Soundings (2/9/16)

Posted by G. Stowe Talbot 
on Feb 09, 2016
 
Flag Salute & Invocation by Andy Clay
 
Visiting Rotarians: None
Guests: Andy Anderson, Mimi’s guest, two Squalicum students on the YES program, Curtis Dye’s wife, daughter and Gio’s parents.
 
Announcements
 
Board meeting this Thursday 2/11 at 4:30pm at Talbot/Barkley office (2200 Rimland Drive, 2nd floor) - open to all and counts as a make-up.
 
Glen announced our next club volunteer opportunity: “Stop Hunger Now”, Saturday Feb 27th starts at 9am, at St Lukes Community Health Center 3333 Squalicum Pkwy.  We will be packing up 30,000 meals to be shipped to several international destinations. For more info, see http://events.stophungernow.org/Bellingham or Email lisa.saar04@gmail.com .
 
New Member Induction: Past President Anna Williams inducted Guy Ochiogrosso, president of Whatcom Chamber of Commerse.  Guy has an MBA from WWU.  Welcome to Bellingham Bay Rotary, Guy!
 
Bill Gorman introduced Holly and Kim (from Squalicum HS) both members of the YES team (Rotary Youth Engaged in Service), which will be traveling to Honduras in July for a hands-on project.  They are raising funds for their travel expenses and for the project.
 
Business Bucket: Jill Reid with a plug for her upcoming Boys & Girls Club fundraiser event Bourbon Street Bingeaux, on Saturday Feb. 20th at the Kentucky Street Clubhouse.  See https://www.facebook.com/events/1548446515447422/
 
Bucks in the Bay
  • Curtis with a pitch for everyone to attend Gio's big game tonight against Lynden;
  • John Templeton went to Cabo San Lucas;
  • Michael Reams got engaged, proposed while skiing at Revelstoke last week!
  • Paul Twedt watched Super Bowl with daughter;
  • Eddie Hansen glad Seahawks not in Super Bowl this time so he could have a nice weekend and save some money!
  • Flo was in Hawaii.
Sergeant at Arms by Flo
Fines for Mardi Gras trivia.
 
Program
Steve Swan introduced Dr Melissa Rice from WWU, Assistant Professor
of Geology. Melissa shares a joint position with the departments of Physics/Astonomy. 
Her areas of expertise are planetary geology, remote sensing, and robotic space exploration.
 
History of successful Mars rovers: 
  • Sojourner (1996) now dead;
  • Spirit (2003) now dead; 
  • Opportunity (2003) still operating;
  • Curiosity (2011) still operating, has small nuclear battery instead of solar.
  • Mars 2020 (est. launch 2020).
Dr. Rice described the present Mars environment and the likely possibility that it had plenty of water in the past.  Interesting because water is what allowed life on earth. Could life have started here independent from earth?
 
Although we haven’t yet found definitive signs of life, we will need to bring rocks back to earth from the areas where there used to be water (like alluvial plains) for the intensive scrutiny to make sure.  Some Mars rocks have been deposited onto earth as meteorites, but so far these rocks have all been from Mars lava deposits and show no signs of life.
 
WWU students are actually working on designing equipment for the next rover to do a “sample return” (rocks back to earth) to be launched with the Mars 2020 mission:
stage 1: identify really good (and varied) samples of Mars rocks and consolidate the samples into piles on the surface (2022);
stage 2: put samples into a container/bucket and shoot it into Mars orbit (2028?);
stage 3: bring that container back to earth (est. 2030 or later).
 
There is an 8 minute delay for communications with Mars.
It takes 9 months to travel there (3 years round trip).
The major theory about why water disappeared: Mars magnetic field went away a few billion years ago, and that in turn exposed the atmosphere to radiation and solar winds, which caused it to leak away. This in turn cooled the surface down and the water froze and evaporated.
 
Respectfully submitted, 
Stowe Talbot