SFA
Physics, Astronomy and Engineering News
July 7, 2004

SPS Trip

Members of the Society of Physics Students at SFA are taking a summer trip to NASA & Galveston on Thursday, July 8, 2004. If you have any questions, please contact Ali Piran.

Summer II Semester Begins on Monday, July 12th

Summer Courses: Engineering 111, Physics 101, Physics 132, Astronomy 105
You can register for classes any day of the week and almost every hour of the day.
Register for Classes: http://mysfa.sfasu.edu
Schedule of Classes: http://www.sfasu.edu/registrar/Registration/scheduleofclasses.html
I think that History of Science (HIS 304) will be taught in the Fall.

SpaceShipOne Makes History

With pilot Mike Melvill at the controls, SpaceShipOne's fourth powered flight on June 21, 2004 sliced through the sky high over Mojave, California desert. It was the first commercial astronaut flight by exceeding 328,000 feet (100 kilometers) -- to the edge of space. The flight marked the first time an aerospace program had successfully completed a piloted mission without government sponsorship. http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sso_rutan_archive.html

Tucked underneath its carrier aircraft, the privately-built SpaceShipOne departed from an airstrip at about 9:47 a.m. ET.
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/info.htm

What is the X PRIZE?
The ANSARI X PRIZE is a $10,000,000 prize to jumpstart the space tourism industry through competition between the most talented entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world. The $10 Million cash prize will be awarded to the first team that:

http://www.xprize.org/press/what.html

Mr. Jack Stinky to Bloom at SFA

"The Stephen F. Austin State University Arboretum in Nacogdoches, Texas is proud to announce that 'Jack' is about to bloom. Jack is the darling of the strange botany world, an Amorphophallus titanum, the Titan Arum or corpse flower. Native to Indonesia and Sumatra, there have been less than two dozen blooming events in the United States since first discovered in 1878 by Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari. The plant first bloomed in cultivation at Kew in 1889. The first USA bloom was a sensation in 1937 at the New York Botanical Garden." -- More Information: http://arboretum.sfasu.edu/events/amt/index.htm

Amorphophallus titanum is the largest flowering plant in the world. The common name is "Titan" because it grows so big. Another name is "Mr. Stinky" because when it blooms it emits an odor which exactly mimics those of rotting flesh. This putrid order attracts carrion beetles that pollinate the flower.


Employment Opportunities

Goodwin-Lasiter, Inc., Lufkin Texas
http://www.goodwinlasiter.com/aboutus.htm#employment

Freelance Programming, Web Page Building, etc.
http://www.guru.com

Teaching Jobs
http://www.academiccareers.com/Applicants.htm

Jobs for SFA Students and Graduates
http://www.engineering.sfasu.edu/jobs.html

SFA's Talking Telescope

Take a test drive of ITAS - the software that controls the 18" and 41" telescopes at the SFA Observatory. ITAS stands for Integrated Telescope Automation System and was originally written in the 1980's by Dr. Markworth.

The software now talks to you with a Steven Hawking-type voice and also allows you to download images of the sky from the Digitized Sky Survey. You can play around with the speech synthesizer and make it say whatever you like. I just noticed today that "Howdy." is much different than "Howdy!".

Test Drive ITAS: http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/observatory/41-inch/ITAS-2000-setup.exe

Contributors' Links and Announcements

Dog on Skate Board (Movie) - You gotta see this!
http://observe.phy.sfasu.edu/courses/ast105/lectures105/99-Interesting/Skate%20Board%20Dog.WMV

Public Viewing Sessions, SFA Observatory, Saturday, July 17th, 9:00PM
http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/observatory/tour_form.html

The Student/Faculty Social for our department had tentatively been set for Thursday, September 16th at 4pm.

BLUE MOON IN JULY
According to "old folklore," the second full Moon in a calendar month is called a "blue Moon." Not so. While the term has been around a long time, its calendrical meaning has become widespread only recently -- all because of a mistake in a 1946 issue of SKY & TELESCOPE magazine. -- http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/moon/article_127_1.asp

August 12th Perseid Meteor Shower
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/25jun_perseids2004.htm?list1065276

NASA chief announces plan to transform agency
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/24/nasa.recs.cnn/index.html

"The Dark Side of the Universe" - Watch this Online!
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1405/video/watchonline.htm

Whatever happened to ... Virtual Reality?
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/21jun_vr.htm?list942833

Orbiting astronaut calls in to wife's delivery
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/18/space.station.birth.ap/index.html

Mars rovers on 'brand new mission'
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/06/03/mars.rover.trucking/index.html

Pictures of Venus Crossing the Sun June
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/venus_transit_040608.html
http://www.astroclark.freeserve.co.uk/transit.venus/
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1276_1.asp

It's time for a Windows Update
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Federal Business Opportunity
http://www.eps.gov/

Astronomy Picture of the Day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Will concrete barriers in front of secure buildings stop traffic? - Movie
http://www.cox-internet.com/ast305/index.html

OPPORTUNITY REACHES ENDURANCE CRATER - Mars News
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1253_1.asp
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20040526a.html - Color Picture

SFA Lecture Series
http://www.sfasu.edu/pubaffairs/lecture/

GOOD ENGINEERING
A high-tech parachute unfurled from a special gap in the fuselage of small plane hurtling to the ground this week, carrying the aircraft down safely and saving the lives of four Alberta residents. The plane, a Cirrus aircraft, started spiraling out of control after taking off from a refueling stop in Kelowna Thursday night.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0211/22parachute/

Distribution of SFA Students - Link to PPT File
http://www.sfasu.edu/admissions/Stamats/

If all of the recent vulnerabilities in IE have you afraid, you can try the Mozilla Firefox.
http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Titan's Surface Revealed by the Cassini Spacecraft
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/04jul_titanrevealed.htm?list1065276

Cassini Spacecraft Recent Images
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/latest/index.cfm

Thanks to Ryan Williams, Andy Wagers, Andrew Beal, Chris Dahl, Andrew Beal, and others for the links and information above. Feel free to send any interesting links that you find. This email message is sent to students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the department. If you would like to be removed from the emailing list or are getting multiple copies of these newsletters, then feel free to reply to this message with your request.

Clear skies,
Dan Bruton
astro@sfasu.edu