Follow Up Items from Feb. 6, 2021 Meeting

To connect with Brett Hoffstadt, the featured speaker from the meeting, and to stay connected with his projects, visit http://moonbound.gr8.com

Inspiration4 will be sending 4 people on a SpaceX Dragon as early as November of this year. One of those seats will go to someone that donates to St. Judes in February 2021. For more information, checkout http://inspiration4.com

The Science & Engineering Fair of Houston is having their annual event this month and is looking for judges. You only need to have a bachelor’s to be eligible to judge. For more information checkout: https://sefhouston.org/

Mars Rover Celebration is an exciting educational opportunity for students to gain valuable hands-on experience building a mock-up Mars Rover. It is a memorable experience that may inspire a future space explorer! This project builds on classroom learning, putting students’ enthusiasm and inventiveness to work in conjunction with teachers’ lesson plans: either in the classroom, home schooling, or through community organizations such as the Scouts. Elementary (Grades 3-5) and middle school (Grades 6-8) students interested in science and engineering will participate in the design and construction of a model of a Mars Rover to carry out a specific science mission on the surface of Mars. They need judges also. Find out more at https://www.marsrover.org/

Space Settlement Entrepreneur Competition: Develop a private space company decades into the future! for High-school and Undergraduate-college students  is an online (virtual) competition for high-school and undergraduate-college students, interested in the future of space technology and entrepreneurship. Over the course of this 3-5 day online competition. March 25, 2021 – March 28, 2021: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/space-settlement-entrepreneur-competition-2021-tickets-133770343699?aff=

Space Settlement Design Competitions: https://spaceset.org/

Texas Science Festival February 16-March 26, 2021. Free and open to science enthusiasts everywhere, the Texas Science Festival is a celebration of discovery and learning. Register now and interact with leading experts from across the sciences, hear about the latest innovations and enjoy virtual events with the whole family. https://www.sciencefest.utexas.edu/event/e5191210-feeb-49bd-b1a5-f7c65f6ad8b2/websitePage:e58ec143-5502-455d-8bd4-8ccaaa740a45

“Quartered Priced Books” is a place to pick up vintage space books:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Quarter-Price-Books/115427878487054

Saturday, February 6, 2021 – Monthly Meeting – 2 PM US Central – ONLINE – Featured Speaker: Brett Hoffstadt – Creating a better space exploration future through children’s books

Join us for our Monthly NSS North Houston Space Society (http://NorthHoustonSpace.org) meeting. Connect with others who are excited about exploring the cosmos, learning how to use the resources of space to improve human life, and who want to go and spread humanity to the rest of the universe.

The meeting will be on Saturday, February 6, 2021 at 2PM (CDT) ONLINE Via ZOOM:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85216600533

Tentative Agenda:
2:00 PM – Opening Remarks – Nathan Price
2:10 PM – Recent Space News – Greg Stanley
2:30 PM – Creating a better space exploration future through children’s books – Brett Hoffstadt
3:30 PM – Q&A
3:45 PM -Share your personal space experiences since the last meeting. Rocket Launches, Other Meetings, Research, etc.
4:00 PM – End of Meeting

TOPIC: Creating a better space exploration future through children’s books
PRESENTER: Brett Hoffstadt

Description:
A topic of continuous concern and discussion in the aerospace field is the workforce or “STEM” pipeline. How to attract, recruit, retain, and foster the people with potential to help us reach our fullest potential in the universe? (Can we fulfill our destiny as an interplanetary species?)

Throughout his 20+ year career in the aerospace and engineering industries, Brett Hoffstadt has contributed his time and energies to many efforts to bring people into the aerospace community through mentoring, educational outreach, and career development initiatives.

In 2014, he wrote and self-published his first book, How To Be a Rocket Scientist, which is geared toward high school-age students. More recently, he has concluded that the sooner we engage and inspire people to pursue a career in space exploration, the better off we will be as a species. Recall how the Apollo program and moon landing motivated an entire generation of kids to follow in the “footsteps” of the moon walkers by pursuing a career in aerospace fields.

