Attendees:
James Burk, Organizer
Precia
Bob
Nick
Theresa
Zane

James provided an overview of the several current projects being undertaken by the Mars Society including:

• The Mars Desert Research Station, where James was a crewmember on Crew 197 in October.
• Several Internet Task Force projects that James leads: (in order of priority below)
  1. MarsVR Public Beta
  2. Redesign of www.MarsSociety.org
     • Includes a common look & feel across all TMS websites that will be rolled out over 2019.
     • Common header design
     • WordPress 5.0 + Gutenberg Editor
  3. MDRS Crew Reporting & Field Season Support
  4. Education & Outreach Website
  5. Chapter Websites
  6. HAL (Raspberry PI hardware+software solution)
  7. Marspedia
  8. Video Production & Support of Conventions

In the course of discussing these projects, James showed the following resources:

• MDRS Website: http://mdrs.marssociety.org
• Video of MarsVR Kickoff Conference Call (Private): https://youtu.be/Iuu7-C-fp10
• MarsVR Website: http://marsvr.io
• MarsVR Trello Board: https://trello.com/b/zCUEsK8l/marsvr-phase-1 (requires you to be added – send James your Trello username)
• MarsVR Github Wiki: https://github.com/marssociety/marsvr/wiki  (also requires you to be added – send James your Github username)
• Marspedia End of Year Call (Provides an overview of the work done in 2018 and plans for 2019): https://youtu.be/VTKuz6xTZ48
• Education Page including K-12 Curriculum: http://education.marssociety.org
• An overview of the current Chapters and what they typically work on: http://chapters.marssociety.org
• HAL experiment James took to MDRS: http://marspedia.org/MDRS:HAL_Development_Log
• The Mars Society’s Youtube channel which has several hundred videos from past conventions: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMarsSociety/playlists

Afterwards the group had a discussion of what projects individuals could help with and were interested in pursuing. James committed to follow up with each person to ensure they could work on what they’d be interested in, and which of their skills could make the best impact to the Mars Society.

We plan to meet every month at the same location (Conference room 5K at WeWork Lincoln Square). James has these booked out for 6 months. February’s meeting will also be a Fireside Chat with Sean McClinton of the Seattle Space Entrepreneurs.

James’s contact info is: jburk@marssociety.org and cell phone is 206-601-7143.

At our December meeting, James Burk gave a presentation on the Mars Society, our projects, and our plans for 2018. The presentation was recorded and you can watch using the Youtube embed below.