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MSR REPORT : USS Saint George
REGION : 6
REPORT FOR : June, 2004
DATE SUBMITTED : 07/01/04
SUBMITTED BY : CAPT Jessica Lindenfelser
LAST MEETING DATE : n/a
CO: 52899 05/28/05 CAPT Jessica Lindenfelser
XO: 54836 05/07/05 LTCMDR Thomas Schulte
Knightly News, LAST PUBLISHED : 06/01/04
PROMOTIONS :
(These need to be entered into the SFI database as I
have been unable to do this due to a membership
processing error)
Lt (jg) John Schulte to Lt
Ensign Bernard Doddema to Lt.JG
Ensign Debbie "T'Plon" Fee to Lt.JG
OFFICER REPORTS:
XO July 2004 department report
The XO department has been receiving input on changes
to promotion criteria
and has submitted promotion recommendations.
I've got a summer cold - one of the cadets' nanite
experiments must have
gotten away from them again!
-Tom Schulte
mailto:tschulte@fmctc.com
Where'd your money go? Find out at
www.wheresgeorge.com
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Charity Report June 2004
We have had an extremely busy month with a new
organization that has been asking for help over the
years. It is called “SETI, or the Search for
Extraterrestrial Intelligence”
To explain the program a bit, I copied the below from
their web page.
Disclaimer time: The St. George and or Starfleet are
only suggesting this option to install a service on
your personal home computer. No warranty or guarantee
of authenticity is given for this option by any of the
St. George staff, Region 6
members or Starfleet in general. You are installing on
your own risk.
SETI, or the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,
is a scientific effort seeking to determine if there
is intelligent life outside Earth. SETI researchers
use many methods.
One popular method, radio SETI, listens for artificial
radio signals coming from other stars. SETI@home is a
radio SETI project that lets anyone with a computer
and an Internet connection participate.
How SETI@home works
Story by Ron Hipschman
The Problem - Mountains of Data
Most of the SETI programs in existence today,
including those at UC Berkeley build large computers
that analyze that data from the telescope in real
time. None of these computers look very deeply at the
data for weak signals nor do they look for a large
class of signal types (which we'll discuss further
on...) The reason for this is because they are limited
by the amount of computer power
available for data analysis. To tease out the weakest
signals, a great amount of computer power is
necessary. It would take a monstrous supercomputer to
get the job done. SETI programs could never afford to
build or buy that computing power.
There is a trade-off that they can make. Rather than a
huge computer to do the job, they could use a smaller
computer but just take longer to do it. But then there
would be lots of data piling up. What if they used
LOTS of small computers, all working simultaneously on
different parts of the analysis? Where can the SETI
team possibly find thousands of computers they'd need
to analyze the data continuously streaming from
Arecibo?
The UC Berkeley SETI team has discovered that there
are already thousands of computers that might be
available for use. Most of these computers sit around
most of the time with toasters flying across their
screens accomplishing absolutely nothing and wasting
electricity to boot. This is where SETI@home (and
you!) come into the picture. The SETI@home project
hopes to convince you to allow us to borrow your
computer when you aren't using it and to help us "...
search out new life and new civilizations." We'll do
this with a screen saver that can go get a chunk of
data from us over the Internet, analyze that data, and
then report the results back to us. When you need your
computer back, our screen saver instantly gets out of
the way and only continues it's analysis when you are
finished with your work. It's an interesting and
difficult task. There's so much data to analyze that
it seems impossible! Fortunately, the data analysis
task can be easily broken up into little pieces that
can all be worked on separately and in parallel. None
of the pieces depends on the other pieces. Also, there
is only a finite amount of sky that can be seen from
Arecibo. In the next two years the entire sky as seen
from the telescope will be scanned three times. We
feel that this will be enough for this project. By the
time we've looked at the sky three times, there will
be new telescopes, new experiments, and new approaches
to SETI. We hope that you will be able to participate
in them too!
The SETI program tracks units of time what can be
converted to advancement points and still help an
organization. It has been authorized to give 5
points/unit for participating in the SETI program. The
Charity web page has been set up for your information
at:
http://www.oocities.org/starfleetofficer2/seti.html
The following crew members have submitted the
following charitable activities for June 2004:
Ens T'Plon completed 37 SETI units to date.
