See newsletter archive index: Updated June 8, 2016: Excel, PDF.
Newsletter archive on the national AIAA SharePoint website

Below: Current Issue of Horizons, newsletter of AIAA Houston Section, the August, 2017 issue. 15 pages, 3 MB, PDF. Click on that “PDF” link or click on the image below to read or download this issue. Membership is not required.

Above: Contents:

• Page 1: Cover page. Table of contents.
• Page 2: Calendar.
• Page 3: Letter from the Editor. (NASA photo of Tropical Storm Harvey seen from Low Earth Orbit.)
• Page 4: Special: Cassini’s End Game at Saturn, by Daniel Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant.
• Page 11: Climate Change & Local Responses, by Douglas Yazell, Contributor. [Science, Engineering & Public Policy]
• Page 12: Astronomy, Artificial Lighting, & Woodlands, by Philippe Mairet & Madeleine Bourdeaux, 3AF MP (www.3af-mp.fr), our French sister section. The English translation by Douglas Yazell appears on page 13.
• Page 14: AIAA Houston Section Information.
• Page 15: NASA poster. Relax on Kepler-16b. The Land of Two Suns, Where Your Shadow Always has Company. A hypothetical travel brochure.

Special James C. McLane III reprint issue (57 pages, 9 MB)! [October 6, 2015] Horizons contributor James C. McLane III died suddenly on September 22, 2015, at age 70. (Obituary at legacy.com) This reprint issue collects his articles from Horizons from 2007 to 2014, and we hope we did not omit any of his Horizons articles. Please note that his late father, James C. McLane, Jr., was a top leader at NASA/JSC during the Apollo years, and Horizons started as the unnamed “Newlsetter” of AIAA Houston Section while James C. McLane, Jr., was our AIAA Houston Section Chair (1971-1972). The web page you are reading now (www.aiaahouston.org/newsletter) archives quite a few issues of Horizons, and using an AIAA SharePoint website, we archive as many old issues as we can find, as noted at the top of this web page.

September 2015 issue! (website only, with emailed contents & links sent to membership, September 28, 2015) This is the second and last issue with Acting Editor Michael Martin, PhD. Please help us to find our next editor.

June 2015 issue (website only, with emailed contents & links sent to membership, July 4, 2015):

http://www.aiaahouston.org/newsletter/june-2015-horizons-2/
Contents:

• Former Chair’s Remarks (Michael Martin, PhD)
• Current Chair’s Remarks (Alan Sisson, Chair, 2015-2016)
• Election Results: Thanks to Michael Frostad & the rest of the election committee!
  • Mr. Alan Sisson – Chair 2015
  • Ms. Jennifer Wells – Chair-Elect, Chair 2016
  • Mr. Fred Oullette – Treasurer
  • Ms. Lea Hougland – Secretary
  • Ms. Justine Wiles – Vice-Chair, Technical
  • Ms. Ashley Nelson – Vice-Chair, Operations
  • Ms. Laura Sarmiento – Councilor 1
  • Mr. Douglas Yazell – Councilor 2
  • Mr. William “Bill” West – Councilor 3
  • Mr. Zach Tejral – Councilor 4
  • Mr. Ryan Miller – Councilor 5
• Climate Change & Local Responses, by Douglas Yazell, article #10 in this series, [Climate Change Science & Public Policy]
• AIAA Daily Launch highlights (daily email news summary)
  • Texas A&M-CC Working on UAVs with Multiple Agencies
  • Texas House Passes Bill that Would Impact State Aerospace Industry
  • New Shepard Capsule Reaches Altitude of 58 Miles on First Flight
  • SpaceX, Blue Origin in “21st Century Space Race” in Texas
  • FAA Maintains Wildlife Strikes Database
  • FAA Grants USAA Permission to Test Small UAVs in San Antonio
  • Firefly Space Systems on Track for 2017 Rocket Launch
• Dinner Meeting Reports
  • January 2015: Dr. Randii Wessen, Mars Rover
  • February 2015: Dr. Barry Lefer, Climate Change Science & Public Policy
  • March 2015: Dr. Mary Lynne Dittmar, Future of Space Exploration
  • April 2015: Dr. Sandra Magnus, State of AIAA
  • May 2015: Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz, VASIMR plasma engine
  • June 2015: Mr. Wayne Hale at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum, Challenges of Hubble Space Telescope Repair

May / June 2014 issue. 46 pages, 8.7 MB. Volume 39, Issue 6 (PDF file).

Published June 30, 2014.

Contents

• Page 1: Morpheus: The Ups and Downs of an Autonomous Lander, by Jon Olansen, NASA/JSC.
• Page 2: Table of contents and related information, including a disclaimer, if that is the correct word. Items in the table of contents are linked so that readers can use that option to jump to an article. A colored bar at the top of each page (except the front and back covers) is a link to allow the reader to jump back to page 2, the table of contents. This page includes the painting masterpiece The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh, in part to add some color to this page, but also to remind AIAA Houston Section about the 100 Year Starship (www.100yss.org).
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner, by Michael Frostad. This issue: Community.
• Page 4: Editor’s Corner, by Douglas Yazell. This issue: Morpheus, LPSC, and the End of our AIAA Year. We seek a new Horizons Editor starting July 1, 2014. Volume 2 of the authorized biography of Robert Anson Heinlein is mentioned. The author of that new book is the late William H. Patterson, Jr.
• Page 5: Morpheus: The Ups and Downs of an Autonomous Lander, by Jon Olansen, NASA/JSC.
• Page 12: Odds & Ends. L’Oiseau Canari (The Canary Bird of 1929): The First Crossing of the Atlantic by a French aviation team. An Extra 80 kg of Trouble: An American Stowaway!
• Page 13: The AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2014) of Friday, May 9, 2014, at NASA/JSC Gilruth Center. General Chair: Clay Stangle. Organizing committee: Ellen Gillespie, Michael Frostad, Michael Martin, BeBe Kelly-Serrato, Irene Chan, Laura Sarmiento, Douglas Yazell, Ben Edwards, and our Section’s 14 technical committee Chairs. Morning keynote: Pete Hasbrook: The State of the International Space Station (ISS). Luncheon keynote panel members: two former NASA astronauts, Chris Ferguson and Lee “Bru” Archambault, and Arturo Machuca from the Houston Airport Director’s office. Several session were provided by INCOSE (International Council on Systems Engineering). Rice University Professor Daniel Cohan was a presenter for a climate change session (75 minutes). Adrian Shelley, Executive Director of Air Alliance Houston, was a presenter for a second climate change session (also 75 minutes). Their charts are included on the ATS 2014 website page at www.aiaahouston.org, along with climate change charts from the organizer of these two climate change seasons, Douglas Yazell, Horizons editor and Aerospace America editorial board member. A few other names of note are listed briefly here: Roger Kleinhammer (Safety & Mission Assurance, S&MA), Dr. Steven E. Everett, our Section’s Guidance, Navigation & Control (GN&C) technical committee chair, Alex Monchak, Dr. Kumar Krishen (NASA/JSC), Dr. Zafar Taqvi, Ted Kenny (NASA/JSC), our Section’s History Chair, Henry C. Dethloff, author of Suddenly Tomorrow Came, A History of the Johnson Space Center, Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC, Dr. Gary Turner, our Section’s College and Co-Op Chair (presenting Lunar Distant Retrograde Orbits), Dr. Patrick Rodi, Terry Hill (NASA/JSC), and Dr. Michele Carpenter of Draper Laboratory.
• Page 14: Staying Informed. NASA-CNES SWOT and AirSWOT: Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission. Also, InSight, a NASA mission to provide insight into the early evolution of terrestrial planets. InSight: Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport.
• Page 15: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston). Dennis Butler and Richard (Sessions?) are discussed, as well as the history of Ellington Field.
• Page 16: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. Specialty airplanes from Southwest Airlines are shown at Hobby Airport. These two Boeing 737 jet aircraft are named Texas One and Colorado One. The exterior paint shows the state flag. The Terminal was a project of the WPA (see the Wikipedia article about the WPA), the largest and most ambitious New Deal Agency. Let us celebrate that heritage often!
• Page 17: Climate Change and Local Responses, by Douglas Yazell, Horizons Editor and Aerospace America editorial board member. Article #9 in this bimonthly series of one-page columns. C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group news item: Houston to Convert All Streetlights to LED- a big win for City’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Reductions Goals. A new climate change TED talk (www.ted.com) by Dr. Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Moyers & Company, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television show, and the related website www.billmoyers.com. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a weekly television series hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and written by Ann Druyan and Steven Soter. Naomi Oreskes, author of the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt, including an opening narrative about Ben Santer, S. (Siegfried) Fred Singer, and Frederick Seitz. The Paris 2015 United Nations IPCC meeting (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
• Page 18: Address to AIAA Houston Section about the Late James C. McLane, Jr. (1923-2012), part 6 of 6. This article presents a transcript of our dinner meeting presentation of June 2013. The speaker was James C. McLane III. Family photographs are included.
• Page 20: The JSC Astronomical Society (JSCAS). The JSCAS schedule and the schedule for Cosmic Explorations: a public lecture series from the Lunar and Planetary Institute. For example, the video for the recent lecture by Dr. Seth Shostak (SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is now online. He was very funny, but we left with a good impression of him as a scientist. Also: Part 7 of 7: Building an Astronomer’s Chair, Complete with Sketch Desk and Red Lighting, by Jim Wessel, JSCAS Educational Outreach Chair.
• Page 22: Challenges of Traveling to Mars, but NASA astronaut Dr. Stanley G. Love, edited by Douglas Yazell, a presentation to a monthly JSCAS meeting.
• Page 25: Current Events. Three charts of details about the European Space Agency (ESA). A May 20, 2014 photograph of German Chancellor Merkel at the Berlin Air Show with a big model of the NASA Orion crew vehicle spacecraft and its ESA Service Module. The ESA SWARM satellites reveal new data about the Earth’s magnetic field, which affects everyone in everyday life.
• Page 26: Highlights of the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), by Dr. Larry Jay Friesen.
• Page 32: The Martian, by Andy Weir, a book review by Bill West.
• Page 33: Major Section Events of the Past 12 Months, A Look Back, by Laura Sarmiento, Programs Chair. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, AIAA Executive Director Dr. Sandra Magnus, and NASA/JSC Deputy Center Director Kirk Shireman are featured.
• Page 34: Honors and Awards Dinner Meeting of June 26, 2014, by Ellen Gillespie, Councilor, with photographs by Ellen Gillespie and Zach Tejral. NASA astronaut Clay Anderson and singer-songwriter Dwayne O’Brien (solo recording artist and member of the multi-platinum selling group Little Texas) were guests of honor.
• Page 40: Calendar. 100 Year Starship (not an AIAA event) public symposium, Houston, Texas USA, September 18-21, 2014, George R. Brown Convention Center (www.100yss.org). The 17th Annual International Mars Society Convention, League City, Texas (outside Houston, near NASA/JSC), August 7-10, 2014 (not an AIAA event).
• Page 41: Cranium Cruncher: the Riemann Hypothesis. Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866). Free book (PDF) by Mazur and Stein (2014) available on their website. A link to a November 2013 video recording of the Dr. Harold (Sonny) White (NASA/JSC) presentation about warp drive. The Casimir Effect.
• Page 42: Organization Chart for our French sister section, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF MP). La Novela Festival, Toulouse Metropole, France, October 3-19, 2014, with the theme of meteorology (and many other subjects). Location: La Cite de l’espace. (The City of Space, in Toulouse, France.) June 19, 2014: A special evening about weather forecasting. What will the weather be tomorrow, in five days, if fifty years?
• Page 43: Oganization Chart for AIAA Houston Section. Our Spirit of Apollo scholarship winner Haripriya Sundararaju, a PhD candidate at the University of Houston, majoring in mechanical engineering.
• Page 44: Rice University AIAA Student Chapter news, with faculty advisor Professor Andrew Meade. The student chapter does not work with climate change, but climate change is of interest to NASA and AIAA. This page discusses climate change research at Rice University.
• Page 45: Texas A&M University (TAMU) AIAA Student Chapter news, with faulty adviser Professor John E. Hurtado. The student chapter does not work with climate change, but climate change is of interest to NASA and AIAA. This page discusses climate change research at TAMU, including a few charts by Gunnar W. Schade from a March 2014 climate workshop. For example, “What Pause?” citing statistician Grant Foster at http://tamino.wordpress.com.
• Page 46: The Back Cover. The NASA climate change website.

March / April 2014 issue. 36 pages, 5.2 MB. Volume 39, Issue 5 (PDF file).

Published May 4, 2014.

Contents

• Page 1: Cover Image: Climate Change Science & Public Policy – a map showing 10-year average (2000-2009) global mean temperature anomaly relative to the 1951-1980 mean.
• Page 2: Table of contents and related information
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner by Michael Frostad. AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2014)
• Page 4: Editors’ Corner by Douglas Yazell. Searching for our next Editor to start as of July 1, 2014. The last issue with Douglas Yazell as Editor will be the May / June 2014 issue. His service as Editor started on April 11, 2011. In 2008 he edited 3 issues as Acting Editor, following in the footsteps of Jon Berndt. Jon’s first issue was in late 2004. Dr. Steve Everett was Horizons Editor for our 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 years. Since Douglas Yazell authored the climate change cover story for this issue, that subject is mentioned here, along with a new book by Ian Haney Lopez, Dog Whistle Politics. This article contains a reminder that Horizons uses the Yahoo! Style Guide. This is an affordable and modern style guide, written with the internet in mind. A few notes about the contents of our next issue are mentioned here. A photograph of the Boeing Way alligator is also included.
• Page 5: Cover Story: Climate Change Science & Public Policy, by Douglas Yazell, Horizons Editor and Aerospace America editorial board member. This article is only two pages long! It mentions a 2013 book, Wrapped in the Flag, a personal memoir by Claire Conner. She grew up in a family whose father was on the the council of the John Birch Society, a principal subject of her book. She explains that the John Birch Society was part of mainstream American politics from 1958 to 1961. This book is mentioned again in Douglas Yazell’s climate change charts from the 2014 AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2014). See the ATS 2014 website.
• Page 7: Kelly’s Corner: Sorcerer’s Apprentice: The Digital-Age Library & the Privileges of Membership, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems, LLC
• Page 9: Mars Flyby 2021: The First Deep Space Mission for the Orion and Space Launch System, by Sandy Magnus, AIAA Executive Director. This reprints her written testimony to Congress in Washington DC.
• Page 13: Feature Article: Detecting Starships, Dr. Albert Allen Jackson IV, Chair, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics technical tommittee, Lunar and Planetary Institute Visiting Scientist
• Page 20: NASA’s Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet in the Habitable Zone of Another Star, NASA Press Release, April 17, 2014
• Page 21: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston)
• Page 22: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, An AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, including a photograph of museum volunteer Broderick Thompson and his Ford Model T automobile.
• Page 23: Science & Public Policy: Climate Change and Local Responses, the eighth installment of this bimonthly one-page column in Horizons. Local Responses refers to our AIAA Houston Section territory from Houston to College Station, Texas USA. A news article from the NASA climate website is noted, “NASA Set for a Big Year in Earth Science with 5 New Missions,” by Steve Cole of NASA Headquarters and his co-authors. An abbreviated list of those five satellites: GPM, OCO-2, SMAP, ISS-RapidScat, and ISS-CATS. The article explains, “NASA plans to launch five Earth-observing instruments to the International Space Station through 2017.” The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, France is mentioned.
• Page 24: Address to AIAA Houston Section about the Late James C. McLane, Jr., Part 5 of 6
• Page 26: Current Events. AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2014) of Friday, May 9, 2014, at NASA/JSC Gilruth Center.
• Page 27: Three pages are presented here from the Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society (JSCAS). They now are regular contributors to Horizons, with at least one page of schedule information (upcoming JSCAS and related events, such as the Cosmic Explorations public lecture series from the Lunar and Planetary Institute). This issue includes, “Building an Astronomer’s Chair Complete with Sketch Desk and Red Lighting, Part 6 of 7,” by Jim Wessel, JSCAS Educational Outreach Chairman.
• Page 30: Calendar for the AIAA Houston Section. Two recent April 2014 lunch-and-learns are mentioned.
• Page 31: Cranium Cruncher. The Riemann Hypothesis, proposed in 1859. See the book Prime Obsession, by John Derbyshire. Next issue’s Cranium Cruncher will continue this discussion. We will not solve it, but we will become familiar with it.
• Page 32: Section News. The organization chart of our French sister section, 3AF MP, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter. Two collages by artist Jean-Pierre Condat are included, featuring Americans Chuck Yeager and Charles Lindbergh. More collages from this Toulouse, France-based artist are featured in our prior issue of Horizons, the January / February 2014 issue.
• Page 33: Section News. The organization chart of AIAA Houston Section is presented here. Also shown on this page is CATS, the climate change (Earth observation) science instrument scheduled for installment on the International Space Station in 2014. CATS: the NASA Cloud-Aerosol Transport System.
• Page 34: Student Section News: Rice University. The AIAA Region IV Student Paper Conference (SPC) is mentioned. Dr. Gary Turner, AIAA Houston Section College and Co-Op Chair, traveled from Houston, Texas USA to Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA for this event.
• Page 35: Student Section News: Texas A&M University (TAMU). Nick Ortiz, Class of 2013, Senior Class Representative is mentioned. The Rice University AIAA student section has about 30 members. The TAMU student section probably has more, maybe 60 or 70, so we will report on that soon. This article also mentions 11 of the 23 climate change scientists of the TAMU Atmospheric Sciences department. They are mentioned in a TAMU Times article of September 26, 2013. They are on call for media representatives, especially for reporting about climate change and recent reports from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). With that in mind, please see the Climate Change Statement from the 23 members of the faculty of the TAMU Department of Atmospheric Science.
• Page 36: The Back Cover: Space Shuttle Carrier Aircraft Permanent Display at Space Center Houston, the tourist attraction adjacent to NASA/Johnson Space Center. Starting Monday, April 28, 2014, this was moved from Ellington Airport to Space Center Houston.

January / February 2014 issue. 42 pages, 8 MB. Volume 39, Issue 4 (PDF file).

Published February 28, 2014.

This is our first issue using Adobe InDesign, the industry standard. For the first time, this issue contains two animations in place of two typical figures. The two animations are in the article by Dr. Patrick E. Rodi on pages 20 and 21. They can be viewed in this PDF file using Adobe Reader or Safari, for example.

We will publish this issue later as an Adobe Flash file, too (a SWF file instead of a PDF file). For example, that can be opened using the Google Chrome browser application. Use the arrow keys on the keyboard to turn the pages. That will allow you to view a file such as Horizons.swf. To see the animations, place a folder called Horizons_Resources in the same location as Horizons.swf. Place figure_a.swf and figure_b.swf in that folder. That will allow the animations to be seen using Chrome. The PDF file is our primary form of publication, but here are the SWF files:

Horizons_2014_01_and_02.swf
figure 3.swf
figure 5 pso.swf

• Page 1: Cover image: GAIA Leaps Past Hipparcos, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC. Horizons Volume 39, Issue 4. The January / February 2014 issue. This cover page includes a new Horizons logo for the first time since about September 2005 or November 2004.
• Page 2: Table of Contents: The painting the Starry Night by Van Gogh reminds us that we include 100 Year Starship as often as possible in Horizons. See www.100yss.org. The approximately 45 members of the AIAA Houston Section council are listed on this page. A disclaimer is also listed on this page.
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner by Michael Frostad. Leadership. Responsibility. Dedication.
• Page 4: Editor’s Corner by Douglas Yazell. New Software, New Formats & New Subjects. Adobe InDesign replaces Microsoft Publisher for Horizons for the first time since November of 2004. For the first time, this PDF file (this issue of Horizons) includes two animations. Horizons is seeking climate change science and public policy articles.
• Page 5: Cover story: GAIA Leaps Past Hipparcos, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC.
• Page 10: Kelly’s Corner, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC. History as Science: Megatons to Megawatts.
• Page 13: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston). Images from the 2013 Wings Over Houston airshow are featured. They show aircraft piloted by EAA members. A group picture of those pilots is also included. These images are from the EAA Chapter 12 website, www.eaa12.org.
• Page 14: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. Images are from the museum website, www.1940airterminal.org. Two of the Manhattan Dolls are shown from a 2013 performance at the museum. Two photographs feature the Houston Airline Collectibles Show at the museum.
• Page 15: Address to AIAA Houston Section about the late James C. McLane, Jr., Part 4 of 6. “His father was a superintendent for highway construction companies. In the early 1930’s the family lived in Chile in South America, where his father built the first asphalt road in that country. My dad grew up in a family environment that emphasized hard work and supported personal initiative.”
• Page 16: Collages by Jean-Pierre Condat, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP, and Douglas Yazell, Horizons Editor. Five aerospace collages are featured from this artist. He is from Toulouse, France. Since one collage portrays the French aviator Louis Paulhan (1883 – 1963), the first person to fly an airplane in Texas (1910), this article also features copyright-free images of Paulhan from the Library of Congress (the George Grantham Bain collection). This article is featured as part of our sister section relationship with 3AF MP, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter. The largest city in their territory is Toulouse.
• Page 18: Physics-Based Optimization Methods, by Dr. Patrick E. Rodi. For the first time, this PDF file for an issue of Horizons includes animated images. These two images appear on pages 20 and 21.
• Page 22: In Memoriam: Robert L. Sackheim (1937-2013), edited by Douglas Yazell, Horizons Editor. This article includes a photograph of Robert Sackheim in the Blue & Gray Museum of North Alabama. A website is still in operation as of June 24, 2015: http://www.alabamacivilwarmuseum.com/.
• Page 25: Book Reviews: Two New Science Books from the Science Desk of the Virginia Edition, by Douglas Yazell, Editor. Press releases. (1) Space Elevators: An Assessment of the Technological Feasibility and the Way Forward. (2) The Case for Space Solar Power.
• Page 26: Science & Public Policy. Climate Change and Local Responses, by Douglas Yazell, February 24, 2014. Article #7 in this bimonthly series. Institutionalizing Delay. Elsewhere in this issue: RapidSCAT. Global Warming. C40 Cities: Climate Leadership Group. Aerospace America: Climate Change Cover Story. Tara Expedition. HOME, the 90-minute video (YouTube). Published on May 12, 2009. We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth’s climate. The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being. For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because Home is a non-profit film. HOME has been made for you: share it! And act for the planet. Yann Arthus-Bertrand. HOME official website: http://www.home-2009.com. PPR is proud to support HOME: http://www.ppr.com. HOME is a carbon offset movie: http://www.actioncarbone.org. More information about the Planet: http://www.goodplanet.info. Partner rating: No mature content. Release date: 2009. Running time: 1:33:18. Language: English.  Actor: Glenn Close (voice-over). Director: Yann ARTHUS-BERTRAND. Producers: EUROPACORP (Luc BESSON) ELZEVIR FILMS (Denis CAROT). Writers: Isabelle DELANNOY Yann ARTHUS-BERTRAND Denis CAROT Yen LE VAN Tewfik FARES. Category: Documentary Family. License: Standard YouTube License. In Closing: Andrew Revkin. John Baez presentation: What to Do About Climate Change?
• Page 27: Current Events. Water Vapor Discovered in Exoplanet’s Atmosphere. Kepler Finds and Confirms Over 700 New Planets.
• Page 28: Astronomy. The JSC Astronomical Society. Building an Astronomer’s Chair Complete with Sketch Desk and Red Lighting (Part 5 of 7), by Jim Wessel, JSCAS Educational Outreach Chair. This issue: Building a sketch desk and the decision of paint.
• Page 31: Staying Informed. European Space Agency (ESA). Rosetta. Rendezvous with a Comet.
• Page 32: France Celebrates Naming of its First International Dark Sky Reserve, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP (www.3af-mp.fr) and Douglas Yazell, Editor.
• Page 34: Lunch & Learn. Global Warming Effects on Human Infrastructure, by John M. DiIorio. Written by Bebe Kelly-Serrato, AIAA Houston Section Space Operations technical committee Chair.
• Page 35: Odds & Ends. Chang’e 3. European Space Agency (ESA) Promises Orion Launch Date Will Not Slip Due to its Work. Shanghai Tower.
• Page 36: Calendar: October 2013 – June 2014.
• Page 37: Cranium Crunchers, by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Wes Kelly, Shen Ge, and Dr. Albert Allen Jackson IV.
• Page 38: Section News. Gaia. Our French sister section’s organization chart. www.3af-mp.fr. Our Section’s organization chart. Crew of the International Space Station.
• Page 40: Student Section News. Rice University. Region IV Student Paper Conference. April 24-26, 2014. Albuquerque. Texas A&M University. Advisor: Dr. Hurtado. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Rabul Venkatraman, Chair. Texas A&M University climate change experts.
• Page 42: The back cover. Climate Change & NASA’s QuickScat & RapidScat. AIAA Mission and Vision Statement. Become a member of AIAA!

