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Sept 17, 2008 Society's 1st Annual Membership Meeting
by kokhmmm 
By Peter Kokh, President
As a new feature in the Moon Society’s recent bylaws revision of February 6th, as reported in MMM #212, February 2008, Moon Society Journal Section (p.9), this year, on the third Wednesday evening of the month after Society elections are finalized, we will launch our first Annual Membership Meeting.
Save Wednesday evening, September 17th!
The meeting will be online, in the ASI-MOO special chat room environment, 9-11 pm ET, 8-10 pm CT, 7-9 pm MT, 6-8 pm PT. We realize that this window will not be convenient for many members. But neither would any other window. But why this window? This is the time and day slot in which the Society’s Leadership Council, Management Council, and Board of Directors meets.
Practice now!
If your schedule makes attendance at this event possible, and you have never been on the ASI-MOO, you will save yourself a lot of frustration that evening, if you first practice loging on. It is quite simple.
1 Go to our homepage www.moonsociety.org
2 Scroll down the left hand menu column until you come to the ASI-MOO image link. Click on this link
3 Ignore the preliminary information on this page (for advanced users) and scroll down the page until you see the dual links: Java MOO client: Framed Popup
4 Click on either (I like Popup but that’s a personal preference)
5 Wait for the window to fully open. Some browsers are faster than others. Below the preliminary introductory text, you will see a line, below which you can type.
6 Type these three words: connect (your) username password all in lower case, each word separated by a space with no quotation marks. Hit carriage return
7 You will find yourself in the “Commons” Now you want to go to the “Auditorium” where the Members Meeting will be held. The instructions in the Commons say that the Auditiorium is “NorthWest” so type NorthWest without quotes and with capitals as indicated, then hit carriage Return, and you should be in.
Most likely problem you will have is not knowing your username and password. If this turns out to be the case, just contact me at kokhmmm@aol.com and tell me what your problem is. If you prefer an answer by phone, give me your phone # and best times to call in your email. We’ll get you in, but do not wait until the last minute as I will be busy with other things!
Format and Topics of the Meeting
In preparation for the meeting, we will post an Annual Report in the Members Area of our web site:
http://www.moonsociety.org/members/reports/annual_report2008.pdf
[This address will not be valid until a week before the meeting]
Publicizing this Meeting
Meanwhile, the notice for this meeting, including this “how to attend” information, will be printed in MMM (this is it) and posted on the Artemis-List as well as sent by email to all current members with current email addresses in our database. If you have changed your email address, do call that to our attention! You many change it yourself at www.moonsociety.org/mymoon/ though you will need your username and password to access that page. Otherwise simply email your current email address to kokhmmm@aol.com
Meeting Structure
The meeting will be chaired by Chairman of the Board, R. Scotty Gammenthaler.
After a review of the contents of the Annual Report, the floor will be open to questions from members. Members who plan to ask questions are invited to submit them in advance to kokhmmm@aol.com as this will help in bundling together related questions and responses. However, this is not necessary and spontaneous questions are welcome.
Questions can be about problems with member-ship processing, Society response to problems, current projects and new project ideas, the overall direction of the society and suggestions in this regard, membership benefits, how to grow the society in numbers, name recognition, and project output, etc.
The Annual Report
The annual report as prepared by the president, will cover recent bylaws changes, elections results, our Vision, Mission, and Strategy, existing and proposed new projects, our primary and auxiliary websites, Moon Miners’ Manifesto, our affiliations and collaborations, the treasurers report, awards of recognition for significant service to the Society, and our plans to make the Society ever more effective, and more.
To the Curious
If you are reading this and are not a current member, by all means so join or rejoin. We will be most happy to benefit from your ideas and energies and initiatives.
A Learning Experience
We have never held an annual Membership Meeting before and so this will necessarily be one of those “leaning experiences.” But even before the curtain falls on this first one, if you have ideas for features that should be included, don’t wait to share them with us. We want this first meeting to be as comprehensive as possible.
Other Preparations: a Questionnaire
We have been working on a Questionnaire, asking current and former members how they first heard of the Moon Society. We hope that the results of this survey will help us better direct our efforts to grow the Society. We hope to get this out soon.
