[amsat-bb] Where's the Beef?
Robert, You commented: "As for AMSAT's ARISSsat transponder. Well we will see if it works. They are not exactly burning up the track record with success. We have had this argument and I am willing to sit back and see if it goes, but it is far to much project for the program. Most of the folks I know at JSC give it less then 20 percent chance of working...In fact it was a source of mirth at a recent BDAY party." All your e-mails give the impression that you are well positioned within JSC and "know all" that is going on within NASA. But when I did a Search for your name within the NASA employee and contractor database, the database comes up empty handed. Given that I am a "facts and data" kind of guy, what up with this? And how are you all knowing??? What do you really do for a living?? Who are these people you are talking to that are so opinionated? Or are you using another alias besides Robert Oler or Rocky Jones? Or is all you are posting on this listserv just your own kind of fluff?? Inquiring minds want to know. Frank, KA3HDO ___ Sent via amsat...@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
[amsat-bb] "Final" Symposium Agenda Posted
All, We have posted the "Final" Agenda for the 2009 AMSAT Symposium, including the presentation schedule. I call it "Final" because everything is subject to change. We are still looking for some volunteers for the following responsibilities: 1) Paper Session Chairs (introduce speaker, time presentation, use the "hook" if paper runs long) for the 5 paper sessions 2) AV table support (1 hour commitment or more during paper presentations) 3) Registration table (1 hour commitment or more) 4) Poster session Chair/security (1 hour commitment or more and only when the poster session is open to the public) If you are interested in supporting any of these, e-mail me directly (ka3...@comcast.net) and let me know what interests you and what dates/times you would like to support. We can really use your help on this as it is a critical element of making the 2009 symposium a success. And for those who have not done it already..please sign up for the symposium. We have a fantastic program planned. 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 2009 AMSAT Symposium Co-Chair ___ Sent via amsat...@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
[amsat-bb] Symposium Restaurant Locations
All, I had to go on some unexpected travel out of BWI the past couple of weeks. So I did some reconnaissance and developed a couple of maps that depict restaurants near the hotel and airport. You can retrieve these at the AMSAT Symposium Web Site. Go to the food and drink icon and click on the pdf or ppt file. I also included in this package directions to the G&M Restaurant which is close to the hotel. This restaurant just received the WTOP "Best Crab Cake" award through a survey from the radio station's Baltimore/Washington listeners. This restaurant has good food at reasonable prices. We will be including paper copies of these maps in the symposium registration packet. But wanted to give you a heads up, so you can plan out your meals. And if you haven't registered for the symposium yet, please do so. We are less than 2 weeks away!! 73, Frank, KA3HDO ___ Sent via amsat...@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
[amsat-bb] Coming Soon: 2009 AMSAT Symposium--40th AMSAT Anniversary Celebration
All, A reminder that the Symposium is quickly approaching!! Don't miss the outstanding papers, camaraderie, and 40th anniversary celebration. And Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday celebration in "Charm City", Baltimore, Maryland. Both Airtran and Southwest have very cheap airfares available that end on Sept 24. This will probably be your last chance for cheap airfares. Example airfares include (One way): Albany, Columbus, Detroit, Hartford $49, Houston $94, Dallas $99 and many many more. The 4 Points Sheraton is an outstanding venue for this year's Symposium. If you haven't looked, the agenda for the symposium and a list of papers are on the AMSAT Web site. So..make your reservations, call Martha, get on the web and get cracking!! See you all in Baltimore. 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO and Janet Bauer, Symposium Co-Chairs ___ Sent via amsat...@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
[amsat-bb] AMSAT Symposium---40th Anniversary is Quickly Approaching
All, If you have not made your reservations for the AMSAT symposium, please do so as soon as you can!! This will be AMSAT's 40th anniversary and we are planning some great events at the symposium. And there is a lot of "free stuff" and amenities at this symposium..so a great deal of bang for your buck. For example: Free internet in the rooms and in the conference facility Free parking All AMSAT member get free admittance to the 40th Anniversary Party Friday Evening---food, cake, etc. Beautiful flat screen televisions in each room Great Banquet Speaker--- Martin Collins, Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum Curator, Space History Museum, "Making the Space Age, the First 50 years" High-Caliber paper presentations on recent Satellite Developments and satellite operations Poster Session with Satellite, University, and ARISS activities presented. An AMSAT 40th anniversary retrospective is included IARU Satellite Forum ARISS Operations Team Meeting---ARISS team members and new volunteers are welcome to attend Great prizes from major ham radio manufacturers So make your reservations! We look forward to seeing many of you in "Charm City"-Baltimore, Maryland-for the AMSAT 40th Anniversary Celebration. 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO and Janet Bauer 2009 AMSAT Symposium Co-Chairs Ps If you haven't already done so, consider presenting a paper this year. Dan Schultz is still accepting papers via n8...@amsat.org. And I plan to post the meeting agenda in the next couple of days (we are having a Symposium team meeting this evening-so you will get the latest information). ___ Sent via amsat...@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
[amsat-bb] Special Event Coinciding with AMSAT Symposium
All, Those of you into Edgar Allan Poe.there is a special treat if you come to this year's symposium. The famous poet is celebrating his 200th birthday this year. He lived in Baltimore for several years and died and was buried in the city. And there is a Poe Museum at the Baltimore house he lived in before his death. The year-long commemoration of Poe will culminate with a recreation of his funeral that occurs around the Symposium dates. Poe died on October 7, 1849. There will be a recreation of a wake for Poe from noon to 11 pm at the Poe House. This will be followed up with a mock-funeral for Poe on Sunday October 11 (12:30 and 4:30). John Astin (Gomez Addams from the Addams family fame) will officiate the funeral services. If you want more information on this, go to the following web sites: www.nevermore2009.com www.poebicentennial.com www.annabelleetavern.com This "all Poe" tavern was named after one of Poe's last poems.a virtual shrine to Edgar Allan Poe with his poetry covering the walls. www.westminsterhall.org Where he is buried.and where a mystery man dresses in black leaves a bottle of cognac and three red roses on Poe's birthday. If you didn't know it before, now you know why the Baltimore Football team is called the Ravens... 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO 2009 AMSAT Symposium Co-Chair ___ Sent via amsat...@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
[amsat-bb] More Good Sympoiusm Airfares
All, Those interested in attending the AMSAT Symposium in Baltimore this October, I just got a notice that Airtran has a sale to and from BWI until September 17. $39-119 with a 10 day advance purchase. Sign up now to get the best fares before they are taken by others. Airtran does charge for checked luggage. We will be posting the Symposium agenda this week. For planning purposes, the BoD meeting starts Thursday morning and runs until noon Friday. The symposium starts at 1 pm Friday and runs until noon Sunday. The AMSAT annual meeting with be Saturday afternoon. And there will be an ARISS ops meeting (all are invited) on Sunday. The 40th anniversary celebration is Friday night and the Banquet is Saturday night. I hope to see you in Baltimore. We expect to have a great time. 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO ___ Sent via amsat...@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
[amsat-bb] FW: AMSAT-BB Digest, Vol 4, Issue 401
Miles, I find it really sad that you have stooped this low.character assassination and the like. This e-mail is filled with so many inaccuracies and wrong statements that it would be a disservice to the amateur community to go through this and challenge each of your statements. While I am no longer part of the ARISS team, I think it would be best for me to respond to this e-mail as I think some clarifications are worthy of a response. And given the fact that I led the ARISS team for 13 years. Your main gripe was that you were not invited to the ARISS meeting at ESA Estec a few months ago. It should be noted that AMSAT did not make this final decision. Specifically, it was your (Miles) actions that caused you to be not invited. Not some "closed" organization as you (Miles) stipulate. The crux of the issue is that if one disregards verbal or written direction from space agencies and, as a result, you violate space agency policy or company/agency proprietary rules, then a significant element of distrust is built up. ARISS cannot let this happen. And Miles, through your actions, you did this. And as a result, you did this to yourself. Let me also be clear that MAREX as a team was not singled out. Only Miles. So if MAREX had thoughts or proposals, they were and are welcome to share them with the ARISS team. And, if there are other members of MAREX, besides Miles, that wanted to attend future meetings, I would expect that they probably would be allowed to attend. As long as they abide by the space agency rules. (But remember, I don't make those decisions) ARISS is an international working group consisting of National Amateur Radio Societies, AMSAT organizations and the international space agencies from the 5 ISS regions (Europe, Japan, Russia, Canada and the USA). This working group works hand-in-hand to develop and operate the amateur radio system on ISS. ARISS cannot do this without the space agencies and the crew on-board. ARISS has and continues to do its best to be as transparent (open) as possible. International meetings are open to the public, as long as an element of trust is not violated. While the ARISS model is not perfect, nothing is. But I must say that the international participation and support that comes from the ARISS team is some of the best I have ever seen anywhere. To say that ARISS is a failure is ludicrous. It is my personal opinion that the national radio society model (e.g. in the US ARRL and AMSAT) is the right model for ARISS. It has worked well and provides an outstanding educational outreach program that gives students and communities a very positive view of ham radio. ARISS has not excluded universities from participating. For example, the Kursk University in Russia is currently building an experiment for SuitSat-2. The Santa Rosa Junior College in the US is an ARISS telebridge station. Students at the College of New Jersey in the US participated in the testing of the SuitSat-2 SDX. And the Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland built the L/S band ARISS antennas that are installed on the Columbus module. In summary, I think we should stop the whining. And recognize that we need to work hand-in-glove with the international space agencies if we want to sustain a ham radio program on human spaceflight vehicles. This may mean that our pet project might not fly now (or ever). That there will be times when the crew does not get on the ham radio. And that there will be give and take within the international ARISS and international space agency team on how hardware gets developed, who develops it and when it gets tested, repaired or operated. With sincere interest in ARISS Program Success, Frank H. Bauer, KA3HDO -- Message: 9 Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:20:38 -0700 (PDT) From: MM Subject: [amsat-bb] Lets Fix ISS, Replace ARISS To: amsat-bb@amsat.org Message-ID: <394473.2938...@web56401.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Marex Miles Mann WF1F Marex w...@marexmg.org August 25, 2009 Dear ARISS supporters: I am writing to you because of the extremely poor track record that ARISS has accumulated over the past 12 years regarding ISS hardware projects. The only way to correct the problem and fix the Amateur Radio educational program is to completely reorganization the current ARISS hardware structure. Under the new ARISS Closed Door policy, only selected members from AMSAT-NA are allowed to participate. This new policy has turned the once open ARISS into a closed door Monopoly controlled by the AMSAT Corporation. Based on the current actions of ARISS and their very poor performance with in-flight hardware I would like to propose a complete reorganization of the ARISS hardware process. Please review the enclosed information. I look forward to discussing the proposal with you are your earliest opportunity. Sincerely G. Miles Mann
[amsat-bb] An alternative ... or ... competition !!!.