November / December 2013 issue. 50 pages, 11 MB. Volume 39, Issue 3 (PDF file, high resolution).

Published December 10, 2013.

This is the high resolution version. The low resolution version was 7 MB. Since the high resolution version is only 11 MB, there is no need for the low resolution version. Only the high resolution version will be published.

The bulleted lists of contents below have many purposes, such as:

• They allow anyone to find past articles easily.
• They attract readers via internet searches.
• Nominations for AIAA membership upgrades are supported by details of member service recorded here.
• Details of our Section history (since 1962) are recorded here.

Contents for this 50-page issue of Horizons, Volume 39, Issue 3, the November / December 2013 issue:

• Page 1: Cover image by Daniel R. Adamo using Celestia open source astronomy application. Potentially Hazardous Object (PHO) 2013 TV135.
• Page 2: Table of Contents and related information.
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner. The International Space Station- 15 Years in Orbit, by Michael Frostad.
• Page 4: From the Editor, by Douglas Yazell. Asteroid Trackers, Mars Rovers, and Moonwalkers. That title refers to articles by Daniel R. Adamo (Potentially Hazardous Object 2013 TV135), Dr. Dorothy Oehler (The Enigmatic Giant Polygons of Mars) and Larry Jay Friesen (the Golden Spike Company Workshop). The Boeing Way alligator is mentioned and a photograph is included. New Horizons team members Ryan Miller and Wes Kelly are mentioned. The switch from Microsoft Publisher to Adobe InDesign is mentioned. Possible upcoming special issues are mentioned, with topics such as climate change or the 1952-1954 Collier’s series Man Will Conquer Space Soon!
• Page 5: Potentially Hazardous Object (PHO) 2013 TV135, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant. See pages 9 and 11 for dramatic images of where this asteroid might have hit the Earth in 2032, though we now know this impact will not occur. Our cover image (page 1) is also very dramatic.
• Page 15: Kelly’s Corner. This page the first of a regular column by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC. Comments on an Aviation Week Cover Story: Son of Blackbird. See page 4 for a few notes about earlier Horizons articles by Wes Kelly.
• Page 16: The Enigmatic Giant Polygons of Mars: Are They Clues to Past Oceans? by Dr. Dorothy Z. Oehler. This is adapted from a recent cover story for the Planetary Report, the magazine of the Planetary Society.
• Page 20: Short Report from the Golden Spike Workshop, by Larry Jay Friesen. The meeting took place at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI).
• Page 23: Chapter 12 (Houston) of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). This page always presents the EAA mission and regular local meeting information for various chapters. For this issue, a few photographs of an airplane are presented, and F1 Rocket Kit Plane, owned by Dave and Avril Forster.
• Page 24: The 15th Anniversary of the International Space Station, by Olivier Sanguy, adapted from his article at www.enjoyspace.com, the website of la Cite de l’Espace.
• Page 27: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, and AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. Two aerial images of the museum are presented. They were created by museum volunteers Larry Orr (photographer) and Max Tribolet (pilot).
• Page 28: Astronaut Scott Carpenter, 1925-2013, by Douglas Yazell, Editor, adapted from the Wikipedia article. This article was created at the request of our French sister section, 3AF MP. It was a great idea for Horizons to include this tribute to this Mercury 7 astronaut. Images include screen capture images from a video showing Carpenter receiving a medal from NASA Administrator James Webb, while the sign in the background says, “Manned Spacecraft Center” in large letters. It appears to be an outdoor ceremony. Where on the Johnson Space Center campus did that ceremony take place?
• Page 33: Address to AIAA Houston Section about the late James C. McLane, Jr., Part 3 of 6, by James C. McLane III. NASA’s Relationship with Russia is an Exception. During the 1970s Apollo-Soyuz Test project, maybe 100 Russians were working at NASA/JSC in Houston. McLane was Chief of the Space Environment Test Division. The ASTP docking adapter was tested in his Building 32 space chambers. As the program was ending, McLane invited Russian Air Force General Kolodkov to a backyard barbecue. The younger McLane attended with a young Texas lady hired where he was working at Brown and Root, a Russian translator for Brown and Root. Many years later the younger McLane noticed that the General served as the head of all Soviet ICBM forces, so McLane was glad they gave the General a good impression of the USA. Four McLane family photographs are included, including seven family members in their back yard.
• Page 34: Automated Transfer Vehicle Disintegrates, as Expected, Below the Eyes of the Astronauts, adapted from the website of the French National Center for Space Studies (CNES). This article was suggested by our French sister section, 3AF MP. ATV-4 was named Albert Einstein. Its mission ended as planned in late 2013. ATV-5, George Lemaitre, will be the last one. An image of Einstein and Lemaitre is included. They met in Pasadena, California in 1932.
• Page 35: Climate Change and Local Responses, by Douglas Yazell, article #6 in this bimonthly series. An episode of NPR’s This American Life is mentioned, along with a link to that episode. NPR’s Houston Matters included guest Alex Chadwick for the broadcast of November 25, 2013. Chadwick hosted a special presentation that week called Rising Seas, part of a new NPR series about energy and the environment called Burn. The October 29, 2013 episode of Democracy Now included an interview with the former President of Ireland, Mary Robinson. She spoke about the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice. A TED talk by Rachel Pike is mentioned, only four minutes in duration. A few quotes from the United Nations’ IPCC AR5 Summary for Policymakers are included.
• Page 37: The JSC Astronomical Society (JSCAS). Part 4 of 7 parts, Building an Astronomer’s Chair, by Jim Wessel, Educational Outreach Chair. The Antarctic Search for Meteorites: Exploring an Ice Planet, by Dr. Stanley G. Love. From Love’s November 2013 presentation to JSCAS, Douglas Yazell and James Wessel prepared this article with help from Dr. Love. Dr. Love made that trip in November and December of 2012 and January of 2013. JSCAS calendar information is also included, along with calendar information for the lecture series Cosmic Explorations, a public lecture series from the Lunar and Planetary Institute.
• Page 43: Comet ISON: AWOL, by Dr. Partick E. Rodi.
• Page 44: Calendar for AIAA Houston Section, www.aiaahouston.org.
• Page 45: Cranium Crunchers by Dr. Steven E. Everett and Shen Ge. Everett presents a brain teaser talking about warp drive. Shen Ge’s earlier chess puzzle is included along with its solution. Ge also presents a new brain teaser, whose solution will be provided in our next issue. A few details are included about a recent chess tournament, won by Magnus Carlsen (age 22) of Norway. The defending champion was Viswanathan Anand of India. The contest took place in November 2013 in Chennai, India, under the auspices of the World Chess Federation (FIDE).
• Page 46: Section News: the organization chart of our French sister section, 3AF MP. A few details about an upcoming ESA satellite launch are included. Gaia is the satellite. December 13, 2013, is the scheduled launch date.
• Page 47: Section News: the organization chart of AIAA Houston Section. From AIAA Daily Launch, the daily email news summary, a link to The World Outside my Window is provided. This video uses time lapse photography from the International Space Station. The amazing two-minute video on YouTube is well worth anyone’s time. Much of the imagery was created by NASA astronaut Don Pettit.
• Page 48: Student Section News: Rice University. The upcoming 2014 AIAA Region IV Student Paper Conference is described. It will take place in Albuqeurque, New Mexico. The dates are April 11-12, 2014. A climate change news article is also included. It is adapted from an article on the Rice University website. There was some controversy about a climate change publication in late 2011. Resolution was described in the Houston Chronicle and on the website of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC).
• Page 49: Student Section News: Texas A&M University. Publicity Chair and Webmaster Nick Page is featured. Texas A&M University climate change experts are also listed from an article in the TAMU Times.
• Page 50: The Back Cover. The NASA Asteroid Initiative. A few charts from Robert Lightfoot, the NASA Associate Administrator, are included, along with a link to the website of the Asteroid Initiative Ideas Synthesis Workshop, an event held recently at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. A few details about the Asteroid Redirect Mission are included. A NASA Grand Challenge is also described related to planetary defense against asteroids.

September / October 2013 issue. 52 pages.

Initial publication (by November 10, 2013): low resolution version (PDF file, 6 MB, 52 pages).

Later publication (completed November 7, 2013):

Normal resolution (PDF file, 17 MB, 52 pages)

High resolution file for the page by page reprint of the Collier’s series. This issue of Horizons has part 8 of 8 of our Collier’s reprints. That issue of the weekly magazine Collier’s was dated April 30, 1954, ending the 1952-1954 Collier’s series later called Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Our mastery of Microsoft Publisher on a 2010 MacBook Pro Windows 7 partition gives us trouble, so our planned high resolution PDF file is broken up into three files:

Horizons_2013_09_and_10_hires_pgs_01_to_03_and_30_to_34.pdf (12 MB PDF file)

Horizons_2013_09_and_10_hires_pgs_35_to_40.pdf (17 MB PDF file)

Horizons_2013_09_and_10_hires_pgs_41_to_52.pdf (26 MB PDF file)

If anyone would like to have this entire issue of Horizons in high resolution, here are the remaining pages:

Horizons_2013_09_and_10_hires_pgs_01_to_29.pdf (6 MB PDF file)

[Horizons, newsletter of AIAA Houston Section: On January 5, 2016, a stranger emailed this entire 2013 09 and 10 (September and October) issue to me, the 2011-2014 Editor (Douglas Yazell), in a single high-resolution 25 MB PDF file. As shown above, until now it was broken up into 3 or 4 PDF files for the high-resolution version. Thanks, Carl Lumma! He sent me the private link via LinkedIn. That is a very helpful and nice thing to do. Now the link is here on this public web page for Horizons 2013 months 09 and 10: PDF file, 25 MB, 52 pages. This is the issue with the last of 8 installments of our Horizons Collier’s space series.]

Contents for this 52-page issue of Horizons, Volume 39, Issue 2:

• Page 1: cover photograph by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC, for his cover story about the 100 Year Starship Public Symposium at the Hyatt Regency Houston, September 19-22, 2013. Also on the cover is a thumbnail image of the cover of the weekly magazine Collier’s for April 30, 1954. That contained installment 8 of 8 for the Collier’s 1952-1954 series, Man Will Conquer Space Soon! This issue of Horizons reprints that last installment. Its title is Can We Get to Mars? Is there Life of Mars? The Collier’s series was created thanks to Wernher von Braun and a team of editors, writers and artists.
• Page 2: Table of Contents and related information.
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner. Collaboration for Success in Human Spaceflight, by Michael Frostad.
• Page 4: From the Editor, by Douglas Yazell. We omitted our Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston) page in this issue, but we fill this editor’s page with photos from the 2013 Wings Over Houston airshow. Our AIAA Houston Section table was next to the table (booth) for EAA Chapter 12. EAA brought about 12 aircraft this year. Michael Frostad, Clay Stangle and Ellen Gillespie are shown in a snapshot at our Section’s booth. Another volunteer for that day was Evelyn Miralles, Chair of our Section’s Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) technical committee. A solution to last issue’s chess Cranium Cruncher is also presented on this page by Shen Ge.
• Page 5: Second Public Symposium of the 100 Year Starship Sponsored by DARPA and NASA, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC, and Shen Ge.
• Page 13: Staying Informed: NASA Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) Exploration Flight Test 1 (EFT-1).
• Page 14: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, by Douglas Yazell. Images include photographs by Larry Orr, aerial shots of the museum thanks to pilot Max Tribolet.
• Page 16: Climate Change and Local Responses (article #5 in this bimonthly series), by Douglas Yazell. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) press release and position statement about climate change. The date for this was September 27, 2013, the date of the start of the release of a new report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the new report called Assessment Report 5 (AR5). The IPCC was created in 1988. Its first report, AR1, is dated 1990. Their AR4 report is dated 2007. The AGU position statement (updated and reaffirmed) says, “Urgent action is required.” It also says, “… no uncertainties are known that could make the impacts of climate change inconsequential.”
• Page 17: The JSC Astronomical Society, Building an Astronomer’s Chair (Part 3 of 7), by Jim Wessel. Page 20 presents the JSCAS calendar and the calendar for Cosmic Explorations: A Speaker Series, events prepared by the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in the Houston Clear Lake area.
• Page 21: Space: Drawings, Fears, and the Dreams of Children, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP. The French sister section of AIAA Houston Section is l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF) Midi-Pyrenees (MP) Chapter.
• Page 22: Comet ISON, Bang or Bust, by Dr. Patrick E. Rodi.
• Page 23: Address to AIAA Houston Section about the late James C. McLane, Jr. (1923-2012), Part 2 of 6, by James C. McLane III.
• Page 24: Calendar for AIAA Houston Section.
• Page 25: Automated Transfer Vehicle Mission Control Center (ATV-MCC) in Toulouse, France, from the European Space Agency (ESA) website. Our French sister section is centered in Toulouse, France. The French sister section of AIAA Houston Section is l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF) Midi-Pyrenees (MP) Chapter.
• Page 26: Section News. This page presents the organization chart of our French sister section. The French sister section of AIAA Houston Section is l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF) Midi-Pyrenees (MP) Chapter. A news article is included on this page from October 28, 2013. The subject is the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Automated Transfer Vehicle Albert Einstein (ATV-4). Its departure from the International Space Station (ISS) was imminent. The following Saturday ATV-4 burned up as planned in the atmosphere during re-entry.
• Page 27: Section News. The organization chart for AIAA Houston Section is presented. A news article is included. Its subject is the CST-100 spacecraft from the Boeing Company. This spacecraft (a crew capsule) completed its Mission Control Center Interface test.
• Page 28: Student Section News for Rice University (adviser: Professor Andrew Meade). The Rice Space Institute Student Association (RSISA) is mentioned, though they are not connected directly to AIAA.
• Page 29: Student Section News for Texas A&M University (adviser: Professor John E. Hurtado). The roster of student officers is updated. Although the Atmospheric Sciences department and climate changes studies are not connected directly with AIAA, climate change is discussed on this page since that is a subject of interest to NASA and AIAA. A September 26, 2013, press release from the TAMU Times is is presented. (TAMU stands for Texas A&M University.) The title is Experts on Climate Change. The date of the start of the release of the UN IPCC AR5 report was September 27, 2013. This press release lists contact information for eleven climate change experts from the College of Geosciences, Professors North, Dessler, Nielsen-Gammon, Schade, Collins, Klein, Stoessel, Saravanan, Thomas, Grossman, and Quiring.
• Page 30: Man Will Conquer Space Soon! This article by Douglas Yazell comments on the end of our reprint of this 1952-1954 series of articles from the weekly magazine Collier’s. Eight bimonthly issues of Horizons were used to reprint this series, corresponding to eight issues of Collier’s. We reprint this series page by page in high resolution. Wernher von Braun led this creative team of editors, writers and artists. The work in Horizon is accomplished by a team of volunteers in Houston, around the USA, and around the world.
• Page 33: Can We Get to Mars? Is There Life on Mars? This is the eighth and last installment in the 1952-1954 Collier’s series Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Horizons reprints this page by page in high resolution. The date for this issue of the weekly magazine Collier’s is April 30, 1954.
• Page 36: Afterword about the Collier’s Spaceflight Series, by Dr. A. A. Jackson, October 30, 2013. Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV wrote in Horizons about this 1952-1954 Collier’s series. He wrote those Horizons articles in 1992 (the 40th anniversary) and 2002 (the 50th anniversary). Now our 2012-2013 Horizons reprints make this available page by page in high resolution. Al Jackson is one of about six members of the Horizons Collier’s team. In this issue of Horizons, Al Jackson’s article replaces a half-page advertisement from the Collier’s 1954 magazine. The other half of this page is called Collier’s Credits, giving thanks to Wernher von Braun for leading this team of editors, writers, and artists. Editor Cornelius Ryan is shown at the top of the page with von Braun.
• Page 52: The Back Cover. Professor Larry Bell from the University of Houston (UH) sent us news about plans for Houston Spaceport at Ellington Field (Ellington Airport). Houston Spaceport planning is done by the Houston Airport System. Professor Bell is the Founding Director of the UH Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA). He calls attention to spaceport planning and design work by two SICSA graduates, Sam Ximenes (class of 1987) and Nejc Trost (class of 2013). The UH Cullen College of Engineering is also mentioned.

 

July/August 2013 issue. Here is the link for this low resolution version (PDF file, 8 MB, 62 pages). We will publish two high resolution versions (PDF files) below as soon as possible.

July/August 2013 issue (PDF file, 22 MB, 62 pages). Horizons, Volume 39, Issue 1. Publication is starting on Sunday, October 13, 2013, and will require about a week (completed November 7, 2013). Publication was aimed at August 31, 2013, so we are behind schedule this year. We will probably create the upcoming late issues, too, after this one. We will probably be caught up on our bimonthly schedule early in 2014. This issue also contains installment 7 of 8 in our page by page high resolution reprint of Man Will Conquer Space Soon! These articles were created for the weekly magazine Collier’s from 1952 to 1954 by a team led by Wernher von Braun. Since we have trouble with big files, this article is available in a separate file (PDF file, 24 pages, 22 MB). For this 62-page issue of Horizons, a bulleted list of contents is provided below.

