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Current Issue

January/February 2013 Issue (72 pages)
(PDF: low resolution, 17.5MB; high resolution, 62.2MB)
Volume 38, Number 4

Links in the list below are for separate, smaller (low resolution) PDF files, one PDF file for each article.

• Page 2: This Table of Contents page includes names from our organization chart along with a list of Horizons contributors, cover image credits, and disclaimers. (The links in this one-page PDF file will not work. Those are the links in the Table of Contents. Those links work when the entire 72-page issue is downloaded. The entire issue can be downloaded using one of the two links above, the low resolution link or the high resolution link.)
• Page 3: Chair’s Corner by Daniel Nobles, AIAA Houston Section Technical Committees. This page includes the publicity poster for our Section’s Annual Technical Symposium of Friday, May 17, 2013.
• Page 4: Editor’s Corner by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 5: Cover Story: A Geologist and Curiosity on Mars by Dr. Dorothy Oehler. She is interviewed and brings us up to date with Curiosity on Mars just as we go to press. This link includes the cover page and the Table of Contents page.
• Page 13: Sarah Brightman on ISS by Sandrine Rolland of our French sister section 3AF MP. Sarah, an Englishwoman, is a classical crossover soprano, actress, songwriter and dancer, as noted in a Wikipedia article. She is signed up to go to the International Space Station (ISS) on a trip that will be scheduled in the coming months [Wikipedia].
• Page 14: Profile of Dominique Teyssier, one of the people who reserved a seat with Virgin Galactic. This article is supplied by our French sister section 3AF MP and authored by Teyssier himself and Jean-Luc Otal.
• Page 17: A Visit to Pierre-Paul Riquet Saint-Orens High School (Haute-Garonne, France) by Philippe Mairet of our French sister section 3AF MP.
• Page 19: Tau Ceti Exoplanet Candidates by Wes Kelly of Triton Systems LLC. Five Tau Ceti Planets in the Signals, Two in the Habitable Zone.
• Page 26: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 27: The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston)
• Page 28: Climate Change and Local Responses by Douglas Yazell.
• Page 29: Science Fiction by Scientists, a book review and press release. AIAA Houston Section member Dr. Larry Jay Friesen is the author of Betrayal / Battle / Storm, a new book of three novellas published by Firefall.
• Page 30: Kickstarter for Space Projects by Shen Ge. This article describes five space projects using this approach for crowdfunding, then presents details about a Horizons Kickstarter crowdfunding project.
• Page 32: The First SPACE Retreat by Shen Ge. On January 8, 2013, a group of space professionals and space enthusiasts gathered on the tropical isle of Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, to start this retreat. SPACE is Space Preparatory Academy of Cosmic Explorers, whose first event is described in the January / February 2012 issue of Horizons. SPACE placed an advertisement on page 57 of this January / February 2013 issue of Horizons, by the way.
• Page 36: Staying Informed. Gina Sunseri of ABC News asked a question at the NASA/JSC press conference (Orion ESA service module), “How tough is it to design a system like this when you don’t know exactly where you are going?” Friendship 7 “found” in Texas. For at least the past 40 years, a full-sized model of a Mercury spacecraft sat on display at the corner of Red Bluff Road and St. Augustine Avenue in Pasadena, Texas, about 20 minutes from NASA/JSC, according to collectSPACE.com. This page is linked below after pages 42 and 43 (in a single PDF file with those two pages, making a 3-page PDF file in this order: page 42, page 43, and then page 36).
• Page 37: Current Events: Science Fiction author Boris Strugatskij, by Wes Kelly of Triton Systems LLC. This article started when Wes proposed translating the related article from the Russian language biweekly newspaper Our Texas (www.ourtx.com), a new source for articles for Horizons, when we obtain permission. Boris often wrote science fiction with his brother Arkady. Boris died on November 19, 2012. This article presents images of quite a few of the Strugatsky science fiction books. Wes concludes the article with a note about the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor.
• Page 42: Current Events: NASA Signs Agreement for a European-Provided Orion Service Module, NASA press release, January 16, 2013. Orion is going international. The European Space Agency (ESA) will provide the ESA Service Module.
• Page 44: Calendar. This page is filled with upcoming conference events from www.aiaa.org. Also mentioned are our Section’s monthly council meetings, upcoming Section Events (ATS 2013 Friday, May 17, 2013, our Section’s Annual Technical Sympsosium, and an audiobook in work for the 1993 Henry C. Dethloff book, Suddenly Tomorrow Came… A History of Johnson Space Center) and recent Section events (dinner meeting of February 21, 2013, Leah Romero, Modeling & Testing NASA Orion Capsule Parachute Assembly System (CPAS), maiden name Leah Olson for AIAA papers).
• Page 45: Cranium Cruncher by Dr. Steven E. Everett. This page also contains an article by Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair and Ted Kenny, History technical committee Chair. The latter article mentions the audiobook project for Suddenly Tomorrow Came, a History of Johnson Space Center (JSC), by Henry C. Dethloff, the author of that 1993 book and two more recent books. The Skylab 40th anniversar and NASA Alumni League JSC Chapter oral histories are also mentioned.
• Page 46: Section News. NightPod on ISS is mentioned in an article. Organization charts are presented for AIAA Houston Section and our French sister section 3AF MP. The AIAA 2013 Space Automation and Robotics Award is mentioned since it was awarded to Robonaut 2 (R2), not to be confused with R2D2 of Star Wars. A space-related panel discussion at Rice University is mentioned, and the video is online. George Abbey hosted Lost in Space: The Need for a Definitive U.S. Space Policy. Mr. Abbey is a member of the Rice University James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. Panelists: Mark Albrecht, Leroy Chiao, Joan Johnson-Freese, Neal Lane, Eugene Levy and John Logsdon. At Texas A&M University, Nick Page is the new AIAA student section Publicity Chair / Webmaster. Section News includes notes about a few submitted abstracts for the AIAA Houston Section Annual Technical Symposium (ATS) of Friday, May 17, 2013. ATS Item 1: Climate Change by Dr. Gerald R. North (Texas A&M University), the essential story of climate change. ATS Item 2: Dr. Kumar Krishen (NASA/JSC), Analysis of Voyages: Charting the Course for Sustainable Human Space Exploration. ATS Item 3: Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics technical committee Chair. ATS Item 4: INCOSE, the International Council on Systems Engineering. ATS Item 5: Skylab 40th Anniversary by NASA/JSC veteran Kenneth A. Young. ISS Expedition 34, Soyuz TMA-07M and Soyuz TMA-06M are also mentioned in Section News.
• Page 52: Staying Informed: A mention of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 17. NASA Johnson Style! This video is a takeoff on the Psy Gangnam style music video. More than 2,000,000 hits for this video by NASA/JSC interns! Exoplanet candidates at Tau Ceti. An image of Mars from ESA’s Mars Express. Another image, “Cassini Space Miniature Nile River on Saturn Moon.” At the request of our French sister section 3AF MP, we present information about IMAV 2013, the International Micro Air Vehicle Conference and Flight Competition of September 17-20, 2013, in Toulouse, France. See www.imav2013.org. Also on this page, artwork by Loup Mairet, “How Will People be Able to Survive in Space?”
• Page 54: Collier’s 1952-1954. Man Will Conquer Space Soon! The Horizons team and the Horizons Collier’s team presents the fourth of eight installments in this series of space articles from the weekly magazine Collier’s. This installment: World’s First Spacesuit. Horizons is first to present this series page by page in high resolution.
• Page 56: Collier’s magazine space articles of February 28, 1953, starting with the cover image, Exclusive, World’s First Space Suit, How and Where We’ll Use it. We note that this issue of Horizons was published precisely on schedule on Thursday, February 28, 2013, the 60th anniversary. These 1952 – 1954 writers, artists and editors were led by Dr. Wernher von Braun.
• Page 69: The Complete Works of Robert A. Heinlein. Limited Collector’s Set of 46 Archival Volumes. Limited print run. The Virginia Edition. See www.virginiaedition.com. 713-861-3600.
• Page 70: APR Corner. Aerospace Projects Review by Scott Lowther. Inflatable Spaceplane. Referenced report: NASA TN D-538 by Walter Olstad, Langley Research Center, October 1960. On the next page we include an advertisement for a Skylab cutaway. This full color, high quality print of the NASA cutaway illustration is 40 by 24 inches.
• Page 72: The Back Cover. AIAA mission and vision statement and our Section’s logo and address. This page includes an article about the national AIAA Robotics Award presented to the Robonaut 2 (R2) team of NASA/JSC, including quotes from Dr. Myron Diftler, Robonaut Principal Investigator.