BDR Tom Webster,SFMC completed 316 SETI work units to
date.
LTjg John Schulte spent about 6 hours so far on Boy
Scout treasurer duties as well as a Steak Fry at the
local American Legion. Next week will be a long-term
Boy Scout camp with 12 boys in South Dakota, but I am
not counting that for advancement since my son goes as
well and I need the fresh air!
No OCP totals were reported this month, however RAF
Lakenheath did report in and thank the crew for
donating coupons in the past and would like more, in
smaller quantities, as time permits. Our new bases
have been getting shipments, but have not acknowledged
receipts as of yet, so I must wonder if they are
getting them or even need them.
Respectfully Submitted,
LTjg John Schulte
Charity Officer/Transporter Division Chief,
Engineering Department
USS Saint George NCC-63541
Marine Corp Reserve Officer 6th Battalion
Legion of Arms Award
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June 2004
Science Department Highlights
Mars
The Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity
continued their study of the red planet this month.
Studies done by both rovers show evidence of water at
both locations, Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum.
Rover Spirit has traveled to the Columbia Hills.
Opportunity is making its way down into Endurance
Crater. For more details got to Astronomy.com
http://www.astronomy.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/001/756ihrzt
..asp
Venus
On June 8 Venus crossed the face of the sun, this is
called a transit of the sun. The 6 hour transit was
visible from Europe, Africa, and Asia. The next
transit will occur on June 6, 2012.
Transits of Venus always happen in pairs 8 years
apart. The next transit will happen on December 11,
2117.
Cassini-Huygens Satellite
The Cassini satellite had a close flyby of Saturn's
moon Phoebe on June 11, 2004. This was the first look
at any of Saturn's 31 moons over Cassini's 4 year long
mission. Cassini came with 1,285 miles of Phoebe. On
June 30 Cassini will fire its main engine for 96
minutes to slow it down to enter Saturn's orbit.
Hubble Space Telescope
NASA is calling for proposals for robotic missions to
maintain and fix Hubble to extend its life. The
deadline for proposals is July 16. Hubble has been in
limbo since January when NASA announced they were not
going to send any more shuttle missions to repair or
upgrade Hubble.
SpaceShipOne
On June 21 the world's first privately owned craft
flew into outer space. Burt Rutan and Paul G. Allen
were behind the project. Mike Melville was the pilot
and first commercial astronaut. He flew 62.2 miles
above the Mohave Desert. NASA is considering offering
millions of dollars in prize money for innovations
that lead to a civilian landing on the moon or
retrieving a piece of asteroid.
Ens T'Plon
USS St George NCC-63541
Chief Science Officer
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July 2004 Engineering Report
Not much going on here in Engineering. We have been
working on the standard checks and procedures. The
Warp Core is coming up due on the regulation 10,000
operating hour major inspection requirement, however.
I am recommending that the Saint George put in at
Starbase 6 for this standard requirement.
At the same time, we will need to replace the magnetic
constrictor coils. The reactant injectors will be
checked at this time as well. The shock attenuation
cylinders are showing signs of wear and may need to be
replaced.
Other than that...not much going on.
FCAPT Ken Oziah
Chief Engineer
USS Saint George
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Communications Department Repot
Getting ready to prepare another edition of the
Knightly News.
It's a must read and will cover many important topics
for the crew of the St George, with a surprise ending
that will leave you breathless! Is it the beginning
of the end or just a new beginning? Pick up your
latest issue -- July 1st!!!
Otherwise, the Comm department has been pretty slow.
Ensign Bernard Doddema, Jr.
Chief, Communications
USS Saint George
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The CO is still working on getting logged back into
SFI to update the database with the promotions that
were given out at the Region Six 2004 Summit.
The Saint George won the following Region 6 Awards for
2003 presented at the 2004 Region Summit:
Perfect Reporting: USS Saint George
Recruiting: USS Saint George
Community Service: USS Saint George
Community Service: LTJG John Schulte, USS Saint George