• Page 1: Cover story, Images of Earth from Two Distant NASA Spacecraft. The pale blue dot. The cover also shows a thumbnail image of the Collier’s magazine cover from 1953. This is from installment 7 of 8 in our reprint series, Man Will Conquer Space Soon! These articles were prepared by a team led by Wernher von Braun.
• Page 2: This Table of Contents page includes names from our organization chart along with a list of Horizons contributors, cover image credits, and disclaimers. This page also announces that AIAA Houston Section won third place (Daniel Nobles, Section Chair) for the AIAA 2013 national Communications award.
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner by Michael Frostad, “Back to Basics.”
• Page 4: Editor’s Corner by Douglas Yazell, “Pythagoras, Fermat & Red Bull Stratos.” The city council of the City of Webster is featured in a photograph at Space Center Houston, a popular tourist destination. The occasion was the debut of the Red Bull Stratos exhibit Mission to the Edge of Space, including the actual capsule that lifted Felix Baumgartner 24 miles above the Earth. Fermat’s Last Theorem is also mentioned.
• Page 5: Images of Earth from Two Distant NASA Spacecraft, by Douglas Yazell, Editor, from NASA websites and other sources. The pale blue dot of 2013. A three-minute YouTube video is mentioned, the Frontier is Everywhere, by Reid Gower, narrated by Carl Sagan. It attracted more than two million hits. Loretta H. Whitesides used it for inspiration in her 2013 address to the 100 Year Starship (www.100yss.org) public symposium in Houston.
• Page 10: Webster’s Tourism Connection, by Dr. Betsy Giusto, Economic Development Director, City of Webster. Giusto kindly gave permission for us to reprint this article. Chris Thrailkill provided some of the graphic art. The article originally appeared in the City of Webster’s Summer 2013 (Volume 21 Number 2) issue of Gateway Magazine.
• Page 14: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport. Incidentally, this is now an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. One photograph shows one of the Southwest Airlines specialty airplanes, Colorado One. The theme for the external paint on the airplane is the flag of the state of Colorado. Airplanes are shown behind the museum in a photograph from a Saturday Wings & Wheels event. That event is monthly (third Saturday of most months). Another photograph shows cars from the Porsche 356 Club in front of the museum. This page (at least) about the museum is a regular feature of Horizons.
• Page 15: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston. Their mission and local meeting information is shown on this page in every issue of Horizons. Three photographs of a homebuilt SeaRey airplane are shown thanks to its owner Dave Forster. We completed two profiles in general and experimental aviation in past issues of Horizons. We now nominated two pilots for our next profile. We will do that in upcoming issues.
• Page 16: Climate Change and Local Responses, by Douglas Yazell, Editor. This is article number four in this bimonthly series. This one-page article presents excerpts from the June 25, 2013, climate change speech by President Obama at Georgetown University. “… Nobody has a monopoly on what is a very hard problem, but I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real. We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.”
• Page 17: The Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society (JSCAS) now presents a regular feature in Horizons. This issue presents Part 2 of 7 for an article titled, Building an Astronomer’s Chair Complete with Sketch Desk and Red Lighting. The author is Jim Wessel, Educational Outreach Chairman. The JSCAS calendar is also presented, along with the calendar for Cosmic Explorations, a Speaker Series, from the Lunar and Planetary Society.
• Page 20: Staying Informed. At the last minute, the preceding article was found to repeat its last page, so we filled this page with climate change news from the United Nations, since they just released a new report. The date of the first release of some of this report was September 27, 2013. The report author is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This report is called the Assessment Report #5, so the acronym is AR5. The AR4 report was the 2007 update.
• Page 21: Address to the Houston Section about the Late James C. McLane, Jr., Part 1 of 6, by James C. McLane III. This dinner meeting presentation was delivered by McLane on June 13, 2013. His late father (1923-2012) was Chair of our Section for 1971-1972. Two photographs show his father in Newberry, South Carolina in 1937 at age 14 holding a gasoline-powered model airplane, a Corben Ace.
• Page 22: A Tour of Copenhagen Suborbitals, by Shen Ge. The author visited this company in Copenhagen, Denmark, a few months ago.
• Page 24: Looking at Houston Horizons for Space, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC. Recently members of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) sent a representative to Space Center Houston for a panel discussion. The video was later placed online for all to see. The date of the event was September 4, 2013. Participants included Dr. David Alexander, Director of the Rice Space Institute (RSI), Mario Diaz from Houston Airports (presenting a proposal for Ellington Spaceport), Michael Lopez-Allegria (moderator, CSF), Christopher Ferguson, Boeing Space Exploration, Jim Voss, Sierra Nevada, Garrett Reisman of SpaceX, Jeff Ashby of Blue Origin, and Rick Searfoss of XCOR.
• Page 31: Current Events. ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano describes his second International Space Station (ISS) Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA). His helmet filled with water, a very dangerous situation. He arrived safely in the airlock eventually. The NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is also presented, since instruments include European Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec).
• Page 32: A Tribute to the Male and Female Pioneers who Challenged the Atlantic Ocean by Airplane, by Philippe Mairet. Lindbergh was first in 1927. Five years tot he day later, a woman was second, Amelia Earhart. This story features Nungesser and Coli, who made the attempt in 1927. They were lost with their airplane, the White Bird (L’Oiseau Blanc). They were flying from Paris to New York City. Bernard Decre is seeking evidence that they crashed at sea near the French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, not too far from Maine. A famous Lindbergh grandson, Erik Lindbergh, joined Decre to lay (toss) a wreath of flowers from a boat in memory of these two famous French pilots.
• Page 36: Section News. Calendar.
• Page 37: Section News: Cranium Crunchers by Dr. Steven E. Everett and Shen Ge. Shen presents a chess problem since a photograph is included showing the two women from the recent international chess tournament, Anna Ushenina from Ukraine and Hou Yifan from China.
• Page 38: Section News. The new organization chart from our French sister section, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF), Midi-Pyrenees Chapter (MP). Above the 3AF MP organization chart is a photograph and caption about BepiColombo, a spaceflight project from the European Space Agency (ESA).
• Page 39: Section News: the new organization chart of our Section. Above that are some details about MAVEN, an upcoming NASA Mars orbiter (2013 launch is scheduled) for studying the Martian atmosphere.
• Page 40: Student Section News: Rice University.
• Page 41: Student Section News: Texas A&M University. A link is provided for a recent opinion article from Professors Dessler and North (Department of Atmospheric Sciences) in the San Antonio Express-News. A link is now available, too, for the audio file for the May 17, 2013, presentation by Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon from that same department at Texas A&M University. He made the presentation as part of our Section’s Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2013).
• Page 42: Collier’s 1952-1954. We introduce our page by page high resolution reprints of Man Will Conquer Space Soon! This issue presents installment 7 of 8, an installment from 1953 in the weekly magazine Collier’s. The cover of that 1953 magazine says Baby Space Station. The articles were prepared by a team led by Dr. Wernher von Braun. Melvin Schuetz contributed some of his expertise about the famous space artist Chesley Bonestell. He donated a Bonestell original painting to the Smithsonian Museum. It is now on display. The museum staff (Tom Crouch and others) added two Bonestell sketches. These two sketches were created while Bonestell was working on art for this installment of the Collier’s Space series. Our Horizons article presents photographs of the painting and the two sketches. This Horizons article also presents amazing art and writing from John Sisson’s blog Dreams of Space.
• Page 47: The Baby Space Station. This is installment 7 of 8 from the Collier’s series Man Will Conquer Space Soon! We are first to reprint this series page by page in high resolution.
• Page 62: The Back Cover. A Giant Leap! An image of the NASA Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) launch is presented. This NASA image shows a frog catapulted into the air by the blast as the rocket launches in the background.

May/June 2013 issue (PDF, 17 MB, 56 pages). Publication date was June 30, 2013, but we were late (again, for the second issue in a row). It is now July 28, 2013, so in order to publish quickly, here is a low resolution version (PDF, 7.5 MB, 56 pages). Volume 38, Number 6. The word “issue” above will link to our 17 MB PDF file. In the bulleted list below, we add detail for many reasons. Internet search engines lead to more hits (higher circulation). We create a history of AIAA Houston Section. When nominating members for membership upgrades, their AIAA activities are often recorded in Horizons. Horizons is indexed here. That bulleted list of contents will include the high resolution version (28 MB, and some pages of advertising were eliminated due to technical troubles schedule delays) of the Collier’s magazine article, Man Will Conquer Space Soon! That series of articles was published from 1952 to 1954.

• Page 1: Cover illustration by Paul Fjeld, the first publication of his new, original acrylic painting. This painting appears in full on page 7.
• Page 2: This Table of Contents page includes names from our organization chart along with a list of Horizons contributors, cover image credits, and disclaimers.
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner by Daniel Nobles. “Our Goals in Human Spaceflight May Now be Shortsighted…” Warp drive work at NASA/JSC by Dr. Harold “Sonny” White is mentioned. Two illustrations are artist concepts based on Dr. White’s theoretical findings, rendered by Mark Rademaker with artwork and inputs from Mike Okuda.
• Page 4: Editor’s Corner, by Douglas Yazell. “Penguins, Alligators and a New Painting.” The newly painted Penguin One jet from Southwest Airlines (a Boeing 737) is shown in a large photograph from Russell Hill. Thanks to Phil Hyde for putting us in touch with Russell Hill. Alligators near Boeing Way are discussed. The new acrylic painting is from space artist Paul Fjeld, the cover illustation for his cover story.
• Page 5: Cover story: The Biggest Myth about the First Moon Landing, by Paul Fjeld, Space Artist. Page 7 contains an uncropped full-page image of the new acrylic painting by Paul Fjeld. Our Horizons team and AIAA Houston Section are pleased to be first to publish this painting.
• Page 11: TARC 2013 (Team America Rocketry Challenge), by Harold Larson. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is featured with students in a photograph. TARC is a national contest for grades 7 to 12. Local schools mentioned are Seabrook Middle School, St. Thomas High School, Clear Falls High School, and Clear Lake High School. A related article appears on page 27.
• Page 12: Our Section’s Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2013), by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Chair of our Section’s Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) technical committee, and Douglas Yazell, Editor. Topics included aeronautics, astronautics, propulsion, GN&C, systems engineering (INCOSE, the International Council on Systems Engineering), aerosciences, Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA), climate change (a NASA subject and an AIAA subject), automation, space history, and automation. Morning keynote speakers: Anousheh Ansari, co-founder and CEO of Prodea Systems and the first female private space explorer, and Alires Almon, Orchestrator of Engagement for the 100 Year Starship program. Luncheon keynote panel members: (1) Anousheh Ansari (above), (2) Franklin Chang Diaz, seven-time space shuttle astronaut and CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company, (3) Art Dula, space lawyer, patent attorney, and found of the private spaceflight company Excalibur Almaz, (4) Beth Fischer, Director of the Engineering Center of Excellence for Honeywell Technology Solutions, Inc., (5) Mike Fossum, space shuttle astronaut and International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 29 Commander, (6) Jack Bacon, noted futurist and technological historian, (7) Richard Phillips, founder and President of Phillips & Company, (8) Paul Spudis, Senior Staff Scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, (9) Scott Kelly, three-time space shuttle astronaut and ISS Expedition 26 Commander, and (10) Alires Almon (above). Our Section’s web site contains the program document and quite a few presentations (charts). Some of the individuals pictured are John C. Melcher, Lenny Delligati, Tom Anderson, Yvonne Vigue-Rodi, Dr. Kumar Krishen, Gary Johnson, Al Louviere, Kenneth A. Young, Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Jerry Woodfill, Ellen Gillespie (ATS 2013 General Chair), Dr. Steven E. Everett, Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, Ahmad Bani-Younes, and Shen Ge, along with the luncheon keynote panelists.
• Page 18: Highway in the Sky (Speed Limit 7.7 km/s), by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant. (A related article appears on the next page.) A brief excerpt: “This photo was taken from my home looking north toward the city of Salem, Oregon, with the state capital about 10 km away, so please forgive a little light pollution. It shows an early stage of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Automated Transfer Vehicle-4 (ATV-4, christened Albert Einstein […] rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS).”
• Page 19: Rendezvous Endgame, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant. (A related article appears on the prior page.) A brief excerpt: “About 8 hours before ATV-4 docked with ISS at 7:07 AM PDT on June 15 [,2013], the attached image was obtained from my home south of Salem, Oregon. Both spacecraft are recorded moving southeastward…”
• Page 20: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, by Douglas Yazell, Editor. Learn to fly! That was the theme of the May 2013 Wings & Wheels monthly program. That usually takes place on the third Saturday of the month. Events like Wings Over Houston (airshow) can change that schedule. Wings Over Houston 2013 dates: Saturday and Sunday, October 26 and 27, 2013. California One is featured in a photograph. This Southwest (Boeing 737) jet is painted with the flag of the state of California. The museum’s annual raffle airplane is also shown. Readers are reminded that the second person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo was a woman. The event took place five years to the day after Charles Lindbergh’s historic flight of May 20-21, 1927. The 1932 pilot was Amelia Earhart.
• Page 21: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston). Patches, logos or emblems from other chapters in this part of Texas are shown: Arlington, Brookshire, Waco and Conroe, Texas are featured.
• Page 22: NASA Climate Day is mentioned as noted on the NASA climate website. A Global Warming Consensus article is featured, subtitled, “Agreement Among Scientists Confirmed, Again”, by Erik Conway, NASA/JPL. Conway mentions Western Fuels Association, a coal industry trade association, and some of their work in the 1990s, funding campaigns to convince the American people that the science was unsettled, saying the idea was (and remains) to challenge the science to prevent action, acting in the same manner as tobacco companies. Conway states that strategy is based on a fallacy. A blogroll (list of climate web sites) is repeated with added detail from a NASA climate web site blog, My Big Fat Planet, a blog hosted by Dr. Amber Jenkins. The cost of delay in responding to climate change is discussed in an excerpt from the Climate 411 blog, one of the blogs in the blogroll list above. Climate 411 is the climate change blog from the Environmental Defense Fund, a group who worked to restrict or eliminate DDT use early in their history.
• Page 23: The Johnson Space Center (JSC) Astronomical Society (JSCAS): Building an Astronomer’s Chair Complete with Sketch Desk and Red Lighting (Part 1 of 7), by Jim Wessell, JSCAS Educational Outreach Chairman. Page 26 features two calendars: (1) JSCAS, and (2) Cosmic Explorations, a Speaker Series, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, the 2013-2014 schedule. Some information from the latter: (a) September 12, 2013, Dr. Daniel Baker, University of Colorado at Boulder, Evolution of the Sun and Solar Activity, (b) November 7, 2013, Dr. David Kring, Lunar and Planetary Institute, The Hazards of Near-Earth Asteroid Impacts, (c) March 6, 2014, Dr. Jeffrey Silverman, University of Texas at Austin, Gamma Ray Bursts and Supernovae, and (d) Dr. Seth Shostak, SETI Institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life), Alien Encounter.
• Page 27: Are You Smarter than an Eighth Grader? Or, A View of TARC (Team America Rocketry Challenge) by a Participant, by Tony Brooks.
• Page 28: Calendar. Section events and AIAA national events.
• Page 28: Cranium Cruncher. This page also presents this issue’s Cranium Cruncher, by Douglas Yazell, filling in for Dr. Steven E. Everett. A drawing guide for generating the Fibonacci sequence and its counterpart in a Nautilus sea shell is presented. Morley’s trisection theorem for plane triangles is mentioned, with thanks to Kevin Brown for his MathPages website. Brown describes a 2,000-year gap after the bisection theorem before someone first presented the trisection theorem. Euclid was familiar with the bisection theorem, if memory serves. Lines bisecting each angle in any triangle intersect in the point which is the center of a circle inscribing the triangle. Trisecting all angles of any triangle leads to the three corners of an equilateral triangle which lies in the interior space of the triangle. The center of that smaller triangle is not generally the same as the point found from the bisection theorem. The main part of this article presents a sequence of numbers generated by a simple construct using equilateral triangles. The illustration comes from Kevin Brown’s MathPages website. The sequence is linked to a website called the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences. The Cranium Cruncher author notes here that many of these sequences can be generated by simple geometrical figures and simple rules. Surprisingly, this summary of the Cranium Cruncher is much longer than the article itself!
• Page 29: Our Section’s Annual Awards Dinner Meeting, by Michael Frostad, Chair-Elect, and Ellen Gillespie, Councilor. Our Section’s 2013 annual awards dinner meeting was dedicated to the late James C. McLane, Jr. More than 150 people attended at the NASA / JSC Gilruth Center Alamo Ballroom on June 13, 2013. James C. McLane III delivered a presentation about his father’s NASA career, service to AIAA, and related activities. Quite a few photographs are featured. The featured speaker for the evening was Dr. Harold “Sonny” White of NASA/JSC. He spoke about the warp drive work he is doing at NASA/JSC.
• Page 32: Section News: The organization chart of our French sister section, 3AF MP, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter. A NASA photo is shown of the docking of ATV-4 Albert Einstein and the ISS. Related articles appear on pages 18 and 19 above, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant.
• Page 33: Section News. The AIAA Houston Section organization chart is presented. A NASA photograph of ATV-4 Albert Einstein is also shown. See the prior page and pages 18 and 19 for more ATV-4 information, including two articles from Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant.
• Page 34: Student Section News from Rice University and Professor Andrew Meade. Although the Rice University Space Frontiers Lecture Series is not related to our Student Section, recent lectures are noted.
• Page 35: Student Section News. Texas A&M University and Professor John E. Hurtado. Snapshots or portraits of Hurtado and Professors David Hyland, Daniele Mortairi, and Tom Pollock are shown.
• Page 36: Man Will Conquer Space Soon! (1952 – 1954), by Douglas Yazell, Editor. This article lists members of the Horizons Collier’s team. The weekly magazine Collier’s presented these important articles in eight issues from 1952 to 1954. A table presents details about each of the eight issues of Collier’s. Six of these eight issues of Collier’s included the magazine cover image, and those six cover images are shown in a figure in this article. Two images from the Dreams of Space blog by John Sisson are included in this article. He authored the table included in this article, and we obtained the table from Wikipedia. A photograph of Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, one of the Horizons Collier’s team members, is also shown. Jackson is shown making a presentation about the Horizons Collier’s series at our Section’s Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2013) of Friday, May 17, 2017.
• Page 42: The sixth of eight installments in the series of space articles Man Will Conquer Space Soon! These are from the weekly magazine Collier’s. This issue of Collier’s was dated March 14, 1953. Cover price was fifteen cents. The cover illustration is signed by artist Fred Freeman. Man’s Survival in Space. Emergency! As shown in the table on page 36 of this issue of Horizons, this is the third issue of Collier’s in a row to feature articles in a series called Man’s Survival in Space, in issues dated February 28, 1953, March 7, 1953, and March 14, 1953. The first contained subtitles World’s First Space Suit and Picking the Men. The second was subtitled Testing the Men. The third installment has the subtitle, Emergency! Art by Chesley Bonestell dominates a two-page spread. Artist Fred Freeman provides a double-page spread of very detailed art showing astronauts via a cut-away view of a spacecraft. A full-page illustration by Fred Freeman shows an astronaut bailing out in a craft barely big enough to hold him as his escape vehicle parachutes to the ocean below him.
• The Horizons Collier’s article from this issue. This high-resolution PDF file (28 MB, pages 1-2, 36-38, and 42-51 from this issue of Horizons) will be linked here. We continue to publish this Collier’s series Man Will Conquer Space Soon! in high resolution page by page.
• Page 56: The Back Cover. The feature illustration is from the estate of the late James C. McLane, Jr. The photograph is dated February 16, 1965. That is a group photograph of the Space Simulation Working Group. This was the second meeting of this organization. Their annual technical convention continues to this day. They now include people from eight countries. McLane was our Section Chair for 1971-1972. This page also includes a Section logo, mailing address (post office box address), the AIAA mission & vision statement, and a note about how to join AIAA.

March/April 2013 Issue (74 pages) (PDF: low resolution, 18.5MB; high resolution, 53.5MB) Volume 38, Number 5

Links in the list below are for separate, smaller PDF files, one PDF file for each article.

One page was missing from the Collier’s series in this issue! Once we obtained it, we added it to this issue of Horizons. Since all pages except the front and back cover are added two pages at a time, we also added the cover image from this issue of Collier’s. That makes this issue of Horizons 74 pages instead of 72 pages.

 

• Page 2: This Table of Contents page includes names from our organization chart along with a list of Horizons contributors, cover image credits, and disclaimers.
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner by Daniel Nobles.
• Page 4: Editor’s Corner, by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 5: Cover story. The 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, by Dr. Larry Jay Friesen, Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC, and Shen Ge.
• Page 17: Near-Earth Objects in Earth-Like Orbits, by Daniel R. Adamo, astrodynamics consultant. (High resolution PDF file.)
• Page 20: The “Horseshoe” Orbit of Near-Earth Object 2013 BS45, by Daniel R. Adamo, astrodynamics consultant. (High resolution PDF file.)
• Page 26: Cranium Cruncher, by Douglas Yazell, filling in for Dr. Steven E. Everett. Prove this triangle is equilateral. This is the Morley trisection theorem from the MathPages web site of Kevin Brown. Read the related history. Read about the 2,000 years between the bisection theorem and the trisection theorem. Also featured are animated GIFs from PATAKK’s web site.
• Page 27: A 3AF MP Editorial First Published in La Gazette #26, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP. La Gazette is the newsletter of our French sister section, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter (3AF MP).
• Page 28: Chelyabinsk Bolide Trajectory Reconstruction, by Daniel R. Adamo, astrodynamics consultant. (High resolution PDF file.)
• Page 30: Clear Creek High School and NASA’s HUNCH, with Mr. Robin Merritt
• Page 32: Current Events including NASA MSL Curiosity rover update by Dr. Dorothy Z. Oehler. This page also includes a short report about the 3rd IAA Planetary Defense Conference in Flagstaff, Arizona. The report is authored by attendee Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV.
• Page 33: Times are Tough! The author is Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP.
• Page 34: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. We mourn the death of one of the volunteer leaders, Captain A.J. High.
• Page 35: The Experimental Aviation Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston).
• Page 36: Climate Change and Local Responses, by Douglas Yazell. Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon is cited in his Houston Chronicle blog, The Climate Abyss, writing about possibly and likely catastrophic Anthropogenic (human-caused) Global Warming, cAGW and CAGW, respectively. Nielsen-Gammon writes that the scientists are working to understand the size of the C (cAGW or CAGW).
• This is on Page 37: The Johnson Space Center (JSC) Astronomical Society (JSCAS)
• Page 38: Calendar. This page includes a photograph of AIAA Houston Section council members attending the annual Section leadership retreat of August 15, 2012.
• Page 39: Section News.
• Page 44: Section News: A report on the Section dinner meeting featuring the guest speaker Wayne Hale. We add a 1969 address to test engineers from AIAA Fellow Joseph G. (Guy) Thibodaux.
• Page 49: Our Section’s history technical committee’s audiobook project, by Ted Kenny, featuring author Henry C. Dethloff, author of the book being converted into an audiobook. The book is Suddenly Tomorrow Came… the History of Johnson Space Center.
• Page 50: Student Section News: Rice University. Artist and Skylab and Apollo astronaut Alan Bean recently spoke at Rice University. We also report on Team Aether, students entering the AIAA Design / Build / Fly competition. The Team Aether report is authored by Clay Stangle, our Section’s treasurer. He is an adviser for the student team.
• Page 51: Student Section News: Texas A&M University. Four aerospace engineering professors are featured.
• Page 52: The Collier’s Series, Man Will Conquer Space Soon! (1952-1954)
• Page 54: San Antonio and the Genesis of the Collier’s Series, by Colin Davey.
• Page 56: The 1957 Encounter: Robert A. Heinlein and Albert A. Jackson IV.
• Page 60: March 7, 1953: Man’s Survival in Space, Testing the Men (Collier’s). We missed page 61! Once we obtain that scanned image, we will add it to this issue of Horizons. We will also add the cover image from this issue of Collier’s, making this issue of Horizons 74 pages instead of 72 pages.
• Page 74: The Back Cover: Photographs of the late James C. McLane, Jr.

 

Previous Issues

2013

January/February 2013 Issue (72 pages) (PDF: low resolution, 17.5MB; high resolution, 62.2MB) Volume 38, Number 4 Links in the list below are for separate, smaller (low resolution) PDF files, one PDF file for each article.