Previous Issues

2012

November/December 2012 Issue
(PDF: low resolution, 14.8MB; high resolution, 49.4MB)
Volume 38, Number 3

• Cover story: The UP Experience 2012 in Houston featuring Burt Rutan
• Interstellar First Stop? Detection of an Earth-Sized Exoplanet at Alpha Centauri B by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC
• A 2012 TC4 Gravity Assist from Earth by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• A Newly Discovered Highly Accessible NEO by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Asteroid 2012 DA14′s February 2013 Fly-By by Dr. Patrick Rodi
• Creating an Economically Robust Space Policy by Dr. Martin Elvis, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon!
• Voyages: Sustainable Human Space Exploration: A Review, Dr. Kumar Krishen, NASA/JSC
• Hubble Meets Skylab by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review

September/October 2012 Issue
(PDF: low resolution, 13.6MB; high resolution, 46.5MB)
Volume 38, Number 2

• Cover story: The 100 Year Starship September 2012 Public Symposium in Houston by Douglas Yazell and Shen Ge
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Reprinting Collier’s from 1952 to 1954, the articles dated October 18, 1952, the 2nd of 8 installments
• Paradises Lost, the Opera from the Le Guin Generation Starship Novella
• Lunar Surface EVA Route Selection Optimization, by Yvonne Vigue-Rodi
• Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) in 2013 – 2014, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• 3AF MP: Third Annual Aerospace Festival of Art and Literature: Stars and Wings
• The Fog of War Obscures a Great Aerial Dogfight (Speculation), by James C. McLane III
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site
• The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston): Lance Borden
• Convair “Super-NEXUS”, APR Corner (Aerospace Projects Review), by Scott Lowther
• Current Events: Capsule-Helicopter Hybrid Spacecraft, by Jeff Hagen

July/August 2012 Issue
(PDF: low resolution, 23MB; high resolution, 87MB)
Volume 38, Number 1

• Cover story: Ring Wing Waveriders, by Dr. Patrick E. Rodi
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Reprinting Collier’s from 1952-54
• The Collier’s Series Backstory, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV
• Man Will Conquer Space Soon! Collier’s, March 22, 1952, the First Articles
  Here are some links that provide publicity and more detail about our 1952-54 Collier’s series starting in this issue of Horizons:
  • Hobby Space
  • Scott Lowther, a Horizons regular contributor, published a publicity note in two blogs:
    • The Unwanted Blog
    • Aerospace Projects Review Blog (The APR Blog)
• Chair’s Column, by Daniel A. Nobles
• Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base, by Colonel Jack “Stitch” Daniel
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport
• Dinner meeting with a Robonaut 2 presentation by Dr. J. D. Yamokoski
• ESA Awards Two Studies to EADS Astrium, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP, and Douglas Yazell
• Europe’s First Lunar Lander by 2018, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP, and Douglas Yazell
• The 100 Year Starship Public Symposium in Houston, September 13-16, 2012
• Scientific Preparatory Academy for Cosmic Explorers (SPACE) Inaugural Event, by CEO Shen Ge
• Suddenly Tomorrow Came… A History of JSC, the Audiobook, by Ted Kenny
• Recent Conference Papers by AIAA Houston Section Members
• The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston)
• Cranium Cruncher, by Dr. Steven E. Everett
• The Back Cover: Attendees at the Section’s Leadership Retreat, August 15, 2012

May/June 2012 Issue (PDF, 13948kb)
Volume 37, Number 7

• Cover story: Morpheus, by Dr. Jon B. Olansen, NASA/JSC
• Dinner meeting of June 6, 2012, the 50^th anniversary of AIAA Houston Section
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport
• The Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2012) at NASA/JSC
• Planetary Resources: Flight of Fancy or Real Wealth?, editorial by Shen Ge
• Will Europe Participate in the Orion MPCV Project of the USA?, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP
• Ellington Field, Airport, Spaceport & The Lone Star Flight Museum
• Yuri’s Night Houston 2012: The 5k Fun Run and Space Day
• Space Fighter: 1963, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review
• Rest in Peace, John Llewellyn, Apollo era engineer

50th Anniversary Edition (PDF, 14884kb)
Volume 37, Number 6, Special Edition, June 6, 2012

• The 1987 twenty-page booklet celebrating the 25^th anniversary of AIAA Houston Section
• More than twenty news pages extending that 1987 for our 2012 celebration of the 50^th anniversary of AIAA Houston Section

 

March/April 2012 Issue (PDF, 14731kb)
Volume 37, Number 5

• Cover story: Develop Cislunar Space Next, by Paul Spudis
• Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC 2012), by Shen Ge
• Commercial Cargo, by Carl Walz of Orbital Sciences Corporation
• Leading the Next 50 Years of Exploration, by Douglas Terrier, NASA/JSC
• NASA GRAIL Lunar Mission, from the Lunar and Planetary Institute Cosmic Explorations lecture series
• Dream Chaser for NASA Commercial Crew Development (CCDev), by John Curry of Sierra Nevada Corporation
• Book review by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, 50 Years on the Space Frontier by Robert W. Farquhar
• Astronaut Training in Star City, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP
• International Cooperation, by Philippe Mairet, 3AF MP
• Virtus, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review (APR)
• The Conquest of Space and The Ugly Spaceship, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV

January/February 2012 Issue  (PDF, 11504kb)
Volume 37, Number 4

• Cover story: Kepler-22b, by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC
• A Peek at Cassini after Seven Years in Orbit, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Dinner meeting report, Sustainable Use of Space Through Orbital Debris Control, by Nicholas L. Johnson, NASA/JSC
• Isle of Man, and Excellent Space for SPACE, by Shen Ge
• Warp Drives: A Curious History, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson, reporting on a lunch-and-learn presentation by Dr. Harold “Sunny” White, NASA/JSC
• Phobos-Grunt’s Inexorable Trans-Mars Injection Countdown Clock, Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Phoenix-E, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review (APR)
• List of AIAA Conference Papers by AIAA Houston Section Members

2011

November/December 2011 Issue (PDF, 8619kb)
Volume 37, Number 3

• Cover story: Project Icarus Interstellar, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, reporting on a lunch-and-learn by Dr. Richard Obousy
• The 2011 American Astronautical Society (AAS) national conference in Houston, November 15-16, 2011, by Douglas Yazell, Editor
• Near-Earth Object (NEO) 2005 YU₅₅: A Natural Interplanetary Cycler, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site
• “A Successful Kiss,” New Breakthroughs in Chinese Space, by Shen Ge
• Use of the International Space Station (ISS) for Exploration, by Dr. Steven E. Everett, report on a lunch-and-learn by Michael Raftery, The Boeing Company ISS Deputy Program Manager
• Planet Formation: What’s New with the Oldest Events in the Solar System, by Dr. Bill Bottke, report by Wes Kelly, Triton Systems LLC, on a lecture in the Cosmic Explorations lecture series from The Lunar and Planetary Institute
• Beyond UFOs, by Dr. Jeffrey Bennett, report by Douglas Yazell, Editor, on a lecture in The Space Lecture Series at The University of Houston at Clear Lake (UHCL)
• LTV’s 1966 Universal Hypersonic Test Vehicle, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review (APR)
• Aerospace Artwork by Don Kulba: T-14 Tomcat

September/October 2011 Issue (PDF, 7070kb)
Volume 37, Number 2

• Cover story: Dinner meeting report, Congressman Pete Olson, musical entertainment by Grammy-nominated Lydia Salnikova
• GRAIL Takes a Roundabout Route to Lunar Orbit, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• High Altitude, A Rocket Launch Competition for Hight School Students, by Glenda Reyes, Dr. Benjamin Longmier and Carlos Salamanca
• Norman Augustine at Rice University, “The Greatest Obstacle to Human Space Travel”
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, by Douglas Yazell
• Project Leyel, by Jean-Luc Chanel, 3AF MP
• The 100 Year Starship 2011 Public Symposium in Orlando, Florida, by Douglas Yazell
• Shuttle-Derived Personnel Launch Vehicle, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review
• Staying Informed, James C. McLane III
• List of AIAA Conference Papers by AIAA Houston Section members
• Aerospace Artwork by Don Kulba, the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) and the Saturn V rocket in Houston’s Rocket Park

