IF YOUR EMAIL HAS CHANGED, PLEASE LET US KNOW YOUR NEW ADDRESS!
Send it to webmaster@comara.org
Please don't forget to vote in the annual COMARA Board election - see the last page of this Newsletter.
The 2007 COMARA REUNION has been scheduled for 4 - 6:30 p.m. on Sunday September 23, 2007. There will be buffet style hors-d'oeuvres, such as Beef and Salmon, and a cash bar. This location is just west of U.S. I- 270.
THAT'S AMORE Restaurant
15201 Shady Grove Road
Rockville, MD 20850
Send your check by September 16 to:
COMARA
PO Box 34594
Bethesda, MD 20827
Your Board of Directors also decided to have the 2007 COMARA Annual meeting at the start of the reunion event. This will allow a greater number of members access to the annual meeting, if they desire, at a convenient time and place. We promise it will be brief.
This is the first COMARA Annual Reunion scheduled in the sovereign state of Maryland, after four annual events in Virginia. We would hope for a great turnout from everyone, but especially those residing in that fine state, birthplace of the current COMARA President (Balto.).
Directions to That's Amore Rockville: From I-270 North or south, take Exit 8 Shady Grove Road. Turn left at first light onto Shady Grove Road. Turn left at Research Blvd (second traffic light), and into the That's Amore parking lot.
At the suggestion of Joel Alper, long-time Chairman of the National Philharmonic Orchestra, we're sponsoring a "COMARA Night" at a National Philharmonic orchestra concert in late October at Strathmore, the wonderful new concert hall on Rockville Pike at the Grosvenor metro station (= free parking!). It's on Saturday, October 20, at 8 p.m. The program includes the Brahms Second Piano Concerto and, fittingly for COMSAT, Gustav Holst's The Planets. We will also have the use of the Comcast Circles Lounge for our group, both before the concert and at intermission; free snacks, plus a cash bar. As of August 15, we have 23 persons signed up for this concert. Join Us!
Very good orchestra seats are available at only $29, a very substantial reduction. Mail your check for $29 per seat, payable to COMARA, with "Concert" on the Memo Line, to us at COMARA, P.O. Box 34594, Bethesda, Md. 20827. The deadline for receipt is Wednesday, September 19. You pick up your tickets at a special COMARA table near "Will Call" on the day of the event. You will need the ticket to gain admittance to the Comcast Circles Lounge. Try to arrive by at least 7:30 p.m. Questions? Call Jack Hannon at 703-356-2181.
Ramesh K. Gupta, a more than 20 year veteran at COMSAT, accepted the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Fellow award in Honolulu, Hawaii in June, 2007 for 'unusual distinction in the profession' and 'extraordinary record of accomplishments' based on his work at COMSAT Laboratories. Ramesh joined COMSAT Laboratories in 1980 after receiving a Ph.D. in Electrical engineering from the University of Alberta, Canada and served in various technical and management positions in the RF and satellite technologies organization. He also received an MBA degree from the Wharton School of Business in 1989. He has served as a Managing Director at COMSAT Laboratories (later Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications) and also as Vice President of Advanced Business and Technology at AMCOM Communications in Maryland. He served as a consultant to JSAT Corporation for JCSAT-9 and JCSAT-10 satellites leading to their successful launch and in-orbit operation in 2006. Ramesh is presently part of technical and management team at Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV) in Reston, Va., working on a next generation hybrid satellite and cellular telecommunications system. Congratulations, Ramesh!
The University of New Mexico has selected Saj Durrani as a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus this year (one of five such Alumni). Saj received his Doctorate in Electrical Engineering there in 1962. After graduation, he joined GE, followed by teaching and work at the RCA Space Center in New Jersey. Saj joined Comsat Labs in 1968 and remained at the Labs till the end of 1972. After that, he spent most of his career with NASA, holding research and management positions at Goddard and HQ.
Martha Hamilton in last week's Sunday Washington Post reports that if you and your spouse live to age 65, you or your spouse has 840 chances in 1,000 that one of you will live to age 85. This has occasioned a new kind of Annuity in which you make a lump sum payment now, at your current stage of life, and the Annuity pays out "for life" once you or your spouse lives to age 85. This is called a "longevity annuity." The minimum payment at The Hartford, the only insurer mentioned by name, is $10,000. The example she uses, which won't be of much use to the likes of us, is a man age 40 who pays in the $10,000, lives to be 85, and begins receiving a monthly payment for life of $2,550, which ain't exactly chicken feed! Using this framework for a woman, the payout at age 85 would be $1,840, a lesser payout because women have longer expected lifetimes. "Results may vary." All of us probably fear outliving our money. This product is an interesting way to hedge your bets. Check it out.
Marilyn and Irv Dostis celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on June 8, 2007. Marilyn, how did you manage?
Elsie and Ron Garlow celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary on August 18, 2007.
Bill Coulter, General Counsel's Office, sent COMARA a most warm-hearted obituary on Ray Berres, father of John Berres from the General Counsel's office, who died in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Thursday, Feb. 1, 2007, a few months short of his 100th birthday. Mr. Berres spent eleven seasons in major league baseball as a backup catcher, but his real claim to fame came as the pitching coach for the Chicago White Sox in 1949-66, an amazing 17-year run with the same team (pitching coaches get fired a lot more frequently nowadays, by and large), and again for parts of the 1968 and 1969 seasons as a favor to his former teammate, manager Al Lopez. His pitching staffs were always among the American League's best in earned run average, and he turned around the careers of many pitchers who had failed elsewhere. His best turnaround project was Tommy John, a name known to all baseball fans. He also had great rapport with his players, and "never wanted to take credit for anything," according to one of his players. We could use a few more like Ray Berres in corporate America today. John, the family sends its sincerest condolences.
When we receive a report about a member's death, if there is a surviving spouse, the membership is transferred to the spouse. This provides continuing news about benefits and invitations to COMARA functions to the spouse. There is also a section (linked from the Members page after sign in) that lists all the notices received. If we've missed one, please let us know.
LCOR is proposing to submit their ideas for the site to the Montgomery County Planning Board, probably in September.
Also - they are very open to the idea of having appropriate road names, e.g. satellite names, prominent people names etc. I mention this at any time LCOR comes to the Civic Association to present their ideas.
Please send your suggestions for street names to me at baines2005@verizon.net
(reference COMSAT) or call me at 301-580-4896.
Kathie Hulley (Mike Hulley's wife)
President, Clarksburg Civic Association
Hello COMARA folks:
This last weekend, the group of volunteers that brought Jamesburg Earth Station back to a new life, had immense success in a world wide EME (moon bounce) competition. Worked ham radio operators around the world, on all continents, with some of the strongest signals heard off the moon surface. It was thrilling. We have now perfected our moon tracking software, now interfaced with the VERTEX-RSI 7210 tracking system, and can even steer our micro size spot beam to be reflected off different areas of the moon surface.
A few weeks ago we mapped the Jamesburg dish surface, using a laser total station theodolite, and powerful software. We confirmed what some have offered, that Jamesburg is a "shaped" dish, with specially matched main surface shape, and secondary mirror shape to gain an extra db or so of gain. Now that the classic Parabola-hyperbola pair are not being used, we are looking for mathematical descriptions of the shaped dish, and subreflector, so that we can determine the current surface accuracy. The Jamesburg dish is a Philco Ford 30 meter diameter Intelsat-A design, constructed in late 1968. Can anyone help?
Of course, if anyone wants a tour of the new Jamesburg, let me know, I would be happy to set one up. I also have a limited number of magazine issues that feature cover stories of our project, and would be happy to mail a couple to the appropriate person.
The land owner wants to sell the 160 Acres of formerly ATT owned land, including the dish complex, and we hope to continue use of the dish complex for Science outreach, Research, and "Space Camp - Like" activities.
Please contact me if you can help, or if you want more information, and take
a look at our website:
http://www.jamesburgdish.org
all the best,
Jamesburg Earth Station Moon Bounce Team
Pat Barthelow, AA6EG, Jamesburg Project Manager
aa6eg@hotmail.com
916-315-9271
The COMSAT Labs Division of ViaSat held a retirement luncheon for Ben Pontano on June 2, 2007. Invitees included John Evans, Will Cook, and Paul Schrantz, and of course Ben's wife and daughter. Ben started at COMSAT Labs in 1969, and then went on to INTELSAT, returning to COMSAT in 1985. Ben served as the Director of COMSAT Labs in its last days as part of COMSAT and then Lockheed Martin. Prakash Chitre is the current General Manager of this ViaSat business unit.
Mario Cardullo, who served in many COMSAT units.
Ali joined Comsat Labs in 1969 shortly before the move from L Street to the Labs. There he did major work in filter theories and implementation. He later joined CTA, which was acquired 10 years ago by Orbital Sciences. He is retiring from full time work as President of Orbital Communications International, Orbital Science Corporation's geostationary sales and manufacturing group, which has been very successful over the last 10 years, especially the last three. They have announced selling two satellites each to Intelsat and SES Americom and another, the third, to OPTUS of Australia this year alone. Dr. Atia will continue to work part time at Orbital, focusing on leading edge payload systems.