• Page 2: This Table of Contents page includes names from our organization chart along with a list of Horizons contributors, cover image credits, and disclaimers. (The links in this one-page PDF file will not work. Those are the links in the Table of Contents. Those links work when the entire 72-page issue is downloaded. The entire issue can be downloaded using one of the two links above, the low resolution link or the high resolution link.)
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner by Daniel Nobles, AIAA Houston Section Technical Committees. This page includes the publicity poster for our Section’s Annual Technical Symposium of Friday, May 17, 2013.
• Page 4: Editor’s Corner by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 5: Cover Story: A Geologist and Curiosity on Mars by Dr. Dorothy Oehler. She is interviewed and brings us up to date with Curiosity on Mars just as we go to press. This link includes the cover page and the Table of Contents page.
• Page 13: Sarah Brightman on ISS by Sandrine Rolland of our French sister section 3AF MP. Sarah, an Englishwoman, is a classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer, as noted in a Wikipedia article. She is signed up to go to the International Space Station (ISS) on a trip that will be scheduled in the coming months [Wikipedia].
• Page 14: Profile of Dominique Teyssier, one of the people who reserved a seat with Virgin Galactic. This article is supplied by our French sister section 3AF MP and authored by Teyssier himself and Jean-Luc Otal.
• Page 17: A Visit to Pierre-Paul Riquet Saint-Orens High School (Haute-Garonne, France) by Philippe Mairet of our French sister section 3AF MP.
• Page 19: Tau Ceti Exoplanet Candidates by Wes Kelly of Triton Systems LLC. Five Tau Ceti Planets in the Signals, Two in the Habitable Zone.
• Page 26: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 27: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston)
• Page 28: Climate Change and Local Responses by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 29: Science Fiction by Scientists, a book review and press release. AIAA Houston Section member Dr. Larry Jay Friesen is the author of Betrayal / Battle / Storm, a new book of three novellas published by Firefall.
• Page 30: Kickstarter for Space Projects by Shen Ge. This article describes five space projects using this approach for crowdfunding, then presents details about a Horizons Kickstarter crowdfunding project.
• Page 32: The First SPACE Retreat by Shen Ge. On January 8, 2013, a group of space professionals and space enthusiasts gathered on the tropical isle of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, to start this retreat. SPACE is Space Preparatory Academy of Cosmic Explorers, whose first event is described in the January / February 2012 issue of Horizons. SPACE placed an advertisement on page 57 of this January / February 2013 issue of Horizons, by the way.
• Page 36: Staying Informed. Gina Sunseri of ABC News asked a question at the NASA/JSC press conference (Orion ESA service module), “How tough is it to design a system like this when you don’t know exactly where you are going?” Friendship 7 “found” in Texas. For at least the past 40 years, a full-sized model of a Mercury spacecraft sat on display at the corner of Red Bluff Road and St. Augustine Avenue in Pasadena, Texas, about 20 minutes from NASA/JSC, according to collectSPACE.com. This page is linked below after pages 42 and 43 (in a single PDF file with those two pages, making a 3-page PDF file in this order: page 42, page 43, and then page 36).
• Page 37: Current Events: Science Fiction author Boris Strugatskij, by Wes Kelly of Triton Systems LLC. This article started when Wes proposed translating the related article from the Russian language biweekly newspaper Our Texas (www.ourtx.com), a new source for articles for Horizons, when we obtain permission. Boris often wrote science fiction with his brother Arkady. Boris died on November 19, 2012. This article presents images of quite a few of the Strugatsky science fiction books. Wes concludes the article with a note about the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor.
• Page 42: Current Events: NASA Signs Agreement for a European-Provided Orion Service Module, NASA press release, January 16, 2013. Orion is going international. The European Space Agency (ESA) will provide the ESA Service Module.
• Page 44: Calendar. This page is filled with upcoming conference events from www.aiaa.org. Also mentioned are our Section’s monthly council meetings, upcoming Section Events (ATS 2013 Friday, May 17, 2013, our Section’s Annual Technical Sympsosium, and an audiobook in work for the 1993 Henry C. Dethloff book, Suddenly Tomorrow Came… A History of Johnson Space Center) and recent Section events (dinner meeting of February 21, 2013, Leah Romero, Modeling & Testing NASA Orion Capsule Parachute Assembly System (CPAS), maiden name Leah Olson for AIAA papers).
• Page 45: Cranium Cruncher by Dr. Steven E. Everett. This page also contains an article by Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair and Ted Kenny, History technical committee Chair. The latter article mentions the audiobook project for Suddenly Tomorrow Came, a History of Johnson Space Center (JSC), by Henry C. Dethloff, the author of that 1993 book and two more recent books. The Skylab 40th anniversar and NASA Alumni League JSC Chapter oral histories are also mentioned.
• Page 46: Section News. NightPod on ISS is mentioned in an article. Organization charts are presented for AIAA Houston Section and our French sister section 3AF MP. The AIAA 2013 Space Automation and Robotics Award is mentioned since it was awarded to Robonaut 2 (R2), not to be confused with R2D2 of Star Wars. A space-related panel discussion at Rice University is mentioned, and the video is online. George Abbey hosted Lost in Space: The Need for a Definitive U.S. Space Policy. Mr. Abbey is a member of the Rice University James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Panelists: Mark Albrecht, Leroy Chiao, Joan Johnson-Freese, Neal Lane, Eugene Levy and John Logsdon. At Texas A&M University, Nick Page is the new AIAA student section Publicity Chair / Webmaster. Section News includes notes about a few submitted abstracts for the AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium (ATS) of Friday, May 17, 2013. ATS Item 1: Climate Change by Dr. Gerald R. North (Texas A&M University), the essential story of climate change. ATS Item 2: Dr. Kumar Krishen (NASA/JSC), Analysis of Voyages: Charting the Course for Sustainable Human Space Exploration. ATS Item 3: Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics technical committee Chair. ATS Item 4: INCOSE, the International Council on Systems Engineering. ATS Item 5: Skylab 40th Anniversary by NASA/JSC veteran Kenneth A. Young. ISS Expedition 34, Soyuz TMA-07M and Soyuz TMA-06M are also mentioned in Section News.
• Page 52: Staying Informed: A mention of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17. NASA Johnson Style! This video is a takeoff on the Psy Gangnam style music video. More than 2,000,000 hits for this video by NASA/JSC interns! Exoplanet candidates at Tau Ceti. An image of Mars from ESA’s Mars Express. Another image, “Cassini Space Miniature Nile River on Saturn Moon.” At the request of our French sister section 3AF MP, we present information about IMAV 2013, the International Micro Air Vehicle Conference and Flight Competition of September 17-20, 2013, in Toulouse, France. See www.imav2013.org. Also on this page, artwork by Loup Mairet, “How Will People be Able to Survive in Space?”
• Page 54: Collier’s 1952-1954. Man Will Conquer Space Soon! The Horizons team and the Horizons Collier’s team presents the fourth of eight installments in this series of space articles from the weekly magazine Collier’s. This installment: World’s First Spacesuit. Horizons is first to present this series page by page in high resolution.
• Page 56: Collier’s magazine space articles of February 28, 1953, starting with the cover image, Exclusive, World’s First Space Suit, How and Where We’ll Use it. We note that this issue of Horizons was published precisely on schedule on Thursday, February 28, 2013, the 60th anniversary. These 1952 – 1954 writers, artists and editors were led by Dr. Wernher von Braun.
• Page 69: The Complete Works of Robert A. Heinlein. Limited Collector’s Set of 46 Archival Volumes. Limited print run. The Virginia Edition. See www.virginiaedition.com. 713-861-3600.
• Page 70: APR Corner. Aerospace Projects Review by Scott Lowther. Inflatable Spaceplane. Referenced report: NASA TN D-538 by Walter Olstad, Langley Research Center, October 1960. On the next page we include an advertisement for a Skylab cutaway. This full color, high quality print of the NASA cutaway illustration is 40 by 24 inches.
• Page 72: The Back Cover. AIAA mission and vision statement and our Section’s logo and address. This page includes an article about the national AIAA Robotics Award presented to the Robonaut 2 (R2) team of NASA/JSC, including quotes from Dr. Myron Diftler, Robonaut Principal Investigator.

2012

November/December 2012 Issue (PDF: low resolution, 14.8MB; high resolution, 49.4MB) Volume 38, Number 3

• Cover story: The UP Experience 2012 in Houston featuring Burt Rutan
• Interstellar First Stop? Detection of an Earth-Sized Exoplanet at Alpha Centauri B by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC
• A 2012 TC4 Gravity Assist from Earth by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• A Newly Discovered Highly Accessible NEO by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Asteroid 2012 DA14’s February 2013 Fly-By by Dr. Patrick Rodi
• Creating an Economically Robust Space Policy by Dr. Martin Elvis, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon!
• Voyages: Sustainable Human Space Exploration: A Review, Dr. Kumar Krishen, NASA/JSC
• Hubble Meets Skylab by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review

September/October 2012 Issue (PDF: low resolution, 13.6MB; high resolution, 46.5MB) Volume 38, Number 2

• Cover story: The 100 Year Starship September 2012 Public Symposium in Houston by Douglas Yazell and Shen Ge
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Reprinting Collier’s from 1952 to 1954, the articles dated October 18, 1952, the 2nd of 8 installments
• Paradises Lost, the Opera from the Le Guin Generation Starship Novella
• Lunar Surface EVA Route Selection Optimization, by Yvonne Vigue-Rodi
• Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) in 2013 – 2014, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• 3AF MP: Third Annual Aerospace Festival of Art and Literature: Stars and Wings
• The Fog of War Obscures a Great Aerial Dogfight (Speculation), by James C. McLane III
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site
• The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston): Lance Borden
• Convair “Super-NEXUS”, APR Corner (Aerospace Projects Review), by Scott Lowther
• Current Events: Capsule-Helicopter Hybrid Spacecraft, by Jeff Hagen

July/August 2012 Issue (PDF: low resolution, 23MB; high resolution, 87MB) Volume 38, Number 1

• Cover story: Ring Wing Waveriders, by Dr. Patrick E. Rodi
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Reprinting Collier’s from 1952-54
• The Collier’s Series Backstory, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Collier’s, March 22, 1952, the First Articles Here are some links that provide publicity and more detail about our 1952-54 Collier’s series starting in this issue of Horizons:
• Hobby Space
• Scott Lowther, a Horizons regular contributor, published a publicity note in two blogs:
  • The Unwanted Blog
  • Aerospace Projects Review Blog (The APR Blog)
• Chair’s Column, by Daniel A. Nobles
• Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, by Colonel Jack “Stitch” Daniel
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport
• Dinner meeting with a Robonaut 2 presentation by Dr. J. D. Yamokoski
• ESA Awards Two Studies to EADS Astrium, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP, and Douglas Yazell
• Europe’s First Lunar Lander by 2018, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP, and Douglas Yazell
• The 100 Year Starship Public Symposium in Houston, September 13-16, 2012
• Scientific Preparatory Academy for Cosmic Explorers (SPACE) Inaugural Event, by CEO Shen Ge
• Suddenly Tomorrow Came… A History of JSC, the Audiobook, by Ted Kenny
• Recent Conference Papers by AIAA Houston Section Members
• The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston)
• Cranium Cruncher, by Dr. Steven E. Everett
• The Back Cover: Attendees at the Section’s Leadership Retreat, August 15, 2012

May/June 2012 Issue (PDF, 13948kb) Volume 37, Number 7

• Cover story: Morpheus, by Dr. Jon B. Olansen, NASA/JSC
• Dinner meeting of June 6, 2012, the 50^th anniversary of AIAA Houston Section
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport
• The Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2012) at NASA/JSC
• Planetary Resources: Flight of Fancy or Real Wealth?, editorial by Shen Ge
• Will Europe Participate in the Orion MPCV Project of the USA?, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP
• Ellington Field, Airport, Spaceport & The Lone Star Flight Museum
• Yuri’s Night Houston 2012: The 5k Fun Run and Space Day
• Space Fighter: 1963, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review
• Rest in Peace, John Llewellyn, Apollo era engineer

50th Anniversary Edition (PDF, 14884kb) Volume 37, Number 6, Special Edition, June 6, 2012

• The 1987 twenty-page booklet celebrating the 25^th anniversary of AIAA Houston Section
• More than twenty news pages extending that 1987 for our 2012 celebration of the 50^th anniversary of AIAA Houston Section

March/April 2012 Issue (PDF, 14731kb) Volume 37, Number 5

• Cover story: Develop Cislunar Space Next, by Paul Spudis
• Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC 2012), by Shen Ge
• Commercial Cargo, by Carl Walz of Orbital Sciences Corporation
• Leading the Next 50 Years of Exploration, by Douglas Terrier, NASA/JSC
• NASA GRAIL Lunar Mission, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute Cosmic Explorations lecture series
• Dream Chaser for NASA Commercial Crew Development (CCDev), by John Curry of Sierra Nevada Corporation
• Book review by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, 50 Years on the Space Frontier by Robert W. Farquhar
• Astronaut Training in Star City, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP
• International Cooperation, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP
• Virtus, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review (APR)
• The Conquest of Space and The Ugly Spaceship, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV

January/February 2012 Issue (PDF, 11504kb) Volume 37, Number 4

• Cover story: Kepler-22b, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC
• A Peek at Cassini after Seven Years in Orbit, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Dinner meeting report, Sustainable Use of Space Through Orbital Debris Control, by Nicholas L. Johnson, NASA/JSC
• Isle of Man, and Excellent Space for SPACE, by Shen Ge
• Warp Drives: A Curious History, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson, reporting on a lunch-and-learn presentation by Dr. Harold “Sunny” White, NASA/JSC
• Phobos-Grunt’s Inexorable Trans-Mars Injection Countdown Clock, Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Phoenix-E, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review (APR)
• List of AIAA Conference Papers by AIAA Houston Section Members

2011

November/December 2011 Issue (PDF, 8619kb) Volume 37, Number 3

• Cover story: Project Icarus Interstellar, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, reporting on a lunch-and-learn by Dr. Richard Obousy
• The 2011 American Astronautical Society (AAS) national conference in Houston, November 15-16, 2011, by Douglas Yazell, Editor
• Near-Earth Object (NEO) 2005 YU₅₅: A Natural Interplanetary Cycler, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site
• “A Successful Kiss,” New Breakthroughs in Chinese Space, by Shen Ge
• Use of the International Space Station (ISS) for Exploration, by Dr. Steven E. Everett, report on a lunch-and-learn by Michael Raftery, The Boeing Company ISS Deputy Program Manager
• Planet Formation: What’s New with the Oldest Events in the Solar System, by Dr. Bill Bottke, report by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC, on a lecture in the Cosmic Explorations lecture series from The Lunar and Planetary Institute
• Beyond UFOs, by Dr. Jeffrey Bennett, report by Douglas Yazell, Editor, on a lecture in The Space Lecture Series at The University of Houston at Clear Lake (UHCL)
• LTV’s 1966 Universal Hypersonic Test Vehicle, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review (APR)
• Aerospace Artwork by Don Kulba: T-14 Tomcat

September/October 2011 Issue (PDF, 7070kb) Volume 37, Number 2

• Cover story: Dinner meeting report, Congressman Pete Olson, musical entertainment by Grammy-nominated Lydia Salnikova
• GRAIL Takes a Roundabout Route to Lunar Orbit, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• High Altitude, A Rocket Launch Competition for Hight School Students, by Glenda Reyes, Dr. Benjamin Longmier and Carlos Salamanca
• Norman Augustine at Rice University, “The Greatest Obstacle to Human Space Travel”
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, by Douglas Yazell
• Project Leyel, by Jean-Luc Chanel, 3AF MP
• The 100 Year Starship 2011 Public Symposium in Orlando, Florida, by Douglas Yazell
• Shuttle-Derived Personnel Launch Vehicle, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review
• Staying Informed, James C. McLane III
• List of AIAA Conference Papers by AIAA Houston Section members
• Aerospace Artwork by Don Kulba, the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) and the Saturn V rocket in Houston’s Rocket Park

July/August 2011 Issue (PDF, 4633kb) Volume 37, Number 1

• Cover story: Dawn Arrives at Main Belt Asteroid (4) Vesta, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Just For the Record, by James C. McLane III
• Dinner meeting and annual awards report with AIAA Distinguished Lecturere Bob Zimmerman, with professional musicians Duane Propes and Dwayne O’Brien from the band Little Texas.
• Space Center Lecture Series report: “Fifty Years Since Liberty Bell: Perspectives on the Flight of Liberty Bell 7 and the Future of the Space Program,” by Dr. James Lewis and Robert F. Thompson, reported by Gary Kitmacher, NASA/JSC
• The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston) New and Profile in General and Experimental Aviation: Paul F. Dye, NASA/JSC
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site
• Boeing Space Freighter, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review
• AIAA Conference Papers Presented by AIAA Houston Section Members
• Aerospace Artwork by Don Kulba, Space Shuttle Commemorative Patch Entry by Don Kulba, and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom

June 2011 Horizons (PDF, 10202kb) (This bimonthly issue is what we later called the May / June 2011 issue, online at the end of June 2011.) Volume 36, Number 2

• Cover story: Project Aether, Inspiring the Next Generation of Explorers, by Eldon Summerson & Benjamin Longmier. Inaugural flights demonstrate how space exploration can be available to the individual. Weather balloons and HD video and still cameras are launched to the edge of space.www.ProjectAether.org.
• Sig Sjoberg in the 1979 NASA/JSC Robert McCall mural in the Building 2 Teague Auditorium.
• NASA photos showing the International Space Station (ISS) docked with the Space Shuttle Endeavour as seen from the nearby Soyuz spacecraft.
• Feature: An Astronaut Takes a Slow Flight, by James C. McLane III.
• Mars Rover Celebration, Fun & Learning with Virtual Space Missions, by Professor Edgar Bering, University of Houston.
• Dinner meeting report: State of the NASA/JSC Center by JSC Director Michael Coats, by Shen Ge and Ellen Gillespie.
• An Evening with Mary Roach: Best Selling Book, “Packing for Mars,” a lecture in The Space Center Lecture Series, by John B. Charles, Ph.D., Chief Scientist of NASA’s Human Research Program, Johnson Space Center, www.spacecenterlectureseries.com.
• Apollo Lunar Module LM-2: History by Captain Andrew Hobokan.
• Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2011) and Engineers as Educators
• The 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC)
• The Red Baron Scenario in an Interplanetary Context, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, including two 2011 close Near Earth Object (NEO) Earth encounters.
• John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon, a new book by John Logsdon, by Douglas Yazell and Roger Weiss.
• STS-133 and STS-134 space shuttle Crew Return Ceremonies at Ellington Field.
• Mir Splashdown 10th Anniversary Party
• Space Fest: Yuri’s Night Houston 2011
• IAF 2011 Frank J. Malina Astronautics Medal: Yves Gourinat
• Aerospace Projects Review (APR) by Scott Lowther, Bell D-109 VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing), 1951 Jet Convertoplane Fighter.

May 2011 Horizons (PDF, 2647kb) (This bimonthly issue is what we later called the March / April 2011 issue, scheduled to be online by the end of April 2011, and published online late, placed online May 17, 2011.) Volume 36, Number 1

• Cover story: Robert McCall, Artist, 1919-2010, A Bright Future for People in Space, by Douglas Yazell, Editor: Who’s Who in the 1979 McCall Mural at NASA/JSC Building 2 Teague Auditorium.
• EAA / AIAA Profile: Lance Borden, by Douglas Yazell, Editor. First in a series of profiles in general and experimental aviation with The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and AIAA. This twenty-page article contains many original photographs and images from 1929 to 1932. Houston resident Lance Borden now owns one of the seven remaining Inland Sport airplanes. Only about 46 of these airplanes were built. The Inland company built only those airplanes (three different models differing only in the motor size) during its short life from 1929 to 1932. These were popular, practical and record-setting airplanes. They were based on the prototype which was designed and built by Lance Armstrong’s maternal grandfather Lawrence Dewey Bonbrake.
• Dinner meeting report, “Accidents Happen!, Behind the Headlines,”, with speaker John Purvis, airplane accident investigator, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett.
• Dinner meeting report, “Congressman Pete Olson on Washington’s Support for NASA,” by Alan Simon.
• Apollo Lunar Module Testing, by Captain Andrew Hobokan.
• Event report: Wings Over Houston Airshow 2010, by Robert Pearlman, CollectSPACE (www.CollectSPACE.com, or CollectSPACE.com) & Ellen Gillespie.
• Private Space Flights: A New Era, by Jean-Pierre Lafon, 3AF Languedoc Rousillon, France, Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF).
• A Boost for Commercial Human Spaceflight, a reprint from the April 2010 issue of Aerospace America, the national magazine of AIAA, by Marco Caceras, a defense of President Obama’s cancellation of the cornerstone NASA program, Constellation.
• The Back Cover: 1964 Portrait of NASA Hal Beck Group in Houston.

2010

July 2010 Horizons (PDF, 6690kb) Horizons, Volume 35, Issue 2, the last of seven consecutive quarterly issues in a two-year span with Dr. Steven E. Everett as Editor. (We failed to publish one of eight planned issues.) This issue includes: This is the seventh of seven consecutive “quarterly” issues of Horizons edited by Dr. Steven E. Everett over a two-year period. Steve did a superlative job, worthy of high honors from AIAA. Prior to Steve’s service in this role, Douglas Yazell (Honeywell Aerospace 1981-2011 in Florida, California, then Texas) was Acting Editor for three issues while he finished his term as Chair of AIAA Houston Section. Prior to that, Jon Berndt re-invented Horizons during his long term of service, from about 2004 to the end of 2007. Jon gave us for format we now use, though his first cover page format was not the one he later created. Jon used Microsoft Publisher to create the published PDF files, and we still use Microsoft Publisher (as of December 2012). We obtain Publisher almost for free as a non-profit (AIAA) using www.techsoup.org, if that is the correct URL. Microsoft participates in the activities of that web site. Jon quickly persuaded AIAA Houston Section to stop mailing harcdcopies to our more than one thousand members. This was painful in 2011 and 2012 when our Publicity Chair and Communications Chair were vacant positions. Jon rounded up amazing cover stories and created a tradition for cover images that use portrait orientation and fill the cover with a single dramatic image. The content Jon rounded up for every issue was inspiring. His issue with The DIRECT Approach cover story attracted more than 30,000 hits and his issue with a cover story about open source software attracted more than 40,000 hits. Jon reported an average circulation of more than 6,000 downloads per issue. For a while in later years, we did not even have a hit counter. Circulation as of December 2012 is probably between 300 and 800 hits per issue.

