Join us for the May 2021 meeting of the Space Association of Australia – all welcome!  Date: Monday, 24 May 2021 Time: 7:00 - 9:30 pm AEST Venue: Golden Gate Hotel, 238 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne How to find us:  The Golden Gate Hotel is on the north-western corner of the intersection of Clarendon and Coventry Streets in South Melbourne. Take the stairs up to level 1 - we'll be in the Coventry Room. Getting there: By car: Car parking is best in Coventry Street west of Clarendon Street. By tram: Route 12 (via Collins Street), Stop 127 (York Street, then walk south) or Stop 128 (Dorcas Street, then walk north). Meals available: Place your meal order in the Coventry Room and have it delivered to your table - the menu can be found here. We look forward to seeing you there! If you are unable to attend the meeting in person, please register here to join us remotely via Zoom or watch the live stream on our YouTube channel. This month we remember Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins who passed away recently while Dr Malcolm Davis from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute joins us live from Canberra to discuss the Australian Defence Force's new Space Division and Chinese ambitions in space. Plus, we have a very limited number of Searching for Skylab Blu-ray Discs available for purchase at $35.00 each.

Join us for the April 2021 meeting of the Space Association of Australia – all welcome!  Date: Monday, 26 April 2021 Time: 7:00 - 9:30 pm AEST Venue: Golden Gate Hotel, 238 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne How to find us:  The Golden Gate Hotel is on the north-western corner of the intersection of Clarendon and Coventry Streets in South Melbourne. Take the stairs up to level 1 - we'll be in the Coventry Room. Getting there: By car: Car parking is best in Coventry Street west of Clarendon Street. By tram: Route 12 (via Collins Street), Stop 127 (York Street, then walk south) or Stop 128 (Dorcas Street, then walk north). Meals available: Place your meal order in the Coventry Room and have it delivered to your table - the menu can be found here. We look forward to seeing you there! If you are unable to attend the meeting in person, please register here to join us remotely via Zoom or watch the live stream on our YouTube channel. This month we celebrate a bumper crop of space-related anniversaries with the 60th anniversary of human spaceflight, the 40th anniversary of STS-1 the first space shuttle mission and the 20th anniversary of Yuri's Night - The World Space Party. This year also marks 40 years since the founding of 'The Space Association' as a public spin-off group from the Monash Astronautical Society at Monash University (prior to its incorporation as the Space Association of Australia Inc. in 1983) and the 30th anniversary of the first broadcast of The Space Show - our now weekly radio program broadcast on 88.3 Southern FM and streamed online. Plus, we have a very limited number of Searching for Skylab Blu-ray Discs available for purchase at $35.00.

 A Yuri's Night Event The World Space Party: A Celebration of Human Spaceflight April 2021 marks 60 years since Yuri Gagarin made the first flight of a human into space. To celebrate this amazing achievement, and those of the hundreds of men and women who have followed, the Sun Theatre and the Space Association of Australia, present a unique afternoon and evening of space films and presentations. First, we look at that first spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin and reveal some fascinating facts about his flight that were kept secret for 30 years. "APOLLO 11" is an amazing film, which consists solely of archival footage, including 70 mm film previously unreleased to the public, and does not feature narration, interviews or modern recreations. A must-see on the big screen. This is followed by a short presentation, "Australia – Apollo & Skylab", on the significant and critical role Australia has played in these American space programs. "Searching for Skylab: America's Forgotten Triumph" is a 2019 documentary film about the 1970s NASA space station, Skylab. The film uses hundreds of hours of video and audio recording, yet it is unlikely that you’ve seen or heard much of it. This will be the Melbourne premiere of an important film that no space enthusiast should miss and will be followed by an exclusive interview with Skylab 2 astronaut Joe Kerwin and "Searching for Skylab" director Dwight Steven-Boniecki. The entire presentation will be Melbourne’s own “Yuri’s Night” event, a global celebration on the dual anniversary of the first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the first launch of a reusable spacecraft, the space shuttle Columbia, in 1981. 12 April 2021 is the 60th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight. Ticket bookings are available directly through the Sun Theatre Apollo 11 | Directed by Todd Douglas Miller Crafted from a newly discovered trove of 65mm footage, and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings, Apollo 11 takes us straight to the heart of NASA’s most celebrated mission—the one that first put men on the moon, and forever made Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into household names. Immersed in the perspectives of the astronauts, the team in Mission Control, and the millions of spectators on the ground, we vividly experience those momentous days and hours in 1969 when humankind took a giant leap into the future.   Searching for Skylab | Directed by Dwight Steven-Boniecki As a crucial element in human space exploration, Skylab remains largely forgotten, falling as it does in the immediate shadow of the seemingly more spectacular Apollo lunar missions. Searching for Skylab: America's Forgotten Triumph pays tribute to this amazing NASA program by sharing the best of NASA archive material while holding the stories remembered by astronauts, engineers and their families for all posterity in the form of an entertaining, yet historically accurate documentary.   Ticket bookings are available directly through the Sun Theatre

