This is our 29th issue. Frontlines is a formatted monthly Moon Society news report that comes out each month just after the first (of two) Management Council meetings each month, and/or after the publication of the month's issue of Moon Miners Manifesto. These reports are being archived, so members and visitors can check past reports.

Frontlines reports on Society activities, efforts, and projects. You pay your dues, and have a right to know what we are doing to make your membership worthwhile, and to address your interests in a place for humans on the Moon.

We have been making steady progress on a wide variety of fronts. We want you to hold us accountable for continuing to do so!

July 21st Meeting

We had an interesting discussion about a possible alternative to the expensive creation of our own Lunar Analog Research Station: various chapters or other working groups could convert an old camper (= cheap) into a module for a multi-modular analog station. Each summer, we could all rendezvous at a new location, hook up, and do an exercise.

Option 1: At MDRS in south central Utah, the land is not a cost item. The Mars Society has an indefinite free lease on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land. The condition is that when the Society does not need it anymore, the land must be returned to its original state. But what costs money is sending one or more people out to look for an ideal location. That cost can be quite high unless those who do the looking, do so on their own dime. And then there is the logistics question of construction, repair and reconstruction. In the Mobile Modular alternative, all that work would be done where the local team members live!  Any extra work at the season's rendezvous location would be minor (hooking up, and then unhooking). Local teams would raise the money that they needed. If, and that's  a big if, we could get the Calgary Space Workers to join this effort, then we already have a completed and working "Command Module," their renovated 31 foot Airstream trailer. By sticking with trailers and or motor RVs, we are able to buy used equipment cheap, engage a lot of non-members in helping recondition the unit, be sure that we don't exceed road width and height and length and weight limits, etc. If only some of the teams were ready when the time to gather approached, we'd just adjust the season's research program accordingly. This might mean that we do something 2-4 weeks a year, not 4-5 months as at MDRS, 6 weeks as at FMARS in the high arctic (Canada's Devon Island.)

Options 2: In September, we will look at another option. Instead of a comprehensive analog research agenda, we would concentrate on a decentralized bite size research programs that fit the facilities we had. And in this case, we would have no annual gathering. Rather this kind of research would be done in/near City A and on a continuing basis, while that kind of research would be done in/near City B, and so on. In this plan we could get our feet wet early, still engage local chapters and other groups, work more of the year. But we would not generate the kind of publicity that one "movie set qualified' site has garnered for the Mars Society. So this plan has advantages also. It will be presented in more detail at the September 1st or 15th Management Committee meeting.

The bottom line is finding a humble way to get our feet wet, that involves the least amount of up front money, and the greatest amount of local talent. Nor would it matter which location (and research program portion) came on line first. And that is an enormous advantage. Plus this decentralized plan would create local publicity and strengthen any chapters involved. All of these locations could fly the lunar tricolor flag that we introduced at the Moon Society Exercise at MDRS in late February, early March 2006 - "Artemis Moonbase Sim 1- link 1 - link 2 (scroll down to crew 45)

August 4th Meeting -

Changing Image Feature on our homepage. Peter reported on his plan to upgrade this feature. The homepage "thumbnail" image calls up a larger one, or a more developed one that may include text, plus a link or more to an article or articles in past MMM issues (MMM Classics) relevant to the topic in question. Scotty Gammenthaler volunteered to write the enabling code.

As of August 11th the number of images in this library had grown substantially to 133, 124 of which take you to an article with a simple click. Try it, its "cool." As the featured image changes at random each time you visit the page, this is a fun way to explore the very wide range of topics discussed in Moon Miners' Manifesto through the last 24 years! More.
Here is an example. Click on it!

Will Pioneers trash the Moon?

It won't work here, but when you start from the homepage and click on the second image, you will get links that take you right to relevant past articles!

Ongoing collaborations with other organizations:

ExploreMars.org is a new "project-focused organization. As we personally know both its President (Artemis Westinberg) and Executive Director (Chris Carberry), we are already discussing specific collaboration projects.

American Lunar Society: An organization of amateur astronomers interested in observing the Moon. We have a 2nd project proposal in the definition stage that we will be seeking to publish in a future issue of Selenology, their quarterly, which all members are welcome to download (member username and password needed)

The National Space Society:

In 2005, we helped an aging couple from South Carolina to arrange in their will, a bequest to The Lunar Reclamation Society, The Moon Society, and The National Space Society. They have both now passed on, the will has gone through probate, and a same size check will be cut for all three. I will be lobbying hard that this money be set aside for collaboration projects. There is a precedent: all three organizations were equal cosponsors of the Moon Society moonbase simulation exercise in Utah at the Mars Desert Research Station in early 2006. I have proposed three different projects for consideration. We'll have to wait and see what happens

The next Management Committee Meeting (and Quarterly Board Meeting) will be on August 18th

If you would like the Management Committee to consider a new initiative or idea, contact president@moonsociety.org

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Town Meeting Discussions  and our Annual Membership Meeting


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Moon Miners Manifesto & Other Moon Society Publications

A new issues of Selenology has been published.

The Spring 2010 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/

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Chapters & Outposts Report - see the updated map of Moon Society Chapters and Outposts
Also check our regularly updated Chapter Events page

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