NEWSPACE: Recent "SPACESHIP GAIA EXPLORER NEWSLETTERS"

This Edition On-Line: DECEMBER 21, 2005 - Updated: FEB. 6, 2006

Our newsletter now appears periodically on the Journal's Home Page, and with timely updates posted as events and programs occur. Feature articles and columns appear in the Journal's topic webpages and will be noted in this newsletter, with referrals to the new items in the Journal's table of contents on this front page. At our home page's top is now a moving stream of current NEWS HEADLINES, referring to items in this newsletter.

*********************************************************
"Do you realize that Captain Video takes off for Pluto tomorrow?" said Ed Norton to Ralph Kramden in a 1955 "Honeymooners" TV episode.

NASA's NEW HORIZONS SPACE PROBE was launched this January 19, 2006 at 2:00 p.m., on an historic journey to Pluto. The 8-foot-wide robotic spacecraft was launched atop an Atlas 5 rocket, zooming pass the Moon just eight hours after launch, heading for a fly-by of Jupiter a year from now, and in 2015 visit Pluto and its three moons. The photo resolution will be 10,000 times current technology. The probe will then head for Kuiper Belt objects.

TWO SPACE-THEMED MOVIES, both with sets of two brothers, entertain the public this past holiday season, after "Magnifient Desolation" about the Moon landings hit IMAX screens in Autumn....

*** In November "ZATHURA: A SPACE ADVENTURE" based on the popular children's book by Chris van Allsburg, author and illustrator of "The Polar Express" and "Jumanji," came into theaters. It's about a children's space game that's all too real for its young players, Danny and Walter, giving them harrowing cosmic adventures. It's a fun action romp with a time traveling twist involving a lost astronaut that can warm one's heart. Your move - but watch out! www.zathura.com.

*** The other flick is "FAR SIDE OF THE MOON," written and directed by French-Canadian director Robert Lepage based on his stage play about two estranged brothers, one a young man, Philippe is a straight telemarketer caught up in the grind of daily routine life with lowered expecations who dreams of exploring space, and his brother Andre is a gay TV meterologist. Philippe has stalled on delivering his doctoral dissertation, which "hinges on his belief that the desire to explore space springs from narcissism," writes Manoha Dargis in a New York Times review (Dec. 2, 2005). Space is not the main theme; it's a metaphor for duality portrayed in space images. "A tower Philippe constructs on his desk in one scene becomes a rocket in the next, and an umbilical cord for a baby seques into a lifeline for a cosmonaut," writes reviewer Gary Kramer in "Gay City." The movie, he adds, can be "lyrical and transcendent, stunning or a tedious bore."

*** "MARS ROVERS" leaped onto the IMAX 3-D movie screens In late January, two years after Opportunity and Spirt landed on the Red Planet.

NEW JERSEY SPACE EDUCATION GROUP LAUNCHED -- A new National Space Society chapter, the New Jersey North Space Education Society, was launched this Autumn by its President Candace Pankanin, who served two years as NSS-NY's president, and Vice President Joe Lennox, "Visions of Space" author, a space program historian and collector, and Treasurer Terry Guilino. There is a link to the new chapter's website on the SPACE ACTIVISTS Links List on this home page.

SPACE TOURISM INDUSTRY PLANS -- Virgin Galactic, run by Richard Branson, has made a deal with the State of New Mexico to construct a $225 million spaceport on 27 acres of state land in southern New Mexico near America's first spaceport, the White Sands Missile Range, after an environmental process. Branson hopes to start launching expensive tourist suborbital spaceflights from the spaceport, 90 percent of which will be underground, in late 2008 or early 2009 on a regular basis, carrying up to eight passengers on SpaceShipTwo, Burt Rutan's updated mothership launcher. New York Times columnist John Tierney discussed the spaceport in "Go West, Young Astronaut - New Mexico Looks to be New Space Capital" in the December 6 issue, noted that Branson lans to send "700 people into space in the first 18 months," including William Shatner, who may don his Captain Kirk uniform, invoking the Star Trek spirit (we hope!) Tierney proposes that a consortium of other rich people, to encourage the now infant private space industry, offer a "$30 billion Mars Prize for getting humans to Mars" --- Meanwhile, PlanetSpace's planned passenger spacecraft for suborbital and orbital flights, the Silver Dart (called "the DC-3 for space travel"), is moving ahead. The launch rocket us a souped-up version of the V2. The Silver Dart is modeled after the USAF's DynaSoar shuttle that would have been used for the Manned Orbital Laboratory in the 1960s. -- For an early space settlement book, read Robert A. Heinlein's 1951 sci-fi novel "the Man Who Sold the Moon."

