Volume 39 The Newsletter of AIAA Houston Section July / August 2013 Issue 1 The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics www.aiaahouston.org Hubble Revisited on NASA’s 50th Anniversary Images of Earth from Two Distant NASA Spacecraft Also, Continuing in this Issue! Part 7 of 8: Man Will Conquer Space Soon! (Collier’s 1952-54) AIAA Houston Section Horizons July / August 2013 Page 1 Near the top of every page is an invisible link to return to this page. The link is in located here (the blue bar), but not all pages display this bar. July / August 2013 Horizons, Newsletter of AIAA Houston Section T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S From the Chair, by Michael Frostad 3 From the Editor, by Douglas Yazell 4 Cover Story: Images of Earth from Two Distant NASA Spacecraft 5 Webster's Tourism Connection, by Dr. Betsy Giusto 10 The 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Hobby Airport 14 Horizons is a bimonthly publication of the Houston Section The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Chapter 12 (Houston) 15 of The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Climate Change and Local Responses 16 Douglas Yazell, Editor Editing team: Dr. Steven E. Everett, Ellen Gillespie, Shen The Johnson Space Center Astronomical Society (JSCAS) 17 Ge, Don Kulba, Alan Simon Regular contributors: Dr. Steven E. Everett, Douglas Staying Informed (United Nations 2013 IPCC AR5 climate change report) 20 Yazell, Scott Lowther, Philippe Mairet Contributors this issue: Wes Kelly, Dr. Betsy Giusto, Jim The Late James C. McLane, Jr. (Part 1 of 6, Dinner Meeting Presentation) 21 Wessel, James C. McLane III, Melvin Schuetz, John Sisson A Tour of Copenhagen Suborbitals, by Shen Ge 22 AIAA Houston Section Looking at Houston Horizons for Space, by Wes Kelly 24 Executive Council Current Events 31 Michael Frostad Chair A Tribute to the Pioneers Who Challenged the Atlantic Ocean by Airplane 32 Dr. Michael Martin Shen Ge Section News: Calendar and Cranium Cruncher 36 Chair-Elect Secretary Section News: Organization Charts for 3AF MP and AIAA Houston Section 38 Daniel Nobles Jennifer Wells Past Chair Treasurer Student Section News: Rice University and Texas A&M University 40 Eryn Beisner Clay Stangle The Collier’s 1952-54 Space Series, Man Will Conquer Space Soon! 42 Vice-Chair, Operations Vice-Chair, Technical Collier’s of June 27, 1953, Man Will Conquer Space Soon! 47 Operations Technical The Back Cover: One Giant Leap! NASA LADEE Moon Mission Launch 62 Dr. Gary Turner Dr. Albert A. Jackson IV Laura Sarmiento Bebe Kelly-Serrato Eetion Narcisse Dr. Zafar Taqvi Rafael Munoz Liz Warren Horizons and AIAA Houston Section Web Site Svetlana Hanson Dr. Satya Pilla AIAA 2013 National Communications Third Place Award Winner: Section Chair Daniel Nobles Victoria Wills Sheikh Ahsan Douglas Yazell Roger Kleinhammer Ryan Miller Dr. Steven E. Everett Kathleen Coderre Gary Brown Irene Chan (acting) Ted Kenny Dr. Kamlesh Lulla Ludmila Dmitriev-Odier Councilors This newsletter is created by members of AIAA Houston Section. Opinions expressed herein other Alan Sisson than by elected Houston Section officers belong solely to the authors and do not necessarily repre- Christopher Davila sent the position of AIAA or the Houston Section. Unless explicitly stated, in no way are the com- Dr. Larry Friesen ments of individual contributors to Horizons to be construed as necessarily the opinion or position Shirley Brandt of AIAA, NASA, its contractors, or any other organization. All articles in Horizons, unless other- Sarah Shull wise noted, are the property of the individual contributors. Reproduction/republishing in any form Irene Chan except limited excerpts with attribution to the source, will require the express approval of the indi- Robert Plunkett vidual authors. Please address all newsletter correspondence to editor2012[at]aiaahouston.org. Ellen Gillespie Michael Kezirian Cover: Image credit: NASA. Douglas Yazell www.aiaahouston.org This page: part of Vincent van Gogh’s 1889 painting The Starry Night. AIAA Houston Section Horizons July / August 2013 Page 2 Page 3 Back to Basics From the Chair MICHAEL FROSTAD, CHAIR The AIAA Houston Section, one of the spread awareness, and perhaps reminders, largest sections of the American Institute of upcoming AIAA Houston events so of Aeronautics and Astronautics, kicked look for us on Facebook and LinkedIn if off the 2013-2014 season on August 6th those are your preferred avenues of stay- with an executive council kick-off meet- ing in touch. ing, a leadership retreat. As with any be- ginning, we started with the basics: What In addition to Communication, we want to Michael Frostad is our Objective? What is our Mission? make sure our technical branch is provid- [email protected] ing a good base community for each disci- Our Objective is to further within our ter- pline. Examining our organization chart ritory the purposes and programs of the you will find that the Houston Section has American Institute of Aeronautics and 14 technical committees. I highly encour- Astronautics. age you to find your technical committee (or a closely related one) and to contact We accomplish this objective by fulfilling the technical committee Chair to get on four primary missions: their lists so you are the first to know Provide the AIAA Houston Section when the next meeting or Lunch and Membership with opportunities for Learn is – or even to offer a talk about feels like it is flying through a storm or continuing education, professional your current work. A technical Lunch and meteor shower, depending on the day, yet growth, and recognition for accom- Learn is a great way to share your infor- together it accomplishes its missions and plishments. mation locally and perhaps help you to objectives. As we come together this next Stimulate the exchange of infor- hone that presentation before a national year to accomplish the AIAA Houston mation within the scientific and tech- conference. Section missions and objective, we will nical community. be building a stronger aerospace commu- Provide support and encouragement As the AIAA year ramps up, AIAA Hou- nity and promoting the technical exchang- for students learning math, science, ston Section has already coordinated a es needed for the future. We look forward and engineering. local STEM event, provided information to seeing and working with you at the Assist the general public in under- for national STEM training courses, and next event! volunteered at the 100 Year standing the benefits of aerospace systems technology. Starship Symposium. Up- coming events include a At the kick-off event many great ideas booth at Wings Over Hou- were discussed on how to fulfill these ston airshow, sending a missions over the year and already we speaker(s) to a local elemen- have been working towards their imple- tary school, and technical mentation. lunch and learns; so be sure to always check the website One of the main concerns is one that re- and pay attention to those curs over and over in any organization – emails to stay in the loop. Communication. To this end the email lists have already been updated and As we move forward, contin- scrubbed so that we can insure members uing to build our capabilities, get the benefit of members only infor- the AIAA Houston Section mation and yet still reach out to past plans to make this year an- members and others in the area that might other great one for the Hou- be interested in our public programs. Al- ston area. Putting together a general schedule for the ready a “members only” email with Above: The official name of Orion is ‘Multi-Purpose STEM event training was sent out so if combined Operations and Technical branches we have Crew Vehicle’ as the spacecraft can be used to com- you did not receive it, be sure your mem- plete different missions. Presently NASA wants to do a bership is up to date or contact us to help a goal of over 100 area events and meetings for the first unmanned test flight in 2017, meaning that ESA sort it out. Other emails about upcoming will have to deliver the first service module in 2016. events and our Horizon's newsletter an- year. These events, varied in size and scope, will require This is a tight deadline, but the people behind ATV nouncements have also gone out to help have gotten used to delivering a new spacecraft in you stay up to date. Furthermore we plan effort and time from an al- under 20 months. Image and text credit: ESA. to expand the use of our social media to ready busy community. It is a community that sometimes AIAA Houston Section Horizons July / August 2013 Page 3 Page 4 From the Editor Pythagoras, Fermat & Red Bull Stratos DOUGLAS YAZELL, EDITOR We thank Dr. Betsy As I walked past Fermat high school in The Wikipedia FLT article is a good start- Giusto and her Toulouse, France this summer during my ing point. Fermat conjectured there are no coworkers at the City vacation, I decided to review a few as- positive integer solutions for those three of Webster City Coun- pects of the solution and history of Fer- quantities when the integer exponent is cil for permission to mat’s Last Theorem (FLT). It relates to greater than 2. This was finally proven to reprint their cover sto- the Pythagorean theorem: the sum of the be true in 1995, 358 years later. Once ry about the new dis- squares of the two sides of a right triangle elementary mathematics was used to play at Space Center is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. prove FLT true for an exponent of 4, it Houston.