Join us for the March 2021 meeting of the Space Association of Australia – all welcome!  Date: Monday, 22 March 2020 Time: 7:00 - 9:30 pm AEDT Venue: Golden Gate Hotel, 238 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne How to find us:  The Golden Gate Hotel is on the north-western corner of the intersection of Clarendon and Coventry Streets in South Melbourne. Take the stairs up to level 1 - we'll be in the Coventry Room. Getting there: By car: Car parking is best in Coventry Street west of Clarendon Street. By tram: Route 12 (via Collins Street), Stop 127 (York Street, then walk south) or Stop 128 (Dorcas Street, then walk north). Meals available: Place your meal order in the Coventry Room and have it delivered to your table - the menu can be found here. We look forward to seeing you there! If you are unable to attend the meeting in person, please register here to join us remotely via Zoom or watch the live stream here on our YouTube channel:

Join us for the February 2021 meeting of the Space Association of Australia – all welcome!  Date: Monday, 22 February 2020 Time: 8:00 - 9:30 pm AEDT Venue: Golden Gate Hotel, 238 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne How to find us:  The Golden Gate Hotel is on the north-western corner of the intersection of Clarendon and Coventry Streets in South Melbourne. Take the stairs or lift up to level 1 - we'll be in the Coventry Room. Getting there: By car: Car parking is best in Coventry Street west of Clarendon Street. By tram: Route 12 (via Collins Street), Stop 127 (York Street, then walk south) or Stop 128 (Dorcas Street, then walk north). Meals available: Place your meal order in the Coventry Room and have it delivered to your table - the menu can be found here. We look forward to seeing you there! If you are unable to attend the meeting in person, please register here to join us remotely via Zoom or watch the live stream on our YouTube channel:

Notice of Annual General Meeting 2020 and 2021   The 2020 & 2021 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of financial members of the Space Association of Australia Inc. (Registration No: A0000295B) will be held jointly on Monday, 22 February 2021 from 7:00 pm (AEDT) at the Golden Gate Hotel, 238 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne.   The February Public Meeting will immediately follow the AGM.      

Join us on 25 January for the first meeting of the Space Association of Australia for 2021 – all welcome!  Our monthly public meetings are streamed online via Zoom and then uploaded to the SAA YouTube channel - SAA.TV Date: Monday, 25 January 2020 Time: 7:00 - 9:30 pm AEDT Venue: Golden Gate Hotel, 238 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne How to find us:  The Golden Gate Hotel is on the north-western corner of the intersection of Clarendon and Coventry Streets in South Melbourne. Take the stairs or lift up to level 1 - we'll be in the Coventry Room. Getting there: By car: Car parking is best in Coventry Street west of Clarendon Street. By tram: Route 12 (via Collins Street), Stop 127 (York Street, then walk south) or Stop 128 (Dorcas Street, then walk north). Meals available: Place your meal order in the Coventry Room and have it delivered to your table - the menu can be found here. We look forward to seeing you there! If you are unable to attend the meeting in person, please register here to join us remotely via Zoom or watch the live stream on YouTube: Jus Ad Astra: A Pioneer Project in Space Law Launched in 2020 by WiseLaw, Jus Ad Astra is a legal project aimed at developing an authoritative international treatise clarifying the fundamental legal principles and human rights applicable to current and future human activities across outer space. This will be achieved in consultation and cooperation with prominent industry leaders, leading academics, and legal experts across the international space industry. This treatise will seek to culture, consolidate and promote a common understanding concerning the physiological, technical and legal challenges faced by extended human habitation in space. This will be conducted in consideration of the existing terrestrial international human rights law framework and existing international space law instruments. Jonathan Lim - Project Co-Lead is an Australian lawyer, geopolitical analyst, and cybersecurity analyst. He holds a Juris Doctor, Master of Legal Practice, Bachelor of Arts, and Graduate Certificate in Cybersecurity from Monash University, the Australian National University, and RMIT University. His specialisation spans cyber warfare, cybersecurity, Chinese foreign policy, Australian foreign policy, and international space law.

