From SEDSWiki

SEDS-USA Executive Board Meeting, January 26, 2009

Time: 7:00pm MST Location: AOL Instant Messenger Attendance: Joshua Nelson, Ryan McLinko, Keri Hancock, Grant Atkinson, Matt Cannella, Basant Sagar, Justin Graves, Joshua Sosa Absent: Zeke Silva, Keri Bean.

Action Items

• SEDS executive board, work on SEDS letter to The Economist concerning recent article on human space development.

Meeting Minutes

• National SEDS Rocket Competition
  • Will be held in Tucson AZ
    • Executive board members discussed holding this event at the same time and place as the 2009 SEDS SpaceVision conference
  • Although the event can take place at the same time as 2009 SpaceVision, due to the Tucson bomb squad regulations, no rockets with more than 4 oz. of propellant can be present within city limits.
  • Keri Hancock proposed holding the competition at a location in Rainbow Valley, Arizona instead.
    • There are facilities present at this location however the location is about 3 hours away from Tucson, AZ.
    • Contact information for the Southern Arizona Rocketry Association

(SARA) #545 Stephen Lubliner 4801 N Vista DeLoma Segunda Tucson AZ 85749 Phone : (520)296-1689

• • Members also suggested White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico
    • White Sands has great facilities however they charge very high prices for the use of these facilities. This location is also considerably farther than the Rainbow Valley location (About 5 hours away).
  • Other suggestions included Aeropac, Nevada's rocketry event in June, and Spaceport America in New Mexico. However there are unresolved issues with each of these launch sites.

• 501c Update
  • Still Waiting for contact from IRS, probably another 10-15 days.

• Jim Vlop Discussion
  • SEDS Executive board will only respond to Vlop's contacts as a collective entity to maintain solidarity and professionalism.
  • Executive Board voted on if SEDS USA should reply to Vlop's mass e-mails
    • In favor on not responding to Jim Vlop's mass e-mails: 6 in favor, 1 abstain.

• Educational Materials Fund
  • Keri Hancock proposed setting up a fund for resources that SEDS could provide for educators.
    • Such items as educational podcasts, periodic tables, rulers (from paper), calendars, notebook paper with astronomical watermarks, or even travel expenses for college members to work with other high schools.
  • Keri Hancock suggested donations of about $1,000 per company with hopes of raising about $4,000 before August.
    • This money would be used as both to establish a long term fund for the SEDS and in the shot term to begin new projects.
  • Ryan suggested creating donation "levels" with benefits for each increasing level
    • i.e $500 level, $1,000 level, $3,000 level.
  • Joshua Nelson suggested a test phase in which we test how successful the fund would be.
  • SEDS Executive board voted on establishing an Education Materials Fund, which resulted in a vote of 5 for,1 against, 1 abstain.

• CoC Update.
  • Not much new happening in CoC
  • Joshua Nelson volunteered to be Executive Board rep for next CoC meeting.

• Discussion of recent article published in The Economist concerning human space exploration.
  • Grant suggested that SEDS should write a reply concerning the validity of this article.
  • The article states
    • there is no reason for manned space exploration
    • Robotic missions are more effective than manned missions
    • Space exploration is too costly to pursue at the levels we are currently doing it at.
  • Executive Board voted (5-0-1) to write a response to The economist concerning this article.
    • The document will be posted on google docs, so that The SEDS executive board can collectively edit it.

Progress Reports

• Keri Hancock
  • Had the educators page for the SEDS website and the adjoining competitions page sent out to Joshua Sosa to get posted.
  • Had the periodic table of elements graphic finished and have the projectiles poster half way done.
  • Contacted another dozen of the NEA (national education association) chapters and had 1 more give us full cooperation and send out a letter.
  • Working on a packet for funding of the Educational Resources.
  • Sent out an email to the chapters listserv asking who was working on what projects and events, and which they wouldn't mind high school kids participating in. Caltech SEDS and University of Colorado Boulder SEDS responded.

• Matt Cannella
  • Completed portion of the script for the podcast that Keri (Bean) is developing for educational outreach.
  • Began a new project; redefining and creating a standard SEDS letterhead and power point template.
    • preliminary due date for this project in 2 weeks.
  • Signed up to create a SEDS promo video to be shown at conferences and other events, focusing on rocket launches and other SEDS events.