MVAS Apollo Rendezvous

Lots of telescopes were don display.

I celebrated the Miami Valley Astronomical Society’s 100th Anniversary and 48th year of its Apollo Rendezvous today. It was a full day of astronomy, with speakers, workshops, vendors, raffles , door prizes and best of all fellow amateur astronomers. The daytime session was held at the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery. 

My favorite spear was Dale Partin, who has a Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University. Until his partial retirement, he worked in advanced research in the auto industry. He has over 80 scientific publications and 38 patents, and is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of Sigma Xi, the American Scientific Affiliation and the Warren Astronomical Society in Michigan. He is an amateur astronomer and teaches astronomy at Macomb Community College in Michigan. His presentation was about "Colonizing Mars," which he said we are on the threshold of having become become reality. He told us about the many challenges to be dealt with to live on Mars, such as living in reduced gravity, cosmic rays, growing food on Mars, energy sources, etc. And longer term, he said that engineering a Homo Martian species and terraforming Mars are on the table.