The President's Message:
Large Actions and Small

By Steve Bartlett

This month we celebrate the 25^th anniversary of OASIS and it's a good opportunity for us to look back at what we've done and forward to what we're going to do.

Craig Ward examines Spacechimp Ham's Mercury space capsule at California Sciencenter in 2002.

In the time of its existence, our chapter has done a great many things to move the dream of routine access to space "for the rest of us" closer to reality. We've held hundreds of public lectures on space-related subjects and talked to many thousands of people at air shows, conventions and conferences, schools, museums, movie theaters, and elsewhere. Our members have appeared on television, radio, and in the newspapers promoting the benefits of space development and given out thousands of space books, newsletters, bumper stickers, toys, and pieces of candy. And they've helped to move space launches forward after the losses of the Shuttles Challenger and Columbia.

We've arranged for tours of local aerospace facilities, traveled to Vandenberg Air Force Base for satellite launches, attended Shuttle landings at Edwards Air Force Base, held Star Parties at Mount Wilson and Griffith Park observatories, and arranged for a video link-up with the then-orbiting Shuttle/Mir Space Station complex. Local space activists have also worked with amateur rocketeers in the Mojave Desert to develop space access projects.

Chapter members have held rallies at the Federal Building in Westwood promoting space funding and educated elected officials and political candidates on space activities. We've conducted letter writing campaigns to ensure that space projects received proper attention, arranged for phone trees to let people know about urgent space actions in Congress, and helped to defeat a poorly-written Moon Treaty in the United States Senate.

A Space Station foam model from OASIS' "How Would YOU Build a Spacestation?" craft project, Agamemcon 2001.

And we will continue these efforts. I see us working on six basic activities over the next several years:

1. Educating the general public on the benefits of space exploration and development,
2. Working with young people in schools and youth groups to nurture their interest and enthusiasm about going into space,
3. Recruiting "fresh blood" into the space activist movement,
4. Providing tangible benefits to our members to maintain and renew their interest in space,
5. Working with political and industry leaders to ensure that space has a visible presence in local and national agendas, and
6. Working with space scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to develop promising new technologies.

These are some broad goals that OASIS as an organization will work toward, both on our own and as part of the National Space Society. But our success as a group really depends on the actions and support of our individual members. I urge all of our members to come to our monthly meetings to make their voices heard and to attend our lectures, tours, and other events and to bring your friends and children along.

A future explorer at Scoutblast 2002.

And there are a number of smaller actions that each of us can do to promote space exploration. These include getting together with friends and co-workers to watch Space Station fly-overs; donating copies of The Odyssey to local schools and libraries; going to the local park or school ground with a telescope or a pair of binoculars for star gazing; and letting your friends know about cool space-related websites (including our own, www.oasis-nss.org.)

By each of us doing a little bit to spread the word that space IS our future, we'll be bringing our dream that much closer.

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