Quarterly Town Meetings?
This is another but related idea that we have been considering – holding an online Town Meeting quarterly (three a year plus the Annual Meeting) and probably rotating the day of the week on which it is held. The idea would be to elicit continuous feedback and to provide more opportunities to participate.
Thanks, Peter Kokh
08/21/08 06:38:07 am, 
Solar Power Beaming Demonstration Unit Makes Debut
by kokhmmm
06-14-2008. Our Solar Power Beaming Demonstration was finished in time to make its debut at the International Space Development Conference in Washington DC on Saturday, May 31st.
Photos from the conference:
Assembled Unit - Paul Blase, who put the unit together, stands at the side
Society Leaders in front of the unit, left to right: Director of Project Development and Board Candidate David Dunlop , Board Candidate Fred Hills, President Peter Kokh, Treasurer Dana Carson
Society President Peter Kokh congratulates USAF Lt. Col Peter Garretson on his original design that was the inspiration for our unit
The idea was to create a working demonstration of how Solar power Satellites would work, with the aim of boosting public support for this initiative. Solar Power Satellites have been receiving renewed interest since the release of the National Space Security Office report [http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/space_solar_alliance.html] on October 10, 2007. We could not have tackled this project without the expertise of two persons: Vice-president Charles F. Radley, and Board Chairman R. Scotty Gammenthaler. The Board has given them full support including needed funds, to carry this project through to completion.
The enthused response from ISDC attendees was very gratifying, and earned us several new memberships.
We are now working to find ways to help other organizations replicate our working model based on our parts list, list of parts sources, blueprints, and procedures for building and testing the working parts - the transmitter and rectifier - and the procedures for getting these approved by the FCC so that they can be operated in public.
Leadership Council member James Rogers has produced a trifold brochure on the project
http://www.moonsociety.org/projects/spb-demo/spb-brochure.pdf
Reauthorizing the Vision for Space Exploration
by kokhmmm
Link: http://www.moonsociety.org/reports/reauthorizing_VSE.html
On May 7, 2008, George Whitesides, Executive Director of our affiliate organization, The National Space Society, read a prepared comprehensive and in depth presentation on the future goals of the American Space Program before Congress.
His audience was a US Senate Subcommittee - the Subcommittee on Space, Aeronautics, and Related Sciences Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which was having a special hearing on the subject.
As we all know, or should know, none of the three remaining candidates for the Presidency of the United States shares our vision in more than part. The VSE, originally dubbed "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" is a vision in jeopardy.
It is a problem because neither of the candidates, or their science advisor teams, has made space a top level priority, though all three proclaim strong support for the Space Program.
The problem is twofold.
On the one hand, partially because of the current war, partly because of the state of the economy which is not as strong and vigorous as it was four years ago, Congress and the Administration are facing a dire need to cut expenditures.
On the other hand, this constant squabble over diminishing slices of a diminishing pie, pits those who should be allies in opposing positions. In our case, that means robotic planetary exploration and manned space programs.
The hard facts are that different programs which should be funded separately are mischievously put into competition by the committees and subcommittees under which they are funded.
Not only has it long been a mischievous tactic to pit NASA against HUD etc.,, it is mischievous to pit robotic exploration against manned space programs.
Is there a way out? We think so, but it would be a hard sell.
Divide NASA programs into two parts, robotic space exploration and manned space programs, under two different agencies, not one. Currently, even if Congress supports funding for both programs, the NASA Administrator has the power to pick and choose, for example, cutting planned robotic exploration so that the Moon program can continue, or vice versa.
One thing many space advocates have been pushing for more than two decades is to make NASA a customer for space transportation services, not a provider. If we did that, the Constellation-Orion-Ares programs would be canceled, to the great advantage of commercial COTS type programs to create incentives for the Commercial Launch Services Industry to provide superior vehicles at lower launch costs. Competition alone can reduce outrageous space transportation costs.
Then, even as NASA put out a call for proposals for providing crew and cargo transportation to the International Space Station for the period between the mothballing of the remaining Space Shuttle fleet and the debut of service to the space station by commercial providers, the Agency could put out a call for moon base design, construction, and build out services to be provided commercially, and then, looking at the proposals, pick the best two for initial funding.
