February B-SIG Virtual Presentation -- Sat. Feb. 24th -- 1:00pm -- "Discovering the Moon: Missions to the Moon"

[Sureshks]

Hi everyone,

The next virtual B-SIG presentation of the 2023-24 Winter season will be on Saturday February 24th, starting at 1:00pm.

Dave Falkner will be presenting "Discovering the Moon: Missions to the Moon and What We Have Discovered".

Synopsis:

"The talk will begin with a brief summary on the historical importance of the Moon including telescopic discoveries. I'll then go into the early space program and the Cold War space race between the USSR and the United States to send a man to the Moon and the discoveries made during the Apollo missions. I'll follow that up with the post-Apollo unmanned missions by various countries and some of the significant discoveries that have been made. I'll wrap up by talking about plans for mankind returning to the Moon and possibly colonizing it."

Dave has done several presentations for our MAS Beginner group in the past. He is a former MAS President, and is currently the MAS Secretary. He is also a NASA Ambassador, and last year traveled to Chile to visit some of the world's largest observatory telescopes!

Click this Zoom link to attend this virtual presentation: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84506467173?p ... Ss0Jj8Tl.1

Meeting ID: 845 0646 7173
Passcode: 094860

We will open the Zoom call about 10 minutes before 1:00pm for attendees to join.

This Zoom presentation will be recorded, and will be uploaded to our MAS YouTube Channel a few days after the presentation.

Suresh

[Sureshks]

Hi all,

A special thanks to Dave Falkner for his outstanding BSIG presentation today for Discovering the Moon: Missions to the Moon and What We Have Discovered. We had 25 attendees on the Zoom call this afternoon.

Unfortunately, there was a glitch in the Zoom setup, and this presentation was not recorded. Instead, Dave will be posting his presentation deck here for people to peruse.

The next BSIG presentation will be on Saturday March 23rd at 1:00pm. Ahmed Reda will be continuing with Part 2 of his look at historical contributions to astronomy by Middle Eastern cultures. We hope you can join us then!!

Suresh

[defalkner]

The PowerPoint file is too big to post in the forum so here is a link to it on Google Drive.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/ ... ue&sd=true

Thanks,

[Ron Schmit]

Excellent presentation, Dave!!

I mentioned the Lunar Ops training in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. Here is a picture of the modifications for "Moon School."

NBL Moon Ops Training.png

The red arrow shows the simulated craters. Astronauts train on how to get out of them or rescue a colleague from one.

The yellow arrow points to recent modifications in the pool.

Previously, this was the part of the pool that they used for helo dumps:
https://youtu.be/WU1h0wR6J44?si=GEWhsGU2bS9CcEJ9
Crews from oil rigs in the gulf have to be trained in what to due if their helicopter ditches. They are strapped into a fake fuselage that gets dumped into the water and flipped upside down. They have to learn to get out of their harness, swim to the surface, and get into a life raft.

Now, they have added a separate area that is cold and completely shut off from the light. They are using that to train for ops during the lunar night.

Like the man said, "We are going!"
https://youtu.be/vl6jn-DdafM?si=DWh9wgnhL6T0cuGW