July/August 2011 Issue (PDF, 4633kb)
Volume 37, Number 1

• Cover story: Dawn Arrives at Main Belt Asteroid (4) Vesta, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant
• Just For the Record, by James C. McLane III
• Dinner meeting and annual awards report with AIAA Distinguished Lecturere Bob Zimmerman, with professional musicians Duane Propes and Dwayne O’Brien from the band Little Texas.
• Space Center Lecture Series report: “Fifty Years Since Liberty Bell: Perspectives on the Flight of Liberty Bell 7 and the Future of the Space Program,” by Dr. James Lewis and Robert F. Thompson, reported by Gary Kitmacher, NASA/JSC
• The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston) New and Profile in General and Experimental Aviation: Paul F. Dye, NASA/JSC
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site
• Boeing Space Freighter, by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review
• AIAA Conference Papers Presented by AIAA Houston Section Members
• Aerospace Artwork by Don Kulba, Space Shuttle Commemorative Patch Entry by Don Kulba, and McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom

June 2011 Horizons (PDF, 10202kb)
(This bimonthly issue is what we later called the May / June 2011 issue, online at the end of June 2011.)
Volume 36, Number 2

• Cover story: Project Aether, Inspiring the Next Generation of Explorers, by Eldon Summerson & Benjamin Longmier. Inaugural flights demonstrate how space exploration can be available to the individual. Weather balloons and HD video and still cameras are launched to the edge of space.www.ProjectAether.org.
• Sig Sjoberg in the 1979 NASA/JSC Robert McCall mural in the Building 2 Teague Auditorium.
• NASA photos showing the International Space Station (ISS) docked with the Space Shuttle Endeavour as seen from the nearby Soyuz spacecraft.
• Feature: An Astronaut Takes a Slow Flight, by James C. McLane III.
• Mars Rover Celebration, Fun & Learning with Virtual Space Missions, by Professor Edgar Bering, University of Houston.
• Dinner meeting report: State of the NASA/JSC Center by JSC Director Michael Coats, by Shen Ge and Ellen Gillespie.
• An Evening with Mary Roach: Best Selling Book, “Packing for Mars,” a lecture in The Space Center Lecture Series, by John B. Charles, Ph.D., Chief Scientist of NASA’s Human Research Program, Johnson Space Center, www.spacecenterlectureseries.com.
• Apollo Lunar Module LM-2: History by Captain Andrew Hobokan.
• Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2011) and Engineers as Educators
• The 42nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC)
• The Red Baron Scenario in an Interplanetary Context, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, including two 2011 close Near Earth Object (NEO) Earth encounters.
• John F. Kennedy and the Race to the Moon, a new book by John Logsdon, by Douglas Yazell and Roger Weiss.
• STS-133 and STS-134 space shuttle Crew Return Ceremonies at Ellington Field.
• Mir Splashdown 10th Anniversary Party
• Space Fest: Yuri’s Night Houston 2011
• IAF 2011 Frank J. Malina Astronautics Medal: Yves Gourinat
• Aerospace Projects Review (APR) by Scott Lowther, Bell D-109 VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing), 1951 Jet Convertoplane Fighter.

May 2011 Horizons (PDF, 2647kb)
(This bimonthly issue is what we later called the March / April 2011 issue, scheduled to be online by the end of April 2011, and published online late, placed online May 17, 2011.)
Volume 36, Number 1

• Cover story: Robert McCall, Artist, 1919-2010, A Bright Future for People in Space, by Douglas Yazell, Editor: Who’s Who in the 1979 McCall Mural at NASA/JSC Building 2 Teague Auditorium.
• EAA / AIAA Profile: Lance Borden, by Douglas Yazell, Editor. First in a series of profiles in general and experimental aviation with The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) and AIAA. This twenty-page article contains many original photographs and images from 1929 to 1932. Houston resident Lance Borden now owns one of the seven remaining Inland Sport airplanes. Only about 46 of these airplanes were built. The Inland company built only those airplanes (three different models differing only in the motor size) during its short life from 1929 to 1932. These were popular, practical and record-setting airplanes. They were based on the prototype which was designed and built by Lance Armstrong’s maternal grandfather Lawrence Dewey Bonbrake.
• Dinner meeting report, “Accidents Happen!, Behind the Headlines,”, with speaker John Purvis, airplane accident investigator, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett.
• Dinner meeting report, “Congressman Pete Olson on Washington’s Support for NASA,” by Alan Simon.
• Apollo Lunar Module Testing, by Captain Andrew Hobokan.
• Event report: Wings Over Houston Airshow 2010, by Robert Pearlman, CollectSPACE (www.CollectSPACE.com, or CollectSPACE.com) & Ellen Gillespie.
• Private Space Flights: A New Era, by Jean-Pierre Lafon, 3AF Languedoc Rousillon, France, Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France (3AF).
• A Boost for Commercial Human Spaceflight, a reprint from the April 2010 issue of Aerospace America, the national magazine of AIAA, by Marco Caceras, a defense of President Obama’s cancellation of the cornerstone NASA program, Constellation.
• The Back Cover: 1964 Portrait of NASA Hal Beck Group in Houston.

2010

July 2010 Horizons (PDF, 6690kb)

Horizons, Volume 35, Issue 2, the last of seven consecutive quarterly issues in a two-year span with Dr. Steven E. Everett as Editor. (We failed to publish one of eight planned issues.) This issue includes:

This is the seventh of seven consecutive “quarterly” issues of Horizons edited by Dr. Steven E. Everett over a two-year period. Steve did a superlative job, worthy of high honors from AIAA. Prior to Steve’s service in this role, Douglas Yazell (Honeywell Aerospace 1981-2011 in Florida, California, then Texas) was Acting Editor for three issues while he finished his term as Chair of AIAA Houston Section. Prior to that, Jon Berndt re-invented Horizons during his long term of service, from about 2004 to the end of 2007. Jon gave us for format we now use, though his first cover page format was not the one he later created. Jon used Microsoft Publisher to create the published PDF files, and we still use Microsoft Publisher (as of December 2012). We obtain Publisher almost for free as a non-profit (AIAA) using www.techsoup.org, if that is the correct URL. Microsoft participates in the activities of that web site. Jon quickly persuaded AIAA Houston Section to stop mailing harcdcopies to our more than one thousand members. This was painful in 2011 and 2012 when our Publicity Chair and Communications Chair were vacant positions. Jon rounded up amazing cover stories and created a tradition for cover images that use portrait orientation and fill the cover with a single dramatic image. The content Jon rounded up for every issue was inspiring. His issue with The DIRECT Approach cover story attracted more than 30,000 hits and his issue with a cover story about open source software attracted more than 40,000 hits. Jon reported an average circulation of more than 6,000 downloads per issue. For a while in later years, we did not even have a hit counter. Circulation as of December 2012 is probably between 300 and 800 hits per issue.