HARVARD EDUCATOR DISMISSES UFO ALIEN KIDNAPPINGS -- "Are people being abducted by aliens? No," flatly says Harvard psychology post-doctoral fellow Susan Clancy in her recently released book, "Abducted: How People Come to Believe They were Kidnapped by Aliens" published by Harvard University Press. She argues that the influence of space movies, TV shows, books and media hype, combined with sleep paralysis, fantasy proneness, UFO believer researchers employing hyponosis creating false memories, and imagination, has led otherwise intelligent, sane and normal people to believe in alien abductions, giving their lives meaning and attention. The late Dr. John Mack, founder of Harvard Medical School's Psychology Department, would strongly disagree with Clancy's conclusions, as would many others, citing conscious experiences and multiple witnessed encounters, advocating what Dr. Mack called "the science of human experience." Dr. Mack, who was killed by a drunk driver in London in Sept. 2004, was the 1977 Pulitzer Prize winning author of "A Prince of Our Disorder" about T.E. Lawrence of Arabia, and two UFO close encounter books, "Abduction: Human Encounters With Aliens" (1994) and "Passport to the Cosmos" (1999). A review of Clancy's book, which has major flaws and false assumptions, will appear in the next newsletter.

CHINA AIMS FOR HUMAN TRIP TO MOON IN 2017 -- After two successful Earth orbital crewed spaceflights (Oct. 2004 and Oct. 2005) aboard the Shenzhou spaceship, the Chinese space agency has announced intentions to build its own space station as a waystation to launch human missions to the Moon, perhaps as early as 2017. This would be one year before the NASA goal. Both nations aim for lunar space bases to exploit lunar resources and do space research.

BUZZ ALDRIN's MARS MISSION SPACE SUBWAY SYSTEM -- The second human to set foot on the lunar srface, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, has detailed his plans for a Mars human spaceflight mission to Mars by 2030 in the December issue of "Popular Mechanics" -- "Let's Go to Mars: A Step-by-Step Plan for Mankind's Next Guant Leap." The proposal is based on two trans Martian-Earth Cycler spacecraft in continous orbits swinging in a loop between Mars and Earth, first proposed by a panel after the first space shuttle accident. "The Cycler system alter the phlosophy behind a Mars program," writes Aldrin. "It makes possible the dream of regular flights to the red planet and a permanent human presence there. That's the only way we'll ever succeed in taking mankind's next giant leap: a subway-in-the-sky between own planet and our future second home."

SPACE COMPUTER ARTIST WORK SHOWCASED -- The stunning 3-D computer art and video of award-winning artist Gerald Marks of NYC was showcased by him at the December meeting of ASCI (Arts and Science Collabrations, Inc. www.asci.org) at Hunter College in a talk on "Works in Stereoscopic 3-D." Marks, with a lifelong fascinaton with space since his many childhood visits to the original Hayden Planetarium, has an amazing website at www.pulltime3d.com (get out your 3-D glasses!). An article about his wonderous and stunning work will soon appear (during this issue's run or in the next newsletter) in our Journal's Space Arts News section. ASCI is a dynamic New York City-based organization, with monthly meetings, promoting the melding of art with science and technology; it currenly has a science art exhibition featured at The Hall of Science in Flushing Meadows in Queens.

VENUS DAZZLES IN MORNING SKY -- That hugely bright beacon of light in the southwestern sky early in the morning is the inner Solar System's Lighthouse - the planet Venus. It's been a spectacular sight since early November when it dazzled in the early evening sky.

"THE ZULA PATROL" NEW PBS TV CHILDREN'S SERIES -- Getting the youngest set of children, toddlers up to Pre-K age, interested and educated about space and science is a new TV series, "The Zula Patrol" on the PBS TV network: www.thezulapatrol.com.

ASTEROID APOPHIS MAY STRIKE EARTH -- In 2036 a huge asteroid, named Apophis after the Egyptian spirit of destruction and evil, may strike the Earth with the force of 100,000 Hiroshima-type A-bombs, causing a life-threatening nuclear winter effect. Discovered this past Summer, it will pass close to Earth in 2013. In 2029 it is due to pass within 20,000 miles of Earth. If this looms as an extinction event on the scale of that which wiped out 90 percent of the biosphere 65 million years ago, it may spur an international space program to save the Earth and transform the warring nature of humanity -- hopefully. But, the human-made environmental catastrophy now rapidly in progress should do the same job now,--- but it isn't,

ENVIRONMENTAL DANGERS TO ALASKA & THE ARCTIC -- The U.S. Senate, on Dec. 21, rejected a rider on a Congressional spending bill that would have permited oil drilling on a huge wildlife refuge in northern Alaska. -- Earlier this Autumn it was widely reported by media sources that the Arctic ice cap is melting at an unprecedented rate due to global warming, letting fresh water pour into the salty North Atlantic Ocean, threatening to slow and cool off or shutdown the warm water oceanic conveyer belt, of which the Gulf Stream is a component. This problem was dramatized in a recent CBS-TV network mini-series and by the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" a few years ago, depicting the worst case scenarios.

AEROSPACE DESIGN EXHIBIT ENDS SUCCESSFUL RUN -- NASA's "Aerospace Design" exhibition at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery in NYC ended its two month run on Decmebre 17. It featured wind-tunnel models and artifacts, culled from NASA research centers. Check out our EXCLUSIVE SPECIAL REVIEW on a link below.

"X-PLANES AND PROTOTYPES" is a nifty, highly informative, detailed and fully illustrated book by Jim Winchester of London, England on over 150 experimental aerospace craft, military and civilian, from WW2 German secret aircraft to the aircraft and suborbital spacecraft of the future. Published by Barnes & Noble Books in 2005, "X-Planes and Prototypes" is a comprehensive international composite of various fascinating x-planes, some of which were tested but never became operational and others which did become operational and were secret when first flown, from the 1920s to SpaceShipOne in the 2000s. The small-sized 320 page hardcover book is divided into sectons: "Higher, Faster, Further" - "Powerplant Permutations" - "Scale Testing" - "VTOL" and "Wings and Things." Two pages each are devoted to every craft, with brief descriptions, specifications and two photographs. This reviewer finds it an essential and fascinating handbook.

A "WHAT IF?" ABOUT THE X-38 SPACEPLANE - In his 2001 book, "Area 7" (St. Martin's Press), Australian novelist Matthew Reilly wrote a speculative mystery thriller about an above top secret U.S. base in Utah from which an operational military X-38 crewed spaceplane flies covert orbital missions on Air Force missions. The X-38 was officially scrubbed a few years ago and was never built nor test flown... as far as we know! "Area 7" makes for a fascinating, suspenseful read, giving clues as to how a military "space force" X-38 may have operated. www.matthewreilly.com [NOTE: Although no longer in operation nor a spaceplane, Northrop's Tacit Blue experimental aircraft, also called The Whale or Shamu because of its odd shape, was first fown in secret in 1982 and was secretly test flown a total of 135 times in three years. It was kept secret until shortly before it was donated to the USAF Museum in April 1996, according to Jim Winchester in "X-Planes and Prototypes."]

ASTRONOMER THOMAS HAMILTON's "SPACE BYTES" column will resume shortly. Among topics will be the "Intelligent Design-Evolution" debate, the "Fallacies of UFOs" and NASA's Return to the Moon and onward to Mars new space policy, among others dealing with space science and astronomy. These will be noted here in the newsletter and the columns will appear in Hamilton's section of this journal, accessed from our Mission Control table of contents. --- Also, please note that the correct link for Hamilton's excellent "What If?" science fiction stories appearing in the "CHANGING THE TIMES" Alternative History e-magazine and print edition now appears at the end of Hamilton's SPACE BYTES webpage here. Enjoy!

*********************************************************

TAKE CARE OF PLANET EARTH -- FOR NOW IT'S THE ONLY WORLD WE HAVE

*********************************************************

NOTE: News items are culled from various space news and general media sources, as well as our own Cosmic Ecology Media resources.