Join us on 14 December for the final meeting of the Space Association of Australia for 2020 – an in-person social night – all welcome!    DATE: Monday, 14 December 2020 TIME: 7:00 - 9:30 pm VENUE: Golden Gate Hotel, 238 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne HOW TO FIND US:  The Golden Gate Hotel is on the north-western corner of the intersection of Clarendon and Coventry Streets in South Melbourne. Take the stairs or lift up to level 1 - we'll be in the Coventry Room. GETTING THERE: By car: Car parking is best in Coventry Street west of Clarendon Street. By tram: Route 12 (via Collins Street), Stop 127 (York Street, then walk south) or Stop 128 (Dorcas Street, then walk north). MEALS AVAILABLE: Place your meal order in the Coventry Room and have it delivered to your table.  The Social Night is open to all members, non-members, friends and family.  For planning purposes, please register your attendance and how many will be in your party by clicking on either of the "Get Tickets" buttons at the top-right or bottom of the page. There is no charge to register, this just allows us to know how many to plan for. To plan your meal for the night, the menu can be found here.  Activities Silent Auction – Just for a bit of fun and maybe help you offload or pick up a space treasure, we propose to run a silent auction on the night. A silent auction is an auction held without an auctioneer. Items are set up on tables with a sheet of paper in front of them. On these sheets of paper, there is an item description, how much the item is worth, a starting bid (usually less than the retail price), and minimum bid increments. Bidders write their name, contact number and bid amount and, at 9 pm on the dot, all bids cease and the deals are done! We will limit to one item per person and it can be anything space-related. A book (signed/unsigned), a model, artifact, picture, souvenir, DVD/CD, T-shirt, etc. As neither the SAA nor the venue will be involved, we won't have credit card facilities and all transactions will be strictly cash (bring small notes and change). Please let us know by emailing spaceflight@space.asn.au if you plan to auction something and we will send you a bid sheet for you to print out and complete to bring along on the night. Show and Tell – If you'd like to bring something interesting or a unique space item along (but not sell!), and tell us a little about it, we would be delighted. This will be very informal and you can say as much or as little as you'd like, say three minutes? Or, you might want to talk about a book or film you've read or seen. Just let us know by email to spaceflight@space.asn.au. We look forward to seeing you there!

The Space Association of Australia has cancelled its regular face-to-face public meetings until December 2020. However, the space news never stops and so we are conducting our ninth virtual monthly meeting. To participate, simply register via the button below and you will be sent details about how to join the meeting. You can watch either via a web browser or by downloading the Zoom Meeting app to your computer or mobile device before the meeting starts. Have some headphones or speakers ready to go, and a microphone if you'd like to join in the conversation. You can also choose to have your video camera active or off. Date: Monday, 23 November 2020 Time: 19:30-21:30 AEDT (UTC+11) Draft agenda: 7:30 - Association business - 15 minutes 7:45 - Space news: SpaceX Crew-1 mission and Starship SN8 15K hop updates | Marcus House (TBC) - 20 minutes 8:05 - Necessity: The mother of invention? The relationship between management control and creativity: Lessons from Apollo 13 | Dr Basil Tucker, Senior Lecturer UniSA Business - 45 minutes (including Q&A) 8:50 - Russia's Crewed Mission to Mars | Igor Rozenberg, SAA Member and CEO at SpaceHansa Asia Pacific - 40 minutes (including Q&A) 9:30 - End Q&A: If you have questions you would like to ask our speakers before or during the meeting, you can do so on the Slido platform here: https://app.sli.do/event/fzxs7ih7  Please register here in advance to join this meeting:

The Space Association of Australia has cancelled its regular face-to-face public meetings until at least November 2020. However, the space news never stops and so we are conducting our eighth virtual monthly meeting, To participate, simply register via the button below and you will be sent details about how to join the meeting. You can watch either via a web browser or by downloading the Zoom Meeting app to your computer or mobile device before the meeting starts. Have some headphones or speakers ready to go, and a microphone if you'd like to join in the conversation. You can also choose to have your video camera active or off.   Date: Monday, 26 October 2020 Time: 19:30-21:30 AEDT (UTC+11) Draft agenda: 7:30 - Association business - 15 minutes 7:45 - Space News Update | Peter Aylward - 15 minutes 8:00 - Touch-And-Go: OSIRIS-REx Sample Return Mission at Asteroid Bennu | Clemens Unger, Australian OSIRIS-REx Ambassador for NASA Public Engagement - 30 minutes (including Q&A) 8:30 - The International Space Station at Twenty | Peter Aylward - 45 minutes (including Q&A) 9:30 - End Q&A: If you have questions you would like to ask our speakers before or during the meeting, you can do so on the Slido platform here: https://app.sli.do/event/xrwsemnl Please register in advance to join this meeting: The International Space Station Expedition 1 was the first long-duration stay on the International Space Station (ISS). The three-person crew stayed aboard the station for 136 days, from November 2000 to March 2001. It was the beginning of an uninterrupted human presence on the station which continues as of August 2020. Expedition 2, which also had three crew members, immediately followed Expedition 1. The official start of the expedition occurred when the crew docked to the station on 2 November 2000, aboard the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-31, which had launched two days earlier. During their mission, the Expedition 1 crew activated various systems onboard the station, unpacked equipment that had been delivered, and hosted three visiting Space Shuttle crews and two uncrewed Russian Progress resupply vehicles. The crew was very busy throughout the mission, which was declared a success. The three visiting Space Shuttles brought equipment, supplies, and key components of the space station. The first of these, STS-97, docked in early December 2000 and brought the first pair of large U.S. photovoltaic arrays, which increased the station's power capabilities fivefold. The second visiting shuttle mission was STS-98, which was docked in mid-February 2001 and delivered the US$1.4 billion research module Destiny, which increased the mass of the station beyond that of Mir for the first time. Mid-March 2001 saw the final shuttle visit of the expedition, STS-102, whose main purpose was to exchange the Expedition 1 crew with the next three-person long-duration crew, Expedition 2. The expedition ended when Discovery undocked from the station on 18 March 2001. The Expedition 1 crew consisted of an American commander and two Russians. The commander, Bill Shepherd, had been in space three times before, all on shuttle missions which lasted at most a week. The Russians, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev, both had previous long-duration spaceflights on Mir, with Krikalev having spent over a full year in space.