• Cover story: AIAA Houston Section’s Annual Technical Symposium (ATS 2010) featuring keynote speaker Myron (“Ron”) Diftler, Project Manager for Robonaut (including Robonaut 2), starting on page 14, featuring keynote speaker JSC Director Michael Coats, and featuring presenters such as Mark Jackson (Draper Lab), Terry Hill (NASA/JSC) and Mark Kane (NASA/JSC). (Photographs of those three presenters are included.) Also included are images of the two Constellation lunar rovers that visited our event (along with Bill Bluethman, NASA/JSC, whose image appears here, and others from the lunar rover project)!
• Editor’s column from Dr. Steven E. Everett
• Chair’s Corner from Ellen Gillespie/United Space Alliance
• Douglas Yazell’s column about the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site (NASA/JSC is the only other such site in Houston.), with a note about Amelia Earhart and Museum Administrator Megan Lickliter-Mundon.
• A Tribute to an Apollo Program Engineer: Albert Jowid, reported by Captain Andrew Hobokan.
• A dinner meeting report: The Augustine Commission and Beyond, featuring guest speaker Bohdan (“Bo”) Bejmuk, a member of the Augustine Commission, featuring an image of Guy Thibodaux, NASA/JSC retired, making blunt comments after the presentation, repoorted by Nick Pantazis, AIAA Houston Section Vice Chair Operations. It was a great honor to have Bo here for this presentation. It was a historic and difficult time for NASA and its contractors. After obtaining the results of his Augustine Committee, President Obama cancelled NASA’s fleet of spacecraft called Constellation in February of 2010. Though he later (on April 15, 2010, in a speech at NASA/KSC) revived Orion, the crew capsule, then called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), more than $9B had already been spent on Constellation which started its work in about August of 2006. More than $2B in additional funds was paid to NASA contractors as part of the process of this cancellation.
• A Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) Update at the University of Houston Clear Lake (UHCL) by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor and Dr. Benjamin Longmier, Ad Astra Rocket Company. A group of company employees are shown in front of their vacuum chamber in a photograph. Another group of company employees are shown in front of their building in the La Flor campus (7,000 square feet) in Liberia, Costa Rica.
• One More Story about our Late Former Section Chair Mr. Algranti, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor, with thanks to Captain Andrew Hobokan. One photograph shows NASA’s Super Guppy airplane at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas USA. Another photograph shows NASA’s Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV). Joseph Algranti was an LLTV test pilot. Along with Neil Armstrong, he was one of three who ejected from these vehicles (at Ellington Field), resulting in the loss of those three vehicles.
• Patches for the Last Three Space Shuttle Flights, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. These patches are for STS-132, STS-133 and STS-134. In fact, STS-135 later became the last space shuttle flight.
• Shanghai Expo 2010, by Shen Ge, Contributor. Note that since 1987, AIAA Houston Section has a Chinese sister section in Shanghai, the Shanghai Astronautical Society. That relationship was initiated by James C. McLane, Jr., in 1987. For example, the founding document, a one-page document, is reproduced on page 53 of the November / December 2012 issue of Horizons. As of December 2012, Marlo Graves is the contact person, though she works with her AIAA Houston Section initiative with Beijing, not Shanghai.
• Art and Science: Voyage in the Solar System, by Marc Rieugnie, 3AF TMP, Member of our French Sister Section. Note that 3AF TMP stands for l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Toulouse – Midi-Pyrenees Chapter. I omitted a few accents there. As of December 2012 or earlier, it is the Midi-Pyrenees Chapter, not 3AF TMP, but 3AF MP. And in place of the word Chapter, they use, “Groupe Regional.” I hope I spelled that correctly. Marc is an engineer and an amateur astronomer. He is also an artist. Many of his works were on display at La Cite de l’Espace in Toulouse, France. This article includes images of three of his works, “Jupiter Seen from Io,”, “Saturn Seen from Rhea,” and, “Mars Seem from Deimos.” A French sister section relationship with AIAA Houston Section and 3AF MP started in 2007 and is still going strong as of December 2012, as seen, for example, starting on page 24 of the November / December 2012 issue of Horizons. The web site www.enjoyspace.com is shown here, too, in a linked image. The editor there is Olivier Sanguy. That web site might be associated with La Cite de l’Espace. Olivier edited Espace Magazine for a long time, starting when it was created, and it was sold for years in the kiosks in France, and additional copies and back issues were available from the publisher. His wife Marie-Ange Sanguy now edits (as of December 2012) Espace et Exploration, a new magazine in France, no longer sold in kiosks, but available from its publisher, and also available in electronic form (PDF format).
• The Late Guenter Wendt, Pad Leader at the Cape, by Laurent Mangane, 3AF TMP, Member of our French Sister Section. See the above note for more about 3AF TMP. This late NASA employee worked at NASA/KSC. One of the NASA photographs in this article shows him with Apollo 13 crew member Fred Haise, a great photograph.
• Yuri’s Night Houston 2010, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor, with Michael Frostad. There are five photographs with this article, and no captions, but they include people dressed in very professional costumes based on the Star Wars movies. This event was our contribution to the annual worldwide celebration, Yuri’s Night. Mike reports we raised nearly $3,000 for the Houston Museum of Science Challenger Learning Center (a branch of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education). Robert Pearlman of CollectSPACE.com made a presentation. Note that Yuri’s Night celebrates Yuri Gagarin’s launch and flight of April 12, 1962 and the STS-1 space shuttle launch of April 12, 1981.
• SETI: James M. Benford, PhD, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor and Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Chair, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics technical committee. How to Build Cost-Optimized Interstellar Beacons (and How to Search for Them). SETI is the acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Jim is the twin brother of science fiction writer (also a PhD, both in physics) Gregory Benford. Jim also works with Icarus Interstellar.
• Astronauts at NEOs: Dan Adamo and Rob Landis, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor and Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Chair, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics Technical Committee. Exploring Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) with Human Crews and Robotic Systems. Rob is a NASA civil servant. Daniel R. Adamo is an astrodynamics consultant. President Obama cancelled NASA’s human spaceflight fleet Constellation in February of 2010, after commissioning the Augustine Committee. Then on April 15, 2010, in a speech at NASA/KSC, he brought the crew capsule back to life, Orion, then called the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). In that speech, President Obama mentioned sending an astronaut crew to rendezvous with a NEO, maybe as early as 2025. So this presentation by Adamo and Landis was timely.
• From Caves to Space, by James C. McLane III. Apollo engineers imitate cave exploring equipment to make falling safety restraints. Jim is a caver. He was a caver in the 1960s, at least. Another term for that is spelunker. He writes about a Jumar rope ascender. This article has two memorable photographs of cavers and several memorable NASA photographs of NASA astronauts using this equipment in training. “…My father, James C. McLane, Jr., was Chief of the Space Environment Test Division [at NASA/JSC]. He had ultimate authority over the lab…”
• More Photos from the McLane Archives, by James C. McLane III. This presents two photographs on page 31. “One [movie] in particular (Future World, starring Peter Fonda) made heavy use of the giant space chambers in [NASA/JSC] Building 32. I went out to watch the filming and saw a stunt man make $10,000 by taking a dive off a platform and falling over 100 feet into an air bag. I took the attached photos in 1976 during the filming.”
• Aerospace Projects Review (APR Corner) by Scott Lowther. For this issue, Scott writes about the Boeing Vertol Model 301 Heavy Lift Helicopter (HLH), the XCH-62 of the late 1960s.
• Aeros & Autos at Ellington Airport, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This presents a few photos from this event in Houston, Texas USA.
• EAA Corner, a one-page column in each issue about the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Houston Chapter. One photograph is included showing the yellow VariEze airplane built by astronaut Frank Caldeiro and owned by Richard Sessions. The Rutan VariEze was designed by Burt Rutan. See our November / December 2012 issue of Horizons for a cover story about Burt Rutan and The UP Experience 2012 in Houston, Texas USA.
• Crossword Puzzle, by Sean Carter. Know Thy Station! The NASA-led International Space Station.
• Calendar, including a photograph of a medallion (“coin”) design from an artist at NWT Mint, Northwest Territorial Mint, for our section. We never purchased the medallion, but what a design! Don Kulba, still a Horizons team member as of December 2012, created the artwork used on one side of the medallion design. Among 85 entries for NASA’s patch to represent the space shuttle program, Don’s design was one of the 15 finalists. AIAA Houston Section eventually celebrated its 50th anniversary (1962-2012) with a dinner meeting that included a lapel pin created for that event, but not using this design or this artwork. Only 100 of those lapel pins were made. See page 12 of our May / June 2012 issue of Horizons for a report on that dinner meeting. Here is an image file of the lapel pin design from NWT Mint. The medallion art is fantastic, and Don’s original art can be seen in another issue of Horizons, but the design for this lapel pin can be seen only here. We had this Air Force lapel pin from NWT Mint in mind when we created our lapel pin.
• Cranium Cruncher by Dr. Steven E. Everett. Wes Dafler (Boeing) and Greg Pierce (ESCG) solved Steve’s prior puzzle. For this issue’s puzzle, “Four bugs are placed in the corners of a square. Each bug walks directly toward the next bug in a clockwise direction. How far do the bugs walk before they meet?” An illustration shows four red and black ladybugs.
• The Back Cover. Page 40 shows, “The 2010 AIAA Haley Space Flight Award.” This  was presented to Dr. John M. Grunsfeld and the STS-125 space shuttle crew, “for outstanding contributions by an astronaut or test flight personnel to the advancement of the art, science or technology of astronautics.”

March 2010 Horizons (PDF, 2730 kb)
Horizons, Volume 35, Issue 1. The Spring 2010 issue. Published quarterly, but that publication rate changed after the next issue.