• Cover story: AIAA Houston Section’s Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2010) featuring keynote speaker Myron (“Ron”) Diftler, Project Manager for Robonaut (including Robonaut 2), starting on page 14, featuring keynote speaker JSC Director Michael Coats, and featuring presenters such as Mark Jackson (Draper Lab), Terry Hill (NASA/JSC) and Mark Kane (NASA/JSC). (Photographs of those three presenters are included.) Also included are images of the two Constellation lunar rovers that visited our event (along with Bill Bluethman, NASA/JSC, whose image appears here, and others from the lunar rover project)!
• Editor’s column from Dr. Steven E. Everett
• Chair’s Corner from Ellen Gillespie/United Space Alliance
• Douglas Yazell’s column about the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site (NASA/JSC is the only other such site in Houston.), with a note about Amelia Earhart and Museum Administrator Megan Lickliter-Mundon.
• A Tribute to an Apollo Program Engineer: Albert Jowid, reported by Captain Andrew Hobokan.
• A dinner meeting report: The Augustine Commission and Beyond, featuring guest speaker Bohdan (“Bo”) Bejmuk, a member of the Augustine Commission, featuring an image of Guy Thibodaux, NASA/JSC retired, making blunt comments after the presentation, repoorted by Nick Pantazis, AIAA Houston Section Vice Chair Operations. It was a great honor to have Bo here for this presentation. It was a historic and difficult time for NASA and its contractors. After obtaining the results of his Augustine Committee, President Obama cancelled NASA’s fleet of spacecraft called Constellation in February of 2010. Though he later (on April 15, 2010, in a speech at NASA/KSC) revived Orion, the crew capsule, then called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), more than $9B had already been spent on Constellation which started its work in about August of 2006. More than $2B in additional funds was paid to NASA contractors as part of the process of this cancellation.
• A Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) Update at the University of Houston Clear Lake (UHCL) by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor and Dr. Benjamin Longmier, Ad Astra Rocket Company. A group of company employees are shown in front of their vacuum chamber in a photograph. Another group of company employees are shown in front of their building in the La Flor campus (7,000 square feet) in Liberia, Costa Rica.
• One More Story about our Late Former Section Chair Mr. Algranti, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor, with thanks to Captain Andrew Hobokan. One photograph shows NASA’s Super Guppy airplane at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas USA. Another photograph shows NASA’s Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV). Joseph Algranti was an LLTV test pilot. Along with Neil Armstrong, he was one of three who ejected from these vehicles (at Ellington Field), resulting in the loss of those three vehicles.
• Patches for the Last Three Space Shuttle Flights, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. These patches are for STS-132, STS-133 and STS-134. In fact, STS-135 later became the last space shuttle flight.
• Shanghai Expo 2010, by Shen Ge, Contributor. Note that since 1987, AIAA Houston Section has a Chinese sister section in Shanghai, the Shanghai Astronautical Society. That relationship was initiated by James C. McLane, Jr., in 1987. For example, the founding document, a one-page document, is reproduced on page 53 of the November / December 2012 issue of Horizons. As of December 2012, Marlo Graves is the contact person, though she works with her AIAA Houston Section initiative with Beijing, not Shanghai.
• Art and Science: Voyage in the Solar System, by Marc Rieugnie, 3AF TMP, Member of our French Sister Section. Note that 3AF TMP stands for l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Toulouse – Midi-Pyrenees Chapter. I omitted a few accents there. As of December 2012 or earlier, it is the Midi-Pyrenees Chapter, not 3AF TMP, but 3AF MP. And in place of the word Chapter, they use, “Groupe Regional.” I hope I spelled that correctly. Marc is an engineer and an amateur astronomer. He is also an artist. Many of his works were on display at La Cite de l’Espace in Toulouse, France. This article includes images of three of his works, “Jupiter Seen from Io,”, “Saturn Seen from Rhea,” and, “Mars Seem from Deimos.” A French sister section relationship with AIAA Houston Section and 3AF MP started in 2007 and is still going strong as of December 2012, as seen, for example, starting on page 24 of the November / December 2012 issue of Horizons. The web site www.enjoyspace.com is shown here, too, in a linked image. The editor there is Olivier Sanguy. That web site might be associated with La Cite de l’Espace. Olivier edited Espace Magazine for a long time, starting when it was created, and it was sold for years in the kiosks in France, and additional copies and back issues were available from the publisher. His wife Marie-Ange Sanguy now edits (as of December 2012) Espace et Exploration, a new magazine in France, no longer sold in kiosks, but available from its publisher, and also available in electronic form (PDF format).
• The Late Guenter Wendt, Pad Leader at the Cape, by Laurent Mangane, 3AF TMP, Member of our French Sister Section. See the above note for more about 3AF TMP. This late NASA employee worked at NASA/KSC. One of the NASA photographs in this article shows him with Apollo 13 crew member Fred Haise, a great photograph.
• Yuri’s Night Houston 2010, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor, with Michael Frostad. There are five photographs with this article, and no captions, but they include people dressed in very professional costumes based on the Star Wars movies. This event was our contribution to the annual worldwide celebration, Yuri’s Night. Mike reports we raised nearly $3,000 for the Houston Museum of Science Challenger Learning Center (a branch of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education). Robert Pearlman of CollectSPACE.com made a presentation. Note that Yuri’s Night celebrates Yuri Gagarin’s launch and flight of April 12, 1962 and the STS-1 space shuttle launch of April 12, 1981.
• SETI: James M. Benford, PhD, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor and Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Chair, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics technical committee. How to Build Cost-Optimized Interstellar Beacons (and How to Search for Them). SETI is the acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Jim is the twin brother of science fiction writer (also a PhD, both in physics) Gregory Benford. Jim also works with Icarus Interstellar.
• Astronauts at NEOs: Dan Adamo and Rob Landis, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor and Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Chair, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics Technical Committee. Exploring Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) with Human Crews and Robotic Systems. Rob is a NASA civil servant. Daniel R. Adamo is an astrodynamics consultant. President Obama cancelled NASA’s human spaceflight fleet Constellation in February of 2010, after commissioning the Augustine Committee. Then on April 15, 2010, in a speech at NASA/KSC, he brought the crew capsule back to life, Orion, then called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). In that speech, President Obama mentioned sending an astronaut crew to rendezvous with a NEO, maybe as early as 2025. So this presentation by Adamo and Landis was timely.
• From Caves to Space, by James C. McLane III. Apollo engineers imitate cave exploring equipment to make falling safety restraints. Jim is a caver. He was a caver in the 1960s, at least. Another term for that is spelunker. He writes about a Jumar rope ascender. This article has two memorable photographs of cavers and several memorable NASA photographs of NASA astronauts using this equipment in training. “…My father, James C. McLane, Jr., was Chief of the Space Environment Test Division [at NASA/JSC]. He had ultimate authority over the lab…”
• More Photos from the McLane Archives, by James C. McLane III. This presents two photographs on page 31. “One [movie] in particular (Future World, starring Peter Fonda) made heavy use of the giant space chambers in [NASA/JSC] Building 32. I went out to watch the filming and saw a stunt man make $10,000 by taking a dive off a platform and falling over 100 feet into an air bag. I took the attached photos in 1976 during the filming.”
• Aerospace Projects Review (APR Corner) by Scott Lowther. For this issue, Scott writes about the Boeing Vertol Model 301 Heavy Lift Helicopter (HLH), the XCH-62 of the late 1960s.
• Aeros & Autos at Ellington Airport, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This presents a few photos from this event in Houston, Texas USA.
• EAA Corner, a one-page column in each issue about the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Houston Chapter. One photograph is included showing the yellow VariEze airplane built by astronaut Frank Caldeiro and owned by Richard Sessions. The Rutan VariEze was designed by Burt Rutan. See our November / December 2012 issue of Horizons for a cover story about Burt Rutan and The UP Experience 2012 in Houston, Texas USA.
• Crossword Puzzle, by Sean Carter. Know Thy Station! The NASA-led International Space Station.
• Calendar, including a photograph of a medallion (“coin”) design from an artist at NWT Mint, Northwest Territorial Mint, for our section. We never purchased the medallion, but what a design! Don Kulba, still a Horizons team member as of December 2012, created the artwork used on one side of the medallion design. Among 85 entries for NASA’s patch to represent the space shuttle program, Don’s design was one of the 15 finalists. AIAA Houston Section eventually celebrated its 50th anniversary (1962-2012) with a dinner meeting that included a lapel pin created for that event, but not using this design or this artwork. Only 100 of those lapel pins were made. See page 12 of our May / June 2012 issue of Horizons for a report on that dinner meeting. Here is an image file of the lapel pin design from NWT Mint. The medallion art is fantastic, and Don’s original art can be seen in another issue of Horizons, but the design for this lapel pin can be seen only here. We had this Air Force lapel pin from NWT Mint in mind when we created our lapel pin.
• Cranium Cruncher by Dr. Steven E. Everett. Wes Dafler (Boeing) and Greg Pierce (ESCG) solved Steve’s prior puzzle. For this issue’s puzzle, “Four bugs are placed in the corners of a square. Each bug walks directly toward the next bug in a clockwise direction. How far do the bugs walk before they meet?” An illustration shows four red and black ladybugs.
• The Back Cover. Page 40 shows, “The 2010 AIAA Haley Space Flight Award.” This was presented to Dr. John M. Grunsfeld and the STS-125 space shuttle crew, “for outstanding contributions by an astronaut or test flight personnel to the advancement of the art, science or technology of astronautics.”

March 2010 Horizons (PDF, 2730 kb) Horizons, Volume 35, Issue 1. The Spring 2010 issue. Published quarterly, but that publication rate changed after the next issue.

• Cover story: Hayabusa’s Return Home, by Steven Everett, Editor. Dr. Paul A. Abell was our guest speaker. This event was organized by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Chair, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics Technical Committee. Paul stated he would provide an overview of the mission, then play a twenty-minute video produced by JAXA describing the mission and its highlights. The successful return of material from asteroid Itokawa had not yet occurred when this article was written.
• The Table of Contents (TOC) notes that Horizons and the AIAA Houston Section web site won first place in 2005, 2006 and 2007 from AIAA for the Section award in our size category for Communications, “AIAA National Communications Award Winner.”
• From the Editor, “Turning Point,” by Dr. Steven E. Everett. Steve writes about changes. We had major changes in NASA’s human spaceflight program at this time. Steve also writes that the next issue will be his last issue as Editor.
• Chair’s Corner, Ellen Gillespie, United Space Alliance. Ellen mentions the turning point for NASA’s human spaceflight program and the 40th anniversary of NASA Apollo missions. She then lists a few upcoming events. One upcoming event was, “Collecting and Curating the Space Shuttle,” by Robert Pearlman of CollectSPACE.com, one in the series of lectures, The Space Center Lecture Series, a series co-sponsored by AIAA Houston Section and led by Dr. Benjamin Longmier of Ad Astra Rocket Company and Gary Kitmacher, NASA/JSC.
• George Observatory Event, by Ellen Gillespie, Chair, AIAA Houston Section. This is a beautiful facility one hour south of Houston, Texas USA in the Brazos Bend State Park.
• Notes from the Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), by Dr. Larry Jay Friesen, Section Member. This meeting took place November 16-19, 2009, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), in Houston, Texas USA, in the Clear Lake City area near NASA/JSC. They met in support of NASA and NASA’s Space Exploration Iniitiative.
• Space Shuttle program end patch. Don Kulba is an artist and still a member of our Horizons team as of December 2012. On Page 9 of this issue, his design is presented as part of the NASA competition for a patch for the 30-year space shuttle program. The winning patch is presented here, along with Don Kulba’s design. Don’s work was selected as one of the 15 finalists among 85 entries. On this page, Don updated his design slightly after submitting it to NASA. Don was working for United Space Alliance at the time.
• A Notional Hayabusa-2 Trajectory Design, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant. Hayabusa was on its way back from asteroid Itokawa at this time. This sample return mission had many troubles, but it succeeded with the first such sample return a few months after this article was published.
• Five photos from the McLane Archives, by James C. McLane III. Jim’s photos show the inside of Building 32 at NASA/JSC during the summer of 1968. This was a peak of activities related to Apollo testing. Some of these photos show the immense vacuum chamber, Chamber A. One photo shows Jim’s father, James C. McLane, Jr., Chief of the Space Environment Test Division.
• Apollo XII Anniversary Panel Discussion, by Steven Everett, Editor. This event was the third such event, the third panel discussion, he organized in honor of the 40th anniversary of the NASA Apollo Program. The first two were Apollo VIII and Apollo X. Panel members were Frank Hughes, Floyd Bennett and Emil Schiesser.
• Art by Don Kulba on page 15, Navy Panther (aircraft).
• First Flight in Texas, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. The first documented powered flight in Texas celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 18, 2010. The pilot was French aviator Louis Paulhan. A plaque on a small monument commemorates this event. Its location is apparently in Pasadena, Texas USA, in the metropolitan Houston area, so to speak. It is a few steps east of the intersection of Spencer Highway (West Main Highway), York Avenue and Texas Street, a block or two east of Old Galveston Road (Galveston Road, also known as Highway 3). A crowd of more than 2,500 paid to observe the event.
• Imagine ’09: Ideas At Work, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This was the annual conference of the American Astronautical Society (AAS).
• The Unfinished Dream of Space, reported by Philippe Mairet, 3AF TMP (France), translated by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This article comments on the cancellation of the NASA fleet of spacecraft, Constellation.
• Space Exploration: A Sudden Stop or a Renewal?, reported by Marc Rieugnie, 3AF TMP (France), translated by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This article also comments on the cancellation of the NASA fleet of spacecraft, Constellation. This article includes a superlative illustration of five rocket designs by artist and Horizons team member Don Kulba.
• Virgin Galactic: CSS Enterprise’s First Flight, a press release. This was the first captive carry of the new space ship, here named VSS Enterprise. The aircraft used for this captive carry test was, of course, White Knight Two, named VMS Eve. The acronyms are no doubt Virgin Mother Ship (VMS) and Virgin Space Ship (VSS). The article notes that Virgin Galactic has taken in around $45M in deposits for [suborbital] space flights from more then 330 people.
• Congressional Visits Day for AIAA. Page 27 shows a photograph of AIAA Houston Section members Michael Kezirian, Melissa Gordon and Wayne Rast in DC for this annual event.
• Space Center Lecture Series, reported by Douglas Yazell. The featured speaker was Richard Garriot, private astronaut and son of NASA Apollo astronaut Owen Garriot. Robert Pearlman of CollectSpace.com is shown in one image. He was a recent speaker in this series of lectures co-sponsored by AIAA Houston Section. The prior lecture was by James Oberg, space journalist, and the next lecture was by Sy Liebergot, a NASA Apollo 13 EECOM. (Sy’s web site has a sound track as soon as you open that web page…) Richard’s presentation took place at the University of Houston Clear Lake.
• Hubble 3D, the New IMAXMovie, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. The related press release is from HubbleSite.
• Aerospace Projects Review (APR Corner), by Scott Lowther. The Convair Amphibious C-5. This article presents details of this aircraft design from the 1960s.
• Wings Over Houston 2009, reported by Ellen Gillespie, Section Chair. This annual air show at Ellington Airport in Houston, Texas USA is spectacular. AIAA Houston Section combines with a larger display by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in recent years. David Fuller and Melissa Gordon are shown in a photograph with Ellen, and Richard Sessions of EAA is shown in another photograph.
• EAA Corner, the regular column about the Experimental Aircraft Association, a one-page column in each issue. This article contains a report of the death of the first pilot to fly in space on the X-15, Robert M. White.
• Cranium Cruncher, a puzzle that appears in every issue of Horizons. Ronny Newman and Joe Frisbee are credited with correct answers to the prior puzzle. Ronny Newman and Robert Howard got special recognition for pointing out a lack of clarity in the puzzle. The new puzzle is so short it is presented here: Find a number ABCDEFGHIJ such that A is the count of how many zeroes are in the number, B is the number of ones, and so on.
• The Back Cover. Page 36 is, “AIAA Mourns the Death of Aaron Cohen.” The former Director of NASA/JSC and AIAA Honorary Fellow was 79.

2009

November 2009 Horizons (PDF, 2035 kb) This is the 20-page Fall 2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 3.

• Cover story: The Augustine Options, reported by Don Kulba, Assistant Editor. Don is an artist whose work appears on the cover of this issue. Don is also an engineer who was working for United Space Alliance at this time. Don also wrote the cover story starting on page 6. “The Augustine Committee was appointed this year by President Barack Obama to study the current status of NASA [human spaceflight programs] and provide a short list of options for NASA’s future [in human spaceflight].”
• From the Editor: A Reasonable Path, by Dr. Steven E. Everett. This is the regular one-page Editor’s column. Steve discusses the “flexible path” defined by the Augustine Committee. He talks about the bathyscaphe Trieste deep-diving research vessel designed by Bertrand Piccard. He notes that ocean exploration proceeds well without people onboard, but for telepresence on another planet, a human is required in some proximity. He explains that Augustine’s flexible path does away with entry, descent and landing (and ascent), the most complex and expensive parts of any mission. He concludes that this flexible path might be the most reasonable path after all.
• Chair’s Corner, Ellen Gillespie, United Space Alliance. Ellen notes that the NASA/JSC community is working on the space shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS) and Constellation (a fleet of NASA spacecraft for human spaceflight) at the same time, while we wait for the effects President Obama’s Augustine Committee review of NASA’s human spaceflight programs. She notes this is also the time for the 40th anniversary of the NASA Apollo program. She lists a few recent events, including: On October 1, 2009, our Young Professionals hosted a movie screening of Apollo 13 on the side of the Saturn V rocket (the real thing, not a model) at NASA/JSC Rocket Park, with a crowd of more than 100 people, introduced by Apollo engineers who supported Apollo 13 (Norman Chaffee and Jerry Woodfill). Two pictures of that event are shown on page 7. She also lists a few planned events.
• Dinner meeting report, by Michael Kezirian, Section Member. Our guest speaker was Congressman Pete Olson of the 22nd District.
• Issues in Texas Education, by Janet Larson, Section Member. This article starts on page 8.
• Page 10 reports that Jon S. Berndt of Jacobs Technology, former AIAA Houston Section Horizons newsletter editor-in-chief, was selected as an AIAA Associate Fellow for the class of 2010.
• STS-127 Crew Return to Houston, Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This public reception took place at Ellington Airport shortly after the crew’s space shuttle landing in Florida. The article includes the complete text of the remarks made by one of the crew members, Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency.
• The First Aviators in Texas and Houston, 1910-1911, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. Mr. Story Jones Sloane III was an invited speaker at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport on Saturday, March 31, 2009. The first flight of an airplane in Texas took place just south of Houston on February 18, 1910. The Houston Post and the Western Land Company paid French aviator Louis Paulhan $20,000 (more than $900,000 in 2009 dollars) to demonstrate his aircraft, a Farmn biplane. The crowd numbered more than 2,000 (at $1 a head). Four priceless photographs are included, thanks to Mr. Sloane, as well of a photograph of Mr. Sloane making his presentation.
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This article reports on the Wings & Wheels event of the third Saturday in August 2009. The theme for this occurrence of this monthly event was the Experimental Aviation Association. The museum’s raffle airplane was on display, a Cessna 175, and tickets cost $50. Noteworthy airplanes and automobiles were on display at this lunch-hour centered event.
• EAA Corner is on page 15, a one-page column about the Experimental Aircraft Association and its Chapter 12, the Houston Chapter.
• APR Corner by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review. “Late in 1957, Convair proposed to the Air Force the “Super Hustler,” a solution to long range reconaissance and strategic bombing.
• A one-page Calendar is a valuable history record for AIAA Houston Section.
• Cranium Cruncher by Dr. Steven E. Everett. This month’s brain teaser imagines astronauts at a lunar base on the Moon’s south pole, and it is required that an astronaut walk to the nearby Aldrin lunar base. The trip is a six-hour walk, but the air tanks are good for four hours. Tanks can be swapped out between suits. How many crew members must start walking to ensure at least one member makes it to the lunar base?

June 2009 Horizons (PDF, 2280 kb) The 46-page Summer 2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 2.

