Posted by Jesse Clark in Calendar, Education, Events, Science on March 9, 2011
Wed, Mar 23, 2011
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.
Posted by Jesse Clark in Calendar, Education, Events, Science on February 25, 2011
Sun, Mar 13, 2011
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.
Posted by Jesse Clark in Calendar, Education, Events, Projects, SAL, Science on January 4, 2011
January 18, 2011 to January 21, 2011
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.
Posted by Jesse Clark in Astronomy, Chapter Updates, Education, News, Project ASTRO, Projects, SAL, Science on October 20, 2010
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.
Posted by Gerry Williams in Astronomy, Calendar, Education, Events, Mars Society, Science on September 29, 2010
Sun, Oct 3, 2010
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/
