April Public Meeting + AGM 2017 | Mars MEDIAN Mission with Robert Brand

This is the free monthly meeting of the Space Association of Australia - all welcome!

We'll be in the Function Room on the first floor of the Caulfield RSL. The venue is disabled friendly and includes a lift. Meals are available at reasonable prices. Ample car parking is available immediately behind the RSL or in St Georges Road.  Trams and trains run within 200 metres of the venue.

 The meeting will be streamed live and then made available on-demand via the Space Association's YouTube channel SAA.TV or directly here. 

---

MEDIAN: Methane Detection by In-situ Analysis with NanoLanders - A Mars Mission

MEDIAN is aiming at Mars to be the first multi-probe extra-terrestrial network and it's looking for Methane. It is a joint UK, Australian project.

Robert Brand is a leading Australian space entrepreneur, aerospace engineer and innovator. At the age of 17, Robert was involved in support for Apollo 11 in Australia with the feeds from Honeysuckle Creek and the Parkes Radio Telescope. He supported almost every mission from Apollo 11 to STS-7 and played a minor support role in Shuttle flights right up to 1985. In that time he worked at the Parkes Radio Telescope in support of the Voyager Uranus encounter and ESA’s Giotto mission to Halley’s Comet.

Thunderstruck Aerospace is Robert’s company and the vehicle for several projects such as the StratoDrone and the Mars Median Mission. The Median Mission is based on Methane detection technology and has passed many milestones. The use of penetrators to land the payloads was his concept as was the mapping, orientation and more.

 

Mars 160 Mission Report

The Mars Society's analogue research mission, Mars 160, is using both of the organisation’s analog research stations. This program involves the same seven person crew doing similar science operations for the same period of time – 80 days – initially at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah during the autumn of 2016 and then continuing at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) in northern Canada during the summer of 2017.

Annalea Beattie is an artist and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. Her art practice is based in space science and she is especially interested in the role art will play in small isolated communities living in extreme environments off- Earth.

For the twin desert Mars 160 mission, Annalea is the field artist. Through simulation and in environments analogous to Mars, her research explores how observation is key to the role of all field geologists, including those on a planetary exploration crew. 

Annalea is a Director of both the Mars Society Australia and the National Space Society of Australia. She is a member of the British Interplanetary Society and the Victorian chapter of the International Dark Skies Association. Currently she is a crew member of the Mars Society analogue research mission, Mars 160. 

Mars 160 Crew Portrait by Leo Flander 

Two years ago, Leo Flander completed a Bachelor of Illustration degree and, in the process, rekindled a long lost love of painting.

Since then, Leo has become obsessed with painting oil portraits:

"Oil portraiture is steeped in tradition as a medium, I am always exploring how it can work in a modern context. To this end I look for the differences between oil painting and other media: not just another painting but also photography, film and even games.

I am continually fascinated in the way people are portrayed and what that can say about them. In our photo-obsessed world, I try to offer a different realism to that found in the mechanical click of a shutter. For me oil paintings feel more alive, and more "real" than photos can and this is always at the forefront of my work.

From this starting point, I explore what stories can be told through a singular image. Something that lacks the temporality of a movie, or sequence of a comic. With each of my works I try to tell as much of the story of the subject as I can, often creating mythic versions of themselves.

I strive to show more than what they look like. Often my subjects are performers, small business owners and scientists - These are people who define themselves with their story."

Agenda

7:15 - 8:00	Association business: 2017 Annual General Meeting of the Space Association of Australia Inc.
8:00 - 8:40	Feature: Mars MEDIAN (MEthane Detection by In-situ Analysis with NanoLanders) Mission with Robert Brand
8:40 - 9:00	Break for socialising
9:00 - 9:30	Mars 160 mission report by Annalea Beattie of the Mars Society Australia followed by the official unveiling of a Mars 160 crew portrait by the artist, Leo Flander
9:30 - 10:00	Retrospective: The 50th anniversary of Soyuz 1 and the death of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov