Sorry for the long delay in getting out our newsletter but I’ve been extremely busy the past 2 months with my job and some "2001" projects in the works. We have a lot of "Space Odyssey" and space news to report to fill 2-newsletters but we’ve combined them into one super newsletter this month. A lot of cosmic events had taken place recently from the lunar eclipse on May 16 to the ISS Expedition Six crew coming home to Earth May 3. Plus the "2001: A Space Odyssey" saga has come to an end in June as "2001" fan Larry Evans will wrap up the Timeline in his article "2001: The Journey".
I’m also happy to report that my co-worker, James Donald is working on preliminary plans for a proposal to help build a Columbia memorial at NASA Ames Research Center, which is a fitting tribute to the courageous crew. We’ll keep you posted on this ambitious project. And as a sad reminder to that tragic episode in our space program, Rise Green has sent our World Tonight reporter, Terry Boblet her first hand experience about the Columbia in a article, "Rise Green's STS-107 Story".

"Space News:
Expedition Six Crew's Time on ISS Featured Science, Two Spacewalks:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/

Experts say shuttles too old to keep flying:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/05/26/shuttle.aging.ap/index.html

Rise Green's STS-107 Story:

I hated it so much when the Columbia tragedy happened. I don't think I'll ever forget that day. I live in Dallas, and of course the air is full of aircraft all the time. I even live between two fire stations and right in the flight path of the helipad to the hospital, and sometimes it's like being in the middle of a M*A*S*H unit. That morning about 8 a.m. I was making my bed, when I heard what I thought was a plane, but it sounded really different, really loud. I remember thinking, "Wonder what's wrong with that plane?" I went to get the oil changed in my car, and when I walked in to the shop everyone was gathered around a television, and an elderly lady was crying. That's when I found out about it. It was so sad.

There is so much aircraft in the skies all the time, you get to where unless it's something really unusual you just don't pay any attention. But that morning there was no ignoring the roar that Columbia made. I knew that something was terribly wrong with the craft that was making that noise. My niece and her husband found a piece of debris in their back yard, and turned it over to the police. The piece of debris turned out to be a large piece of green foam from the shuttle. Those items needed to be returned to NASA to study and try to find out what caused the crash.

The sound Columbia was making was a deafening roar. It was like a jet was right on top of the apartment complex. I kept expecting to hear a crash at any moment. Then it went on over and I kind of put it of my mind until I reached the Firestone shop. A lot of people reported hearing sonic booms. I didn't hear them, just the roar. The one good thing about that day was that it fell apart in pretty much sparsely populated areas east-southeast of Dallas. If it had crashed in Dallas or Fort Worth and hit a major public place or residential area, the casualties would have been enormous.

Editors Note: We thank Rise for submitting her personal story to the World Tonight. For further information regarding STS-107, please visit the Investigation Reference page:
http://www.spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/investigation/index.html

"2001" fan Dana Lubich reports to the World Tonight that Founder and President, Dr. Peter H. Diamandis of the X Prize is offering a $10,000,000 prize to jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between the most talented entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world:
http://www.xprize.org/index.html

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE update by Larry Evans, at the San Jose convention center, May 23 - 26, 2003:

Hello everyone,

I have literally just walked through the door after driving back from San Jose and the National Space Society's International Space Development Conference for 2003. It seemed a bit small this year, but the quality of the presentations was very high. The Space Enterprise track set up and hosted by member Robert Hillhouse was exceptional, especially the Saturday morning panel on Space Tourism. Bob and many others worked very hard to put on quality presentations throughout the conference and they definitely succeeded.

Of special interest to members of OCSS, I wanted to mention that during the awards banquet on Sunday evening, OCSS received a great award this year. In fact it is the top award given to any chapter: Chapter Excellence -- The Chapter of the Year Award.

The award was given for not only the quantity, but also the quality of the work accomplished by our chapter during 2002. I want to thank each and every member of OCSS for a fantastic job. I was proud to be there to accept the award on behalf of OCSS. I was also very gratified that we were able to have several other people from the chapter present during ISDC. However, even if you are one of our many members that lives outside of Orange County remember that your support is always felt here and we could not have done it with every one of you. Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back!

Another highlight of the weekend was that I had the opportunity to meet with the new National Space Society Executive Director, Brian Chase. Unlike his recent predecessors, it appears that Brian is sincerely interested in the chapters and has been floating several ideas about how NSS HQ can better support the active chapters around the country. He was very willing to listen to suggestions and I hope that this is the beginning of a new era of a better relationship with Washington, DC.

Finally, I am very excited by the great contacts made by member Sema Basol while in San Jose. She was extremely active in seeking out support and ideas from guests and speakers at ISDC. This is primarily for the organization she runs: Global Friendship Through Space Education. Everyone who had a chance to talk with her was excited about the concept and the upcoming Youth Space Summit at Space Camp Turkey in July. There are some very exciting opportunities that may open up from this ISDC, but we'll pass along more of those later as details are worked out. I will whet your appetite with one clue: One of the coolest ideas to come out of the conference involved Ping-Pong balls! Stay tuned for more on that one.

One of the last things I did before getting behind the wheel today to head south was to request a short video introduction from Brian Chase that will be played at the Space Summit in Turkey. He was very gracious and gave a great greeting for the kids. Thank you Brian.

That's it for today. Thanks again to everyone in OCSS. You all do fantastic work to support space exploration.

Larry Evans
President
Orange County Space Society

For further information about ISDC, go to their website at http://www.nsschapters.org/isdc/2003/

This special reminder is about NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project, which kicks off by launching the first of two unique robotic geologists on June 8. The identical rolling rovers see sharper images, can explore farther and examine rocks better than anything that's ever landed on Mars. The second rover mission, bound for a different site on Mars, will launch June 25.

Space News:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer/

http://www.marssociety.org/

"2001" Fan Artwork:
During the "2001" exhibit campaign in San Jose, one of our participants created a picture of the "2001" collectors from "2001:Destination Space", The Tech Museum. Visit our art/fan section to see "2001:Destination Space" artwork, by Mike Jackson:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/fan3.html

And
Missiles and Space News Releases - New Lockheed Martin-sponsored Tech
Museum "2001" exhibit contrasts science fiction with science fact -
http://lmms.external.lmco.com/newsbureau/pressreleases/2001/01.09.html

TV/MOVIE ALERT:
Arbors Mist is now promoting their new product, a new creamy wine blender drink, Arbor Mist Wine Blenders. In a dramatic but funny commercial using Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra."

The World Tonight was recently listed at the top ten things to check out on the web by Learn The Net: http://www.learnthenet.com/english/features/tenthings.htm
And
The World Tonight was recently listed in What's New on Yahoo - Wed April 30, 2003: http://dir.yahoo.com/new_additions/20030430/Entertainment/

Thank you Ray Leyva for updating the Piers Bizony book cover in the Gift Shop book section http://www.2001exhibit.org/gift/store3.html

"2001" Press:
"2001" fan Dana Lubich and I revamped the "2001" Magazine section with recent magazines covers and articles about the film. Next month, we’ll create a whole new section with old collectible magazines about "2001":
http://www.2001exhibit.org/press/2001zines.html

"2001: A Space Odyssey" Film Update:
"2001: A Space Odyssey" is coming to Palo Alto California! The Spangenberg Theater is considering bringing back the film to the bay area and as you probably already guessed we’re working with the management to combine our efforts for a grand opening. We’ll keep you posted on that project.

"2010" Music:
"Ligeti: Under the Influence Review" -
http://www.sfcv.org/arts_revs/sfchambersingers_4_8_03.php

"2010" News:
"2010" fans will appreciate reading the "Cyrillic Tutorial for 2010"
fans" by Terry Boblet:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/designs.html
Or
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/frames8.html
Or
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/frames7.html
Or without frames:
http://www.2001exhibit.org/arts/signage5.html

"2001" Timeline:

"2001: The Journey"

For 35 years we have lived with an exciting and hopeful vision of the future as set down on paper and film by Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick. Now the first part of that journey as envisioned is drawing to a conclusion.

Thursday, May 29: The Discovery 1 arrives in Jovian space and enters Jupiter orbit.

Friday, June 13: Bowman exits Discovery 1 to investigate a giant artifact similar to TMA-1. Bowman enters the Star Gate and is transported across 20,000 light years to a point near the galactic core. Here the aliens that first taught humankind to survive 4 million years before transform him.
Bowman returns to Earth as the Star Child with powers to change the future course of history.

I sat in a darkened theater in Hollywood on my 13th birthday with my best friends to watch this vision unfold for the first time. I remember vividly the ambivalent feelings I had as I first watched the Dawn of Man sequence. I thought this movie was supposed to propel us into space, not onto the African savanna. I wanted rocket ships and space battles!

When Moon watcher finally threw his bone into the air and we jumped forward to the space age, I was at the edge of my seat for what surely would come next.
This is what I had come for. When would we see the aliens bent on conquering Earth? When would our intrepid astronauts rise to the occasion to save us all?
This was what science fiction had been like up until that very moment.
Then the classical music came on, a beautiful waltz in space. My feelings started to change. I became mesmerized by the ballet of spaceflight that floated before me. I started to truly understand what I was seeing; this was a projected reality of the future. This was where we were truly headed if the promise of what was happening at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida succeeded.

By the time the vision had taken us to the Star Gate in orbit around Jupiter, I knew that everyone in the audience was being taken on a ride we would never forget.

After "2001" was over, my friends and I left the theater, but the experience was far from over. Unlike an ordinary film that might leave you with some feelings of having a good time for a couple of hours, we started to talk, to dissect, to experience the movie all over again. Each of us had had a slightly different experience. Each of us saw the events unfold with a different set of eyes. The movie almost immediately started to get deeper than anything I had seen before. In retrospect, I even started to understand the opening sequence. The Dawn of Man was no longer a segment that we had to wait through to get to the space stuff, it was integral to the whole story of humankind and how we got from there to here.

This is where the repeated viewing started. There was so much more to learn about what had been seen. Sometimes I just wanted to simply sit back and immerse myself in the experience. It took over 30 years to truly understand the depth of that experience. I think most of you reading these comments probably have had a similar journey.

As we approached the real year 2001, it was time to get excited about coming events. There was disappointment because the vision we witnessed had not transpired the way Clarke and Kubrick had thought. Who would have believed we would retreat from deep space after only six landings on the Moon? Where was Clavius Base and expeditions to Mars and the outer planets? But the vision persists and it will come to pass. But there was still hope.

Possibly before the end of the year, we will have the first privately funded spaceflights occurring. Spurred on by the $10 million X-Prize competition, there are currently four to five companies that are close enough that they may be able to launch people into suborbital spaceflights in the next three to six months. Wouldn't it be a heck of a way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk to have some private citizens in space.

The first words in the novel state: "The drought had lasted now for ten million years." Our drought has lasted since 1972 and the last of the Apollo flights to the Moon. However, droughts never last forever.

"Then he waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still
untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite
sure what to do next.

"But he would think of something."
Arthur C. Clarke, 1968

What a fabulous journey he created for us all, so many years ago.

Larry Evans, Mach25Comm@aol.com

Visit our Timeline in the science section at http://www.2001exhibit.org/science/timeline.html

To all "2001" fans that ordered Gary Lockwood and Kier Dullea autograph pictures from our website, we’ll be sending out your orders in June. Also, Gary Lockwood’s Domain Name for his website, "www.gary-lockwood2001.com" will be active on Friday May30th! In the meantime, please visit: http://www.parthenet.com/garylock/

If you have anything about "2001/2010" or space news, report it to the World Tonight and I’ll give you special credit. Until then…

See you next Wednesday (Frank).