• Cover story: Recollections on the Apollo Lunar Lander by Captain Andrew Hobokan, starting on page 33.
• As in every issue, page 2 not only includes a table of contents, but also a list of our 45 or so of our AIAA Houston Section council members.
• From the Editor, “Our Professional Duty,”, on page 3, from Dr. Steven E. Everett. Examining alternatives to NASA’s Constellation program while President Obama’s Augustine Committee was conducting its review.
• Starting on page 4, Astronaut Garrett Reisman talks about Life Onboard the International Space Station (ISS) during Expeditiion 16/17, by Alan Simon, Assistant Editor. This was not an AIAA event, but it was of interest to our members and our readers. Garrett spoke at Clear Lake’s Congregation Shaar Hashalom.
• On page 6, a film screening report, Sputnik Declassified, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This was not an AIAA event.
• On page 7, Aeros & Autos at Ellington Airport, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. Photographs include cars, a B-17 WW II bomber aircraft, a VariEze airplane (a Burt Rutan design) and Glenn McDuffie, the famous “kissing sailor” from WW II, the person in a famous photograph in which a sailor in uniform kisses a nurse in uniform, probably on the street in New York City on V-J Day. He might not be the only one to claim to be that sailor, but he might have the best claim on that fame.
• Starting on page 8, Revisiting a DIRECT Approach. This article ends on page 11, but no author is credited. Jon Berndt helped to round up this article. A recent (prior) issue of Horizons had A DIRECT Approach as its cover story, in late 2007, and an author is credited on that article. This is a alternative rocket, a single rocket, recommended in place of Ares I and Ares V, the two rockets that were part of NASA’s Constellation program. The various configurations of the rocket used in the DIRECT Approach all share the name Jupiter for the rocket. President Obama canceled Constellation in 2010, and as of 2012, NASA is designing and building a rocket that will have various configurations (at least two), using the name Space Launch System (SLS). It resembles the DIRECT Approach and its Jupiter rocket.
• On pages 12-14, HobbyFest 2009: AIAA Historic Aerospace Site in Houston, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. AIAA’s Emily Springer flew to Houston for a ceremony celebrating the selection of The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas USA, as an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. She brought a large, heavy plaque to be unveiled in our AIAA ceremony. The date was Saturday, April 18, 2009. The Museum hosted Hobby Fest 2009 that same day, a very large event, from roughly 11 AM to 3 PM. Sadly, we had heavy rain and flash flooding during these events, but the events continued. Chair-Elect Ellen Gillespie attended, and AIAA Houston Section History Technical Committee Chair Chester Vaughan represnted our Section during the ceremony, despite lengthy rain delays. Mr. Drew Coats represented the Museum at the President of the Houston Aeronautical Heritage Society. Page 14 lists the AIAA Historic Aerospace Sites. Thanks to the hard work of volunteers, this museum won that honor in 2008. NASA/JSC joined that list in 2005, again thanks to hard work by volunteers in our Section, etc. The list contains 42 sites, another 8 sites described as international sites, and a final site on the list, Tranquility Base, the Moon (2000). The first international site chosen was a French site, First Balloon Launch Site, Annonay, France (2001).
• Page 15: A few space program photos from the NASA/JSC area in Houston, Texas USA, Rocket Park and the International Space Station monument on NASA Parkway at Saturn Lane.
• Dinner meeting report, The Future of U.S. Planetary Exploration, featuring a presentation by an AIAA Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Randii Wessen of the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Reported by Douglas Yazell.
• The 2009 Annual Technical Symposium of AIAA Houston Section, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Editor. This included an Apollo X keynote panel discussion at the luncheon. It featured Ken Young, Henry Pohl, Glynn Lunney, Dave Alexander and Gary Johnson.
• Pages 22 through 27 describe activities on behalf of AIAA Houston Section’s International Space Activities Committee (ISAC). Our Chinese sister sections are mentioned, thanks to Marlo Graves. Our French sister section is discussed and pictured at length, with reporting from Douglas Yazell in Houston.
• A Lunar Surface Rendezvous Architecture Proposal by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Editor.
• Page 29 presents a new way to stay in touch with AIAA Houston Section: Facebook. This page also contains links titled Staying Informed.
• A New Light on the Moon, a presentation at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas USA, by Dr. Paul Spudis of LPI, reported by Alan Simon, Assistant Editor.
• Recollections on the Apollo Lunar Lander, by Captain Andrew Hobokan (cover story). This article includes a Lunar Module illustration by Don Kulba, Assistant Editor.
• Page 34 presents the AIAA Houston Section calendar.
• Page 35 presents EAA Corner, a one-page column about the Houston Chapter (#12) of the Experimental Aircraft Association. A VariEze airplane is pictured, a Burt Rutan design, owned and flown in Houston. This page also contains an illustration by Assistant Editor Don Kulba, “Navy Skyhawk,”, a jet fighter aircraft.
• Starting on page 36: AIAA Conference Presentations/Articles by AIAA Houston Section Members, compiled by the editorial staff from AIAA agendas.
• Starting on page 38, Joseph S. Algranti, 1925 – 2009, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. Joe was AIAA Houston Section Chair (Chairman) for 1973 – 1974. His NASA/JSC oral history biography writes, “Member, Quiet Birdmen.” That is no doubt a prestigious group, but we leave that description to Wikipedia. CollectSPACE also has a great article about Joe Algranti. Joe was one of three NASA test pilots who ejected from a Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV). Those dangerous accidents occurred only three times (three ejections, three losses of vehicles), all at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas USA, near NASA/JSC. One of the other three pilots was Neil Armstrong. The last of these three accidents was on January 29, 1971. That pilot was Stu Present. “Armstrong later said his practice flights in the LLTVs gave him the confidence to override the automatic control system and control Eagle manually during that epic Apollo mission.”
• Page 42: a fond remembrance of Richard P. “Dick” Edwards, 1933 – 2009. He co-founded Space Settlement Design Competitions for high school students in 1984.
• Page 43: Congratulations STS-125 Crew on a Successful Hubble Servicing Mission! This page contains a cartoon whose idea was suggested by former NASA flight controller Marianne Dyson, a prize-winning author.
• Page 29: APR Corner, by Scott Lowther of Aerospace Projects Review (APR). This one-page column discusses the Juno V, a rocket/capsule design from about 1958 via Wernher von Braun and his team in Alabama. The capsule was a 16-person crew vehicle.
• Page 45 presents the Cranium Cruncher by Bill Miller, Senior Member.
• Page 46, the back cover, contains no new articles.

April 2009 Horizons (PDF, 3270 kb) The 42-page Spring 2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 1.

• Cover story: Final Visit to Hubble (Preparing for Rescue), by Daryl Schuck. Imagine two space shuttle orbiters on orbit at the same time. While mission STS-125 was on orbit repairing Hubble, another space shuttle mission was ready to launch in case of emergency, called STS-400. For the more common space shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS), a number in the STS-300 series would be assigned to a rescue mission. This space shuttle Launch on Need capability put our NASA/JSC community into a state of readiness for a most unusual but never used scenario, two space shuttles on orbit at the same, one rescuing the crew of the other.
• Page 2 contains the table of contents and a list of the members of the 45-person council of AIAA Houston Section.
• From the Editor by Dr. Steven E. Everett is on page 3. He mentions that this International Year of Astronomy is also the year of the last human mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. As a boy Steve visited the Planetarium in Jackson, Tennessee and listened to a young professor of astronomy, Ronnie Barnes. Steve remembers the backlighted slide of the Eagle Nebula there, one he thought of as the Superman nebula, because he could see the head, cape and outstretched arms headed to the upper right of the image.
• Page 4 presents a one-page column, The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. This issue’s column discusses the Saturday lunchtime monthly program Wings & Wheels for January 2009, reported by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. He presents a photograph of John M. Coale, a man who made a 2004 round-the-world flight. It was not an easy feat. A related web site is http://www.earthrounders.com, and Mr. Coales’ web site is http://www.n30ew.com.
• Starting on page 5 is an interview with Chuck Shaw: Parallel Perspectives on Hubble, reported by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. This superlative interview ends of page 11, so there is plenty of text and images for your enjoyment.
• Starting on page 12 is a two-page article, LPI Seminar Series: Asteroid Threat Mitigation, reported by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. The featured speaker was Dr. Thomas Jones, a member of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE). The full title of the lecture was Asteroid Threat Mitigation, a Call for International Decision Making.
• Starting on page 14 is the cover story mentioned above, Preparing for Rescue, reported by Daryl Schuck.
• Starting on page 16 is Astonuat Training: What it Takes to be an Astronaut, reported by Alan Simon. This was a lecture at the University of Houston Clear Lake presented by the Clear Lake Association of Senior Programs (CLASP). Introducing the speaker for the evening of January 8, 2009, was Glynn Lunney, the famous Apollo era NASA flight director. The guest speaker was Henry Lampazzi, a NASA Simulation Supervisor.
• Starting on page 18 is a report of a lecture in the series called The Space Center Lecture Series, a series of events led by Dr. Benjamin Longmier of Ad Astra Rocket Company and Gary Kitmacher of NASA/JSC. This series of lectures was co-sponsored by AIAA Houston Section. The web site is http://www.spacecenterlectureseries.com. Their motto, so to speak, was Space Exploration or Extinction, and their T-shirt shows a picture of a dinosaur wearing a space helmet. The presentation was Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System, reported by Alan Simon. The presenter was Dr. Thomas Jones.
• Starting on page 21 is a dinner meeting report by Ellen Gillespie, Chair Elect, and Nick Pantazis, AIAA Houston Section Vice Chair of Operations. The presentation was Continental Airlines: Aircraft Operations for Today and Tomorrow. The speaker was Mr. John Wiitala, Senior Director of Engineering at Continental Airlines.
• Starting on page 22 is Fifty Years of NASA Imagery, reported by Alan Simon. Our reporter attended an opening ceremony for an exhibit at the University of Houston Clear Lake (UHCL) honoring 50 Years of NASA Imagery. University President Er. William A. Staples provided opening remarks. NASA/JSC Director Michael Coats added a few brief remarks. Shelly Kelly, the current Archivist for the University’s Alfred R. Neumann Library JSC History Collection spoke about the collection.
• Page 24 contains a one-page article, Crewed Space Flights and Exploration: En Route to the Future, by Philippe Mairet, Laurent Mangane and Delphine Gourdou of our French sister section 3AF TMP (now in 2012 called 3AF MP) and Douglas Yazell.
• Starting on page 25 is Apollo 8 Panel Discussion, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Editor. This was a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, a daring, risky and historic mission. The panel contained eight members and Douglas Yazell, an AIAA volunteer. Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV was the event organizer. Author and Former NASA flight director Marianne Dyson was the event moderator. The eight panelists: Hal Beck, Rod Rose, Marty Jenness, Ken Young, John Llewellyn, Glynn Lunney, Chris Kraft and Emil Schiesser.
• Starting on page 30 is a book review by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair, of the book Meant to Fly: The Career of Captain A.J. High, Pilot for Trans-Texas Airways.
• Page 33 is a one-page collection, Odds and Ends. An image is presented of the text for the plaque to be awarded to the new AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, the 1940 Air Terminal at Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas USA. Also presented is a work of art in black and white, an illustration titled Spitfire, depicted the famous WW II airplane, prepared by artist and Horizons Assistant Editor Don Kulba.
• Page 34 presents a membership update by AIAA Houston Section Membership Chair Lisa Voiles.
• Page 35 presents the AIAA Houston Section calendar.
• Starting on page 36 is a column about Houston’s Chapter 12 of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).
• Starting on page 38 is APR Corner, by Scott Lowther of Aerospace Projects Review (APR). This installment of this regular column presents NEXUS, the design for a huge rocket proposed by General Dynamics and famed rocket engineer Kraft Ehricke. This was proposed in the early 1960s, to be a follow-on to the Saturn V rocket of the 1960s and 1970s.
• Page 40 presents a one-page article, Scholarship Winner Becomes a Summer Intern Here at NASA/JSC, reported by Edward Jablonski. The winner of AIAA Houston Section’s Spirit of Apollo scholarship was Ward Jablonski, a recent intern for NASA/JSC contractor Booz-Allen-Hamilton (BAH). While at BAH, he worked on International Space Station (ISS) Payload Power Allocation Tables as part of the famous NASA VIPER team. At the time this article was written, Ward was an engineering student at the University of Houston (main campus).
• On page 41 is the Cranium Cruncher by AIAA Senior Member Bill Miller. To paraphrase, a square is inscribed inside a triangle whose side lengths are 10, 17 and 21. One side of the square lies alongside the long side of the triangle, one corner of the square touches the triangle’s side of length 10 and one corner of the square touches the triangles’s side of length 17. What is the length of a side of the square?
• The back cover on page 42 has no new articles.

2008

December 2008 Horizons (PDF, 2644 kb) The 34-page Winter 2008-2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 1.

• Cover story: Apollo 8: The 40th Anniversary.
• Page 2: Table of Contents. Names from the organization chart are listed on this page. Notes are included here about Horizons and the AIAA Houston Section web site AIAA National Communications Award (a Section award from AIAA national): First place for 2005, 2006 and 2007, and Honorable Mention for 2008.
• Page 3: From the Editor, by Steven Everett, Editor. “40 Years Ago.” Steve writes about the upcoming Apollo 40th anniversaries, and he notes that his own 40th orbit will take place next year. He writes about the Google lunar X Prize and the Ansari X-Prizes.
• Page 4: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. Wings & Wheels for Saturday, October 18, 2008. Byline: Douglas Yazell, Past Chair.
• Page 5: Dinner lecture summary, Science on the International Space Station (ISS), by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. Jean Engle spoke about her new role at NASA/JSC as Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO). She spoke about knowledge capture plans. The keynote speaker was Dr. Julie Robinson, ISS Program Scientist.
• Page 8: Event Summary: AIAA Young Professionals (YP) Seminar: Aerospace Business Paths, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. AIAA Houston Section YP Chair Jim Palmer introduced three panelists: Nick Pantazis, founder and Vice President of Integrated Strategic Solutions, Inc. (ISSI), Kyle Rone, President of Kyle Rone Enterprises, and Pat Schondel, Vice President of Business Development at The Boeing Company.
• Page 9: Event Summary: Global Warming: Ready or Not!, by Alan Simon. The speaker was Dr. Kevin Trenberth and the venue (not an AIAA event) was the University of Houston Science and Engineering Center. Dr. Trenberth is the head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). He is one of the most influential climate scientists in the USA. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He is also a lead author of global warming reports issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “While Dr. Trenberth by no means came across as an alarmist, he is truly convinced that the Earth is headed for disaster, and climate changes may have proceeded too far to ever completely recover- or at least recovery would not be possible anytime soon. Instead, our Earth is potentially changing into a planet that will not be recognizable within 50 years and beyond. However, he did suggest that every person could individually make a difference to slow the current trends.”
• Page 12: Lunch and Learn Summary: Commercial Orbital Transfer Services, by Steven Everett, Editor. The speaker was Dennis Stone, Assistant Manager for Commercial Space Development, Commercial Crew and Cargo Program (C3PO).
• Page 14: Event Summary: From the Big Bang to Big Brains: The Origins of Structure in an Evolving Universe, by Alan Simon. This was not an AIAA event. The speaker was Dr. Jeff Hester, and the venue was the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). Dr. Hester is a Professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. The event date was November 13, 2009.
• Page 16: Airshow Report: Wings Over Houston, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. This airshow took place on Saturday, October 25, 2008 (and Sunday) at Ellington Field.
• Page 18: Membership, by Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair. New members are listed for the months of September, October and November. The list includes about 30 Members, 30 Student Members and 5 Educator Associates. A reminder is included to nominate people for AIAA awards at www.aiaa.org. A reminder is also included to update your membership records at www.aiaa.org. AIAA Houston Section membership totals are given for September 1, October 1 and November 1, 2008. For example, for September 1, 2008: 1219 total members, 879 professional members, 249 student members and 91 educator associates.
• Page 19: NASA’s 50th Anniversary, NASA’s Earth Observations from Space, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. Sean interviewed Dr. David E. Pitts about his career at NASA/JSC and his work with historic Earth Observations and other aerospace remote sensing projects.
• Page 24: Cover story: Apollo 8 40th Anniversary. The Essence of the Human Spirit: Apollo 8, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV. Apollo 8 trajectory figure used with permission of Hamish Lindsay.
• Page 29: Calendar for AIAA Houston Section.
• Page 30: EAA Corner. The Experiment Aircraft Association (EAA). Preliminary meeting schedules and more.
• Page 32: Aerospace Projects Review (APR) by Scott Lowther. APR Corner. Ancestor of the X-38: X-24. Illustrations courtesy of the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum.
• Page 33: Cranium Cruncher by Bill Miller, Senior Member.
• Page 34: The back cover. Mailing information, AIAA Mission & Vision Statement.

October 2008 Horizons (PDF, 6486 kb) The 48-page Fall 2008 issue. Volume 33, Issue 4.

• Cover story: NASA Celebrates its 50th Year (Cover image: Vanguard 1, launched March 17, 1958)
• Table of contents, page 2, organization chart personnel list, Horizons and AIAA Houston Section web site AIAA National Communications Award Winner (& 2008 Honorable Mention), “blue ribbons” 2005, 2006 and 2007.
• Page 3, From the Editor, Steven Everett, The Old and the New.
• Page 4: Lecture Summary. X-Prize at JSC, by Michael Frostad. Peter Diamandis was the speaker whose speech is summarized. Image credit: James C. McLane III. Image caption: Dr. Peter Diamandis (holding sword) with Arthur M. Dula (left), Kristen Diamandis, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin upon receipt of the half million dollar Heinlein Prize for Space Commercialism [Commercialization?] on July 7, 2006.
• The Colder Side of Global Warming, Lecture Summary, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. On July 22, 2008, the JSC Chapter of the NASA Alumni League and AIAA Houston Section co-hosted a talk on Global Climate Change at Gilruth Center. Keynote speaker Tom Wysmuller made that presentation to a packed room of about 70 people.
• Page 7: Town Hall Meeting Report: Congressman Lampson Town Hall Meeting, July 21, 2008, by Alan Simon.
• Page 10: International Space Activities. Sister Section Visit to Toulouse, France, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. The French sister section is 3AF MP, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter (accents skipped for now, accent egue, easy to Google, but difficult to add to this web page?).
• Page 12: OES in Toulouse. Working Group Meeting in Toulouse, France, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. The French sister section is 3AF MP, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter (accents skipped for now, accent egue, easy to Google, but difficult to add to this web page?).
• Page 14: Lunar Exploration. Lunar Surface Systems Architecture Overview, by Robert Beremand, GN&C Technical Committee Chair, and Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. Chris Culbert of NASA/JSC allowed us to summarize his presentation in this article.
• Page 16: 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. Wings & Wheels, Saturday, July 19, 2008, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair.
• Page 17: NASA’s 50th Anniversary. Looking Back, Celebrating, Looking Forward, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor.
• Page 22: Historic Sites. AIAA Historic Sites in Houston, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair.
• Page 23: NASA’s 50th Anniversary. Interview with Norman H. Chaffee: Observations from a Long NASA Career, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor.
• Page 39: Membership, by Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair. Image caption: New member Greg Loe (Honeywell) was a co-presenter and co-author for the presentation, “Orion Entry Flight Control Modifications and Performance” at the AIAA GN&C conference in Hawaii, August 18-21, 2008. The photo is from AIAA Houston Section’s Annual Technical Symposium of 2007 at the NASA/JSC Gilruth Center. Image caption: New member Michael Frostad in a Zero-G airplane flight.
• Page 40: Book Review. A View From the Doghouse, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. The author is Celeste Graves of Magnolia, Texas. See www.celestegraves.org. The subject of the book is the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in Houston during World War II.
• Page 42: APR Corner by Scott Lowther. Aerospace Projects Review. This is the first in a series, a regular series for Horizons. An earlier issue (probably the preceding issue, contained our first article from Scott Lowther. This column is about the S-ID. Boeing manufactured the Saturn V and its first stage, the S-IC. In 1967, Boeing proposed the S-ID (single stage to orbit). Image credit: Scott Lowther.
• Page 43: Dinner Meeting. Aerospace’s Role in the Prevention of Terrorism, by Nick Pantazis, Vice Chair, Operations. The guest speaker was Mr. Sam Brinkley, Vice President, Homeland International, Security Services Office, Wackenhut Services. Sam is the father of a past Chair of AIAA Houston Section, Chad Brinkley.
• Page 44: EAA Corner. The Experimental Aircraft Association.
• Page 46: Odds and Ends. Special Events, Pictorials, etc. Image: World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) trainee Marion F. Florsheim. She was in the first class of WASP trainees, at what is now Hobby Airport. Author Celeste Graves kindly sent us this photograph. From Celeste’s book, A View From the Doghouse, “She was a New Yorker and preferred to live alone, so she shared an apartment in the Warwick Hotel with the two Afghan Hounds she brought with her. She was a lovely redhead and was quite a picture exercising her hounds each day. Later she took up interior decorating and was a member of the Committee of teh National Society of Interior Designers who redid the International Reception Room at the White House for President and Mrs. Eisenhower- and again refurbished it for President and Mrs. Kennedy. Marion spent her time between living in New York and France.” The picture of Marion with her pilot’s clothes (hat, red gloves, red shoes), an Afghan Hound on a leash, and a red and white airplane behind them is in black and white in Celeste’s book, but in color in Horizons. This picture is pubished elsewhere without identifying Marion. Another image: four people at Rice University. Professor Andrew Meade, College and Co-op Chair Dr. Gary Turner, Chair Elect Ellen Gillespie, Chair Chad Brinkley. This was taken during a July 2008 meeting. Another image: A 1992 Shanghai visit by delegates from AIAA Houston Section, led by James C. McLane, Jr. and Li Furong. Image credit: delegate Tuyen Hua.
• Page 47: Cranium Cruncher, by Bill Miller, Senior Member.
• Page 48: The back cover. The address for AIAA Houston Section, a postal permit, and some AIAA information.

