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WILLIAM ENGFER
BOBBIE SMITH
The website for the AIAA is: http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=277&sort=0.
MEETING SUMMARY:
Meeting Date: June 13, 1992.
Meeting Site: American Institute of Avionics and Astronautics, Manhattan, New York.
Official Attendance: 11.
Meeting Program: Talk on space program and AIAA.
Notes:
Meeting Memories:
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 1992 Philip De Parto:
It is June, and not April, which is traditionally the cruelest month for the S. F. A. B. C. The June 13, 1992 meeting of the Association was held at the library of the American Institute of Avionics and Astronautics, 555 West 57th Street, Manhattan, New York. The meeting ran from 1 PM until 4 PM. As you can tell from the attendance list, we did not exactly fill the room to capacity.
Near as I can tell, though, we all had a good time--except maybe Reilly. We began the meeting sitting around a wood table, doing the usual announcements, etc, bit. Highlight, or lowlight, if you will, of this was Phil De Parto singing the GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE theme song accompanied by sound effects.
Bobbie Smith then explained the purpose of the AIAA and took us on a little tour. The AIAA is basically the library of NASA. The Institute receives research and publications pertaining to atmospheric and extra-atmospheric topics, analyzes and abstracts the data, and then publishes and distributes it. This often includes translating material from the former U.S.S.R. and many different countries.
The AIAA is dependent upon NASA for its equipment, so they make due with hand-me-downs. One of the upcoming major projects is to put the card catalogue files onto disks. Most typing is done on IBM Selectrics.
We took a break at this point so that people could wander through the stacks. About half of the library is comprised of publications from the Soviet Union. At least one person was hard to pull away from the stacks when we went to resume the meeting. Another was heard to say that he could very easily spend several weeks there browsing.
William Engfer talked about various aspects of the space program and space groups with an interest in spaceflight. The conversation ranged from habitat biosphere program in the southwest to the old L-5 Society, to the Environmental Conference being conducted in Brazil. He also talked about the program of moon colonization advocated by some pro-space enthusiasts, a controversial proposal which would require the United States to abrogate some existing space treaties.
It was getting pretty close to 4:00 PM by this time. The Space Frontier Society was having its monthly meeting aboard the Intrepid Sea/Air/Space Museum at 5:00 PM with the head of the national organization scheduled to give a talk. William Engfer led Joan, Brian, Reilly, James, Eileen and John to the Museum. Sharon, Bobbie, Kathleen, and Phil went to Coliseum Books at Broadway and 57th Street, and then on to dinner at "Wine and Apples," an unpretentious eatery at 117 West 57th Street.