ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Annual Event Update

MESSAGES FROM THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

• Want to Make Friends with Influential People?
• Dues or No Dues: How Will the NAAA Support Itself?

THE ISSUE AT HAND: COMMUNICATION

• New Local Area Email Lists and other Communications Resources
• July Poll Results: Are We Communicating?

REMEMBER WHEN…

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

JUST FOR FUN

NEXT ISSUE

CONTACT INFORMATION

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Annual Event Update

October 1st is less than nine weeks away, which means the time for our third annual event is rapidly approaching. As mentioned before, this year’s event will be in conjunction with Mars Week, organized by ThinkMars, in Boston, MA. To learn more about the annual event, the ThinkMars group, or Mars Week visit http://www.nasa-academy.org and select the July 25th announcement entitled, "1999 Annual Event Speaker Update!" from the announcement window. The NAAA-specific activities will take place on Sunday, October 3rd and consist of our 3rd Annual Congress as well as an update/discussion group on the UNISPACE III Space Generation Forum. However, plans are still dynamic so check back often. Questions? Send e-mail to president@nasa-academy.org.

MESSAGES FROM THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

The Board of Advisors working group is actively seeking alumni support. If you have the desire to speak with renowned leaders in the space industry on a one-on-one basis don’t miss this opportunity to get involved. We currently have a preliminary list of individuals we will be addressing as well as the questions we will be asking them, but we need additional alumni willing to pick up the phone, or stop by their office to collect the information we seek. So, if you have the time and the talent to contribute send e-mail to president@nasa-academy.org.

Greetings Academy Alumni,

The membership drive that took place several weeks ago was successful in updating the contact information of most of our members. Unfortunately, we did not succeed in "upgrading" our bank account. The annual event is only ten weeks away, and now more than ever the NAAA is in need of financial support.

We on the executive council had hoped that along with so many of us renewing our membership forms, we would also pull in a decent amount of money from donations. Thus far, I have received only one donation.

Currently, the only source of income for the NAAA comes in the form of donations. Of course, there are also the fundraising drives that we plan and hold to help generate revenue, but they largely boil down to people making donations and getting a small thank you gift in return. Certainly we must make every effort to find interested business and other outside parties that will be willing to contribute. However, with our numbers growing into the hundreds, it is also becoming clear that we as members should support the NAAA as much as possible.

As long as we can confidently expect a steady stream of financial involvement from the alumni, large enough to help fund things like the annual event, then there is nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, we all get busy in life, and it is easy to overlook the importance of taking a few minutes to mail in $5 or $10 once a year.

How do we solve this problem? How do we help to ensure that the NAAA will have a steady and secure source of income? Well, one possible solution is to introduce a formal dues structure. This would essentially mean requiring the receipt of a certain dollar amount once a year from each member, in order for that member to be officially "active" in the NAAA. Of course, there are a variety of ways this could be implemented, and they should be discussed.

In bringing this issue up, I hope to start a dialogue. What do you think? Let's get the ideas and opinions out on the table, and see where we can go with it. Maybe after discussing it, we will all see that going to a formal dues structure is a bad idea. Okay. Just remember, the bottom line is that we should all be thinking about the well-being of the NAAA, which includes both its ability to serve its members AND the ability for its members to serve in it.

THE ISSUE AT HAND: COMMUNICATION

"We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we aregoing to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk." -
- Roosevelt, Eleanor (1884-1962)

Part of the core mission of the NAAA is to promote communication and interaction between NASA Academy alumni. Most people are aware of the 'alumni' chat email list that has been in place for several years now, but there are some other communications services provided by the NAAA that you might not be aware of. In this article I wanted to tell you about the latest feature we have added, "local area" email lists, and refresh your memory regarding some of the other services already in place.

Two local area email lists have already been set up to serve the Denver area and the DC area, but we would like to set up several more to serve other areas of the country with large concentrations of alumni. This idea originated because some alumni were already keeping private email lists for their local areas to send out notices of local events or activities. Now these lists will be available for all NAAA members to use, and they will always be kept up to date based on the most current information contained in the NAAA database. As the NAAA membership continues to grow, hopefully this will also help reduce traffic on the 'alumni' list that really only applies to a small fraction of the subscribers.

There are at least three other areas of the country where we would like to set up additional local area lists immediately: Southern California (LA), Northern California (Ames/Stanford), and Boston. If you are interested in having a local list for your area, even if it is not one of the areas mentioned above, please contact me to talk about setting it up.

