Saturday, February 2nd: TMS-SD set up our Display Booth and operated our San Diego Mars Rover in the main exhibit gallery at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park in support of a Weekend Talk Series lecture by a JPL representative on the current Mars and Saturn exploration probes.

Friday, February 18th: "The Man Who Fell to Earth" with David Bowie was this month's Mars Movie Night.

Friday, February 25th: Gerry Williams took our San Diego Mars Rover out for a Rover Run at the Horizon Christian Preschool in the Clairemont Mesa area. The two classes of preschoolers were enraptured with the MER Video and with getting a chance to drive our Mars Rover.

Saturday, February 26th: The TMS-SD Annual Banquet was held at the Oceanside location of Killer Pizza From Mars. Both Shannon Rupert Robles and Patrick Purcell took home the coveted "Martian of the Year" award, with John Stone receiving (in abstentia) an award for Outreach Support and Tim Sommer receiving (also in abstentia) an achievement award for his design and construction of our analog Mars Suits.

Bottom: Shannon Rupert Robles, Bettina Davis, Edith Purcell
Middle: Jesse Clark, James Roth, Patrick Purcell
Top: Gerry Williams, Israel Lidsky, Dave Rankin, Manny Robles
At Killer Pizza From Mars, Oceanside CA
Photo by Violetta Purcell

Wednesday, March 2nd: The San Diego Astronomy Association (SDAA) held their "STARS IN THE PARK" public telescope viewing event. However it was an unfortunately cloudy night with the SDAA only setting up one telescope that evening. Everything was wrapped up about 7:30pm when we started to get noticeable precipitation. We're looking forward to next month's event, which will take place just after Daylight Savings Time begins for the summer, allowing us to run our San Diego Mars Rover prior to dark.

The Saturday, March 12th Science Educators Conference has been CANCELLED.

Shannon Rupert Robles will perform a one week stint as the Commander of MDRS Crew 36 to the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah starting on May 13th. She will command the first all woman crew at any of the MARS project stations.

The Mars Movie Night for this month on Friday March 18th features Tom Baker in "Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars" (which, incidentally, was made two years before the two Viking spacecraft arrived at Mars).

Saturday, March 19th is the The Science and Education Partnership (STEP) outreach at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Corona, CA. We are standing in for the Greater Los Angeles Mars Society Chapter, who is working the Sally Ride Science Festival at CalTech the same day. We'll be taking the San Diego Mars Rover and talking to teachers.

Easter weekend, Friday, March 25th through Sunday March 27th is ConDor XII Sci-Fi Convention at the Mission Valley Mariott hotel. TMS-SD will have our Display Booth set up, and we'll offer three program events: Gerry Williams will host a two-hour multimedia program called "Mars in the Movies" on Friday evening at 8pm; Dave Rankin, Jeff Berkwits and Gerry will present "A Year on Mars With The Mars Rovers" at 1pm on Saturday; and Dave, Jeff and Gerry will regroup at 5pm for "Mars Analog Research Station: Season 2004/2005". All three presenters will also participate in other panels throughout the three days of the convention.

EXPANDING YOUR HORIZONS offers lots of answers and opportunities for girls from all over San Diego County at an all-day program at UCSD on Saturday, April 2nd. Workshops from Archeology to Zoology will enable hands-on explorations in science, mathematics, and technology. Girls will have the chance to talk with others who share their interests and will have college women studying in science and technology as mentors for the whole day. TMS-SD members will lead three sessions on Mars Exploration with the San Diego Mars Rover.

The San Diego Astronomy Association (SDAA) will host their "STARS IN THE PARK" public telescope viewing event outside the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park. The setup is at 6:30pm, and the event runs from 7:00pm past 9:00pm (weather permitting). It coincides with "THE SKY TONIGHT" Planetarium show in the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center at 7:00pm. TMS-SD members will be there for public outreach activities from 6:30pm to 9:30pm, with the San Diego Mars Rover operating during daylight hours.

The next REGULAR MONTHLY MEETING of TMS-SD will be 7:00pm to 10:00pm on Friday, April 8th at our usual location, Studio 106.

Saturday, April 9th features a SPECIAL EVENT at the The San Diego Aerospace Museum when they host their monthly "Family Days", including TMS-SD members and the San Diego Mars Rover from noon to 3:00pm in the lobby area. NOTE: Admission is FREE! today. (I told you it was special!)