• Cover story: Hayabusa’s Return Home, by Steven Everett, Editor. Dr. Paul A. Abell was our guest speaker. This event was organized by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV, Chair, AIAA Houston Section Astrodynamics Technical Committee. Paul stated he would provide an overview of the mission, then play a twenty-minute video produced by JAXA describing the mission and its highlights. The successful return of material from asteroid Itokawa had not yet occurred when this article was written.
• The Table of Contents (TOC) notes that Horizons and the AIAA Houston Section web site won first place in 2005,  2006 and 2007 from AIAA for the Section award in our size category for Communications, “AIAA National Communications Award Winner.”
• From the Editor, “Turning Point,” by Dr. Steven E. Everett. Steve writes about changes. We had major changes in NASA’s human spaceflight program at this time. Steve also writes that the next issue will be his last issue as Editor.
• Chair’s Corner, Ellen Gillespie, United Space Alliance. Ellen mentions the turning point for NASA’s human spaceflight program and the 40th anniversary of NASA Apollo missions. She then lists a few upcoming events. One upcoming event was, “Collecting and Curating the Space Shuttle,” by Robert Pearlman of CollectSPACE.com, one in the series of lectures, The Space Center Lecture Series, a series co-sponsored by AIAA Houston Section and led by Dr. Benjamin Longmier of Ad Astra Rocket Company and Gary Kitmacher, NASA/JSC.
• George Observatory Event, by Ellen Gillespie, Chair, AIAA Houston Section. This is a beautiful facility one hour south of Houston, Texas USA in the Brazos Bend State Park.
• Notes from the Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), by Dr. Larry Jay Friesen, Section Member. This meeting took place November 16-19, 2009, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), in Houston, Texas USA, in the Clear Lake City area near NASA/JSC. They met in support of NASA and NASA’s Space Exploration Iniitiative.
• Space Shuttle program end patch. Don Kulba is an artist and still a member of our Horizons team as of December 2012. On Page 9 of this issue, his design is presented as part of the NASA competition for a patch for the 30-year space shuttle program. The winning patch is presented here, along with Don Kulba’s design. Don’s work was selected as one of the 15 finalists among 85 entries. On this page, Don updated his design slightly after submitting it to NASA. Don was working for United Space Alliance at the time.
• A Notional Hayabusa-2 Trajectory Design, by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant. Hayabusa was on its way back from asteroid Itokawa at this time. This sample return mission had many troubles, but it succeeded with the first such sample return a few months after this article was published.
• Five photos from the McLane Archives, by James C. McLane III. Jim’s photos show the inside of Building 32 at NASA/JSC during the summer of 1968. This was a peak of activities related to Apollo testing. Some of these photos show the immense vacuum chamber, Chamber A. One photo shows Jim’s father, James C. McLane, Jr., Chief of the Space Environment Test Division.
• Apollo XII Anniversary Panel Discussion, by Steven Everett, Editor. This event was the third such event, the third panel discussion, he organized in honor of the 40th anniversary of the NASA Apollo Program. The first two were Apollo VIII and Apollo X. Panel members were Frank Hughes, Floyd Bennett and Emil Schiesser.
• Art by Don Kulba on page 15, Navy Panther (aircraft).
• First Flight in Texas, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. The first documented powered flight in Texas celebrated its 100th anniversary on February 18, 2010. The pilot was French aviator Louis Paulhan. A plaque on a small monument commemorates this event. Its location is apparently in Pasadena, Texas USA, in the metropolitan Houston area, so to speak. It is a few steps east of the intersection of Spencer Highway (West Main Highway), York Avenue and Texas Street, a block or two east of Old Galveston Road (Galveston Road, also known as Highway 3). A crowd of more than 2,500 paid to observe the event.
• Imagine ’09: Ideas At Work, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This was the annual conference of the American Astronautical Society (AAS).
• The Unfinished Dream of Space, reported by Philippe Mairet, 3AF TMP (France), translated by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This article comments on the cancellation of the NASA fleet of spacecraft, Constellation.
• Space Exploration: A Sudden Stop or a Renewal?, reported by Marc Rieugnie, 3AF TMP (France), translated by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This article also comments on the cancellation of the NASA fleet of spacecraft, Constellation. This article includes a superlative illustration of five rocket designs by artist and Horizons team member Don Kulba.
• Virgin Galactic: CSS Enterprise’s First Flight, a press release. This was the first captive carry of the new space ship, here named VSS Enterprise. The aircraft used for this captive carry test was, of course, White Knight Two, named VMS Eve. The acronyms are no doubt Virgin Mother Ship (VMS) and Virgin Space Ship (VSS). The article notes that Virgin Galactic has taken in around $45M in deposits for [suborbital] space flights from more then 330 people.
• Congressional Visits Day for AIAA. Page 27 shows a photograph of AIAA Houston Section members Michael Kezirian, Melissa Gordon and Wayne Rast in DC for this annual event.
• Space Center Lecture Series, reported by Douglas Yazell. The featured speaker was Richard Garriot, private astronaut and son of NASA Apollo astronaut Owen Garriot. Robert Pearlman of CollectSpace.com is shown in one image. He was a recent speaker in this series of lectures co-sponsored by AIAA Houston Section. The prior lecture was by James Oberg, space journalist, and the next lecture was by Sy Liebergot, a NASA Apollo 13 EECOM. (Sy’s web site has a sound track as soon as you open that web page…) Richard’s presentation took place at the University of Houston Clear Lake.
• Hubble 3D, the New IMAXMovie, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. The related press release is from HubbleSite.
• Aerospace Projects Review (APR Corner), by Scott Lowther. The Convair Amphibious C-5. This article presents details of this aircraft design from the 1960s.
• Wings Over Houston 2009, reported by Ellen Gillespie, Section Chair. This annual air show at Ellington Airport in Houston, Texas USA is spectacular. AIAA Houston Section combines with a larger display by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) in recent years. David Fuller and Melissa Gordon are shown in a photograph with Ellen, and Richard Sessions of EAA is shown in another photograph.
• EAA Corner, the regular column about the Experimental Aircraft Association, a one-page column in each issue. This article contains a report of the death of the first pilot to fly in space on the X-15, Robert M. White.
• Cranium Cruncher, a puzzle that appears in every issue of Horizons. Ronny Newman and Joe Frisbee are credited with correct answers to the prior puzzle. Ronny Newman and Robert Howard got special recognition for pointing out a lack of clarity in the puzzle. The new puzzle is so short it is presented here: Find a number ABCDEFGHIJ such that A is the count of how many zeroes are in the number, B is the number of ones, and so on.
• The Back Cover. Page 36 is, “AIAA Mourns the Death of Aaron Cohen.” The former Director of NASA/JSC and AIAA Honorary Fellow was 79.

2009

November 2009 Horizons (PDF, 2035 kb)
This is the 20-page Fall 2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 3.

• Cover story: The Augustine Options, reported by Don Kulba, Assistant Editor. Don is an artist whose work appears on the cover of this issue. Don is also an engineer who was working for United Space Alliance at this time. Don also wrote the cover story starting on page 6. “The Augustine Committee was appointed this year by President Barack Obama to study the current status of NASA [human spaceflight programs] and provide a short list of options for NASA’s future [in human spaceflight].”
• From the Editor: A Reasonable Path, by Dr. Steven E. Everett. This is the regular one-page Editor’s column. Steve discusses the “flexible path” defined by the Augustine Committee. He talks about the bathyscaphe Trieste deep-diving research vessel designed by Bertrand Piccard. He notes that ocean exploration proceeds well without people onboard, but for telepresence on another planet, a human is required in some proximity. He explains that Augustine’s flexible path does away with entry, descent and landing (and ascent), the most complex and expensive parts of any mission. He concludes that this flexible path might be the most reasonable path after all.
• Chair’s Corner, Ellen Gillespie, United Space Alliance. Ellen notes that the NASA/JSC community is working on the space shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS) and Constellation (a fleet of NASA spacecraft for human spaceflight) at the same time, while we wait for the effects President Obama’s Augustine Committee review of NASA’s human spaceflight programs. She notes this is also the time for the 40th anniversary of the NASA Apollo program. She lists a few recent events, including: On October 1, 2009, our Young Professionals hosted a movie screening of Apollo 13 on the side of the Saturn V rocket (the real thing, not a model) at NASA/JSC Rocket Park, with a crowd of  more than 100 people, introduced by Apollo engineers who supported Apollo 13 (Norman Chaffee and Jerry Woodfill). Two pictures of that event are shown on page 7. She also lists a few planned events.
• Dinner meeting report, by Michael Kezirian, Section Member. Our guest speaker was Congressman Pete Olson of the 22nd District.
• Issues in Texas Education, by Janet Larson, Section Member. This article starts on page 8.
• Page 10 reports that Jon S. Berndt of Jacobs Technology, former AIAA Houston Section Horizons newsletter editor-in-chief, was selected as an AIAA Associate Fellow for the class of 2010.
• STS-127 Crew Return to Houston, Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This public reception took place at Ellington Airport shortly after the crew’s space shuttle landing in Florida. The article includes the complete text of the remarks made by one of the crew members, Julie Payette of the Canadian Space Agency.
• The First Aviators in Texas and Houston, 1910-1911, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. Mr. Story Jones Sloane III was an invited speaker at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport on Saturday, March 31, 2009. The first flight of an airplane in Texas took place just south of Houston on February 18, 1910. The Houston Post and the Western Land Company paid French aviator Louis Paulhan $20,000 (more than $900,000 in 2009 dollars) to demonstrate his aircraft, a Farmn biplane. The crowd numbered more than 2,000 (at $1 a head). Four priceless photographs are included, thanks to Mr. Sloane, as well of a photograph of Mr. Sloane making his presentation.
• The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This article reports on the Wings & Wheels event of the third Saturday in August 2009. The theme for this occurrence of this monthly event was the Experimental Aviation Association. The museum’s raffle airplane was on display, a Cessna 175, and tickets cost $50. Noteworthy airplanes and automobiles were on display at this lunch-hour centered event.
• EAA Corner is on page 15, a one-page column about the Experimental Aircraft Association and its Chapter 12, the Houston Chapter.
• APR Corner by Scott Lowther, Aerospace Projects Review. “Late in 1957, Convair proposed to the Air Force the “Super Hustler,” a solution to long range reconaissance and strategic bombing.
• A one-page Calendar is a valuable history record for AIAA Houston Section.
• Cranium Cruncher by Dr. Steven E. Everett. This month’s brain teaser imagines astronauts at a lunar base on the Moon’s south pole, and it is required that an astronaut walk to the nearby Aldrin lunar base. The trip is a six-hour walk, but the air tanks are good for four hours. Tanks can be swapped out between suits. How many crew members must start walking to ensure at least one member makes it to the lunar base?

