Subject: Mars DC Meeting
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999

  We had a great meeting Saturday at Pat's place. (Pat is awesome) We had a wide ranging discussion going from basics like what we want to do as a chapter, to TransHab, to the Mars Direct or Mars Semi-direct mission plan, to Mars oriented novels (Kim Stanley Robinson) to future technolgies such as scram-jets, solar sails, pulsed engines, and armies of tiny robots.

General Discussion

  We have at least three members going to the Convention -- Patricia, David and Bob.

  Bob notified people of the IRC meetings of Mars Society projects.

  Unfortunately, most of the members of the DC chapter cannot be actively involved in lobbying Congresspeople, as a significant portion of them are government employees.

  They can, however, provide assistance to Mars Society members who come to Washington to lobby Congress.

  Pat suggested that, at the national level, The Mars Society commission regular polls of when the public expects a mission to Mars and what they expect from a mission to Mars -- not support of a Mars mission, but the expectation of, and from, one -- so that we can track the effect we and the events around us are having.

  Pat also requested that The Mars Society produce an open, long-range political strategy.  Bob concurred and there is a general agreement that we hope something of this sort can come out of the political IRC meeting on Thursday and eventually the conference.

  Derrick spent a while discussing his plan for a cheap, one-way settlement mission to Mars.

  Pat lead the discussion on real, applied, solar sail technology to keep satellites in their proper orbits.

Transhab

  We spent a while discussing Transhab and agreed that we should support the Transhab program but need to do so in a calm and polite fashion.
  There was a general consensus that we agree with the goal of saving TransHab as a project, but we think that Zubrin is going about it in the wrong way. (We do not want to be making enemies on Capitol Hill, and in the space lobbying community at this point).
  We do have one member strongly supporting Zubrin.


The next meeting

  The next meeting of the Mars DC chapter will be at the NSO's performance of "The Planets" at Wolftrap on July 10.  Lawn tickets to the performance are $15.

  On July 10th Wolf Trap is bringing back the very popular presentation of Holst's THE PLANETS with the National Synphony Orchestra, while showing footage from NASA planetary missions on a big screen.

Pat has done a great job of checking with Wolf Trap, and the word from Wolf Trap is as follows:
  there are lots of lawn tickets left for THE PLANETS but the in-house tickets are sold out!
  Anyone who already has an in-house ticket can join us on the lawn to eat and then go up to their seats for the performance.  Lawn tickets are $15.

  WT usually opens the lawn area to picnic-ers about 2-3 hours before an evening show.  Unlike other events lawn tickets for this show are more expensive than typical, but all the other seats are less expensive than usual.

  We may not distribute literature or have signage (per National Parks Service regulations).

However, we can probaly take e-mails or addresses or tell people about the national society web site.

  Wolf Trap does know we are attending as an organization.  In future years it might be good if we had society t-shirts or the like (or a helium filled Mars balloon.)

  If they continue to bring THE PLANETS back every year it would be a natural for us.  I would also expect the crowd to be sympathetic, we could likely find some new members.


Social Events

  Derrick was elected official person in charge of responding to e-mail inquiries.  He also volunteered to investigate the possibility of holding public discussions at Borders Book Stores.

  Everyone liked the idea of using the public library in Ballston to hold meetings. (Yay George!)

  Theresa suggested having a 'Martians Night Out' every month or two to get together, discuss Mars, and make future plans.

  It was generally agreed that the chapter needs a little more time to jell and decide on what activities we want to do.

  These minutes are the compiled notes of several members. We currently have no official secretary.

Comments or questions