San Diego Space Society and Project Astro have combined forces to offer an educational, space-related, hands-on workshop for area teachers intended to enhance S.T.E.M. education curriculum. There are four areas of focus: Life Science, Physical Science, Earth & Space Science and Engineering. This workshop is made possible by a NASA Summer of Innovation grant.

The NASA Office of Education is pleased to announce the selected sites for the second and final phase of applications for the Summer of Innovation Mini-Grant opportunity in partnership with the National Space Grant Foundation for 2011. The mini-grant aspect of the SoI enables local organizations to infuse NASA-themed science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, content and activities to middle school students through existing summer and/or afterschool programs and anticipates engaging over 8,000 students in this fiscal year!

The workshop will be conducted at the RHFleet Science Center for registered participants on October 1st.

11:00 am to 4:15 pm

Location:
UCSD
La Jolla, CA

Sally Ride Science Festivals are designed to encourage 5th-8th grade girls in science.

This festival features:

- An inspiring talk by astronaut Wendy Lawrence
- Discovery Workshops given by local scientists and engineers
(examples include chemists, veterinarians, microbiologists, and others)
- Workshops for parents and teachers on ways to support students’ interests in science and math
- A Street Fair with booths, hands-on activities, food, and music

SD Space and the Mars Society, San Diego will participate in the Street Fair providing hands-on activities including our tele-operated Mars Rovers and air launched rockets.

The San Diego Space Society would like to congratulate the following individuals for their entries in this year’s Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair. Everyone worked hard to create an outstanding project.

Coil Gun Project by Daniel Benham

High Voltage DC to DC Conversion for Power Distribution by Weston Braun

Stability Analysis of Control Algorithms by Keegan Mann

Wingtip Drag Reduction: Spiroid vs. Up-turned Winglets by Michael Patacsil

[no photo]
GO SOLAR by Dominic Pletcher

A special awards ceremony will be held during Space Day at the San Diego Air and Space Museum, currently scheduled for 12:30pm.

12:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Interested in building something? Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects.

This month’s Saturday build session we’ll continue with our Sky Satellite project by designing and building PongSats.

Previously we built a balloon launched camera which we flew at a nearby park to a height of 250 feet. Next well start to design and build a micro sky satellite called a PongSat. What is a PongSat? It’s an ping pong ball sized experiment flown to the edge of space by balloons and/or launched in rockets. The launch and recovery opportunity is provided by JP Aerospace.

There are endless possibilities for experiments that can fit inside a ping pong ball. PongSat’s can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. Experiments can be as simple as comparing how high a ball bounces before and after being exposed to vacuum. The PongSat can carry seeds to see if exposure to cosmic rays effect their growth. Several small inexpensive computers and other electronic can fit inside a PongSat. These can be used to create a wide range of experiments. Whether carrying a marshmallow to see if it puffs up in the vacuum of near space or an entire sophisticated satellite in miniature, PongSat can create motivation, drive and passion. – JP Aerospace

Members and the public are welcome to join the project team. RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

Note: We recommend that parents participate with their children; children under 10 must have a parent present for the entire workshop.

10:00 am to 5:00 pm

Location:
Petco Park (map)
San Diego, CA

Expo Day for the San Diego Science Festival at PETCO Park brings together over 135 hands-on science activities and 12 stage performances for kids of all ages. Full schedule of events can be found here.

Each year in March, the San Diego Science Festival cascades over San Diego County in a weeklong celebration of science and engineering that invigorates over 75,000 students, parents, scientists, educators and other community members. Over 30,000 participants join the largest single-day science and engineering event in Southern California at EXPO DAY, the Festival’s grand finale event held the final Saturday of Festival week at PETCO Park. With opportunities to participate in hands-on activities, meet real scientists and engineers and learn how their discoveries and research affect our daily lives, the Festival is a unique opportunity to reach students of all ages and backgrounds, inspiring the next generation of innovators.

The San Diego Space Society booth will allow visitors to get hands-on experience with rockets and rovers. Come build and launch an air rocket after driving the rovers around the Mars Yard.

Location:
Balboa Park Activity Center
2145 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA

The 57th Annual Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair will be held on March 23, 2011. Judges from the San Diego Space Society will present awards to outstanding space-related projects at the Fair.

The event is not open to the public, but SD Space award winners will be featured on the website and invited to present their projects at a special awards night.

2:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Location:
Serra Mesa Branch Library (map)
9005 Aero Dr, San Diego, CA

Join us for the March program meeting of the San Diego Space Society. Professor Tom Murphy will be discussing “Einstein, the Moon and the Long Lost Soviet Reflector.”

Tom Murphy is Associate Professor UC San Diego Department of Physics and Center for Astrophysics and Space Science.

One of the greatest successes of the former Soviet space program was a lunar rover called Lunokhod 1—Russian for “moonwalker.” Landing on the moon on November 17, 1970 with a laser reflector, it wandered around the moon’s surface for 11 months then mysteriously disappeared– until last spring.

On April 22, nearly 40 years after Lunokhod 1 disappeared, a team headed by Tom Murphy found the reflector and pinpointed its distance from earth to within one centimeter. The discovery came as part of a long-term project Murphy heads to send pulses of laser light to the moon from a telescope in New Mexico. The purpose, which he
will describe in his talk, is to look for deviations of Einstein’s theory of general relativity by measuring the shape of the lunar orbit to within the accuracy of one millimeter, or about the thickness of a paperclip.

Everyone is welcome to attend this presentation. Email events@sdspace.org if you have any questions.

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Sponsored by NASA, EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) is an educational outreach program allowing middle school students to take pictures of our Earth from a digital camera on board the International Space Station.

SD Space will work with local middle schools and offer after-school activities supporting the mission. If you would like your middle-school child to participate, please RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

SD Space members and the public are welcome to help out. Please let us know if you’d like to volunteer by emailing us at events@sdspace.org.

On Saturday, October 16th, Derek Nye and several SD Space members led a telescope building workshop at the Space Activities Lab in South Park. Five students attended the free hands-on activity, the second in a series offered by SD Space.

Before starting the build project, the students learned about telescopes from Phil Blanco, a local astronomy professor and Project ASTRO leader. They talked about how telescopes work, Galileo’s discoveries with them 400 years ago, and the kinds of things one could see with the Galileoscope (which has far better optics than Galileo’s telescope!).

After completing their new telescopes, everyone had fun trying them out in the lab, and then looking up and down the street. With a telescope mount – such as a camera tripod, some of the night time objects that can be observed in the next couple of weeks include: craters on our Moon, Jupiter and its moons, and even a special appearance by comet Hartley 2. We’ll be getting together at the Emporium soon to do just that when we have a clear night.

Contact projects@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate, or if you’re interested in attending future workshops.

1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Presentation:
Invasion from Earth –
The Robotic Exploration of Mars

Mars is a very busy place for exploration these days with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, 2001 Mars Odyssey and ESA’s Mars Express in Martian orbit, and the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, still on the surface of the red planet. We’ll look at all the different robotic craft and their missions, as well as the next several planned missions by the spacefaring nations of Earth.

With Gerry Williams and The Mars Society-San Diego, at 1:00pm in the Eaton Room at the Town & Country Resort Hotel at 500 Hotel Circle North, San Diego CA 92108.

This is a presentation of the CONJECTURE SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION.  For more information, please visit:

http://2010.conjecture.org/