June 2009 Horizons (PDF, 2280 kb)
The 46-page Summer 2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 2.

• Cover story: Recollections on the Apollo Lunar Lander by Captain Andrew Hobokan, starting on page 33.
• As in every issue, page 2 not only includes a table of contents, but also a list of our 45 or so of our AIAA Houston Section council members.
• From the Editor, “Our Professional Duty,”, on page 3, from Dr. Steven E. Everett. Examining alternatives to NASA’s Constellation program while President Obama’s Augustine Committee was conducting its review.
• Starting on page 4, Astronaut Garrett Reisman talks about Life Onboard the International Space Station (ISS) during Expeditiion 16/17, by Alan Simon, Assistant Editor. This was not an AIAA event, but it was of interest to our members and our readers. Garrett spoke at Clear Lake’s Congregation Shaar Hashalom.
• On page 6, a film screening report, Sputnik Declassified, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. This was not an AIAA event.
• On page 7, Aeros & Autos at Ellington Airport, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. Photographs include cars, a B-17 WW II bomber aircraft, a VariEze airplane (a Burt Rutan design) and Glenn McDuffie, the famous “kissing sailor” from WW II, the person in a famous photograph in which a sailor in uniform kisses a nurse in uniform, probably on the street in New York City on V-J Day. He might not be the only one to claim to be that sailor, but he might have the best claim on that fame.
• Starting on page 8, Revisiting a DIRECT Approach. This article ends on page 11, but no author is credited. Jon Berndt helped to round up this article. A recent (prior) issue of Horizons had A DIRECT Approach as its cover story, in late 2007, and an author is credited on that article. This is a alternative rocket, a single rocket, recommended in place of Ares I and Ares V, the two rockets that were part of NASA’s Constellation program. The various configurations of the rocket used in the DIRECT Approach all share the name Jupiter for the rocket. President Obama canceled Constellation in 2010, and as of 2012, NASA is designing and building a rocket that will have various configurations (at least two), using the name Space Launch System (SLS). It resembles the DIRECT Approach and its Jupiter rocket.
• On pages 12-14, HobbyFest 2009: AIAA Historic Aerospace Site in Houston, by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. AIAA’s Emily Springer flew to Houston for a ceremony celebrating the selection of The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas USA, as an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. She brought a large, heavy plaque to be unveiled in our AIAA ceremony. The date was Saturday, April 18, 2009. The Museum hosted Hobby Fest 2009 that same day, a very large event, from roughly 11 AM to 3 PM. Sadly, we had heavy rain and flash flooding during these events, but the events continued. Chair-Elect Ellen Gillespie attended, and AIAA Houston Section History Technical Committee Chair Chester Vaughan represnted our Section during the ceremony, despite lengthy rain delays. Mr. Drew Coats represented the Museum at the President of the Houston Aeronautical Heritage Society. Page 14 lists the AIAA Historic Aerospace Sites. Thanks to  the hard work of volunteers, this museum won that honor in 2008. NASA/JSC joined that list in 2005, again thanks to hard work by volunteers in our Section, etc. The list contains 42 sites, another 8 sites described as international sites, and a final site on the list, Tranquility Base, the Moon (2000). The first international site chosen was a French site, First Balloon Launch Site, Annonay, France (2001).
• Page 15: A few space program photos from the NASA/JSC area in Houston, Texas USA, Rocket Park and the International Space Station monument on NASA Parkway at Saturn Lane.
• Dinner meeting report, The Future of U.S. Planetary Exploration, featuring a presentation by an AIAA Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. Randii Wessen of the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Reported by Douglas Yazell.
• The 2009 Annual Technical Symposium of AIAA Houston Section, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Editor. This included an Apollo X keynote panel discussion at the luncheon. It featured Ken Young, Henry Pohl, Glynn Lunney, Dave Alexander and Gary Johnson.
• Pages 22 through 27 describe activities on behalf of AIAA Houston Section’s International Space Activities Committee (ISAC). Our Chinese sister sections are mentioned, thanks to Marlo Graves. Our French sister section is discussed and pictured at length, with reporting from Douglas Yazell in Houston.
• A Lunar Surface Rendezvous Architecture Proposal by Daniel R. Adamo, Astrodynamics Consultant, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Editor.
• Page 29 presents a new way to stay in touch with AIAA Houston Section: Facebook.  This page also contains links titled Staying Informed.
• A New Light on the Moon, a presentation at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas USA, by Dr. Paul Spudis of LPI, reported by Alan Simon, Assistant Editor.
• Recollections on the Apollo Lunar Lander, by Captain Andrew Hobokan (cover story). This article includes a Lunar Module illustration by Don Kulba, Assistant Editor.
• Page 34 presents the AIAA Houston Section calendar.
• Page 35 presents EAA Corner, a one-page column about the Houston Chapter (#12) of the Experimental Aircraft Association. A VariEze airplane is pictured, a Burt Rutan design, owned and flown in Houston. This page also contains an illustration by Assistant Editor Don Kulba, “Navy Skyhawk,”, a jet fighter aircraft.
• Starting on page 36: AIAA Conference Presentations/Articles by AIAA Houston Section Members, compiled by the editorial staff from AIAA agendas.
• Starting on page 38, Joseph S. Algranti, 1925 – 2009, reported by Douglas Yazell, Assistant Editor. Joe was AIAA Houston Section Chair (Chairman) for 1973 – 1974. His NASA/JSC oral history biography writes, “Member, Quiet Birdmen.” That is no doubt a prestigious group, but we leave that description to Wikipedia. CollectSPACE also has a great article about Joe Algranti. Joe was one of three NASA test pilots who ejected from a Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV). Those dangerous accidents occurred only three times (three ejections, three losses of vehicles), all at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas USA, near NASA/JSC. One of the other three pilots was Neil Armstrong. The last of these three accidents was on January 29, 1971. That pilot was Stu Present. “Armstrong later said his practice flights in the LLTVs gave him the confidence to override the automatic control system and control Eagle manually during that epic Apollo mission.”
• Page 42: a fond remembrance of Richard P. “Dick” Edwards, 1933 – 2009. He co-founded Space Settlement Design Competitions for high school students in 1984.
• Page 43: Congratulations STS-125 Crew on a Successful Hubble Servicing Mission! This page contains a cartoon whose idea was suggested by former NASA flight controller Marianne Dyson, a prize-winning author.
• Page 29: APR Corner, by Scott Lowther of Aerospace Projects Review (APR). This one-page column discusses the Juno V, a rocket/capsule design from about 1958 via Wernher von Braun and his team in Alabama. The capsule was a 16-person crew vehicle.
• Page 45 presents the Cranium Cruncher by Bill Miller, Senior Member.
• Page 46, the back cover, contains no new articles.

April 2009 Horizons (PDF, 3270 kb)
The 42-page Spring 2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 1.