They have returned from their annual fishing trip to Alaska with 350 lbs. of fresh salmon and halibut. No, it's not a "fish story" and no, despite the high cost of "wild" salmon at the market, Bob is not starting up yet another sideline business! That is, I think so...
David, a prolific author in the satellite communications area, and who is writing a book about COMSAT, is leaving IOT Systems LLC to become the Chair, Space Studies, College of Aerospace Science, at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, N.D. Good luck getting through your first winter, Dave!
On September 19, Gary, who taught satellite orbits courses at Comsat Labs, will speak at the AIAA Space 2007 conference in Long Beach, CA. His talk is entitled Space Exploration: Mass Ratios for Different Missions. For any given mission, there is a minimum ratio of the initial launch mass to the final payload mass. The mass ratio for LEO is about 20, for a landing on the moon and return about 500, and for a landing on Mars and return about 5,000. These mass ratios have not substantially changed in the last 40 years, and are not expected to change in the next 50 years. The transportation cost for a human mission to Mars is about 10 times as costly as one to the moon. Compared to robotic exploration, a human mission to Mars requires a round trip, supplies for a couple of years, and higher reliability.
On Saturday, September 1, Gary will give a similar talk to a men's group in Gaithersburg, MD. For more details, or a copy of the paper, send an email to Gary.
Cal Cotner reports that Cindy Cole, former World Systems Division employee, was pictured recently in the Washington Post in an article about local rivers and rowing on the rivers.
Paul Troutman, World Systems Division - triple bypass surgery on June 6, 2007; Paul is doing nicely and well into rehab.
Bob Eichberg, Maritime Systems Division - hip replacement at Mt. Vernon Hospital on July 19 following a fall at home.
Al Smith, Labs - triple heart bypass in March. Al is also doing nicely and well into rehab. Al and his wife Phyllis moved in 2006 to the Penn National golf community some 20 - 30 minutes north of Hagerstown, Md. That put them just about equidistant from their three daughters! They are delighted with the community and don't miss the traffic of Montgomery County.
* * * * *Please send us information about what you're doing for a future COMARA Newsletter! Best wishes for the spring and summer!
IF YOUR EMAIL HAS CHANGED, PLEASE LET US KNOW YOUR NEW ADDRESS!
Send it to webmaster@comara.org
Vote for no more than 3 Directors
___ Irv Dostis
___ Joseph Pelton
___ Steven Teller
An online ballot is available after you sign in. If you are unable to use
the online ballot, you may use this ballot. Mail the ballot by September 16, 2007 to:
COMARA
PO Box 34594
Bethesda, MD 20827
Irv Dostis - Irv is known and highly respected throughout the satellite industry for his technical acumen and his explosive and somewhat wacky sense of humor. He is one of the founders of COMARA, and currently serves as COMARA's Vice-President.
Dr. Joe Pelton - Joe joined the COMSAT staff in 1969 and served as a Manager in the Intelsat Affairs Division (1969-73). While at COMSAT, he also served as Secretary of the Technical Subcommittee (1969-1972) and as US Associate Representative on the Long Range Planning Committee. (1972). Transferring to INTELSAT in 1973, he was for ten years the Executive Assistant to the Director General, and then served as Director, Project SHARE (1984-1987).
Joe also served as Chairman of the Board (1992-95) and Vice President of Academic Programs and Dean (1996-97) of the International Space University of Strasbourg, France. He has also been Director of the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Director of Strategic Policy at Intelsat He was the founding president of the Society of Satellite Professionals International in 1983. He is the founder and Vice Chairman of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation that works in partnership with space and telecommunications research institutes and foundations in Europe, North America and Asia. Dr. Pelton is the author of some two-dozen books in the fields of telecommunications, space policy, and satellite communications, and currently serves as Director of the Space and Advanced Communications Research Institute (SACRI) at George Washington University.
Steve Teller - Steve is the President of IOT Systems, LLC, a firm that employs several former COMSAT employees and was created to continue support for COMSAT In-Orbit Test customers. IOT Systems provides in-orbit test and other services to a wide range of satellite operators and manufacturers.
Steve is very committed to preserving the COMSAT Legacy, and an ever-growing array of COMSAT memorabilia, from Annual Reports to oral history interviews of COMSAT's leaders to every word of every COMSAT Technical Review, which can be found on the IOT website via a link on COMARA's home page. Steve began his COMSAT History Project in 1999 when COMSAT's future appeared to be more uncertain. It started by collecting pictures from people that went on trips or took pictures at COMSAT gatherings. Once Lockheed Martin started donating items to the COMSAT Legacy Project the effort expanded a great deal.