TV SPECIALS & NEW BOOKS ON EXTRATERRESTRIALS, HUMAN VOYAGES TO THE PLANETS, SPACE TOURISM, BUZZ ALDRIN'S MOON TRIP, INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL & "PHOENIX LIGHTS" FILM AWARD

*** Related to the previous article on ETI, the National Geographic Channel is televising "EXTRATERRESTRIAL" on Monday, May 30 at 9:00 p.m. EDT/PDT, and repeated on Thursday, June 2. The special is about an imagined alien planet, Aureka, and a "blue moon," under survey by the "Planetary Investigation Team." It imagines flying caper stalkers, a giant pagoda forest, a stinger fan forest and much more.

"Go on a dazzling journey and come face-to-face with fantastic alien life forms," says the introduction to the program on the National Geographic Channel's website (below in links), which includes a video trailer and photo gallery, and there's also an article below, dated May 26, from Space.com about the program, explaining how it was created by a team of scientists and astrobiologists.

This comes on the heels of The Discovery Channel's extraordinary and well-reviewed two-hour special, "ALIEN PLANET," televised on May 14. Produced by John Copeland of Evergreen Films depicted the simulated exploration of the imaginary Darwin IV planet in the 24th Century by space probes from Earth named Ike and Leo.

Among scientists featured were theorical physicists Dr. Michio Kaku of CUNY and Stephen Hawking. The program was based on the book "Expedition: Being and Account in Words and Artwork of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV" by artist-author Wayne Barlowe.

Also included on the links list below is an article from The National Geographic Magazine website on "Flying Whales, Other Aliens Theorized by Scientists," a fascinating look into how ET lifeforms are imagined by humans, and a companion piece to the "Extraterrestrial TV special.

*** The Discovery Channel is broadcasting a 2004 BBC two-part docu-drama film, "Voyage to the Planets and Beyond" by director Joe Ahearns, a tie-in with the book of the same name by Tim Haines and Christoper Riley" (DK Adult publishers). The DVD is available in stores as of May 24, and check The Discovery Channel guide for showings.

It tells the story, with a live action crew, of the imagined voyage of the Spaceship Pegasus with its crew. They touchdown on Venus, Mars, Io, Europa, Titan, Pluto and an asteroid, and make a risky swing through the Sun's corona. This is a highly recommended and entertaining DVD for those of us who imagine what human exploration of the Solar System can be like, and, by chance, illustrates the vision of the U.S. "Moon, Mars and Beyond" Space Policy directive, now taking shape.

*** There are also two new books related to the above topic and of great interest to us: "Space Tourism: Adventures in Earth Orbit and Beyond" by Michael VanPelt and "Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Voyages" by Paul Gilster with more information and reviews on the links below. Both books are hghly recommended for our readers!

*** "The Phoenix Lights" feature docummentary about the well-documented appearance of highly impressive AOPs which swept over Phoenix and 300 miles of the most populated stretch of Arizona on March 13, 1997 and seen by thousands of awestruck witnesses, won the Best Director Award at the recent prestgious New York International Film Festival, where it had its New York City debut on May 2.

The documentary, available on CD, was directed by well-respect physician Lynne Kitei, M.D., who produced NBC health education spots and was the chief clinical consultant at the Arizona Heart Institute's Imaging/Prevention/Wellness Center in Phoenix, and was produced by Steve Lantz Productions, based on Dr. Kitei's well-researched book of the same name. For more information, visit www.thephoenixlights.net.

**************************

HUNDREDS MEET BUZZ ALDRIN IN NEW YORK CITY, ON NATIONAL BOOK TOUR

*** Doing the moonwalk on Earth is history-making Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, on a national book-signing tour for his new book for children, "REACHING FOR THE MOON," illustrated by Wendell Minor.

He was in New York CIty on May 26 at the Books of Wonder children's book store in Chelsea (18 West 18th Street). A few hundred people showed up, standing in line to get their books signed, including members of The New York Space Society, NSS's NYC chapter, including Chapter VP Harold Egeln (who saw Aldrin but did not meet him) and other space activists. Aldrin serves on NSS's Board of Governors and is major spokesperson for NSS and public space activism. For a complete listing of his book tour destinations and dates, check the links list below.

*** Dancing was the method used to travel to the Moon, in the Momix dance ensemble production of "LUNAR SEA," produced and stage by famed choregrapher Moses Pendleton at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea in New York City. "Lunar Sea" was reviewed in a feature story in The New York Times Arts section May 26 (page E3), on the same day of second moonwalker Buzz Aldrin's book-signing gig, also in Chelsea three blocks from The Joyce Theater. Did Buzz see "Lunar Sea" performed? The last performance is on Sunday, May 29. "I was basically trying to devise a ballet as if you were witnessing it on the Moon with one-sixth of the Earth's gravity,,," said Pendleton in The Times article by Kathryn Shattuck.

