| We met at our MDRS Mission Support Center at Kelly's house at 6:00pm to start our shift as
Mission Support for the evening. Present were Kelly Jernigan, Shannon Marie Rupert, Gerry
Williams, Dave Rankin, Groff Bittner, John Stone, and Gilbert Ikezaki.
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| MDRS MISSION SUPPORT |
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| The meeting was quite informal, and most of it centered around our Mission Support activity
this month. We looked at some scheduling material that Don Baker sent with Gerry that he used
to schedule the MDRS Team (and that NASA uses to schedule shuttle crews) Groff built an Excel
spreadsheet for scheduling our MDRS support positions (and we'll try to get it online in the
next couple of days). We also discussed press releases for our MDRS Support and for Shannon's
upcoming MDRS Crew Rotation #4 shift at the Hab. We're trying to build the infrastructure to
become a Virtual Mission Support with everyone logging in each night away from Kelly's Mission
Support facility (from their own homes or workplace). The four positions we need to fill on a
nightly basis until April 10th are: |
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| CapCOM/Director |
| Science Officer |
| Engineering Officer |
| Journalist/Liason |
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| There are also several Observer positions available each night. |
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| GERRY'S MDRS EXPERIENCE |
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| Last week Gerry was sent to MDRS for two days to video document Hab activities and to get a
feel for what went on there so San Diego could better provide Mission Support to the Hab crew.
Gerry brought photographs of his EVA experience, as well as a 90 minute rough assembly of
footage from EVA-25 (from the initial meeting to suit-up through the EVA itself and return into
the airlock. He discussed his observations of Hab-life, EVA, wearing "The Suit", and he answered
everyone's questions (especially Shannon's) as best he could. |
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| LOCAL OUTREACH ACTIVITIES |
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| We got reports from our members on the SDAA Telescope Night (an overcast evening, but six
people were talked with) and from the ConDor science fiction convention (our presentation
panel was well received, but the fan table in the hotel corridor was probably not worth the
time to have our members attend it). We talked about another small science fiction convention
in San Diego in October called ConJecture -- we'll offer to do a panel for them, but any fan
table we get will be display only, with little or no manning. Comic-Con was not discussed
tonight, nor was Yuri's Night Space Party. |
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| OTHER NOTES |
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| Gerry brought back a four-color brochure for The Mars Society for discussion. Although dated
(revised 4-17-2000), we'll be asking to get some of these brochures four our local outreach. |
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| The good news from Mars Odyssey regarding the hydrogen (water) availability on Mars was very
welcome. |
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| Shannon's rotation as crew aboard MDRS begins March 24th for two weeks. We'll be providing
Mission Support to the Hab while she's there. |
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| The group voted unanimously to reimburse Gerry for some of his unfunded trip to MDRS last week.
Gerry is very grateful to everyone, as that paid for the gas and a couple of quick meals on the
road. Now we have to set about rebuilding the treasury -- all ideas are welcome. |
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| We briefly discussed updating our website with our chapter's active member's bios. Also Gerry
asked if anyone missed the Mars-related News reports he'd been posting to our Yahoo Mail Group
-- response was that he should continue to post the news links. |
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| The meeting broke up at 9:30pm, after signing off from Mission Support. |
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