• Cover story: Final Visit to Hubble (Preparing for Rescue), by Daryl Schuck. Imagine two space shuttle orbiters on orbit at the same time. While mission STS-125 was on orbit repairing Hubble, another space shuttle mission was ready to launch in case of emergency, called STS-400. For the more common space shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS), a number in the STS-300 series would be assigned to a rescue mission. This space shuttle Launch on Need capability put our NASA/JSC community into a state of readiness for a most unusual but never used scenario, two space shuttles on orbit at the same, one rescuing the crew of the other.
• Page 2 contains the table of contents and a list of the members of the 45-person council of AIAA Houston Section.
• From the Editor by Dr. Steven E. Everett is on page 3. He mentions that this International Year of Astronomy is also the year of the last human mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. As a boy Steve visited the Planetarium in Jackson, Tennessee and listened to a young professor of astronomy, Ronnie Barnes. Steve remembers the backlighted slide of the Eagle Nebula there, one he thought of as the Superman nebula, because he could see the head, cape and outstretched arms headed to the upper right of the image.
• Page 4 presents a one-page column, The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. This issue’s column discusses the Saturday lunchtime monthly program Wings & Wheels for January 2009, reported by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. He presents a photograph of John M. Coale, a man who made a 2004 round-the-world flight. It was not an easy feat. A related web site is http://www.earthrounders.com, and Mr. Coales’ web site is http://www.n30ew.com.
• Starting on page 5 is an interview with Chuck Shaw: Parallel Perspectives on Hubble, reported by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. This superlative interview ends of page 11, so there is plenty of text and images for your enjoyment.
• Starting on page 12 is a two-page article, LPI Seminar Series: Asteroid Threat Mitigation, reported by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. The featured speaker was Dr. Thomas Jones, a member of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE). The full title of the lecture was Asteroid Threat Mitigation, a Call for International Decision Making.
• Starting on page 14 is the cover story mentioned above, Preparing for Rescue, reported by Daryl Schuck.
• Starting on page 16 is Astonuat Training: What it Takes to be an Astronaut, reported by Alan Simon. This was a lecture at the University of Houston Clear Lake presented by the Clear Lake Association of Senior Programs (CLASP). Introducing the speaker for the evening of January 8, 2009, was Glynn Lunney, the famous Apollo era NASA flight director. The guest speaker was Henry Lampazzi, a NASA Simulation Supervisor.
• Starting on page 18 is a report of a lecture in the series called The Space Center Lecture Series, a series of events led by Dr. Benjamin Longmier of Ad Astra Rocket Company and Gary Kitmacher of NASA/JSC. This series of lectures was co-sponsored by AIAA Houston Section. The web site is http://www.spacecenterlectureseries.com. Their motto, so to speak, was Space Exploration or Extinction, and their T-shirt shows a picture of a dinosaur wearing a space helmet. The presentation was Planetology: Unlocking the Secrets of the Solar System, reported by Alan Simon. The presenter was Dr. Thomas Jones.
• Starting on page 21 is a dinner meeting report by Ellen Gillespie, Chair Elect, and Nick Pantazis, AIAA Houston Section Vice Chair of Operations. The presentation was Continental Airlines: Aircraft Operations for Today and Tomorrow. The speaker was Mr. John Wiitala, Senior Director of Engineering at Continental Airlines.
• Starting on page 22 is Fifty Years of NASA Imagery, reported by Alan Simon. Our reporter attended an opening ceremony for an exhibit at the University of Houston Clear Lake (UHCL) honoring 50 Years of NASA Imagery. University President Er. William A. Staples provided opening remarks. NASA/JSC Director Michael Coats added a few brief remarks. Shelly Kelly, the current Archivist for the University’s Alfred R. Neumann Library JSC History Collection spoke about the collection.
• Page 24 contains a one-page article, Crewed Space Flights and Exploration: En Route to the Future, by Philippe Mairet, Laurent Mangane and Delphine Gourdou of our French sister section 3AF TMP (now in 2012 called 3AF MP) and Douglas Yazell.
• Starting on page 25 is Apollo 8 Panel Discussion, reported by Dr. Steven E. Everett, Editor. This was a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 8 mission, a daring, risky and historic mission. The panel contained eight members and Douglas Yazell, an AIAA volunteer. Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV was the event organizer. Author and Former NASA flight director Marianne Dyson was the event moderator. The eight panelists: Hal Beck, Rod Rose, Marty Jenness, Ken Young, John Llewellyn, Glynn Lunney, Chris Kraft and Emil Schiesser.
• Starting on page 30 is a book review by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair, of the book Meant to Fly: The Career of Captain A.J. High, Pilot for Trans-Texas Airways.
• Page 33 is a one-page collection, Odds and Ends. An image is presented of the text for the plaque to be awarded to the new AIAA Historic Aerospace Site, the 1940 Air Terminal at Hobby Airport in Houston, Texas USA. Also presented is a work of art in black and white, an illustration titled Spitfire, depicted the famous WW II airplane, prepared by artist and Horizons Assistant Editor Don Kulba.
• Page 34 presents a membership update by AIAA Houston Section Membership Chair Lisa Voiles.
• Page 35 presents the AIAA Houston Section calendar.
• Starting on page 36 is a column about Houston’s Chapter 12 of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).
• Starting on page 38 is APR Corner, by Scott Lowther of Aerospace Projects Review (APR). This installment of this regular column presents NEXUS, the design for a huge rocket proposed by General Dynamics and famed rocket engineer Kraft Ehricke. This was proposed in the early 1960s, to be a follow-on to the Saturn V rocket of the 1960s and 1970s.
• Page 40 presents a one-page article, Scholarship Winner Becomes a Summer Intern Here at NASA/JSC, reported by Edward Jablonski. The winner of AIAA Houston Section’s Spirit of Apollo scholarship was Ward Jablonski, a recent intern for NASA/JSC contractor Booz-Allen-Hamilton (BAH). While at BAH, he worked on International Space Station (ISS) Payload Power Allocation Tables as part of the famous NASA VIPER team. At the time this article was written, Ward was an engineering student at the University of Houston (main campus).
• On page 41 is the Cranium Cruncher by AIAA Senior Member Bill Miller. To paraphrase, a square is inscribed inside a triangle whose side lengths are 10, 17 and 21. One side of the square lies alongside the long side of the triangle, one corner of the square touches the triangle’s side of length 10 and one corner of the square touches the triangles’s side of length 17. What is the length of a side of the square?
• The back cover on page 42 has no new articles.

2008

December 2008 Horizons (PDF, 2644 kb)
The 34-page Winter 2008-2009 issue. Volume 34, Issue 1.

• Cover story: Apollo 8: The 40th Anniversary.
• Page 2: Table of Contents. Names from the organization chart are listed on this page. Notes are included here about Horizons and the AIAA Houston Section web site AIAA National Communications Award (a Section award from AIAA national): First place for 2005, 2006 and 2007, and Honorable Mention for 2008.
• Page 3: From the Editor, by Steven Everett, Editor. “40 Years Ago.” Steve writes about the upcoming Apollo 40th anniversaries, and he notes that his own 40th orbit will take place next year. He writes about the Google lunar X Prize and the Ansari X-Prizes.
• Page 4: The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. Wings & Wheels for Saturday, October 18, 2008. Byline: Douglas Yazell, Past Chair.
• Page 5: Dinner lecture summary, Science on the International Space Station (ISS), by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. Jean Engle spoke about her new role at NASA/JSC as Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO). She spoke about knowledge capture plans. The keynote speaker was Dr. Julie Robinson, ISS Program Scientist.
• Page 8: Event Summary: AIAA Young Professionals (YP) Seminar: Aerospace Business Paths, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. AIAA Houston Section YP Chair Jim Palmer introduced three panelists: Nick Pantazis, founder and Vice President of Integrated Strategic Solutions, Inc. (ISSI), Kyle Rone, President of Kyle Rone Enterprises, and Pat Schondel, Vice President of Business Development at The Boeing Company.
• Page 9: Event Summary: Global Warming: Ready or Not!, by Alan Simon. The speaker was Dr. Kevin Trenberth and the venue (not an AIAA event) was the University of Houston Science and Engineering Center. Dr. Trenberth is the head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). He is one of the most influential climate scientists in the USA. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He is also a lead author of global warming reports issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “While Dr. Trenberth by no means came across as an alarmist, he is truly convinced that the Earth is headed for disaster, and climate changes may have proceeded too far to ever completely recover- or at least recovery would not be possible anytime soon. Instead, our Earth is potentially changing into a planet that will not be recognizable within 50 years and beyond. However, he did suggest that every person could individually make a difference to slow the current trends.”
• Page 12: Lunch and Learn Summary: Commercial Orbital Transfer Services, by Steven Everett, Editor. The speaker was Dennis Stone, Assistant Manager for Commercial Space Development, Commercial Crew and Cargo Program (C3PO).
• Page 14: Event Summary: From the Big Bang to Big Brains: The Origins of Structure in an Evolving Universe, by Alan Simon. This was not an AIAA event. The speaker was Dr. Jeff Hester, and the venue was the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). Dr. Hester is a Professor at the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. The event date was November 13, 2009.
• Page 16: Airshow Report: Wings Over Houston, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. This airshow took place on Saturday, October 25, 2008 (and Sunday) at Ellington Field.
• Page 18: Membership, by Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair. New members are listed for the months of September, October and November. The list includes about 30 Members, 30 Student Members and 5 Educator Associates. A reminder is included to nominate people for AIAA awards at www.aiaa.org. A reminder is also included to update your membership records at www.aiaa.org. AIAA Houston Section membership totals are given for September 1, October 1 and November 1, 2008. For example, for September 1, 2008: 1219 total members, 879 professional members, 249 student members and 91 educator associates.
• Page 19: NASA’s 50th Anniversary, NASA’s Earth Observations from Space, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. Sean interviewed Dr. David E. Pitts about his career at NASA/JSC and his work with historic Earth Observations and other aerospace remote sensing projects.
• Page 24: Cover story: Apollo 8 40th Anniversary. The Essence of the Human Spirit: Apollo 8, by Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV. Apollo 8 trajectory figure used with permission of Hamish Lindsay.
• Page 29: Calendar for AIAA Houston Section.
• Page 30: EAA Corner. The Experiment Aircraft Association (EAA). Preliminary meeting schedules and more.
•  Page 32: Aerospace Projects Review (APR) by Scott Lowther. APR Corner. Ancestor of the X-38: X-24. Illustrations courtesy of the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum.
• Page 33: Cranium Cruncher by Bill Miller, Senior Member.
• Page 34: The back cover. Mailing information, AIAA Mission & Vision Statement.