He is now focused on publishing puzzle and activity books for preschool and grade school-age children on space exploration and related STEM themes. To reach children even earlier, he is currently producing a space-age spin-off of the classic book Goodnight Moon which is called Goodnight Moon Base. In this talk, Brett will share examples of his publications and invite discussion, suggestions, and feedback for how this strategy might promote space exploration efforts further.

Website

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The children’s classic bedtime book “Goodnight Moon” is getting a space-age update. Let’s inspire children to go TO the moon! Get a preview here:

https://moonbound.gr8.com/

About the Meeting

Meetings are open to all age groups and interest levels. Come explore with us the potential that developing and exploring space has to better life here on earth and to open up new frontiers creating new perspectives that can help enrich the human experience.

The Vision of NSS is people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

The Mission of NSS is to promote social, economic, technological, and political change in order to expand civilization beyond Earth, to settle space and to use the resulting resources to build a hopeful and prosperous future for humanity. Accordingly, we support steps toward this goal, including human spaceflight, commercial space development, space exploration, space applications, space resource utilization, robotic precursors, defense against asteroids, relevant science, and space settlement oriented education.

Website:  http://NorthHoustonSpace.org
MeetUp: https://www.meetup.com/Future-North-Houston-National-Space-Society-Chapter/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/NssNorthHoustonSpaceSociety/

Summary of Saturday, January 9, 2021 – Monthly Meeting – Featured Speaker: Gary Stephenson – Space suits and Space walks

2:00 PM – Opening Remarks – Nathan Price
2:10 PM – Recent Space News – Greg Stanley
2:30 PM – ISS EVA Operations & the EMU – Gary V. Stephenson
3:30 PM – Q&A
3:45 PM -Share your personal space experiences since the last meeting. Rocket Launches, Other Meetings, Research, etc.
4:00 PM – End of Meeting

Saturday, January 9, 2021 – Monthly Meeting – 2 PM US Central – ONLINE – Featured Speaker: Gary Stephenson – Space suits and Space walks

Join us for our Monthly NSS North Houston Space Society (http://NorthHoustonSpace.org) meeting. Connect with others who are excited about exploring the cosmos, learning how to use the resources of space to improve human life, and who want to go and spread humanity to the rest of the universe.

The meeting will be on Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 2PM (CDT) ONLINE Via ZOOM:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85216600533

Tentative Agenda:
2:00 PM – Opening Remarks – Nathan Price
2:10 PM – Recent Space News – Greg Stanley
2:30 PM – ISS EVA Operations & the EMU – Gary V. Stephenson
3:30 PM – Q&A
3:45 PM -Share your personal space experiences since the last meeting. Rocket Launches, Other Meetings, Research, etc.
4:00 PM – End of Meeting

Space Walks and Space Suits (ISS EVA Operations & the EMU) – Gary V. Stephenson

Gary Stephenson knows space suits. He was the United Technologies / Collins EVA engineer of record for dozens of spacewalks between May 2015 and May 2019. He knows the systems that keep astronauts safe and make spacewalks possible. In this talk, he will give an overview of the space suit technology, how astronauts get into and out of the space station, and talk about the technology that will let people walk on the moon.

About the Meeting

Meetings are open to all age groups and interest levels. Come explore with us the potential that developing and exploring space has to better life here on earth and to open up new frontiers creating new perspectives that can help enrich the human experience.

The Vision of NSS is people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

The Mission of NSS is to promote social, economic, technological, and political change in order to expand civilization beyond Earth, to settle space and to use the resulting resources to build a hopeful and prosperous future for humanity. Accordingly, we support steps toward this goal, including human spaceflight, commercial space development, space exploration, space applications, space resource utilization, robotic precursors, defense against asteroids, relevant science, and space settlement oriented education.

