Activities of the Lunar Reclamation Society (NSS-Milwaukee) - 2002 - January 12, 2003
In 2002, LRS met on the 2nd Saturday afternoon every month except July (when we went on a field trip - see below) and August.
We continued our unbroken monthly publication of Moon Miners' Manifesto, completing our 16th year of uninterrupted service. MMM serves several other NSS chapters and the Moon Society. -- Peter Kokh, LRS Pres., KokhMMM@aol.com, 414-342-0705
January 2002
• Peter Kokh is MAS guest speaker: On Friday, Jan. 18th, Peter gave a talk to the Milwaukee Astronomical Society at their monthly meeting in the UWM Physics Building. Topics included possible observatories on the Moon (at first automated, then tended, eventually staffed); economic incentives for private enterprise to develop the Moon; how early settlements might be built and expanded; and how future amateur astronomers living on the Moon might scratch their itch. The talk was well received.
February 2002
• LRS hustles to rescue Newsletter: The continued publication Of Moon Miners' Manifesto has been seriously threatened by a continued steady stream of price increases both for printing and for mailing. All through January and February, the LRS leadership struggled with costs and ways to run a neater, and tighter ship. Our overly generous practice of sending complimentary issues to VIP's has been drastically reined in. And we are instituting measures to keep the mailing list up to date. If these measures do not succeed, the future of MMM is in doubt. Times are quite different from those when we began in 1986! We found a new printer, Printamatic Inc. on 70th & Greenfield, who was willing to print the newsletter at a 19¢ savings per copy. We settled our debt with Always Printing through a personal loan.
April 2002
• Aviation Career Day at Mitchell Field April 25-26: Our booth and exhibit "Fly the Skies of Mars" was a big hit. The 2002 Aviation Career Fair reached over 2000 young people and job seekers. Many who stopped at our table were fascinated by Mars in general. Others, obviously news-challenged, asked if I (Peter) had been to Mars, or if we were hiring anybody at this time. But it was fun and we had lots of time to chat with lots of people. Quite a few took handouts either for themselves or a relative or friend. We hope to do this again next year (as always, on the last Thursday night/Friday morning of April) with the same theme with more exhibit eye-catchers and other goodies.
May 2002
• Rockets for Schools on Saturday, May 18th: At this annual rocket launch event in Sheboygan, Peter spoke on "Space Tourism" to a sparse crowd.
July 2002
• Our Field trip to "M.A.R.S." - Saturday, July 13th, in Chicago: Five of us, Carol Nelson, Gene and Charlotte Dupree, Doug Armstrong, and Peter Kokh, made the field trip to Adler planetarium to see the "EuroMARS" analog habitat station on display, prior to its permanent placement in Iceland next year. Scott Davis of the Wisconsin Mars Society joined us for the trip. At the site we met Matt Lowry of the Chicago North Shore Mars Society chapter who gave us our guided tour. One of our "Gravity Bricks" sets was part of the display. Inside Adler we met Larry Ahearn, Jeffrey Liss, and Geri Haracz of the Chicago NSS chapter.
September 2003
• September 14th Meeting Report: Present: Peter Kokh, Bob Bialecki, Ken Paul. Ken Paul accepted the position of 3rd Board member replacing Mark Kaehny, who has been inactive for more than a year. We filled out our annual state report as a Wisconsin 501 c3 nonprofit, as well as our request for meeting dates for the coming year at Mayfair Mall. Ken passed out CD's of Kennedy's 1962 Going to the Moon speech, this its 40th anniversary. We had a guest from the newly founded St. Louis (MO) Moon Society chapter, Burt Sharpe and local friend Ellen, both enthused and 'on the same page' as far as taking the long ("100 year") view. The resulting conversations and discussions were very lively and stimulating for all of us. We discussed collaboration between LRS|MSM and MSSL.
November 2002
• November 1st - Peter Kokh is elected to the Moon Society Board of Directors and accepts position of Moon Society Chapters Coordinator and begins ambitious task of creating resources for Moon Society chapters and uploading them to the Space Chapters Hub website, for which he is webmaster. [Upload log] This site includes resources for National Space Society and Mars Society chapters as well.
• November 9th Meeting Report: Attention is being given to membership retention, membership recruitment, MMM, and development of lively Meeting Agendas. As part of this effort, we decided to invite all past members for whom we could verify current addresses, to the annual Pre-Holiday Pot-Luck and Classic Sci-Fi film event on December 14th.
December 2002
• Annual Pre-Holiday Get-together Saturday, December 14th, 2002, 1-4 p.m.:, a Joint Event: Lunar Reclamation Society | Wisconsin Mars Society | Moon Society Milwaukee Outpost. AGENDA: POTLUCK - new MSMO (photo: Artemis Moonbase) & WMS (Photo: M.A.R.S. Analaog Station) displays; 2 pm DVD MOVIE - "Forbidden Planet." 17 people attended, including several members of Wisconsin Mars Society, and two formerly active members whom we hadn't seen in some time: Mark Kaehny (former Pres.) and Duane Krahn (former Treas.).
