SEDS national/multi-chapter projects

[neubjr]

Hello, I have written a bit about this topic in other posts but I wanted to start a thread specifically for looking into starting some type of SEDS national or multi-chapter projects. I am really interested in getting real projects together that will add something to our knowledge/understanding of how to best explore space. Other organizations all have their main projects (Planetary Society has Solar Sail, Mars Society has their analog research stations and now their translife biosatelite project (http://www.marsgravity.org/)...). As SEDS becomes more organized I think that it will be very important to have a main project that we are working on. I wanted to start this thread to begin a little discussion about what a project like this might be. In previous posts there have been several ideas already:

1. I have started a Lunar Research Project here at MIT which I am very interested in working as a large multi-chapter project. For info on this see the Lunar Project thread under the Project Discussions forum. Or email me. I think this could work as a very good SEDS project.

2. Recently there was a post about the Iridium satelite. If this is a possibility it could be a very good main SEDS project as well.

I was generally hoping that people could discuss ideas for what they thought would be a good project, and to see how we could best go about starting something like this. If you have ideas or any comments post them up.

-Joshua.

[neubjr]

I posted this thread a while ago, but really don't want to let it die quite yet. I really want SEDS to get a unifying project going that involves many of the chapters. Each chapter has different areas of specialty that its constituents are often interested in. Because of this I think that SEDS has a unique organization capable of really putting together a good multi-chapter project.

At the Conference in the spring we will have meetings specifically for organizing SEDS and setting up future events etc for SEDS. Basically SEDS-Exec meetings. During this time, I would like to settle on a multi-chapter project for SEDS to really pursue. I have been in favor of doing some simple lunar lander project, but I want to hear ideas and just see how much people thing we (SEDS) can really do with a project, basically how big of a project should we look for?

-Joshua.

[Skulled]

I think we need to have a specific amount of time during the conference designated to discussion and planning the future of SEDS. As we have seen from other threads, we have quite some good ideas on how the structure of SEDS should be changed to make it a more active body and how to get more people involved. I think we should give quite some importance to these points during the conference. We need to have a discussion group among all the SEDS members present and make up a general structure for SEDS, so that it can be implemented the coming year without much discussion on other areas.

As i said before, we should concentrate a little on get more involved in outreach and getting new chapters and members from more countries than the few presently involved in SEDS.

This could provide a boost to SEDS. And another important point is that outreach in developing countries can bring in quite some gani because then we would have more outlets for sponsorship and so.

What do you guys think of this?

[neubjr]

we have put in quite a bit of time for SEDS-exec meetings to discuss trhe structure of SEDS. We also have a general open forum discussion time set in the schedule so far. So we will definitely be putting a lot of time into figuring out the future of SEDS again during the conference. We'll have lots and lots of stuff to talk about :)

And I'm outa here now.

Josh.

[neubjr]

We are setting up some time slots for SEDS-exec and organizational meetings during the conference. Hopefully we will be able to discuss several things regarding the future of SEDS in our meeting times at the conference (we will have between 2-3 hours a day for meetings I think):

1. SEDS project -- I'd hope to be able to decide on a project to pursue and then set some sort of timeline for the project.

2. SEDS Organizational Structure -- International group organization etc...

3. SEDS USA executive elections -- these have not actually been held in a while. We should definitely do this.

4. SEDS fundraising/Sponsorship -- beyond just getting money for the conference, SEDS needs to start looking into more general sponsorship and fundraising for our organization as a whole.


As far as the Project goes, I m of the opinion that SEDS could undertake a fairly large project, but we will need to be careful not to try to conquer something too big. But I really think we can take on a project that would really get SEDS some publicity and notice. We just have to get organized and put it together. The conference will be the perfect time to do this. We've thrown around several ideas about projects in the past, I'd like to hear more. So far I mentioned Lunar projects, maybe some real simple lunar lander, the exo-solar planets project was brought up, and I'm sure there are others. Keep the ideas flowing.

Josh.