Website:  http://NorthHoustonSpace.org
MeetUp: https://www.meetup.com/Future-North-Houston-National-Space-Society-Chapter/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/NssNorthHoustonSpaceSociety/

North Houston Space Society – General Business Meeting and Elections – Monday, Dec. 21 at 2PM

The North Houston Space Society will be holding a General Business Meeting with the Election of a board of directors and officers on Monday, December 21, 2020 at 2PM. This meeting is opened to the public and anyone is welcome to attend. It will be held virtually via ZOOM. To ensure that the meeting is not disrupted, the ZOOM link information will be distributed via email. Please email nathan.price@gmail.com if you are interested in attending.

Business to be discussed and acted on:
1) Review of the NSS Vision, Mission, Rationale, Principles, Beliefs
And the visions for the North Houston Space Society
2) Election of the 2021 Board of Director and Officers.
If you are interested in a position please complete this form.
Current nominations:
a) President/Director:
Nathan Price

Nathan Price works in the software industry but has had a life-long passion for space exploration and development. In 2017, he thought it would be good to start a local chapter of the National Space Society. The chapter began meeting monthly at his home in January 2018, and moved to the Barbara Bush Library in 2019 and then in March 2020 meetings had to move online. He is also involved in other space related projects such as his personal project Countdown to the Moon that will capture a wide variety of views of our return to the moon and our future in space through daily interviews, and he is a Space Hero Insider which will be a global, reality show contest to send an extraordinary, non-astronaut citizen to the International Space Society (ISS) for 10 days. Space exploration and development will benefit humanity, and the North Houston Space Society will work to spread this vision and connected to the daily lives of our community.

b) VP/Director:
Greg Stanley

Dr. Greg Stanley, mostly retired,  creates, develops, and manages innovative technology, especially based on artificial intelligence. Greg has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University, and a BS in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. He has published over 25 peer-reviewed technical papers.  He worked at Exxon in technical and management roles in process control, engineering, IT, artificial intelligence, and dynamic simulation. He built software products and managed product development as a VP at Gensym, the leading provider of real-time expert systems, where he also consulted on projects for the Iridium satellite communications network, AT&T internet service, Intelsat, Biosphere 2, a Japanese nuclear industry/government consortium, and BMC.  He worked as a VP of software development and QA at Meridium.  As an independent consultant, he helped product design at SAT and SmartSignal.  His role as a VP at Integration Objects supported their product design as well as projects for the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Saudi Aramco, and a joint project with Honeywell for an LNG plant in Angola.  Technical specialties include artificial intelligence, fault diagnosis, process control, dynamic simulation, chemical engineering, network management, and estimation theory such as data reconciliation and Kalman filtering, as well as product architecture and software development to implement these applications. 


c) Secretary/Director:
Mahsa Esfand


Mahsa Moghimi Esfandabadi is designing habitats and greenhouses for Mars, Moon, and the zero-gravity through consultations with several companies.  She has over ten years experience working as a professional architect, project manager, and assistant professor.  She has studied the past, present, and future of architecture at the graduate level: M.A. in The Middle Eastern-Iranian Architecture Studies, M.S. Architectural Engineering, and M.S. Aerospace Architecture. She is the first Middle Eastern graduate of the AeroSpace Architecture program at the University of Houston, and the first person from the Middle East to serve on the Space Architecture Technical Committee (SATC). 
d) Treasure/Director:
Keith Dauzat

Keith Dauzat serves as the treasurer of the Clear Lake Space Society and for his local MUD. He has been involved in the North Houston Space Society since its first meeting in January 2018. He has professional training in accounting.
e) 3 non/officer Director Positions:
Dr. Heather Domjan

Dr. Heather Domjan has a long history of promoting STEM in the Houston area. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction (CUIN) of the University of Houston (UH). She is also the Executive Director of the  Science and Engineering Fair of Houston (SEFH). In this role she engages over 800 volunteers and oversee all committees.  Other responsibilities will include: conducting marketing and fundraising events, furthering program development and accounting management, and hosting and attending public relation events.  Domjan will also cultivate long-term strategic partnerships to increase the organization’s effectiveness within the community.