All, So that you all know, there is a lot of international discussion and dialog going on right now on the next steps for ISS. The current international commitment is to fly ISS to 2015. But given that several of the international partners, most notably Europe and Japan, have just gotten their modules on-orbit, there is discussion, dialog and debate on extending ISS to 2020 and beyond. In the USA, some of this dialog is occurring through the Obama-chartered Human Spaceflight Review Committee, let by Norm Augustine, where they have a sub-group looking at ISS Schedule, ISS Utility and ISS Cost. See: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/hsf/home/index.html While the statement, below, might have been made, I would wait until all the ISS Partners get together to modify their future ISS strategy in writing. And remember that ISS has done a fantastic job of international collaboration..they all (US, Russia, Europe, Canada, and Japan) all depend upon each other to ensure a robust ISS system. So separating one segment from the others will have great repercussions for all parties. On another topic, WRT the Lunar ILN, if you read the solicitation, they are discussing *15 kg* payloads. And these need to accomplish some scientific objective to further lunar exploration. Given this, I do not think the ILN is a viable AMSAT project. 73, Frank Bauer, KA3HDO Message: 5 Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 12:46:08 +0200 From: John Hackett Subject: [amsat-bb] An alternative ... or ... competition !!!. To: Cc: allan_gm1...@hotmail.com, amsat-bb@amsat.org Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Ladies and Gentlemen, For those that don't know it, The chief of RosKosmos, the Russian Space Agency *confirmed* last week the Russian intention to pull the plug on the ISS in the 2015 - 2020 timeframe and to construct another dedicated Russian space station. According to Anatoly Zak RosKosmos informed NASA of these plans 14 days ago. The new Russian station is *NOT* intended to be a laboratory like the ISS but more of an in-orbit contruction platform for future Mars-like and outer space missions. The station will comprise a maintainable 'ball' section with several docking ports with attachable modules. I propose that amateur radio satellite operators get together and form a group to suggest/try to influence/impliment an ARISS type of project for this space station. A Strela type frame could be attached to the underside of the 'ball' and since the station is planned for a Molinya type orbit the coverage would be suitable for DX. The planned orbit would put the station predominently over Russia - as opposed to the current ISS equatorial orbit. Personally, I would suggest an RS-10/11 RS-12/13 clone with a ROBOT ... (read: propagation tester) - as these satellites were without the shadow of a doubt the best for recruiting newcomers. It would, in my opinion, be a viable concept and an alternative to some of the latest 'ideas' of a transponder on the moon ... which wouldn't 'catch' many potential newcomers but would (*IN MY OPINION*) only serve a few dedicated 'experts' ... leading to the demise of amateur satellite communications in general. Comments, monies and praise to LA2QAA. Criticisms, horsewhipping and flaming to GM1SXX. 73 John. Interested parties may read the following ... The OPSEK project By 2008, the Russian successor to the International Space Station, ISS, was identified as Orbitalniy Pilotiruemyi Eksperimentalniy Kompleks, OPSEK, or Orbital Manned Assembly and Experiment Complex in English.* Unlike previous designs of Mir, Mir-2 and the ISS, the heart of the station would be a four-ton ball-shaped node module. Equipped with six docking ports, this relatively small and simple element would be the only permanent element of the station. All other modules would come and go as their lifespan and mission requires. The initial architecture of the OPSEK complex could be built out of modules originally planned for the Russian segment of the ISS. The exact scenario of the OPSEK assembly would depend on the end of the ISS and the readiness of the latest Russian modules. According to a 2008 scenario, the MLM multipurpose module, the node module and a pair of NEM power platforms could be first launched to the ISS in 2011, 2013 and 2014-2015, respectively. With the deorbiting of the ISS looming around 2020, these modules could separate from the old outpost to form the core of the new Russian station. Another, more controversial scenario considered the separation of the practically entire Russian segment, including the MIM-2 docking compartment and the Zvezda service module, prior to the ISS deorbiting. In this case, the 20-year-old service module would temporarily take a responsibility for the flight control of the OPSEK, until its replacement wit
