Moon Society: Chapter Events

Chapter & Outpost Events

Page launched March 12, 2009
Updated July 30, 2011
Fresh Reports from Phoenix, St. Louis, Houston, Nashville

Foreword

This page was suggested by Don Jacques, then president of Moon Society Phoenix at the 3rd Town Meeting, held March 11, 2009. While there has always been space in Moon Miners' Manifesto, in the Moon Society Journal centerfold section for chapters to announce future meetings and report on recent activities, this does not constitute "timely" information and reporting.

This page is devoted precisely to that need: "timely information and reporting."

But we hope that through this page chapters and outposts will be inspired to a higher level of more productive activity and outreach by the ease of seeing what other chapters and outposts are planning and doing.

US Chapters US

US Outposts US

International Chapters & Outposts

NSS Partner Chapters

US Chapters

AZ - Moon Society Phoenix - Craig Porter

July Report

Our Web Site is up and running and waiting for input from the members, articles, pictures, events and other items as appropriate. www.msphx.org

Chapter Shirt Logos are going to be voted on and location of logo or logos. The questions will be decided by a majority vote of the Chapter. If there is no clear majority there will be a run off between the two highest vote getters. Color style of shirt will be decided by a follow up ballot with the option to purchase as many shirts as desired.

Presentations for the "Tranquility Community College" section of the web site can now be accepted now for posting, format can be Power Point, Video, Slide Show or PDF. There will be a location for Short Stories, Papers and other items. Visit the site and
learn it's capabilities.

I am currently working on the "Disaster Strikes" p resentation. I am also working on the "Lunar Ground Transportation" presentation. Felix is working on the "Industrialization of the Moon" presentation. Don is also working on his presentations.

Projects I am beginning work on are a "Rail Gun" Demonstrator and a "Mass Accelerator" Demonstrator for the Table at conventions and such. Demonstrators will low powered so they don't blow holes in the ceiling but can still demonstrate the principles involved.

We discussed the development of a "Manifesto" for the Chapter to excite people and draw new people into the fold by letting them see what we really stand for. We will be discussing this on line by e-mail or on our Facebook Page "Moon Society Phoenix" which is currently closed to everyone except members and invited members.

MO - Moon Society St. Louis - Bob Perry

The July 20th meeting of the St. Louis Chapter of the Moon Society was involved with the showing of "Transcendant Man", a documentary about Ray Kurzweil and his expectations for the technological singularity. Mark Rode, Bob Perry, Dave Deitzler, Tom Kulhman, and Karl Strasman attending. The Buder Branch Library graciously provided an audio/visual cart and Bob played the video on his laptop. The DVD is available from Amazon and other places

http://www.amazon.com/Transcendent-Man-Ray-Kurzweil/dp/B004MYOWYU

More info: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11558
Charlie Rose with Ray Kurzweil, the subject of the documentary, and Barry Ptolemy, the documentary producer

An overview of the primary concept is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

A brief discussion followed about the future getting here faster. For example, Bob's laptop is about five yers old and is, essentially, ancient, but can do many, many things. Mark mentioned that he builds servers and sells then on eBay. One of his recent sales was to a biology PHD who had a near super computer built with a half a tereabyte of main memory so his program could work on his database without having to go back and forth to his hard drive. Remember, the space shuttle design was set when Nixon was president and the first shuttle space flight was in 1981 - somewhere along the line, NASA decided to just use laptops in the shuttle instead of upgrading its computers.

TX - Clear Lake Area (Houston) National Space Society & Moon Society Chapter - Eric Bowen.

July 18th meeting Report:

The Clear Lake Area NSS/Moon Society chapter met on July 18 at the Bay Area Community Center in Clear Lake Park. Larry Friesen spoke about his participation in the ApolloCon SF convention held in the Houston area last month; he sat on five program panels and was the moderator for one of them. Marianne Dyson also participated in the event.

Moon Society member Craig Beasley spoke on his personal project: ARDAT, for Accelerated Research & Development Academic Track programs. He is working with local universities to implement a program which would allow undergraduates to get hands-on practical experience with a space-oriented research and development project which the student would develop as a graduation thesis project, preferably in conjunction with industry. This proposal is still in the developmental stages and Craig is actively soliciting input and help from any interested Moon Society or NSS members. If you would like to learn more about this project you may send your message to Craig in care of the CLANSS/MS chapter via email to eric@streamlinerschedules.com

The next meeting of the CLANSS/MS chapter will be at 7:00 p.m. on September 19, 2011 in the conference room of the Bay Area Community Center at Clear Lake Park. Guests are welcome!

