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Dave Heck, Secretary, reported:
Here's my summary of our February meeting
1. The Lunar and Planetary Institute made a two part shipment to Bob Perry. One part was 500 Near Side Moon maps showing the landing sites for all the American and Soviet manned and robotic lunar missons. We were told about the maps by Marianne Dyson of the Houston chapter of the Moon Society. The maps, having good detail, measure 16" X 17". STL Moon Society members are strongly urged to write e-mails to both Ms. Dyson and LPI to express our collective thanks.
The second part was 400 bookmarks, the front side being "Earthrise" by Clementine with the LPI address and URL and the back side listing their available services and activities.
Bob distributed copies at the meeting and will do so again at our upcoming meetings and activities.
Click for JPGs of the map (compressed to 475 Kbytes, fair resolution)
or the bookmark (305 Kbytes, good resolution).
2. Dave Dietzler was contacted via e-mail by two college students from the Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts regarding information on his personal web site about mining and usage of Lunar 3He. The students have asked to interview Dave over the phone regarding his views and knowledge. Dave also pointed the students to the St. Louis Chapter's website.
Dave Heck has a couple of contacts at WPI through his R&D work at Boeing and will be contacting them to try to engage the professors teaching this course at WPI to exchange information about the course being taught and how the Moon Society could help (possibly through a teleconference or WebEx). More to come later.
3. The membership decided to attend ShowMeCon4, the Science Fiction Convention on April 22 at the St. Louis Airport Hilton. Bob Perry will be contacting the Con Committee to arrange for a table/booth and to schedule us for several presentations.
4. Dave Dietzler said he found a link off of the Moon Soc. Main page that discussed "Selenology" and the presence of Lava Domes on the Lunar surface. We had some discussions about these giant bubbles - the possibility of drilling into the domes, finding trapped Lunar volcanic gasses, and the likelihood of using them for habitats (similar to lava tubes).
5. We skimmed through a few more topics:
* Discussed Burt's project regarding In-Situ Resource Utilization (living off the land).
* Talked about earth based workers performing task on the moon with telepresence. Remotely controlled lunar rovers could be made available to tourists as a money making venture (similar to the old LunaCorp).
* Wondered about video gamers developing a lunar scenario - gravity, vacuum, dust, other physical considerations.
* Discussed holding a VideoConference (Web Cam Meeting) with Peter Kokh while he's out in Utah at the Mars Hab / Moon Base Simulation 1. Dave Heck will investigate.
* Dave Heck passed around a NASA illustration of a possible moon base component, F.A.R.M. - Fabrication, Assembly and Repair Module. The path to the farm is

  NASA's Exploration Science & Technology Division
    http://est.msfc.nasa.gov/index.html ==>

  In Situ Resource Utilization
    http://est.msfc.nasa.gov/ISRU/ ==>

  Lunar Regolith Simulant Materials Workshop - January 24-26, 2005
    http://est.msfc.nasa.gov/workshops/lrsm2005.html ==>

  Workshop Proceedings
    http://est.msfc.nasa.gov/workshops/lrsm2005_documentation.html ==>

  Poster Presentations
    FARM - Fabrication, Assembly and Repair Module
      http://est.msfc.nasa.gov/workshops/LRSM_docs/Poster_Farm.pdf

Please note that each of these pages is worth perusing, and all the links, as well.
 
Edited and posted by Bob Perry Webmaster