Finally, in case you might not have been aware of the other "communications resources" provided by the NAAA, I put together the following summary. All alumni can benefit from these services by simply keeping your contact information current with the NAAA.

Communications Resources Provided by the NAAA:

• The NAAA maintains two main email lists, 'news' and 'alumni.' The 'alumni' list is a general chat list that anyone can post to, and subscribers have the choice of receiving postings immediately or in digest format (sent out about once a week). The 'news' list is a closed list used by the NAAA officers for announcements and other important information for all of the NAAA members.
• The NAAA has just created new "local area" email lists to facilitate communications and planning of activities for groups of alumni that are active on a local level. Two lists have been created to date, 'denver-area' and 'dc-area'.
• Every member of the NAAA has their own personal email alias in the form of 'firstname.lastname@nasa-academy.org' which redirects mail to the email address listed in the 'primary email address' field in the NAAA database. As long as your contact information is kept up to date with the NAAA, you can receive mail through this alias at your current email address.
• The NAAA also supports several email aliases that have been created to facilitate communications between working groups and other volunteers with the organizations. Mail can be sent to any of the respective groups using an address of the form: alias@nasa-academy.org. Currently active aliases include:

Speaking of participation, I'd like to make a few comments on the general results of the survey. Of the approximately 250 current members of the NAAA, only about 39 people responded to the poll. While this is a considerable number, it represents only about 16% of the total membership. Certainly this is not an accurate reflection of the actual readership of the 'alumni' and 'news' lists, but it seems to be an indication of a general lack of communication among the conglomerate NASA Academy alumni. Ian Ruiz received a similarly small percentage of responses regarding the upcoming Annual Event, an issue much more important than this poll and yet still ignored. What is going on here? In any organization, communication is vital if anything is to be accomplished. Are we communicating enough to accomplish the goals of the NAAA? And if not, what can be done to improve communications?

The resources necessary for thorough communication within the NAAA have been provided, as Mike explained in his article. Let's use them!

Oh, and one other thing... all of you who are just sitting back there reading quietly but not participating... may I invite you to speak up and let your thoughts be heard?

I am totally open to discussion on this topic, particularly in relation to how the newsletter can better serve the NAAA's communication needs. Please address comments/criticisms/conjectures to erobinson@mail.arc.nasa.gov!

REMEMBER WHEN…

Hey everyone, warm up those memories of the good old days back at the Academy and jot them down for all to enjoy!
It can be a sentence, a paragraph, or a short story... just send it in!!

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Unfortunately, the lack of participation apparent in the poll also afflicted the "Where Are They Now" submissions so I'm going to give the members of the 1997 Ames Academy some more time to respond... (Thanks to the couple of you who did respond in a timely manner!)

Please submit entries in the following format:

Name:
Email:
Current contact info:
Work company or school:
Work title and/or major and degree sought:
Work/school contact info:
Major work/school project(s):
Discussion (2-3 paragraphs, can be personal and/or work-related):

Ames 1997 Academy… you're up! Please send me your entry in a timely manner! Thanks!

JUST FOR FUN

Take a break from the poll scene and test your wits on this simple Solar System Quiz:
(Answers found at the bottom.)

1. How many moons does Saturn have?
2. What was the first planet to be discovered with a telescope?
3. On which planet could you observe the Sun rising in the west and setting in the east? If you were able to observe anything...
4. When do comets chase their tails (ie, fly tail first)?
5. What planet was predicted to exist before it was observed?
6. Which planet spins the fastest?

1. more than 20 moons... 2. Uranus 3. Venus 4. When they're flying away from the sun 5. Neptune 6. Jupiter

NEXT ISSUE

• "Where Are They Now?" - Ames Academy 1997 Please email your formatted response (see above) to erobinson@mail.arc.nasa.gov as soon as possible! Thanks!
• Look forward to summary articles from the 1999 Academies!
• Send in your articles of summer reunions and gatherings!
• Got an idea for an NAAA-wide opinion poll on space issues? Read a good space-related book you'd recommend to any other space enthusiast? Need an answer to tough riddle or trivia question? I am actively seeking fun and entertaining stuff to include in the newsletter as well as NAAA business and news!!

CONTACT INFORMATION

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.

Newsletter Editor: Erin Robinson erobinson@mail.arc.nasa.gov

The Executive Committee: ec@nasa-academy.org
Ian Ruiz, President president@nasa-academy.org
Kyle Snyder, Vice-president of Operations vp-ops@nasa.academy.org
Joe Mueller, Vice-president of Finance vp-finance@nasa.academy.org