Minutes of ERPS General Meeting #273
04 December 2003
The President called the meeting to order at 8:40 PM. Members present were
Kevin Bollinger, Rick Eversole, Sean Lynch, Dave Masten, Gerald Nordley,
Adrian Tymes, and Chris Winter.
Reports and discussion on agenda items were as follows:
DOCUMENTATION
-------------
Chris Winter
Nothing to report
INFOTECH
--------
Sean Lynch
Nothing to report
LIAISONS
--------
Michael Wallis
Adrian reported that there is no activity from other organizations RE: our
F.A.S.T. proposal. On a possibly related note, he also informed the meeting
that the National Space Society (NSS) was one space activist group singled
out for lack of accomplishment in activism.
PUBLIC AFFAIRS
--------------
Michael Wallis
Nothing to report
TREASURER
---------
Rick Eversole
Rick has not disbursed any fnds since the last meeting. (However, Kevin
stated that he will expect reimbursement for filament winder parts at some
point.) After discussion, it was agreed that action on the budget situation
can be deferred until the next scheduled board of directors meeting.
CHIEF SCIENTIST
---------------
Kevin Bollinger
Proceedings of the Fifth Conference on Hydrogen Peroxide Propulsion (held
two months ago) are now on-line and may be ordered there for $60.
Much work has been done on hypergolic mixtures of biodiesel fuel with HTP
in various concentrations. Kevin has 8 or 9 propellant combinations he
still needs to test before possibly writing up his results.
He is making the last few design decisions on his filament winder, and may
want to reserve space for the finished machine in Unit 23.
His sparger, too, is nearing completion (about 85% complete). He ran a
test on it four months ago; the device is now mounted on a trailer beside
his house.
He has located a commercial catalyst that may perform as well as his
cermet formulation, and which is quite inexpensive. He needs some 98% HTP
to test this thesis.
He has begun laying the keel for his manned, X Prize class rocket.
Completion is a ways off; but the first step is always a noteworthy
milestone.
He has not been getting e-mail from the ERPS list. Sean arrived as Kevin
was reporting this, and announced he had just fixed the problem. Apparently
Kevin's ISP's server had at some point decided ERPS messages were SPAM, and
bounced some. Our servers, therefore, stopped sending to that address.
Noticing this, Sean reset the permissions.
FLIGHT CONTROLS
---------------
Dave Masten
Dave M reported fixing two problems in his flight control software. There
was a latency problem that caused a noticeable delay in reponse to throttle
setting changes, and one instance of a number that should be floating-point
being taken as integer by the code, thus causing an integer-divide error.
PROPELLANTS/SPARGER/FF
----------------------
Pierce Nichols
Dave W's Teacart FF apparatus has been moved to the Rocket Ranch. The
baffle assembly for Pierce's sparger did not quite fit, and the team had no
tools on hand to make it fit. Modifications will be done back at CDI.
REGULATORY
AFFAIRS
-------
Dave Weinshenker
Nothing to report
SAFETY
------
Dave Masten
Safety is AOK.
TESTING
-------
Dave Masten
No news about liability insurance, and nothing else to report
**** PROJECTS
Composites
----------
Kevin Bollinger
Kevin showed samples of carbon-fiber and glass-fiber composite sheets he
had made using different epoxies. He plans to try a two-hour (curing time)
epoxy which, AIUI, outgasses very little or is impervious to water (or
both?)
Gizmocopter
-----------
Dave Masten
Sean reprised the recent progress on Gizmocopter: Its rotors were spun up
at the last meeting under control of a serial signal from Dave M's laptop.
(There was no meeting on Thanksgiving Day.) The team found that when the
throttle was advanced rapidly, the motor controllers shut down. This
problem may be due to a sort of "brownout", since the on-board computer and
motors are fed from the same power source. Computer power will be fed from
a separate source to confirm this. Other things to be done are to complete
the re-wiring of two motors and to re-balance the propellors.
KISS
----
Dan Solvin
Nothing to report
POGO
----
Dave Masten
Nothing to report
SMARTFLIGHT
-----------
Dave Weinshenker
Nothing to report
Spike
-----
Sean Lynch
Nothing to report
New Business
------------
Kevin reiterated his suggestion that our meetings need something more
effective at attracting visitors -- perhaps a short lecture or
demonstration. ERPS members are well qualified to present such talks.
Perhaps a monthly event could be tried.
Chris showed a book he had obtained at a sale: _Imagining Space_, by
Launius and McCurdy. He offered it for auction, the proceeds to go to ERPS;
but this was deferred by consensus until a better-attended meeting. Folks --
this book is in pristine condition and would make a FINE Christmas gift. A
review is on his Web site. (Go to http://www.chris-winter.com/ and click
for the "Visions of a Space Age" section.)
Meeting #273 adjourned at 9:36 PM. The next meeting will take place on 18
December 2003 at the Denny's on Bowers Avenue in Santa Clara. Watch the
list for full driving directions.
Respectfully submitted,
Chris Winter
Secretary, ERPS
+++ PLEASE ADVISE THE SECRETARY OF ANY ADDITIONS OR CORRECTIONS TO THESE
MINUTES +++
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