No matter how highly we regard NASA on the basis of past achievements, the very way NASA works escalates costs and makes all space programs much more expensive than they would have to be. One of those cost factors is satisfying Congress and the population at large on safety. Both Congress and the American people at large are becoming increasingly risk averse in a way that betrays the pioneering frontier spirit of our ancestors. This development is not something of which to be proud. Commercial contractors can be more realistic. There has hardly been a major skyscraper or major bridge built without fatalities.
We cannot continue to keep the space program hostage to the feint of heart. The timid who believe it is a God-given right of every person to die of old age must not be allowed to constrain the hopes and aspirations of our nation. Most of our leaders know that, of course, and that gives us hope that Space will not fall victim to those who would cease all this progress stuff, a problem addressed in the classic 1936 science fiction film, "The Shape of Things to Come."
In the long haul, the only way we can assure our vision for Space, is to free it from the veto power of those for whom it is not a top level priority, that is, American taxpayers, NASA, for all its tremendous accomplishments, remains a socialized space program.
Our number one legislative initiatives should be to continue in the fine tradition established by space enthusiasts in recent times to dissolve unnecessary roadblocks for commercial space enterprises. We have made progress, we need to make more.
An incentive program on the order of a national X-prize program, might be established to give extra incentives to the commercial sector.
And we should start creating incentives for power production companies (fossil fuel, and electrical power both) to develop space-based solutions and sources.
National support for Space Tourism initiatives would also help.
Now that would be the American Way!
Do read George Whitesdies comprehensive presentation! The Moon Society lauds and supports this statement, and we have posted it, a 78k pdf file, on our website at:
http://www.moonsociety.org/publications/papers/GW-ReauthorizingVSE.pdf
We must all realize that just as NASA invests in redundancy to avoid systems failures, it is in our best interests to invest in redundancy at a higher level, so that if NASA fails, whether on its own or for lack of support in Congress and in the Administration, that our future in space will not fail with it.
Putting all ones eggs in one basket has never been a good idea. Too many of us, I fear, have put all our vision eggs in the basket of NASA. We owe it to ourselves to invest in alternative options. We cannot and must not let the veto power of the public to decide the fate of our goals and aspirations. This is not an anti-NASA statement, it is an anti-one-basket-only statement.
Peter Kokh, President, The Moon Society.
FCC denies license for 1 W demo
by cfrjlr
FEDERAL COMMUNlCATlONS COMMISSlON
Experimental Licensing Branch
445 12th Street, S.W., Room 7A-321
Washington, D.C. 20554
May 07,2008
Attn: Robert S Gammenthaler
Moon Society, Inc
P.O. Box: PO Box 940825
Plano,
TX 75094
DISMISSED-WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Dear Robert S Gammenthaler,
This refers to application, File No. 0219-EX-ST-2008, for an experimental authorization.
You are advised that the Commission is unable to grant your application for the facilities requested. There are possible harmful interferences to mobile satellite space-to-earth licensees.
Responses to this correspondence must contain the Reference number : 6379
Sincerely,
Chief
Experimental Licensing Branch
Growing Plants on the Moon
by Tom (admin)
A cool article Thursday April 17th titled Plants thrive on Moon rock diet. In short the scientists took crushed anorthosite a type of rock similar to rock on lunar surface and planted marigolds in it. The marigolds didn't do very well in the plain anorthosite. But in the anorthosite that they added bacteria to, the marigolds grew very well. Apparently the bacteria extracted minerals from the anorthosite such as phosphate that the plants were able to use.
As a proof of concept this is great news, especially in light of Peter's In Focus article in the Moon Miner's Manifesto about breaking the umbilical cord. Being able to build a habitat that is as free as possible from the need of major resupply missions from Earth is a must for long-term outposts on the Moon and Mars. Remember microbes are our friends, even Earth would be an unpleasant place to try and survive with them.
Extending this research would be a good space enthusiasts project. Grinding up various kinds of rock and figuring out what minimally needs to be added to make the 'soil' plant friendly.
-Tom Greenwalt tomg@mnsfs.org