C. Stuart Hardwick

C Stuart Hardwick is a winner of the prestigious Writers of the Future contest and the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award. His work regularly appears in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, as well as Galaxy’s Edge, Forbes.com and Mental Floss, among others. A southerner from South Dakota, Stuart grew up creating radio dramas and animated shorts before moving on to robots and ill-conceived flying machines. He’s worked with the creators of the video game Doom, married an aquanaut, and trained his dog to pull a sled.

Stuart studied writing at U.C. Berkeley, lives in Houston, and has been known to wear a cape. For more information and a free signed e-sampler, visit www.cStuartHardwick.com.


awaiting additional nominations
3) Review of the 2020 Report to NSS
4) Review monthly meeting dates – suggestions on speakers
5) Determine time of next General Business Meeting

If there is additional items that should be placed on the agenda, please email nathan.price@gmail.com.

Saturday, December 12, 2020 – Monthly Meeting – 2 PM US Central – ONLINE

Join us for our Monthly NSS North Houston Space Society (http://NorthHoustonSpace.org) meeting. Come join others who are excited about exploring the cosmos, learning how to use the resources of space to improve human life, and who want to go and spread humanity to the rest of the universe.

The meeting will be on Saturday, December 12, 2020 at 2PM (CDT) ONLINE Via ZOOM:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85216600533

Tentative Agenda:
2:00 PM – Opening Remarks – Nathan Price
2:10 PM – Space Communicator SpeechAdam Hawkins
2:20 PM – Recent Space News – Greg Stanley
2:45 PM – Our Future in Space – Guided Discussion lead by Eagle Sarmont
3:30 PM – Q&A
3:45 PM -Share your personal space experiences since the last meeting. Rocket Launches, Other Meetings, Research, etc.
4:00 PM – End of Meeting

Our Future in Space

Eagle Sarmont will lead a discussion about our future in space around the following videos. Eagle has produced and collected much information about opening the High Frontier on his website: http://www.high-frontier.org/

Eagle is a retired aerospace engineer and ship’s officer who likes to design and build things.  He especially likes to design and build things that have never been thought of or built before.  He has designed, built, and test flown hang gliders, ultralight aircraft, homebuilt aircraft, and ground accelerators for launching rockets, and has helped design and build high-performance aircraft such as the F-5, F-18, F-20, F-22, F-35, U-2, SR-71, and the F-117. Some of his work is in orbit around the Earth and a satellite that is headed out of the solar system with his name on it.  He has done original research and have invented wondrous things including the non-rotating Skyhook.  

About the Meeting

Meetings are open to all age groups and interest levels. Come explore with us the potential that developing and exploring space has to better life here on earth and to open up new frontiers creating new perspectives that can help enrich the human experience.

The Vision of NSS is people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

The Mission of NSS is to promote social, economic, technological, and political change in order to expand civilization beyond Earth, to settle space and to use the resulting resources to build a hopeful and prosperous future for humanity. Accordingly, we support steps toward this goal, including human spaceflight, commercial space development, space exploration, space applications, space resource utilization, robotic precursors, defense against asteroids, relevant science, and space settlement oriented education.

Website:  http://NorthHoustonSpace.org
MeetUp: https://www.meetup.com/Future-North-Houston-National-Space-Society-Chapter/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/NssNorthHoustonSpaceSociety/

Summary of Saturday, November 7, 2020 – Monthly Meeting – Featured Speaker: Elliot Roth – Growing Edible Algae on the Moon

Recording:

Attendees:

Space News

Starlink Daily Coverage Estimates: https://sebsebmc.github.io/starlink-coverage/index.html
Dart: https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart

Featured Speaker: Elliot Roth – Growing Edible Algae on the Moon

Space Communicator Speech

Brynlee is the first person to complete all three speeches and receive the 2020 Space Communicator trophy!

Saturday, November 7, 2020 – Monthly Meeting – 2 PM US Central – ONLINE – Featured Speaker: Elliot Roth – Growing Edible Algae on the Moon

Join us for our Monthly NSS North Houston Space Society (http://NorthHoustonSpace.org) meeting. Come join others who are excited about exploring the cosmos, learning how to use the resources of space to improve human life, and who want to go and spread humanity to the rest of the universe.

