June 2, 2018 – Monthly Meeting – Orion Span

At our June 2, 2018 meeting, we will have Dr. David Jarvis visit us to discuss Orion Span which aims to build a private space station.

The meeting will be from 6Pm-8PM at Nathan’s house (9327 Swansea Bay Dr., Spring, TX 77379).  Hope to see you there!

Monthly North Houston Space Society Chapter Meeting

Saturday, Jun 2, 2018, 6:00 PM

Location details are available to members only.

8 Members Attending

We are working on finalizing the agenda for the upcoming meeting. Additional topics may be added. One of the main parts of the meeting will be a guest speaker, David Jarvis, who will be sharing about his company Orion Span About the David Jarvis David Jarvis is the CTO for Orion Span and has extensive experience in human spaceflight, having spent 1…

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Background

David Jarvis is the CTO for Orion Span and has extensive experience in human spaceflight, having spent 13 years at Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas providing operations support to the Japanese Space Agency, a key International Space Station partner. David’s work included inter-agency coordination to facilitate technical and programmatic solutions to issues related to the ISS, as well as real-time console support during Space Shuttle missions. In 2014, David co-founded a four-person team that designed a unique remote sensor system to monitor maritime vessel traffic around the world. This demonstration technology, called Maritime Awareness, was launched and successfully installed on the International Space Station in 2016.

David is a veteran of the United States Coast Guard and holds a BS in Physics from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a MBA from University of Texas Austin Mccombs School of Business.

 

About Orion Span

Orion Span is a private commercial space company with the goal of providing affordable human-rated facilities in space for governments, industry, and private citizens. Orion Span has offices in Silicon Valley and plans to open a manufacturing and operations facility in Houston, TX.

 

Topics for Discussion

David will discuss an overview of Orion Span and Aurora Station, as well as the company’s development schedule and future plans. David will also be speaking about the ecosystems of commercial space and how the industry can attain large scale growth for commercial human space flight. A Q&A session will follow the presentation.

2018-May – Biosphere 2 and Space Exploration Jeopardy

Our May meeting went well.  Dr. Greg Stanley presented a talk entitled “Biosphere 2 and Closed Ecological Systems

A biosphere is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems.  It is materially closed but open for energy and information.  The word “biosphere” was coined by geologist Eduard Suess in 1875 (no relation to Dr. Suess 🙂 ).  The word meant “geology of the place that life dwells”.  The Geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky developed the concept further in his 1926 book entitled “The Biosphere”.  In it, he argues that life is a geological force.

How small can a biosphere be?  Biosphere 1 is the earth.  Biosphere 2 was created to help answer the question if it is possible to create a miniature version.  This is important because when we travel out into space, we will need to bring our Biosphere with us.

We had 10 people attend the meeting.

We finished up by playing Space Exploration Jeopardy.

We look forward to seeing you at our June 2nd meeting.