Month: October 2009

Run by Claudia Winkler, NCNAAPT President Next meeting will be at American River College in the Spring: Would like to make afternoon session to be more Show & Tell with a longer length (10 min). Include not only new ideas but also “oldies but goodies” that new teachers may not know. Potentially have a world-class astrophotographer for the Friday night reception Potential Topics: –  learn how to be better physics educators – learn how to increase people entering Physics and bring in current topics – potentially have speakers involved in green energy & environmentally topics – Dual topics for high…

Scott Sandford, NASA Ames, ssandford@mail.arc.nasa.gov “Taking a Ride on the Wild Side: The Successful Stardust Sample Return Mission to Comet 81P/Wild 2” One of the rare sample return mission meant to analyze the composition of a comet. There are long term benefits to sample return missions including future study and analyses that were not developed or wanted at the time of the original mission. Stardust had to make three elliptical orbits of different sizes in order to get the right timing to collect from the comet. Sandford discusses the design of Stardust including specific design challenges such as the 6km/s…