Yuri's Night World Space Party is on April 12th. The world will celebrate the anniversary of the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin. This event is being headed up by Jesse Clark. We will be extending an invitation to as many of the local space enthusiasts and companies as we can find to participate. In addition to celebrating 44 years of human spaceflight, we'll be looking into forming a grassroots umbrella organization for all San Diego spaceflight groups. An invitation should go out toward the end of this month, and we'll find a venue suitable for a larger group in the Greater San Diego area.

TMS-SD will be presenting "Roving The Red Planet", a lecture for the Weekend Talk Series at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park from 1:00pm - 2:00pm in their Community Forum. TMS-SD will also have our Display Table and the San Diego Mars Rover operating in the Science Center from Noon to 3:30pm.

Astronaut Sally Ride presents TOYchallenge 2005, a national toy design challenge for 5th-8th graders, and a chance for teams of imaginative kids to create a new toy or game (a great way to learn about science, engineering, and the design process. This event will be held from 10am to 4pm on Saturday, April 30th at San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park. TMS-SD members will be there with the San Diego Mars Rover.

In late May or Early June, there are plans for an MDRS Post-Season Maintenance Mission. It will be headed up by Shannon , with the predominantly San Diego Crew being at the Hab for a Friday through Sunday work party. Gerry is discussing more video training films to be shot there.

We're gearing up for Comic-Con 2005 International Convention (July 13th through 17th) with two presentations and a fan table, as in past years. Please be thinking about who we can invite to our general Mars panel as guest panelists.

August 11th through 14th is The 8th International Mars Society Conference, which will be held at the University of Colorado, Boulder. San Diego is looking to be well represented: Gerry and Jesse have discussed driving up with our San Diego Mars Rover and perhaps our Display Booth and Mars Suits . We're also thinking of hosting a panel on how to be a cool MS chapter.

The San Diego Mars Rover: is working fine with only cosmetic touch-ups between events.

Mars Suit Taskforce: TIm Sommer will turn over all the construction materials for our two Mars Suits. The chapter has decided to use some of our discressionary funds to finish both suits for Comic-Con. The second suit will be re-tailored and adjusted for those with smaller body types. Gerry, Jesse and Patrick have expressed interest in following up on finishing the suits.
We've decided that we'll be offering a Mars Suit training class (or two) for those interested in wearing the suits at our outreach events. Right now only Tim, Gerry and Jesse are able to use the suits.

Public Relations: Nothing to report. However in late summer things will start to heat up with the launch in August of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the 2005 Mars Opposition around November 7th.

TMS-SD Shirts: Our first shirt vendor has evaporated, and Tim was able to get his money back from his credit card company. We decided on a new shirt style and Tim will place the orders. Once we get the shirts, Tim will forward them on to Cherrie Bird for embroidery. Ideally we'll have them in time for Comic-Con.

New Display Board: Jesse Clark presented a series of new designs for our display booth that incorporate two 17" flat-panel displays in a tubular framework configuration and will utilize our new 4-panel display board as well. Lighting is included. Jesse hopes to have the basic design prototyped by the Yuri's Night World Space Party. Website Updates: Gerry is keeping our Chapter's Website updated on a monthly basis, and he is poking at learning DreamWeaver in order to redesign the entire site at some time in the future.

Treasury & Finance: $454.65 in the Mars kitty, with some ear-marked for use toward getting our Mars Suits finished.

Hartmann Book Sales: Only one book was sold during the past month during our outreach events. We are just five books away from our break-even point, with another 17 books to be sold all together.

TMS-SD Podcasting: No progress has been made on a possible TMS-SD Podcast. It was noted that SciFI.com is now podcasting some of their weekly news stories.

New TMS-SD Events & Activities: Nothing to report.
On-Campus chapters & younger members recruitment: Nothing to report.

Combined San Diego Space Advocacy Group: Jesse will be leading the drive to found a combined space advocacy umbrella group at the upcoming Yuri's Night World Space Party. Gerry and Patrick will be assisting him.

Other Mars Topics: We discussed some of the current Mars Exploration Rovers' photographs.

Lego Rover Building: Patrick and Jesse took another hour-long round at assembling the Lego Mars Rover. We're talking about having a "barn-raising" day where we come in and just work on this Rover until its finished. Gerry ran some videos on the big screen during this time.

Show and Tell: Gerry projected some of Jeff Wayne's Musical "War of the Worlds animation tests, a few movie trailers (including Cruise/Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" teaser, and some Star Wars fan-fic video, Star Wars Episode III: "The Lost Hope". We also looked at a high resolution trailer for "The Mars Underground".

We broke up for the evening a bit after 10:30pm.

-gmw