Upcoming Non-HRPO Talks

[Christopher K.]

Date: Thursday, 22 July 2010
Time: 6:30pm
Place: Ascension Parish Library in Dutchtown
Address: 13278 Highway 73

Topic: Louisiana and the Space Race: A History of the Michoud Assembly Facility
Speaker: John Filostrat

Michoud has one of the largest production buildings in the country. It includes a vertical assembly building for stacking external tank components for the shuttle. Michoud supports several aspects of the Constellation Program, including the upper stage of the Ares I rocket, the core stage and Earth departure stage of the Ares V cargo rocket, and the Orion crew exploration vehicle. Michoud staff will conduct final systems integration and checkout of Ares I avionics systems.

Mr. Filostrat will also discuss the future of the facility in light of the current plans to cancel the Space Shuttle program.

The event is free and open to the public. Anyone interested should register in advance by calling 673-8699.

More information at:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/michoud/index.html
http://main.ascension.lib.la.us/index.php?page=library-branches
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/main/index.html

[Christopher K.]

Date: Saturday, 18 September
Time: 1pm to 5pm
Place: LIGO
Address: 19100 LIGO Lane

Guests: Exploratorium Scientists

This isn't exactly a talk, but it should be quite interesting.

LIGO holds free "Science Saturdays" every third week or so, which in and of itself is already cool. Visitors sit in for a screening of Einstein's Messengers, which explains the fascinating search that is being conducting with the incredible equipment in Livingston. Visitors also get to tour the master control room where the elusive gravitational waves would trigger alarms and, I suppose, send whoever it was on duty scrambling for email and phone.

There is a room of interactive exhibits that demonstrate different properties of our physical world. It's awesome!

This next Science Saturday also will feature scientists from the Exploratorium in California.

LIGO Science Education Center:
http://www.ligo-la.caltech.edu/SEC/sechome.html