 

June 2008 Horizons (PDF, 2774kb) 52 pages, Volume 33, Issue 3

• Page 1: Cover image of three astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS): Peggy A. Whitson, Expedition 16 Commander, Yuri I. Malenchenko, Soyuz Commander and flight engineer representing Russia’s Federal Space Agency, and Malaysian spaceflight participant Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. They are in the ISS Destiny laboratory.
• Page 2: Table of contents. This page contains a list of about 45 AIAA Houston Section officers. A few of them are Chair Douglas Yazell, Chair-Elect Chad Brinkley, Past Chair Dr. Jayant Ramakrishnan, Secretary Sarah Shull, Treasurer Tim Propp, Vice Chair Operations JJ Johnson, and Vice Chair Technical Sean Carter. Councilors included Dr. Merri Sanchez. Operations branch included Dr. Benjamin Longmier.
• Page 3: From the Acting Editor Douglas Yazell. The portrait photo template is filled with a question mark and a caption, “Photo of our next editor.” A graph shows Horizons cover stories and downloads since May 2007. January 2007 VASIMR 3,000 downloads. May 2007 SpaceX 10,000 downloads. August 2008 The DIRECT Approach 30,000 downloads. December 2007 (last issue for Jon Berndt as Editor) John Frassanito & Associates 6,000 downloads. February 2008 Virgin Galactic 2,000 downloads. April 2008 Sir Arthur C. Clarke 7,000 downloads.
• Page 4: Chair’s Corner by Douglas Yazell. Two photographs are included without descriptions in the captions. They are photos of the Boeing Building on Bay Area Blvd. near Middlebrook Drive. That building started its life as the IBM building during the space shuttle era, when its nickname was the Taj Mahal. Our Section co-sponsored Engineer for a Day by the Boeing Black Employees Association there around this time. The street called Boeing Way was named IMB Way in the past. It is only long enough to cross Bay Area Blvd and enter the Boeing garage area. Likely Section election results are listed for July 1, 2008: Chair-Elect Ellen Gillespie, Chair Chad Brinkley, Treasurer Jason Tenenbaum, Secretary Sarah Shull, Vice Chair Ops Nick Pantazis, Vice Chair Technical Sean Carter, Councilors Natash Rowell, Tim Propp, David Segrera, Donald Barker, Rafael Munoz, Prerit Shah, Holly Feldman, Ansley Collins, and Lorenn Vega-Martinez.
• Page 5: NASA Means Business in Texas and Florida, by Ben Longmier, Ph.D., Professional Development Chair. Gary Kitmacher, NASA/JSC, appears in some of those photographs.
• Page 8: Constellation Vehicle Summary by Justin Kugler. This article was requested by our French sister section 3AF MP (www.3af-mp.fr), and it is a very helpful article for our Section, too.
• Page 11: Space Settlement Design Competition (SSDC), by Douglas Yazell, Acting Editor. Anita Gale is the leader of this event and Norman Chaffee is a key volunteer. This event took place in one of the NASA/JSC buildings.
• Page 12: Section election results. Chair: Chad Brinkley. All other election results are also listed. Course Offering at UHCL this Fall: Astrodynamics, by Douglas Yazell, Acting Editor. The teacher is Dr. Timothy Crain, NASA/JSC. Dr. Crain is a graduate of Texas A&M University where he studied with Dr. Robert Bishop. This course was taught by Victor Bond in the past.
• Page 13: The Dragon in Space: China, by Marlo Graves, International Space Activities Committee. The legend of Wan Hu is described. October 15, 2003, is the date of the first astronaut launched into space for and by China, astronaut Yang Liwei. The rocket was a Shenzou V. On October 12, 2005, was the date of the next astronaut launch by China. They were Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng. Chinese astronauts are commonly referred to as taikonauts by the western media. The Chinese prefer the term astronaut, and they use this term in their English language publications. In Chinese, astronaut is yuhangyuan. The spacecraft capsule is called Shenzou. The rocket is called Long March.
• Page 17: Membership, by Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair. Membership count for our Section on May 1, 2008, was 1,153, including 839 professional members, 227 student members, and 87 Educator Associates. June 1, 2008, new members include: George Abbey, Jr., Michaela Benda (a presenter at our recent Annual Technical Symposium, talking about solar sails), and Daryl Schuck. New members on May 1, 2008 include Don Kulba (Horizons artist and editing advisor) and Ansley Collins, Councilor. A photograph on this page includes Marlo Graves, James C. McLane III, James C. McLane, Jr., Michael Zhang (Asian-American Engineering Society), and Ken Young (NASA/JSC veteran of the Mercury era, still working half-time).
• Page 18: Lunch-and-Learn Summary, The Rise of China’s Space Program: The International Space University (ISU) Beijing Session & AIAA Houston Section Sister Sections by Douglas Yazell, Acting Editor. A photo includes Brad Adams, co-presenter along with Marlo Graves.ncluded
• Page 20: Aerospace Projects Review, by Douglas Yazell, Scott Lowther, and Al Jackson. This electronic magazine includes an article about a 1964 proposed project, Orion to Mars. Artwork from Philco (in color) shows a Mars Excursion Module (MEM) on the surface of Mars (reddish surface, dark blue sky) with two astronauts in spacesuits walking on Mars near the spacecraft. This is from APR magazine issue #5. APR Editor is Scott Lowther.
• Page 22: Student Paper Conference (SPC 2008), by Sarah Shull, Section Secretary and SPC Chair. Houston Section committee members were Linda Phonharath, Douglas Yazell, Dr. Gary Turner, Chad Brinkley, James (JJ) Johnson, Tim Propp, Jim Palmer, Munir Kundawala, and Dr. Jayant Ramakrishnan. University of Arkansas students on the planning committee were Jordan Baumberger, Drew Fleming, Randall Long and Blake Baldwin. The Young Professionals panel discussion was led by Jim Palmer. Panelists: Davor Komljenovic, Jide Akinyode, Dr. Ben Longmier, Linda Phonharath, Munir Kundawala, Helen Vaccaro, and Holly Feldman. Featured speakers: John Connolly, NASA/JSC Lunar Lander Program Office, Dean Eppler, a geologist who has worked with various NASA programs which took him to the Arctic and Antarctica. He also served as the prime spacesuit test subject for NASA advanced planetary spacesuit development and geologic field testing program (Desert RATS). Sponsors included Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Cimarron Software Services, Inc., Lockheed Martin Space Systems, ARES Corporation, MRI Technologies, Booz Allen Hamilton, Bastion Technologies, Jacobs Engineering, S&K Technologies, United Space Alliance, SGT, The Boeing Company, PACA of New Mexico, AIAA Houston Section, AIAA Albuquerque Section, and the University of Arkansas Department of Mechanical Engineering.
• Page 24: Lunch-and-Learn Summary, Lunar Communications Updated, by Bebe Kelly-Serrato. The featured presenter was Oron Schmidt (NASA/JSC EV/16). The date was February 13, 2008.
• Page 25: Dinner Meeting Summary, Key Turning Points in the History of the Space Age, by Dr. Roger Lanuius, the Smithsonian Institute, reported by Douglas Yazell, Acting Editor. Photographs of Section officers are included.
• Page 26: Dinner Meeting Summary. Current & Future Human Space Programs. A View from the Hill: Congressman Nick Lampson. Guest of honor: Mr. Nikolay Didenko, Russian bass soloist of the Moscow New Opera. He recently performed at the Houston Opera’s La Boheme. Guests of honor: Mr. Victor Blagov, Head (Distinguished) Specialist of the RSC-Energia (Rocket-Space Corporation), Mr. Yuri Nelovkin of RSC-Energia, Mr. Alexander Komanda of TsNIIMASH, Mr. Robert Brown and Mr. William Mackey of the Canadian Space Agency, and Dr. Andrew Thomas and Dr. Shannon Walker of the NASA astronaut office.

April 2008 Horizons (PDF, 1631kb).

• Page 1: Cover. Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008). 2001: A Space Odyssey – 40 Years Later, Yesterday’s Tomorrow. Original cover art by Jon C. Rogers and Pat Rawlings. Horizons Volume 33, Issue 2, March / April 2008. At the time, the Section’s URL was www.aaa-houston.org. As of 2015, the new URL is http://aiaahouston.org. Photograph of Mr. Clarke: A snapshot of Mr. Clarke taken by Dr. Albert Allen Jackson’s IV’s fried in 1969 at a dinner hosted by the science fiction club The Capital Variables at Texas A&M University.
• Page 2: Table of contents. Links fail to go to articles, but it was a good idea. Those links worked well by 2014. Image of Houston at night. AIAA Houston Section council members are listed, along with a link to the organization chart. Horizons and AIAA Houston Section website AIAA National Communications Award 2005, 2006, 2007! Copyright disclaimers, etc. Cover credits. Clarke: born December 16, 1917, died March 19, 2008.
• Page 3: From the Acting Editor, Douglas Yazell. As much as possible, this issue of Horizons is devoted to Arthur C. Clarke. Mr. Clarke died while the authors were working on this cover story. Dr. Albert Allen Jackson IV, one of our cover story authors, was emailing Mr. Clarke occasionally at that time about another matter. Dr. Rattaya “Chow” Yalamanchili was our candidate Editor at this time. A bar chart shows downloads (hits) for a few issues of Horizons. The August 2007 issue attracted about 25,000 hits! its cover story was DIRECT, an alternative to Ares I and Ares V in the NASA Constellation fleet of space vehicles. Those were the rockets.
• Page 4: Chair’s Corner, Douglas Yazell. Satori School elementary student Ben sent us two works of art after attending our Section’s Lunch & Learn featuring Dr. Mark Adler of NASA/JPL and the Mars rover. This was a busy time. Names will be listed here for future searches. Roger Lunies. Daniele Mortari (Flower Constellations). Wayne Hale. Sarah Shull. Linda Phonharath. Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Harrison Schmitt. John Frassanito. Nazareth Bedrossian. Mars rover competition at the University of Houston. Co-sponor: Engineer for a Day, Boeing Black Employees Association.
• Page 5: Cover story: 2001: A Space Odyssey – 40 Years Later, Yesterday’s Tomorrow. Al Jackson, Bob Mahoney, and Jon Rogers. Art by Jon Rogers.
• Page 14: The last page of the cover story is shared by an item from our AIAA Houston Section International Space Activities Committee (ISAC). Astronaut Leopold Eyharts (European Space Agency) is mentioned.
• Page 15: International Space Activities Committee (ISAC). Photos and captions.
• Page 16: A Prophet Vindicated, by Gregory Benford. Continuing this issue’s content devoted to Arthur C. Clarke. Bedford, a famous author, allowed Horizons to publish this here first?
• Page 18: Book review: Defenders of America’s Gulf Coast, A History of Ellington Field, Texas, 1917-2007, by Kathryn Black Morrow. Review by Douglas Yazell. This page also contains a Staying Informed article, including a note about a book by Marianne Dyson, Space and Astronomy, Decade by Decade.
• Page 19: Spirit of Apollo college scholarship announcement, Dr. Douglas Schwaab, Scholarship Chair. Upcoming events: Annual Technical Symposium, General Chair Sean Carter.
• Page 20: Lunch & Learn Summary, Mars Rovers: Spirit & Opportunity, by Dr. Mark Adler. Author: Douglas Yazell, Chair. Excellent artwork added by Satori School elementary school students. Teacher: Nina Corley.
• Page 21: Dinner meeting summary: John Frassanito & Associates: Space Architecture. Author: Douglas Yazell, Chair. Art: John Frassanito & Associates.
• Page 22: Lunch & Learn summary report, Sailing the Space Station with Zero-Propellant Maneuver (ZPM) Guidance, Gregory Joseph. Author: Douglas Yazell, Chair.
• Page 23: Membership: Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair.
• Page 24: Space Center Lecture Series, Inaugural Event, by Ben Longmier, PhD, Professional Development Chair. Attendance: about 450 people. Venue: Space Center Houston. Guest of Honor: Harrison Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut.
• Page 26: Yuri’s Night Houston (American Astronautical Society).
• Page 27: Constellation Earth, by Michel Bonavitacola, 3AF MP, Toulouse, France. (See www.3af-mp.fr) That is our French sister section (since 2007). Translation: Douglas Yazell.
• Page 30: Calendar. Star Trek, the Original Series cast photo next to the Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise, on a sunny day. Image (NASA). GRIN (Great Images in NASA).
• Page 31: Cranium Cruncher, Bill Miller (Senior Member). Last issue’s puzzle was solved by Murugan Subramaniam and Tom Miller. Poster for Boeing’s Engineer for a Day, Black Employees Association, co-sponsored by our Section. Poster by Dr. Rakesh Bhargava. Celebrating 75 years of AIAA. A project of our Section. More than 1,500 copies were printed and distributed.
• Page 32: Odds and Ends. Richard Sessions, EAA Houston Chapter President this year. James C. McLane, Jr, Harrison Schmitt, and Douglas Yazell. Signed Apollo 17 lunar map used for training at NASA/JSC.
• Page 33: European Space Agency Astronaut Leopold Eyharts Returns to Houston from ISS Expedition 15. International Space Activities Committee (ISAC). Photos: Douglas Yazell. NASA audio file transcribed by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 34: The back cover. Postal information. AIAA mission & vision.

February 2008 Horizons (PDF, 1430kb). Note to webmasters: this file is February2008.pdf instead of february2008.pdf. Similarly, April2008.pdf is an exception, not using april2008.pdf. Most files in this era use the lower case. Also, ftp does not work on my 2010-2013 MacOS, but works OK on Windows 7. Use IE, then use menu in IE to go to Windows Explorer. We ftp such PDF files to the Horizons directory, then manually specify the Horizons directory when editing this newsletter page.

• Page 1: Volume 33, Number 1. Burt Rutan, Richard Branson, and Tara Hyland. Virgin Galactic. Winter 2007/2008.
• Page 2: Table of contents. Page count: 26. Image of Houston at night. Council members listed. Cover image courtesy of Navigant Vacations & Virgin Galactic. Horizons and AIAA Houston Section Web Site AIAA National Communications Award Winner, 2005, 2006, 2007.
• Page 3: From the Acting Editor, Douglas Yazell. First of 3 issues with him as Acting Editor. See page 26 for the cover story. The cover image is SpaceShipTwo and Burt Rutan. The other cover image shows Tara Hyland with Burt Rutan and Richard Branson. Dr. Rattaya “Chow” Yalamanchili volunteered to be the new Editor. Bebe Kelly-Serrato is working on her Horizons article about her first Lunch & Learn in her new role as Chair of AIAA Houston Section space operations technical committee. Oron Schmitt spoke about Lunar Communications Updated. This is during the time of Constellation’s lunar-focused planning for human space missions. Bill West took a Russian Orlon spacesuit to both Texas A&M University and Rice University to talk to student members. Bill West was our Section’s EVA technical committee Chair. On this page is a new photograph from Virgin Galactic, MotherShip Construction.
• Page 4: Chair’s Corner: Douglas Yazell. Gary Cowan is planning a Section website transition to the service he is volunteering. Congratulations to History technical committee Chair Chester Vaughan. Thanks to the nomination document, the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport was selected as an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. The article on the next page discusses that.
• Page 5: List of 33 AIAA Historic Aerospace Sites Prior to 2008’s Addition of the 1940 Air Terminal Building at Hobby Airport. In 2007, the last site selected before our Houston site is Cincinnati Observatory. The first site selected was 2004, The Rocket Site, Edwards Air Force Base. Photos: AIAA HAS plaque at NASA JSC Rocket Park near the parking lot. Photos: the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport.
• Page 6: Address by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.
• Page 8: Dinner meeting address by NASA/JSC Center Director Michael Coats. Author Ellen Gillespie, Councilor. Attendance: about 150 people. Event cosponsors: AIAA Houston Section, United Space Alliance Leadership Association, and SWAPRA, SouthWest Aerospace Professionals Representatives Association. State of the Center.
• Page 10: Staying Informed. Virgin Galactic photo provided by Tara Hyland. Quote from Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator.
• Page 11: Publicity flyer. Space Center Lecture Series. Dr. Harrison “Jack” Schmitt. Return to the Moon. Staying Informed. March 13, 2008. Space Center Houston.
• Page 12: New Members.
• Page 13: New Members, continued. Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair. Membership News. Photo: David Segrera, Councilor, and Douglas Schwaab, Scholarship Chair.
• Page 14: Lunch & Learn summary. Space and Astronomy: Decade by Decade, a new book by Marianne Dyson. Author, Douglas Yazell.
• Page 15: National Engineers Week. Author, Douglas Yazell. Banner display, workshop, and lunch & learn. Segways! Rides in the parking lot of NASA/JSC Gilruth Center on those gadgets. The AIAA banner was displayed near the main gate of NASA JSC. The workshop took place from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM at NASA/JSC Gilruth Center. The L&L was an Ad Astra Rocket Company event, and 120 people signed up in spite of the capacity for 60 people, so two L&Ls were conducted on two different days. Workshop crowd size was 38 in advance, aiming for 50. AGI, makers of STK (Satellite Took Kit), brought presenters Joshua Lee and Todd Modi, along with Bob Hammet. The luncheon speaker was former astronaut Robert Curbeam, Vice President of ARES Corporation. We enjoyed rides on 8 Segway Person Transporters, thanks to sponsor Navigant Vacations and Virgin Galactic. Tara Hyland is a VG Accredited Space Agent. Pat Patterson of Lean & Glide in Kemah brought Segways, and Jay Guillot of Cajun2Wheels in Galveston brought Segways.
• Page 18: Section News. International Space Activities Committee (ISAC). Authors Douglas Yazell & Ludmila Dmitriev-Odier, ISAC Chair. This continues on page 19, with two photographs from James C. McLane III. One shows Wernher von Braun and his daughter Iris. The other shows Mr. McLane with retired Colonel Richard (Dick) Cole of the Doolittle Raiders.
• Page 20: U.S. & Russian Co-Operaton in Extra-Vehicular Activity, Linda Phonharath, College & Co-Op Chair. Bill West with Russian Orlon spacesuit at Texas A&M University to talk to the student chapter. Brad Tribley was the student speaker chair. This article also reports on the same visit by Bill West to the Rice University student chapter. Students: Linda Edwards, Tony Castilleja, Jon Allison, Beth Rowan, Annie Jones, Ozkan Celik, Josh Langsfeld, and Alex Stoll.
• Page 22: Calendar.
• Page 23: Cranium Cruncher, by Bill Miller. Photos: Richard Sessions flying in a white VariEze.
• Page 24: Odds & Ends. Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo. A second image includes Richard Branson.
• Page 25: Call for abstracts, Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2008).
• Page 26: Cover story! Virgin Galactic Unveils Final Spaceship Designs, by Tara Hyland, Accredited Space Agent.
• Page 28: The back cover. Postal information. AIAA mission & vision.

2007

December 2007 Horizons (PDF, 1247kb), page count: 30.

• Page 1: NASA Ares V rocket, image by John Frassanito & Associates. Fall 2007 issue. Volume 32, Issue 4.
• Page 2: Table of contents. List of council members. Horizons and AIAA website AIAA National Communications Award, 2005, 2006, 2007.
• Page 3: From the Editor, Jon S. Berndt. ISS, A Valuable Endeavor. Image of Orion crew capsule docking with the International Space Station (ISS) by John Frassanito & Associates.
• Page 4: Chair’s Corner, Douglas Yazell.
• Page 5: Cover story: Visualizing the Mission: Frassanito & Associates, by John Frassanito, Member, AIAA & IDSA. Images by John Frassanito & Associates.
• Page 7: History; book excerpt. And the Angels Sing, by Emery Tuttle.
• Page 9: Lunch & Learn summary report. Wernher von Braun’s Long Road to Mars, by Dr. Albert Allen Jackson IV. Author, Douglas Yazell. Attendance: 130! September 28, 2007. NASA/JSC Building 30 Auditorium.
• Page 10: Staying Informed. Quote from Michael Griffin, NASA Administrator.
• Page 11: Dinner lecture summary report, A Spacecraft System Engineer’s Introduction to Emerging Photovoltaic Technologies, Horizons journalist Douglas Yazell. Attendance: 55 people. Mr. Craig Cornelius, here from Washington DC.
• Page 12: Section activity. Wings Over Houston (airshow) Outing, Horizons journalist Douglas Yazell.
• Page 13: New Members.
• Page 14: Dinner lecture summary. Becoming an Aquanaut: Using an Underwater Extreme Environment to Train Astronauts for Spaceflight, presented by Marc Reagan. Horizons journalist Douglas Yazell. NEEMO. NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations.
• Page 16: Lunch & Learn summary. Apollo 13 Trajectory Reconstruction, with presenter Daniel R. Adamo. Horizons journalist Douglas Yazell.
• Page 17: Seabrook Middle School and NASA Student Launch Initiative, by Harold Larson, NASA-Houston Rocket Club.
• Page 18: Local news. Lockheed Martin Team Opens EDL, Exploration Development Laboratory. Horizons journalist Jon Berndt.
• Page 20: Local news. Spacehab.
• Page 22: Calendar.
• Page 23: Cranium Cruncher: Bill Miller. Correct solutions from last issue: Joe Frisbee and Gary Turner.
• Page 24: Odds & Ends. A great B-17 aircraft photo. A photo from the Mars Exploration Rovers. Orion & Ares I paper models!
• Page 26: Conference Presentations / Articles by Houston Section Members.
• Page 27: Local news (continued) Spacehab
• Page 28: Sister Section Relationship with AAAF (later named 3AF) Toulouse Reaffirmed. (Better named 3AF MP, see www.3af-mp.fr, as of 2015). Horizons journalist Douglas Yazell. Local news, continued.
• Page 29: AIAA Houston Section news. AIAA Houston Section award to Fredericksburg Teacher Brett Williams. Group photo. Lorenn Vega-Martinez, Svetlana Hansen, Sarah Shull, Carson Dickie, Bebe Kelly-Serrato, Robert Beremand, Douglas Yazell, Michael Lembeck, Gabe Garrett.
• Page 30: The back cover. Postal information. AIAA mission & vision.

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2006

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2005

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May 2005 Horizons (PDF, 664kb), Volume 30, Number 5, May/June 2005.

• Page 1: Education and the Future Workforce, by Jon S. Berndt, Editor. Table of Contents, pages 1-24.
• Page 2: Chair’s Corner, T. Sophia Bright, Chairperson. Nine newly elected Section officers are listed. From the Editor, by Jon S. Berndt. This is a professional development issues and an education issue of Horizons.
• Page 3: Letters to the Editor. On Heavy Lift, by Veteran STS Performance and Design Engineer. Horizons masthead or indicia.
• Page 4: Student Essay. I Choose Aerospace Engineering Because… , by Carolina Restrepo, Senior, Texas A&M University.
• Page 5: Student Essay, The Ascent, by Chris Haag, Senior, Texas A&M University.
• Page 6: Student Essay, Dare to Dream, by Jeff Morris, Second Year Masters Student, Texas A&M University.
• Page 7: Lunch & Learn Summary Report. Managing Error in Space Operations, by David Rogers, SAIC. “Understanding that human error is inevitable, the goal shifts away from error elimination and instead toward error management.”
• Page 8: Annual AIAA Awards Banquet Held, by Steve King, Chair Elect. Attendance: about 75. 50 years: Dr. Robert Page (Fellow). 40 years: Jeri Brown, Norman Chaffee, Andrew Hoboken, Chris Kraft (Honorary Fellow), Charlie Teixeira. 25 years: Christopher Culbert, Roscoe Lee, Srinivas Vadali, and others. Staying Informed, compiled by Jon S. Berndt, Editor. Useful websites, documents, policy papers, periodicals, etc.
• Page 9: New Members, Elizabeth Blome, Membership Chair. Syri J. Koelgen, Carolina I. Resterpo (Texas A&M Univeristy), Catherine B. Ryan (Alvin High School), and others. Help AIAA Help You Update Your Membership Records, Elizabeth Blome, Membership Chair. Membership Upgrades.
• Page 10: Professional Engineers License, by Elizabeth Zapata, Professional Development Chair. “It is illegal to represent yourself as an engineer if you do not have your P.E. license and are offering to perform engineering services to the public.”
• Page 11: Aerospace on the FASTRAC: Student-Built Satellites at the University of Texas at Austin, by Douglas Yazell, Councilor, a Lunch & Learn Summary Report. Dr. E. Glenn Lightsey spoke to an audience of about 80 people in an event organized by Dr. Tim Crain, NASA/JSC. Dr. Crain invited our speaker for this event.
• Page 14: Hierarchical Navigation Algorithms in Support of Mars Exploration, by Douglas Yazell, Councilor. Lunch & Learn Summary Report. Guest speaker: Dr. Robert Bishop, University of Texas at Austin, May 19, 2005. Speaker accepted the invitation of Dr. Tim Crain, NASA/JSC.
• Page 15: Flight Day, by Svetlana Hanson, Pre-College Chair. Outreach and Education. Saint Francis Episcopal Day School. Great Success on Mars Rover Competition, by Svetlana Hanson, Pre-College Chair. Third annual Mars Rover Contest. University of Houston main campus. Saturday, January 22, 2005. AIAA  Houston Section sponsored the event. About 70 teams from Houston schools participated. Joy Conrad King appears in a photo with 4 children.
• Diversity in Education and at Work, by Douglas Yazell, Councilor. “In the book, The Dance of Intimacy, author Harriet Lerner notes that subordinate groups know a dominant group’s culture quite well, but the reverse is usually not true.” This one-page article includes a discussion of affirmative action and its history. Since Douglas Yazell is writing this summary of this article on June 24, 2015, I mention the 2010 book The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. I finished reading it for the first time this week. As I recall, she opposes affirmative action as a bribe, though it has many good aspects. “Affirmative action, particularly when it is justified on grounds of diversity rather than equity (or remedy), masks the severity of racial inequality in America, leading to greatly exaggerated claims of racial progress an overly optimistic assessments of the future for African Americans.” Searching for “bribe” in this e-book (Kindle) finds 14 results. (1) The year 1675 and Nathaniel Bacon. “… a step that would later be known as a ‘racial bribe.” Deliberately and strategically, the planter class extended special privileges to poor whites in an effort to drive a wedge between them and black slaves.” (4) “For them, the racial bribe was primarily psychological. The new racial order, known as Jim Crow…” (5) The new system of control is traceable, to a significant degree, to a massive bribe offered to state and local law enforcement by the federal government. In 1988…” (8) A section is titled, The Racial Bribe-Let’s Give it Back. That refers to affirmative action. The Section before that is titled Against Colorblindness.
• Page 17: Cranium Cruncher, by Bill Miller. A cylindrical hole is drilled straight through the center of a solid sphere, leaving a hollow exactly six inches long. What is the volume remaining in the sphere? (1) No, there is no information missing. (2) Yes, this one is a little tricky.
• Page 18: Calendar. July through October 2005. Upcoming: Lunch & Learn featuring Dr. Jack Bacon of NASA/JSC and his presentation about the International Space Station Phantom Torque. August?
• Page 19: Odds and Ends; Special Events, Pictorials, etc.
• Page 20: AIAA Houston Section executive council organization chart, effective July 1, 2005. Chair: Steve King. Chair Elect: Dr. Jayant Ramakrishnan. Past Chair: T. Sophia Bright. Vice Chair Operations: John Keener. Vice Chair Technical: Tim Propp. About 45 people on this chart. Section Announcements: AIAA Houston Section Council. Young Professionals Chair Sought. Writers Solicited for Horizons.
• Page 21: Upcoming Conference Presentations by Houston Members, compiled by the Editor from AIAA agendas.
• Page 24: The back cover. AIAA Mission. Become a member of AIAA.