October 2008 Horizons (PDF, 6486 kb)
The 48-page Fall 2008 issue. Volume 33, Issue 4.

• Cover story: NASA Celebrates its 50th Year (Cover image: Vanguard 1, launched March 17, 1958)
• Table of contents, page 2,  organization chart personnel list, Horizons and AIAA Houston Section web site AIAA National Communications Award Winner (& 2008 Honorable Mention), “blue ribbons” 2005, 2006 and 2007.
• Page 3, From the Editor, Steven Everett, The Old and the New.
• Page 4: Lecture Summary. X-Prize at JSC, by Michael Frostad. Peter Diamandis was the speaker whose speech is summarized. Image credit: James C. McLane III. Image caption: Dr. Peter Diamandis (holding sword) with Arthur M. Dula (left), Kristen Diamandis, and astronaut Buzz Aldrin upon receipt of the half million dollar Heinlein Prize for Space Commercialism [Commercialization?] on July 7, 2006.
• The Colder Side of Global Warming, Lecture Summary, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor. On July 22, 2008, the JSC Chapter of the NASA Alumni League and AIAA Houston Section co-hosted a talk on Global Climate Change at Gilruth Center. Keynote speaker Tom Wysmuller made that presentation to a packed room of about 70 people.
• Page 7: Town Hall Meeting Report: Congressman Lampson Town Hall Meeting, July 21, 2008, by Alan Simon.
• Page 10: International Space Activities. Sister Section Visit to Toulouse, France, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. The French sister section is 3AF MP, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter (accents skipped for now, accent egue, easy to Google, but difficult to add to this web page?).
• Page 12: OES in Toulouse. Working Group Meeting in Toulouse, France, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. The French sister section is 3AF MP, l’Association Aeronautique et Astronautique de France, Midi-Pyrenees Chapter (accents skipped for now, accent egue, easy to Google, but difficult to add to this web page?).
• Page 14: Lunar Exploration. Lunar Surface Systems Architecture Overview, by Robert Beremand, GN&C Technical Committee Chair, and Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. Chris Culbert of NASA/JSC allowed us to summarize his presentation in this article.
• Page 16: 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport, an AIAA Historic Aerospace Site. Wings & Wheels, Saturday, July 19, 2008, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair.
• Page 17: NASA’s 50th Anniversary. Looking Back, Celebrating, Looking Forward, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor.
• Page 22: Historic Sites. AIAA Historic Sites in Houston, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair.
• Page 23: NASA’s 50th Anniversary. Interview with Norman H. Chaffee: Observations from a Long NASA Career, by Sean Keefe, Assistant Editor.
• Page 39: Membership, by Lisa Voiles, Membership Chair. Image caption: New member Greg Loe (Honeywell) was a co-presenter and co-author for the presentation, “Orion Entry Flight Control Modifications and Performance” at the AIAA GN&C conference in Hawaii, August 18-21, 2008. The photo is from AIAA Houston Section’s Annual Technical Symposium of 2007 at the NASA/JSC Gilruth Center. Image caption: New member Michael Frostad in a Zero-G airplane flight.
• Page 40: Book Review. A View From the Doghouse, by Douglas Yazell, Past Chair. The author is Celeste Graves of Magnolia, Texas. See www.celestegraves.org. The subject of the book is the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in Houston during World War II.
• Page 42: APR Corner by Scott Lowther. Aerospace Projects Review. This is the first in a series, a regular series for Horizons. An earlier issue (probably the preceding issue, contained our first article from Scott Lowther. This column is about the S-ID. Boeing manufactured the Saturn V and its first stage, the S-IC. In 1967, Boeing proposed the S-ID (single stage to orbit). Image credit: Scott Lowther.
• Page 43: Dinner Meeting. Aerospace’s Role in the Prevention of Terrorism, by Nick Pantazis, Vice Chair, Operations. The guest speaker was Mr. Sam Brinkley, Vice President, Homeland International, Security Services Office, Wackenhut Services. Sam is the father of a past Chair of AIAA Houston Section, Chad Brinkley.
• Page 44: EAA Corner. The Experimental Aircraft Association.
• Page 46: Odds and Ends. Special Events, Pictorials, etc. Image: World War II Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) trainee Marion F. Florsheim. She was in the first class of WASP trainees, at what is now Hobby Airport. Author Celeste Graves kindly sent us this photograph. From Celeste’s book, A View From the Doghouse, “She was a New Yorker and preferred to live alone, so she shared an apartment in the Warwick Hotel with the two Afghan Hounds she brought with her. She was a lovely redhead and was quite a picture exercising her hounds each day. Later she took up interior decorating and was a member of the Committee of teh National Society of Interior Designers who redid the International Reception Room at the White House for President and Mrs. Eisenhower- and again refurbished it for President and Mrs. Kennedy. Marion spent her time between living in New York and France.” The picture of Marion with her pilot’s clothes (hat, red gloves, red shoes), an Afghan Hound on a leash, and a red and white airplane behind them is in black and white in Celeste’s book, but in color in Horizons. This picture is pubished elsewhere without identifying Marion. Another image: four people at Rice University. Professor Andrew Meade, College and Co-op Chair Dr. Gary Turner, Chair Elect Ellen Gillespie, Chair Chad Brinkley. This was taken during a July 2008 meeting. Another image: A 1992 Shanghai visit by delegates from AIAA Houston Section, led by James C. McLane, Jr. and Li Furong. Image credit: delegate Tuyen Hua.
• Page 47: Cranium Cruncher, by Bill Miller, Senior Member.
• Page 48: The back cover. The address for AIAA Houston Section, a postal permit, and some AIAA information.

June 2008 Horizons (PDF, 2774kb) 52 pages, Volume 33, Issue 3

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April 2008 Horizons (PDF, 1631kb)

February 2008 Horizons (PDF, 1430kb)

2007

December 2007 Horizons (PDF, 1247kb)

August 2007 Horizons (PDF, 1229kb)

May 2007 Horizons (PDF, 1629kb)

January 2007 Horizons (PDF, 803kb)

2006

July 2006 Horizons (PDF, 965kb)

May 2006 Horizons (PDF, 948kb)

March 2006 Horizons (PDF, 973kb)

January 2006 Horizons (PDF, 978kb)

2005

November 2005 Horizons (PDF, 1221kb)

September 2005 Horizons (PDF, 1024kb)

July 2005 Horizons (PDF, 1005kb)

May 2005 Horizons (PDF, 664kb)

March 2005 Horizons (PDF, 773kb)

January 2005 Horizons (PDF, 994kb)