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2005 , METRO-SPACE NEWS BRIEFING As we did in our December 2004 issue, we look at a few space news items that culled from New York City newpapers, with brief references to them. *** SPACE ART: Science fiction art fans of the world unite! Want to see a paiting of an "Elytracephalid"? Then visit the New York Academy of Science's art show, "From Imagination to Reality: The Art of Science Fiction." The free exhibit, (running to Jan. 28-hurry!) features many marvelous artworks. 2 East 63rd St., Manhattan, Mondays through Fridays, 9am-5 pm. [from "The Distant Galaxies, The Forbidding Deep" NYTimes Family Fare by Laurel Graeber, 1-14-05, page E43.] REVIEW COMING SOON HERE OF IN NEXT ISSUE. *** MORE SPACE ART: "Transcendant Worlds" by Lee Muslin at Franklin Art Gallery, 54-56 Franklin St. at Cortlandt St., Wed.-Sat, 11 am-6 pm through Jan. 29 (hurry!). Free. [The New York Sun Calendar, 1-13-05, page 15] *** THE CASE FOR A WETTER AND WARMER MARS: Feb. 15, 7-8 pm, Speaker Vivien Gornitz, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University -- sponsored by Atmospheric Studies and Geleogy Section at N.Y. Academy of Sciences, 2 East 63rd St., Manhattan. For registration: 1-212-838-0230, ext. 322. Or www.nyas,org/events *** A PLANET IS BORN -- No, its not exactly a sequel to "A Star Is Born." Astronomers, examining the dusty disc of a star HD 107146, some 88 lightyears away, believe that the dusty disc is beginning to be birthplace of new exo-planets as they slowly whirl into shape. It was the first planetary disc ever photographed, and the Hubble did it. Both the pitzer and Hubble telescopes looked at 28 stars known to harbor exoplanets. ["Watching as Dusty Disks Slowly Turn Into Planets" by Dennis Overbye", NY Times 12-21-04, page F3.] *** SPACE HOLIDAY "FIREWORKS": NASA's "Deep Impact" $330-million mission was launched to comet Temple 1 on Jan. 12 from Cape Canaveral. The probe, at the end of its 268-million mile-long journey on the Fourth of July, will dispatch an impactor expected to make a foot-ball stadium-sized new crater when it makes an explosive hit at 23,000 mph on the comet. Scientists hope to learn much in this close encounter with the 9 by 3.7 mile icy, rocky comet as the mothership collects data from its infrared spectrometer. ["Blasting Into the Core of a Comet to Learn Its Secrets" y Warren E. Leary, NY Times, 1-11-05, page F2 and "The NY Sun" 113-05, page 5] *** GIANT FIREWORKS IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY: Imagine 300 million stars exploding into a black hole and the unimaginable explosion continuing now for 100-million years. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory observed the explosion in the MS0735.6+7421 cluster of galaxies, and the full report is in the Jan. 6, 2005 edition of "Nature." [NY Post, 1-6-05, page 7] *** BIG BANG WAVES DETECTED: While we're dealing with explosive stories, the biggest fireworks display ever -- the Big Bang -- is in the news again. The vestiges of sound waves from that Big Bang have been observed by astronomers in the patterns of galaxies throughout the universe. The finding, announced at an American Astronomical Society meeting held in San Diego on Jan. 11, was the result of a study of data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in New Mexico and the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey in Australia. ["Vestiges of Big Bang Waves Are Reported" by Kenneth Change, NY Times, 1-12-05, age A17].