 

March 2005 Horizons (PDF, 773kb) Volume 30, Number 4. March / April 2005. Table of contents.

• Page 1: Heavy Lift: Big Lever or Large Diameter Pipe Dream? Author: Jon S. Berndt.
• Page 2: Chair’s Corner by T. Sophia Bright.
• Page 2: From the Editor by Jon S. Berndt.
• Page 3: Horizons masthead.
• Page 6: Call for Nominations for National Awards, by Dr. Rakesh Bhargava.
• Page 7: Kaplana Chawla Memorial Foundation. Journalist: Dr. Rakesh Bhargava, Honors & Awards Chair. This article includes a photo of a poster created by our Section. The poster celebrates the Centennial of Flight.
• Page 8: The Upcoming Annual Technical Symposium from AIAA Houston Section at the NASA/JSC Gilruth Center. Journalist: Tim Propp, Vice Chair Technical. Symposium date: May 6, 2005.
• Page 8: Staying Informed, compiled by Horizons Editor Jon S. Berndt.
• Page 9: Membership Page by Elizabeth Blome, Membership Chairperson.
• Page 10: AIAA Houston Section Nominates NASA Johnson Space Center to be an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, by Aaron Morris, AIAA Houston Section History technical committee Chair.
• Page 11: Dinner meeting reports by Daniel Nobles, Programs Chair. February 16, 2005: Bill Chana made a presentation about triphibian aircraft. February 24, 2005: A State of the Center presentation by NASA/JSC Center Director General Jefferson Howell.
• Page 11: What’s Your Next Step? Journalist: Elizabeth Zapata, Professional Development Chair. This Lunch & Learn event used a panel discussion format. Panelists: Chester (Chet) Vaughan, Brett Anderson, Robert Fisher, Albert Gonzalez, Larry Tucker, and Cynthia Wells.
• Page 12: Technology and the History of Aeronautics, by Dr. James R. Hansen, Professor of History, Auburn University. Thanks to Dr. Hansen for allowing us to reprint this article.
• Page 14: A Lunch & Learn Summary Report. Journalist: Tim Propp, Vice Chair Technical. Network Central Computing for Aerospace Applications. Event date: January 20, 2005. Presenter: Dr. Nazareth Bedrossian, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.
• Page 15: A Lunch & Learn Summary Report. Journalist: Tim Propp, Vice Chair Technical. Graphical Object Simulation Tools & Techniques. Presenter: Mark Jackson, Charles Stark Draper Laboratory. Event date: January 17, 2005.
• Page 15: Outreach & Education, by Joy Conrad King, Pre-College Outreach Chair. The 46th annual Science & Engineering Fair of Houston. Our Section awarded 3 prizes. The winners are named in this article.
• Page 16: Outreach and Education. 2005 AIAA Region IV Student Paper Conference. Dr. John Valasek, College and Co-op Chair. April 8-9, 2005, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• Page 17: Cranium Cruncher by Bill Miller & Jon Berndt. The answer is provided for the ferry problem from last issue. The solution is from a book by Martin Gardner. It is from Chapter 12 of his 1959 book, Hexaflexagons and Other Mathematical Diversions. New puzzle: A flight around the world.
• Page 18: Calendar, April – July, 2005
• Page 19: Odds and Ends. NASA astronaut John Young retires December 31, 2005.
• Page 20: The back cover.

 

 

January 2005 Horizons (PDF, 994kb)

• Page 1: Thoughts on a Future Lunar Strategy, by Dr. Wendell W. Mendell, Manager, Office for Human Exploration Science, NASA Johnson Space Center. Horizons Volume 30, Number 3. January / February 2005. Notice: This will be the last paper copy of Horizons. Table of contents.
• Page 2: Chair’s Corner by Steve King. From the Editor by Jon S. Berndt.
• Page 3: Horizons masthead.
• Page 5: 2004 Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting. Journalist: Larry Jay Friesen.
• Page 6: Staying Informed.
• Page 7: Membership page by Elizabeth Blome.
• Page 8: CEV Request for Proposals Released
• Page 11: Cranium Cruncher by Bill Miller. Solution to the ladder problem. This month: Calculate the width of the ship channel based on data such as when two boats pass each other.
• Page 12: Model Predictive Control lunch and learn. Journalist: Andrew Petro. Presenter: Abran Alaniz.
• Page 12: AIAA Aeronautics Policy Review.
• Page 13: Section Activities.
• Page 13: Outreach and Education. Spirit of Apollo Scholarship, our annual tradition. Journalists: Douglas Schwaab and Joy Conrad King.
• Page 14: Calendar. 2005. January through May.
• Page 15: Odds and Ends. Custer Channel wing.
• Page 16: Mission Statement / Membership. The back cover.

 

 

2004

November 2004 Horizons (PDF, 1.6 MB) Volume 30,  Number 2.
The November 2004 issue is Jon Berndt’s first issue as Editor. Jon gave Horizons a new look and our Section soon stopped delivering printed-on-paper copies to homes using the US Postal Service. Jon obtained memorable cover images, cover stories, feature stories, and additional content.

• Page 1: Make It So, by Jon S. Berndt. This one-page column is a good start to his first issue as Editor of Horizons. This is the November/December 2004 issue of Horizons. This page also contains a table of contents.
• Page 2: Chair’s Corner by Sophia Bright
• Page 2: From the Editor by Jon S. Berndt
• Page 4: Bettter, Faster, Cheaper… Lunch-and-Learn Summary Report. Presenters: Nazareth Bedrossian and Gary Brown.
• Page 5: Trajectory Optimization: from Euler to Lawden to Today. Lunch-and-Learn Summary Report. Presenter: Christopher D’Souza. Journalist: Douglas Yazell. September 17, 2004 event date.
• Page 6: Some Aspects of n-Dimensional Theoretical Mechanics Lunch-and-Learn Summary Report. Presenter: Dr. John E. Hurtado, Texas A&M University. Journalists: Ellen Gillespie and Murugran Subramaniam. Event date: July 7, 2004.
• Page 6: Staying Informed
• Page 7: Membership Page by Elizabeth Blome.
• Page 8: Photo Page: Wings Over Houston 2004. Photographs by Michael Oelke. Journalist: Sarah Shull, Young Professionals Chair.
• Page 9: Cranium Cruncher by Bill Miller and Douglas Yazell, the ladder problem.
• Page 10: AIAA President Don Richardson Visits Houston. Houston Section hosts Region IV Town Hall. Journalist: T. Sophia Bright.
• Page 11: Houston Section Activity Report. Journalist: Daniel Nobles, Programs Chair.
• Page 11: Outreach and Education. First Person Account by Helen D’Couto.
• Page 12: Calendar 2004-2005.
• Page 13: Odds and Ends
• Page 14: Mission Statement / Membership. The back cover, so to speak.

[Most issues listed below are not available on this page of our website. (Exceptions: April 2002, etc.) As noted at the top of this page, the archive on our national website, AIAA’s SharePoint, has archived as many of the old issues below as we can find. As of August 2014, we continue to search for old issues of Horizons to index and to add to our archives. These archived issues go back to 1977, but our newsletter goes back to 1971 when James C. McLane, Jr. was Section Chair.]

The September 2004 issue listed the Editor position as open. Contributing authors included T. Sophia Bright, Michael Oelke, Douglas Yazell, Timothy Propp, and Elizabeth Blome.

That index is above in an Excel document (linked), but we provide the list here for viewing in your browser.

[July 1, 2016: Issues below such as 2004: 9, 5, 3, 2, 1 and being linked here in addition to archiving them on the AIAA national SharePoint website.]

2004: 11 (above), 9, 5, 3 (doc and pdf), 2, 1

2003: 11, 10, 9, 4, 3, 2

2002: 10, 8, 5, 4 (below), 3, 2, 1

2002_04:

April 2002 (PDF, 16 pages, 465 kb) Volume 27, Number 5

Cover story by Albert Allen Jackson, PhD (aka Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, A. A. Jackson), The Ugly Spaceship and the Astounding Dream. This cover story tells the story of Dr. Jackson’s enjoying the Collier’s space series, 1952-1954, as they were published. He was 11 years old when that issue arrived, the issue of October 18, 1952. That cover story contains a text box saying Man on the Moon, and the painting shows a spacecraft landing on the Moon, kicking up some dust. That series from the weekly magazine came to be known as Man Will Conquer Space Soon! By the end of 2012, our Section became the first to reprint that series, nearly 90 pages, page by page in high resolution. Collier’s required eight issues to present the entire series. Horizons also used eight issues. Dr. Jackson’s cover story here for Horizons is fitting for the 50th anniversary of this amazing series of articles created by a team led by Wernher von Braun.

This 2002 Horizons cover story was probably followed by more Horizons stories on this subject by Dr. Jackson, such as in the year 2012, for the 60th anniversary.

• Page 1: Cover story, The Ugly Spaceship and the Astounding Dream, by Albert Jackson, Chair of the AIAA Houston Section astrodynamics technical committee. The full page cover image is from the weekly magazine Collier’s, the March 22, 1952 issue. Text on the 1952 magazine cover says Man Will Conquer Space Soon. Top Scientists Tell How in 15 Startling Pages. The 1952 magazine cover logo says Collier’s, and the price is listed just below that, fifteen cents. The 2002 Horizons cover includes this note. One man’s brush with a simple magazine article set him on a path to the stars. Read the article on page 3.
• Page 2: Table of contents. Disclaimer box. How to become an AIAA member. Contributions can be sent to Carlos E. Blanco. Publications Chair John Keener. Editor: Carlos E. Blanco. Contributing authors: Darby Cooper, Henry Schmidt, Dr. Zafar Taqvi, Nicole Smith, John Keener, Brian Dunaway, Sophia Bright, Joy Conrad King, Michael Gaboury, Albert Jackson.
• Page 3: Chairman’s Corner by Darby Cooper. CPAD, CVD, WAR, and WSC. See the article to define the acronyms.
• Page 3: Cover story: The Ugly Spaceship and the Astounding Dream, by Albert Jackson, Chair, AIAA Houston Section astrodynamics technical committee.
• Page 6: Second Annual Yuri’s Night, by Nicole Smith, Chair-Elect. The first celebration called Yuri’s Night took place in 2001. This article includes a photograph of former NASA/JSC Center Director George Abbey at the 2001 Yuri’s Night celebration in the Outpost Tavern in the Houston Clear Lake area (the Houston NASA/JSC community). The Outpost Tavern was also used for this 2001 celebration, with more than 300 attendees. Proceeds of nearly $300 were given to the International Space University (ISU) and the International Space School Foundation. This article previews the 2002 celebration at the Outpost Tavern. [This tavern no longer exists as of 2014. It was located on the west side Egret Bay Blvd just south of NASA Road 1 (NASA Parkway).] The 2002 celebration features music by Clan Celli (a Celtic band) the astronaut band MaxQ, and others. This article also features a photograph of Russian dancers at the 2001 celebration at the Outpost Tavern.
• Page 7: 2002 Future City Competition Kicks Off National Engieners Week, by John Keener, Publications Chair.
• Page 7: Houston Section Members Participate in Mars Settlement Design Competition, by Nicole Smith, Chair-Elect.
• Page 8: February Dinner Meeting, by Michael Gaboury, Programs Chair. This was a joint meeting with the South Texas Section of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Speaker: Dr. Mel Kanninen, “Aging Aircraft in the Nation’s Time of Terrorism.” Special thanks to Dr. Bannerot for making the evening’s program a success. Future programs: Dr. Leonard Yowell, NASA/JSC (nanotechnology), Dr. William Ailor, AIAA Distinguished Lecturer, meteoroids, etc.
• Page 8: Robots Compete in FIRST Lone Star Robotics Competition, by Joy Conrad King, Pre-College Outreach Chair.
• Page 9: WAR 2002 Workshop is Coming, by Dr. Zafar Taqvi, AIAA Houston Section Chair of the automation and robotics technical committee.
• Page 9: Boeing’s February Lunch-and-Learn, by Brian Dunaway, Guest Contributor.
• Page 9: NASA Science Project by Houston Section Member Recognized by AIAA Journal, by Nicole Smith, Chair-Elect. The results of a NASA science project by one of our Houston Section members will appear in the March/April issue of the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. Mr. Jim Visentine served as the ISS project scientist of an international team selected by NASA and the Russian Space Agency to inspect and evaluate a large solar array panel that was removed and returned several years ago from the Mir Space Station. [Paragraph break] This hardware is one of the few remaining items that has been returned and historically preserved by US and Russian teams as an example of the joint Shuttle-Mir technology program. The title of Jim’s paper is, “Mir Solar Array Return Experiment: Power Performance Measurements and Molecular Contamination Analysis Results.” [Paragraph break] Jim, who is an AIAA Associate Fellow, has formerly served as Membership Chairman and Chairman of the Energy Systems technical committee for the Houston Section. Jim retired from NASA in 1997 and immediately went to work as a project scientist and senior analyst with the Boeing Space Station Program Office. [His phone number at Boeing was provided for those wishing to renew old acquaintances and say hello.]
• Page 9: Congratulations to the New Houston Section Associate Fellows, by Sophia Bright, Vice Chair, Operations. All are working at Texas A&M University. Dr. John Valasek, Dr. Paul Cizmas, Dr. Othon Rediniotis, and Mr. William Arceneaux. Photographs of Valasek, Cizmas, and Rediniotis are included.
• Page 11: INNOVATION 2002 Symposium is Coming, by Dr. Zafar Taqvi, Chair, AIAA Houston Section automation and robotics technical committee.
• Page 11: Help AIAA Help You- Update Your Member Records, by Henry J. Schmidt, Membership Chair. [Mr. Schmidt provided a Boeing email address.]
• Page 11: Fellow Upgrade Applications Due June 15, by Sophia Bright, Vice Chair, Operations.
• Page 12: Becoming an AIAA Member or Renewing Your Existing Membership, by Henry Schmidt, Membership Chair. Membership types are listed.
• Page 14: NASA’s Turning Goals Into Reality Conference: AIAA’s X-Vehicles Symposium, May 21-23, 2002, The Westin Hotel, Santa Clara, California USA.
• Page 15: Calendar of Events. May 30, 2002: The B-2 Bomber: Vital Weapon System or White Elephant? The speaker was Professor John Valasek of Texas A&M University. The 2002 World Space Congress took place in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center, October 11-20, 2002.
• Page 16: The back cover. AIAA Houston Section, PO Box 57524, Webster, Texas USA 77598. Postal permit for a non-profit organization and AIAA logos.

2001: None? See the Excel document. As noted below, I (Douglas Yazell) found these 5 issues (01, 02, 06, 11, and 12) on June 8, 2016, at archive.org, using www.jsc.nasa.gov/aiaa. The 01 issue is HTML only. The others are PDF files. The 11 issue has a separate PDF file for a short election ballot.

• 2001 01, Link to HTML file.
• 2001 02 Link to PDF file (less than 1 MB)
• 2001 06 Link to PDF file (less than 1 MB)
• 2001 11 Link to PDF file (less than 1 MB)
• 2001 11 ballot Link to PDF file (less than 1 MB)
• 2001 12 Link to PDF file (less than 1 MB)

2000: 2. As noted below, on June 8, 2016, we found more issues of Horizons at archive.org using www.jsc.nasa.gov/aiaa. For the year 2000, we found months 01, 02 (already possessed and archived on the national AIAA SharePoint website for Horizons, as noted here), 03, and 05 (the May / June 2000 issue). The 01 (January) issue is HTML only, even though the archive.org website says a PDF version is available there. That link to a PDF file fails. (We found this January 2000 issue of Horizons later, 1.1 MB, at archive.org for www.aiaa-houston.org. See below for the new link.) The latter two issues are available as HTML and PDF files, so both are included below:

• 2000 01: Link to the HTML version. Link to PDF file, 1.1 MB.
• 2000 02: Link to the HTML version. (PDF Already archived on the national AIAA SharePoint website for Horizons)
• 2000 03: Link to the HTML version. Link to the PDF version (less than 1 MB).
• 2000 05: The May / June 2000 issue of Horizons. Link to HTML version. Link to PDF version (less than 1 MB).

1999: 12, 4, 3, 2 (months: for example, 2 = February). Those were the issues we possessed already and archived on the national AIAA SharePoint website for Horizons, our Section’s newsletter. On June 8, 2016, I (Douglas Yazell) found some 1998, 1999, and 2000 issues of Horizons at archive.org using www.jsc.nasa.gov/aiaa. (Our later URLs were www.aiaa-houston.org, then www.aiaahouston.org.) We already possessed the 1998 issues (04, 05, 06, 11, and 12, referring to months). For 1999, 01, 06, 09, and 10 were new for our Section’s archive here. The 01 and 06 issues are HTML only, so their links will be used here:

• 1999_01 (January): Link for the HTML version, the only version we have. Below is the visible version of that link:
• https://web.archive.org/web/20010629170434/http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/aiaa/horizons/Jan99/Jan99.html
• 1999_02 Link for the HTML version. (PDF Already archived on the national AIAA SharePoint website for Horizons)
• 1999_03 Link for the HTML version. (PFD already archived on the national AIAA SharePoint website for Horizons)
• 1999_04 Link for the HTML version. (PDF Already archived on the national AIAA SharePoint website for Horizons)
• 1999_06 (June): Link for the HTML version, the only version we have. Below is the visible version of that URL:
• https://web.archive.org/web/20010504005426/http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/aiaa/horizons/jun99.html
• 1999_09 Link for the HTML version. (Link to PDF file, less than 1 MB)
• 1999_10 Link for the HTML version. (Link to PDF file, less than 1 MB)
• 1999_12 Link for the HTML version. (PDF Already archived on the national AIAA SharePoint website for Horizons)

1998: 12, 11, 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1: Below are links to HTML versions for months 04, 05, 06, 11, and 12. These are from archive.org using www.jsc.nasa.gov/aiaa.

• 1998 04 (Link for the HTML version)
• 1998 05 (Link for the HTML version)
• 1998 06 (Link for the HTML version)
• 1998 11 (Link for the HTML version)
• 1998 12 (Link for the HTML version)

1997: 12, 11, 10, 9, 4, 3, 1

1996: None? See the Excel document above (linked).

1995: 12, 11, 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

1994: 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, 1

1993: 12, 10 (first of 2 issues, second of 2 issues), 9, 6, 4, 3, 2, 1

1992: 12, 11, 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 (see below), 1

1992_02: Dr. Zafar Taqvi, Chair. Section’s 30th anniversary event, February 27, 1992. The 17th Annual Technical Symposium is in work for May 20, 1992, at UH at Clear Lake. The Chinese sister section is active, planning a trip to China. That trip took place, thanks to our Chinese sister section. Our Section’s two trips to China were 1988 and 1992. They came to visit us in 1990.

1991: 12, 11, 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

1990: 12, 11, 10, 9 (first issue in our archive, as of May 15, 2014, named Horizons instead of Newsletter)

1989: None in our archive!

1988: None found yet.

1987: 4 (China, 3 pages, not a newsletter), 2 (last issue in our archive, as of May 15, 2014, named Newsletter instead of Horizons)

1986: 11 (high resolution, 21 MB), 10, 6 (photo and caption for the new 1986-1987 Section officers and councilors (9 MB), photo and caption for Best Presentation award winners from the 1986 Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 1986), 12 MB, 4

1986_06: For the two photos above, 3 zoomed-in sections of both photos are available here:

• Photo 1: zoom b, zoom c, zoom d (5 MB JPG each)
• Photo 2: zoom b, zoom c, zoom d (3 MB JPG each)

1985: None yet.

1984: None yet.

1983: 4 (This appears to be an error, but if we find this issue, we will link it here.), 1

1982: 11, 10, 9, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

1981: 12

1980: None yet.

1979: None yet.

1978: 10, 8, 5, 3, 2.

1977: 11 (not called Horizons yet), 10 (the earliest issue in our archive for now)

A few comments about various issues will be made below for now;

[May 15, 2014]:

1977_10 (the October 1977 issue of AIAA Houston Section “newsletter.”) This is the first issue in our archive as of May 15, 2014. This newsletter is, “… published at intervals from September through June, at the Clear Lake office of Northrup Services, Inc., by the Houston Section AIAA. Address all contributions to Norman H. Chaffee … ” The Chair of AIAA Houston Section at this time was Tom Murtagh. New members of AIAA Houston Section are listed in a membership article. We stopped this membership-article tradition well before May 2014, but we will probably include membership articles like this in the near future.