25 May 1998
April 1998 OSF Technical Committee and Progress Reports
by Candace Bartleson
Lunar Development Technical Committee
In the mailing list discussions, Richard Perry presented several sources
of information for building a moonbase.
Recreation and Tourism Technical Committee
Discussed was the issue of how to preserve the Apollo, and other
landing sites once we've gotten tourism established on the moon.
Also, a topic for discussion was presented for starting Earth-based,
Lunar-oriented tourism, but nobody has responded.
3D Graphics Technical Committee
- Vik Olliver has been officialy appointed as permanent committee
chairman.
- Neil Sedlak has joined the fold, bringing additional experience
in both 2D and 3D graphics formats. Unfortunately, he then went and
injured himself, but is expected to be up and running in a few days.
- A brief MPEG has been produced of the ELECTRA microlander
landing on Luna.
- Files can now be imported and exchanged through Wavefront OBJ
and Lightwave OWL formats.
Logistics Technical Committee
- Posters
- Printer aquisition - completed.
- Shipping logistics - completed.
- Shipping containers - ready to be ordered, 3 day shipping.
- Storage facility - identified, ready to be rented.
- Microlander
- Assisted in finding launch vehicle.
- Japan - identified.
- NASA - GASCAN.
- France - being researched.
- Russia - contacted waiting for response.
Proposed name "ELECTRA" (Okay, I take the credit).
- Ongoing projects
| Launch sites |
- Have listed those in service.
- Checking on Long March (China) as to usability.
|
| Launch vehicles |
- List of all available and planned launch vehicles
created and posted.
|
| Language resources |
- Several people with new language resources were identified.
- Dutch has been added to the list of languages we can
now interpret documents or discuss issues in.
|
The logistics team is operating fairly loosely at this point. Seven
members are on as many different other committees to help coordinate
the work effort.
Spacecraft Software Technical Committee
As part of the Electra microlander studies, the flight team
started the EMDEC study. EMDEC stands for Electra Microlander
Descent Efficiency Calculator and is the first part of a detailed
simulation of the flight trajectory. The goal of this study is to
determine the fuel usage, engine choice, maneuvers and GN&C.