--------Eric H. Bowen

TN - Nashville Moon Society Outpost

On International Observe the Moon Night, October 8th, I will be participating in the Nashville's Adventure Science Center IOMN. I will take my 10" scope and a Moon display for public education.

I'm exhibiting today, Saturday and Sunday at a Star Trek convention here in Nashville. I have Moon society fliers along with 12" and 3"' Moon globes and 2 imagined possible future Moon base models. Many of our guests today were very much in favor of returning to the Moon and building colonies on the Moon and Mars.

My exhibit also includes Mercury, Gemini, Apollo Saturn V, LM, CSM, Skylab, STS, ISS, SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo, Sojourner, MER, a Mars base and several Star Trek craft. This is a fun crowd to talk to.

Chuck Schlemm - Nashville Moon Society Outpost

WI - Moon Society Milwaukee Outpost - Lunar Reclamation Society - See additional listing below

IN - Indianapolis Moon Society-National Space Society Chapter

The Indianapolis outpost launched by Doug Keenan and Fred Becker now has a third member and intends to organize as a joint TMS-NSS chapter, a paradigm pre-approved in the TMS-National Space Society Affiliation Agreement signed at ISDC 2005. The Moon Society and NSS Houston area chapters have forged such a merged chapter.

Other US Outposts

CA - San Diego - David Schrunk - meeting every even number month for lunch and discussion. Member Phil Harris has just published his 2nd recent book on space development. Toward Human Emergence (2010) is about the future of humanity and concludes that our species can only achieve its full potential in outer space. There will be a review and more information in the February MMM #232.

CA - Los Angeles - Chip Proser

CA - Bay Area Moon Society (San Francisco Bay South) - Henry Cate
Most recent meeting at Henry's house, Tuesday January 4th

L - Rockford - Bryce Johnson

This is our newest outpost and Bryce is already busy making connections with Rockford Robotics, a very active robotics club and a member of the FIRST network [For the Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology]. Plus he has given the Milwaukee Outpost [Lunar Reclamation Society] the bug and they are looking to get involved with FIRST in Wisconsin, where there is a big event in Milwaukee March 10-12th. Stay tuned!

MD-DC-VA - Washington-Baltimore - Fred Hills

TX - Dallas - Fort Worth - North Texas - Scotty Gammenthaler & Ken Murphy

TX - Longview/Kilgore - James A. Rogers

DC-MD-VA - this metro area has the largest concentration of active Moon Society members in the US. Board director Fred Hills is trying to arrange a chapter-founding meeting.

International Chapters & Outposts

Australia - Melbourne - Victoria Space Alliance* - Shaun Moss

* Officially affiliated with NSSA (National Space Society Australia) but open to members of all affiliations, and thus partnering with the Moon Society

Current Activities: Developing a new social medium for space enthusiasts only - moon-mars.com; the Apollo Moon Party on the weekend of July 18-19, celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the first manned Moon Landing and Moonwalk.

Proposed Online Chapter for members in Australia and New Zealand

Canada - Calgary - Calgary Space Workers - Michael Bakk

Current Activities: working on a "mobile modular" lunar analog base to be deployed in the Drumheller, Alberta area.

Canada - Montreal - Laurel Ladd

India

The Moon Society India team is working towards a takeover of Moon Miners' Manifesto - India Quarterly (of which nine issues have been published to date) - the product may be a web-based newsletter with a new name and format.

Sweden/Europe - Niklas Jarvstrat

NSS Partner Chapters

CA - San Diego Space Society - David Dressler

MN- Minnesota Space Frontier Society (Minneapolis - St. Paul Metro) - Craig Borchard

Current Activities: Maintains Moon Society Blog site

OR - Oregon L5 Society (Portland Metro) - Bryce Walden

WI - Lunar Reclamation Society (Milwaukee Metro) - Peter Kokh

Current Activities: Publisher of Moon Miners' Manifesto hardcopy edition