The meeting will be on Saturday, November 7, 2020 at 2PM (CDT) ONLINE Via ZOOM:  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85216600533

Tentative Agenda:
2:00 PM – Opening Remarks – Nathan Price
2:10 PM – Space Communicator Speech
2:20 PM – Recent Space News – Greg Stanley
2:45 PM – Growing Edible Algae on the Moon – Elliot Roth
3:30 PM – Q&A
3:45 PM -Share your personal space experiences since the last meeting. Rocket Launches, Other Meetings, Research, etc.
4:00 PM – End of Meeting

About the Speaker Elliot Roth

Elliot is the founder of Spira, a company that creates better-tasting spirulina as an ingredient for food companies. Spira has received awards from RebelBioLighthouse Labs, the World Food ProgrammeHalcyon IncubatorBeGreenCommBeBiz, and the National Science Foundation, and has presented at SXSWSynbiobeta and Thought for Food. Elliot is a Kairos Fellow, a Seasteading Ambassador, and Future Founders Fellow. Before Spira, Elliot graduated with a degree in biomedical engineering; he trained at the Stanford d.School as a University Innovation Fellow, and has 10 years of synthetic biology experience and worked for 5 years as a product consultant. He previously founded 6 failed startups and 2 successful nonprofits including an open community science lab. He is incredibly motivated to solve physiological needs using simple biological design.

About This Project

One of the biggest challenges for off-world life is the production of food. Astronauts need nutritionally dense, fast-growing and resource-efficient food that can be grown in a tiny amount of space. This experiment aims to grow spirulina algae to supply a nutritional supplement to the crew. Previous NASA experiments only tested dried spirulina algae. This experiment will test growing conditions and sentiments around fresh spirulina algae to enable nutrition for life in space.

What is the context of this research?

I was selected as a NASA analog astronaut at HI-SEAS to simulate living on the moon. These missions range from a few weeks to months, and test how people might live off-planet in a socially-isolated environment. The enclosed isolated space at HI-SEAS on the side of a volcano in Hawaii, provides a fertile test-bed to run experiments that enable life on other planets and give researchers a sense of what is required to make humanity thrive in those extreme environments.

I’m a giant space geek. Ever since I was a kid I launched rockets and dreamed of finding ways to explore the solar system. I started researching algae as a means of creating access to nutrition anywhere effortlessly, and was selected for this mission due to my experience.

What is the significance of this project?

Algae has the ability to grow quickly on just sunlight, CO2, water and salt while treating wastewater, bioremediating CO2, providing nutrition, and absorbing harmful radiation. This is essential in space when astronauts are resource limited. Previous research has been done by NASA and ESA to investigate the use of algae for closed life-support systems. That research has proceeded slowly as many astronauts did not like the taste of dried algae as a food source.

Fresh algae has no taste and can be grown quickly on-site. This experiment is meant to compare dried algae to fresh and measure the sentiments of fellow astronauts to this new food source while tracking metrics that relate to the growing, harvesting and consuming of freshly grown algae.

About the Meeting

Meetings are open to all age groups and interest levels. Come explore with us the potential that developing and exploring space has to better life here on earth and to open up new frontiers creating new perspectives that can help enrich the human experience.

The Vision of NSS is people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.

The Mission of NSS is to promote social, economic, technological, and political change in order to expand civilization beyond Earth, to settle space and to use the resulting resources to build a hopeful and prosperous future for humanity. Accordingly, we support steps toward this goal, including human spaceflight, commercial space development, space exploration, space applications, space resource utilization, robotic precursors, defense against asteroids, relevant science, and space settlement oriented education.

Website:  http://NorthHoustonSpace.org
MeetUp: https://www.meetup.com/Future-North-Houston-National-Space-Society-Chapter/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/NssNorthHoustonSpaceSociety/

Summary of Saturday, October 3, 2020 – Monthly Meeting – Featured Speaker: Richard D. Easton – GPS Declassified

Nathan’s Meeting Overview

BrynLee’s Space Communicator Speech on Space Suit

Greg’s News Update

Richard’s presentation on GPS