DECEMBER 2004 NEWS BRIEFING NEW YORK CITY, NY, Sunday, December 26, 2004 -- This is a new feature from "Metropolis" (like Clark Kent-Superman's city), with Space News Briefs culled from New York City media and how they relate to pro-space activists. NYC METRO-SPACE NEWS *** City Council Member Eva Moskowitz released a report - "LOST IN SPACE: Science Education in New York Schools" - in November, referring to the decline of Science courses in city public schools and proposing solutions. The Manhattan Council Member makes direct reference to the boom in science education in the United States in the wake of "Sputnik I's" orbiting by the Soviet Union in October 1957, which shocked Americans. She notes that "programs in science have sputtered since Sputnik." A national report on the decline in Science and Math in the nation's elementary schools was recently featured in a front page article in The New York Times of Dec. 15 featured a story by Karen Arenson titled "Math and Science Tests Find 4th and 8th Graders in U.S. Still Lag Many Peers." (Source for City Council Report": "The Epoch Times" Nov. 22-28, 2004, page B9: "Lost in Space: Councilmember Moskowitz to Revitalize Science in Elementary Schools" by Lori Har-El) *** New Yorkers Direct Mars Rovers: The rover robots on Mars are under the control of an office in Manhattan not far from where The New York Space Society holds its meetings at NYU! In the front page feature "Martian Robots, Taking Orders From a Manhattan Walk-Up" by Kenneth Chang ("The New York Times" Nov. 7, 2004, pages 1 and 44), the work of Honeybee Robotics technicians in a neighborhood straddling NoHo and Little Italy is detailed. Honeybee Robotics is responsible for writing the commands for Opportunity"s and Spirit's robotic arms. A few years ago a speaker from Honeybee spoke at a NYC Space Society meeting. *** A Perpetual World's Science "Fair": The renovated Hall of Science in Flushing Meadow, site of the New York World's Fairs of 1939-40 and 1964-65, recently opened to great acclaim, with feature articles in the NY Times ("Museum Review: From Internet Arm Wrestling to the Magic of Math" by Edward Rothstein, The Arts, Nov. 24, 2004, pages E-1 and E-14... and "Hall of a Show: World's Fair science center returns to connect with kids" by Robert Dominguez, Daily News "Friday Now" section, Nov. 26, 2004, pages 69-70. When you visit, be sure to checkout the revitalized space rocket display outside the Hall. *** In "Painting a Still Life That Moves at 17,000 M.P.H. ("Public Lives", NY Times, Oct. 31, 2002, page B2 -- yes, we're time traveling here) Robin Fry wrote of Oyster Bay watercolor artist Barbara Ernst Prey and her "$2,500 honorarium from the NASA Art Program to create art out of space exploration." She painted the International Space Station: (from Earth not space!) "To think that we'v established a permanent human presence in space in our lifetime -- does that blow your mind, or what?" Prey is quoted. More recently in "The Arts" section of The Times there was a feature on singer/composer Lorie Anderson and her creation of a space music album under the NASA Art Program. Space activist Elaine Walker, former NSS NYC and Boston Chapters president, created a music video under the same or a similiar program. *** Moonstruck in Manhattan: The first humans to walk on the Moon, the dynamic duo Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, are both members, naturally, of the prestigious Explorers Club, based in Manhattan. The NY Times Public Lives column titled "Explorers Club: Less 'Egad' and More 'Wow!'" by Lynda Richardson (Dec. 1, 2004, page B2) featured a profile of Club President Richard Wiese, 45, a former Ford model and award-winning TV journalist. Aldrin spoke at an Explorers Club meeting this past March. Other top members include Jane Goodall and, in the part, Adm. Robert E. Perry, President Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Lindbergh. The NYC-based organization has 30 chapters and 3,000 members worldwide. *** "Wonderful (Space) Town": A Greenwich Village photographer got famous for his invention of an extremely sharp camera which has been very helpful in space photography. The invention of Clifford Ross is told in "Tom Swift's New Camera, Ready for Space and Spies" by Julie Salamon in The Arts section (NY Times, Dec. 9, pages E1 and E7), about his R-1 camera and how he attracted the interest of government scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. *** NSS's NEW YORK SPACE SOCIETY MEMBERS IN ACTION: For the second time in 2004 space activists from The New York Space Society, the National Space Society's NYC chapter, appeared on the excellent Staten Island Cable TV show, "Astronomy Forum," hosted by Karl Hricko and Pat Brady. On Feb. 2, Chapter President Candace Pankanin and Vice President Harold Egeln talked about "Our Place In Space." On November 1, Egeln discussed "The Future of the Space Program." Chapter members