Steve Culivan, NASA/ASEP (Aerospace Education Services Program), has accepted an invitation to attend the Mars 2003 festivities on August 23. Mr. Culivan has conducted numerous workshops and training sessions for educators and students, including sessions that provide teachers the certification to be eligible to borrow moon rocks from NASA. He will be presenting one educational session, on Mars, for students and teachers only. (Educators and students are asked to bring their school ID for admission purpose.) Another presentation on Mars will be presented for the general public. Presentations are scheduled for the south gallery of the Fort Smith Arts Center. Seating is limited to approximately 100.
I regret that Dr. Ray Stonecipher, Professor of Astronomy (retired), University of Wisconsin, will not be able to attend. He had previously accepted an invitation to attend and be a presenter, and serve as a special consultant for the AOAS Executive Committee on the future plans for AOAS. Another event, In Wisconsin, that he had agreed to attend as a special speaker and fund raiser for the Door Peninsula Astronomical Society (Door County, Wisconsin) was rescheduled on a conflicting date for the August 23 Mars 2003, thus he had to withdraw his previous acceptance. However, he is very interested in possibly assisting AOAS in the future.
As of today I have reserved the Fort Smith Pavilion, in downtown Fort Smith, for August 23, from 6 PM to 10 PM. This facility has been air-conditioned within the past year. It will be the venue for the use of the Star Lab (inflateable planetarium) that is maintained at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. This planetarium has a special portable system that allows many various programs to be offered. Anyone planning to attend presentations in the Star Lab must be aware that entry into the dome must enter through a short tunnel that requires one to duck walk or crawl on their hands and knees. Once inside the Star Lab, seating is on the floor of the dome. Thus, capacity of the Star Lab is limited by the number of adults and children that enter at any one time. The Star Lab is maintained in an inflated state by a large fan system.
Note: With the approval of the AOAS President, I have completed the required paper work with the Fort Smith Parks office this morning requesting the use of the Pavilion, signing up AOAS as a Friend of the Fort Smith Parks system. By doing this we may be approved for FREE use of the Pavilion. (Official approval is scheduled to be forthcoming, most likely on Friday, Aug. 18, from the Director of the Fort Smith Parks system. Regular costs to rent the Pavilion is $300 from 6 PM to 10 PM plus a refundable deposit of $200. This fee can be waived if AOAS is accepted as a Friend of the Parks system. If approved, the Friends of the Park system will commit AOAS to a 3 year service program that involves annual quarterly assistance in various possible needs: watch programs for vandalism and reporting such (may be done as one visits a park during normal use), possible physical needs in helping with with special clean-up progams, volunteering at special events sponsored by the Fort Smith Parks system, etc. In return, AOAS will be able to use various parks and facilities without charge. (I did not get a chance to talk with the Parks Director personally, but I would like to know if this would include the use of our meeting room costs at Creekmore Park. If so, this may also save us some money on meeting dates.)
I also contacted the University of Arkansas - Fayetteville, today to reserve the Star Lab and find out if we can use it. The person in charge of it was out of town today but is scheduled to call me back tomorrow to let me know about getting it. I have also requested that the graduate assistant that they have had working with this in the past, also be included in getting the dome here, setting it up, and presenting program sessions. There has been no cost for doing this in the past, but I don't know if they still have that grad student working with this program. However, that grad student is still there and working so I assume this person will be available. Hopefully, I will know more tomorrow on both our request to the Parks office and to U. of A.
In addition to the above, Bob Moody and I have discussed the possibility of getting two other experts in their field as presenters from the University of Arkansas - Fayetteville. Bob has suggested getting Dr. Derek Sears to talk about meteorites, and I have the possibility of getting another faculty member, Dr. Tim Kral, that is doing research on a NASA project examining the survivability of certain bacterial species under conditions mimicking those on Mars. To date, we have not been able to reach either of them, but we are still working on this possibility.
I hope you can make sense out of all of this. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Chuck Larson
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