growing Spanish speaking population within the United States. The United States is now the 2nd largest Spanish Speaking Country in the Western Hemisphere (after Mexico), and soon worldwide (eclipsing Spain).
If you can help in any way or point us in the right direction, please contact us
Write: president@moonsociety.org
Subject line: Spanish
Subject line: Spanish "at large chapter" in the USA
Subject line: Mexico
Subject line: other Spanish-speaking nations
Subject line: etc.
The member-organized Moon-Mine Project in central Sweden which we have been support, is encountering problems with the owner of the property, and Niklas Jarvstrat, project organizer is becoming discouraged. He may move to Oxford, England, UK and will look into usable abandoned mine sites in that country.
The Moon Society is looking more International every day.
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As Chicago is a 90 mile hour and a half commute from where most of the Moon Society (and Lunar Reclamation Society) exhibits are stored (in Milwaukee) we expect to provide a major contribution to the exhibit room. And as we have worked closely with the conference organizers for over twenty years, we expect a good chunk of presentation opportunities as well.
Hotel room rates and conference registration rates will be considerably lower than those in Orlando.
The hotel is brand new - The Intercontinental O'Hare. (map) (Hotel's in Chicago's downtown "Loop" have a very hight hotel tax.)
Chicago has excellent air connections to everywhere. (Flights to Midway will involve higher transit costs to the hotel which is near O'Hare.) Plan now on coming, or at least keep the dates open! Chicago 1989 was a super-ISDC and the same people are bringing us this one. We can only expect the biggest and best ever.