Secretary Eugene Cervone, astronomer John Pazmino and Norman Wille appeared as questioners in one or both of the programs, with other NSS members in the audience, broadcast live on the first Monday evening of each month between 8 and 9 pm. Former Chapter President Elaine Walker and NY Mars Chapter President Paul Contursi appeared on the show back in 2000. ASTRONAUT NEWS *** Forever Young: Well-seasoned astronaut John W. Young, history's longest serving astronaut with six spaceflights, is retiring on Dec. 31 ("Astronaut's Long Career Ends" NY Times AP story, Dec. 8, 2004), Young, now 74, joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962, the year John Glenn made the first US orbital spaceflight. Young piloted the first Gemini spacecraft in 1965, commanded Gemini 10 in 1966, orbited the Moon in the Apollo 10 command module in May 1969, and then landed on the Moon in Apollo 16 in 1972 with astronaut Charles Duke. Young commanded the first Columbia space shuttle mission in April 1981. In his last spaceflight in 1983 he also commanded the Columbia. NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY (NSS) MEMBER IN ACTION & THE (DAILY) NEWS: Here's a comment from a letter featured in the Voice of The People section of the Daily News on Dec. 11 (page 24), with a photo of Young: "STAR TREKS. Valley Stream, L.I.: A true American hero is retiring from NASA after six spacefights (including a lunar landing mission -- Apollo 16) and 42 years of service to this naton. John Young has all the 'right stuff' that any astronaut ever needs, and his retirement cannot go without fanfare. He represents the best this nation has to offer, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for advancing this country's space efforts. I teach a course on the space program in high school, and John Young is one of my heroes. -- Joseph F. Russo." RUSSO, a teacher at a high school in Elmhurst, Queens, is an active member of NSS and was the fascinating guest speaker at a meeting on Sept. 23 of THE NEW YORK SPACE SOCIETY at NYU. Russo also had a letter about the space program publlished in "Long Island Newsday" on August 7. *** Ebenezer Scrooge, before his spirited transformation, ate his gruel by choice. International Space Station crew members faced their own food shortage in December, facing the prospect of eating "space gruel." ("With Food Running Low, Space Crew Must Cut Back" NY Times by Warren E. Leary, Dec. 10, 2004, page A38 & "Doctor Offers Assurancess That Astronauts Won't Go Hungry" by Leary, Dec, 11, page 14). With food and water supplies falling low, astronauts Dr. Leroy Chiao, and American, and Col. Saltizham Sharipov, were forced to ration their supplies. They would be left with only a two weeks supply if a Progress supply ship did not arrive by Christmas Day. Progress did arrive on the big holiday and with Christmas gifts. (AP stories: "Space Station gets restocked" Daily News, Dec. 26, page 2 & "Cargo Ship Delivers Food To Astronauts, Dec. 26 NY Times, page 33.) *** Longtime NASA spaceflight director, Donald Puddy, 67, died on Nov. 22 after a long illness. Puddy joined the Johnson Space Center as NASA's 10th spaceflight director in 1964, supervising Gemini flights, Apollo lunar missions, all three Skylab spacestation missions, the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, and the space shuttle's first landing in April 1981. *** Actor Ed Kemmer, a pioneer TV astronaut who never flew in space but soared into the imaginations of children 50 years ago igniting their space travel dreams, died on Nov. 8, in a Manhattan hospital at age 84. He was famous for playing Commander Buzz Corey in the popular "Space Patrol" television series that ran from Mar. 9, 1950 to Feb. 26, 1953. Corey commanded the Terra V spaceship in space adventures set in the 30th Century. Kemmer told a reporter once that a NASA engineer told him that "Space Patrol" inspired his entering a space career. The show began with the announcer saying: "High adventures in the wild reaches of space... missions of daring in the name of interplanetary justice... Travel into the future with Buzz Corey... commander in chief of... SPACE PATROL." (NY Times, Nov. 16, page A25, & Daily News, Nov. 16, page 18). *** Enterprizing actor William Shatner, legendary Captain James Tiberius Kirk of "Star Trek," is one of over 7,000 people who have applied to travel into suborbital space aboard a Virgin Galactic spaceship (a souped-up Burt Rutan SpaceShipOne), boldly going where no TV astronaut has gone before! ("MSNBC TV Space News") *** "I Want To GO!": Now let's get ready for OUR own spaceflights, as the NSS slogan shouts with glee. President George W. Bush signed the Space Tourism Act into law on December 23. The law would give the FAA regulatory jurisdiction over commercial private suborbital spaceflights in 2012 and allows the public to choose to go on suborbital spaceflights at their own risk. (various news sources.)