The Space Association of Australia has cancelled its regular face-to-face public meetings until at least October 2020. However, the space news never stops and so we are conducting our seventh virtual monthly meeting, To participate, simply register via the button below and you will be sent details about how to join the meeting. You can watch either via a web browser or by downloading the Zoom Meeting app to your computer or mobile device before the meeting starts. Have some headphones or speakers ready to go, and a microphone if you'd like to join in the conversation. You can also choose to have your video camera active or off.   Date: Monday, 28 September 2020 Time: 19:30-21:30 AEST (UTC+10) Draft agenda: 7:30 - Association business - 15 minutes 7:45 - U.S. pre-election space policy preview | Peter Aylward - 15 minutes 8:00 - The Space Down Under | Josh Keegan in conversation with Nick Green, CEO of PFi Aerospace - 45 minutes (including Q&A) 8:45 - Spacefarers: How humans will settle the Moon, Mars and beyond | A conversation with the author, Christopher Wanjek, live from Baltimore - 45 minutes (including Q&A) 9:30 - End Q&A: If you have questions you would like to ask our speakers before or during the meeting, you can do so on the Slido platform here: https://app.sli.do/event/0h5ktcjv. For security reasons, please register in advance to join this meeting:   SPACEFARERS: A book giveaway for SAA members Spacefarers: How Humans Will Settle the Moon, Mars, and Beyond is the latest book by health and science author, and former senior writer at NASA Goddard, Christopher Wanjek. The book takes a compelling look at the who, how, and why of near-future colonies in space. From bone-whittling microgravity to eye-popping profits, the risks and rewards of space settlement have never been so close at hand. More than fifty years after the Apollo 11 Moon landing, why is there so little human presence in space? Will we ever reach Mars? What will it take to become a multiplanet species, colonising the solar system and travelling to other stars? The Space Association of Australia is delighted to have Christopher join us live from his home in Baltimore, Maryland for our September 28 virtual meeting. SAA MEMBER-ONLY BONUS: We will have one copy of the book to give away on the night! This prize is available to all SAA members in Australia only — we will post to you. However, you will need to pre-register for the draw by 11:59 pm on Sunday, 27 September AEST. To enter the draw, simply click on the 'Get Tickets' button below and login to your membership account. Once complete, you’re in with a chance — good luck!

The Space Association of Australia has cancelled its regular face-to-face public meetings until at least September 2020. However, the space news never stops and so we are conducting our sixth virtual monthly meeting, To participate, simply register via the button below and you will be sent details about how to join the meeting. You can watch either via a web browser or by downloading the Zoom Meeting app to your computer or mobile device before the meeting starts. Have some headphones or speakers ready to go, and a microphone if you'd like to join in the conversation. You can also choose to have your video camera active or off. For security reasons, you will need to register in advance to join this meeting: Date: Monday, 24 August 2020 Time: 19:30-21:30 AEST (UTC+10) Draft agenda: 7:30 - Association business - 15 minutes 7:45 - Australian Space News | Peter Aylward - 15 minutes 8:00 - Space Industry Association of Australia overview | David Ball, Chair SIAA Board of Directors - 15 minutes 8:15 - SpaceX activity update | Marcus House - 45 minutes (including Q&A)           * Crew Dragon Demo-2 review           * Starship           * Starlink 9:00 - Global Space Roundup | Peter Aylward - 30 minutes 9:30 - End Q&A: If you have questions you would like to ask our speakers before or during the meeting, you can do so here: https://app.sli.do/event/smnbfpdq. Don't forget to register in advance to join this meeting: