Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG) Forum Meeting

To All:

Enclosed is an update to the Invitation Package for the ATWG Forum Meeting to be held at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory on April 12th – 14th.  This Invitation Package is also available on the web site – “www.atwg.org” 

An overview paragraph of the Session – “Space Awareness for Participation” is given below:

The Space Awareness for Participation panel scheduled for 8:30-10:30 AM Thursday, April 14th, will address a difficult issue that groups within the aerospace community are facing: getting information out to the general public. So much is going on in space these days, and the need for public awareness/support/participation is growing, especially when it comes to generating workforce replacement! The IGNITE Foundation is developing a variety of programs in conjunction with ATWG members (and others) that look at existing programs and materials and collaboratively build upon them, to avoid ‘re-creating the wheel’ scenarios. The Aerospace Community at large continues to funnel large amounts of information (and money) into the mass  media in the form of education and public outreach (E/PO), but only a small percentage of the information actually reaches the general public and often  times the form in which it is presented is either too dry (informational) or too technical to be broadly appealing. This panel will discuss examining what is already going on in these areas, as well as efforts being made to improve the dissemination of information through our developing collaborative efforts. We hope to provide suggested solutions to address this issue and any group who wishes to share in this effort is welcome to get involved!

In addition, I’d like to acknowledge a new panel member, Lonnie Schorer.  She is currently under contract to write a book about traveling to space for kids and is gathering questions from (middle school) students from across the country on this topic.

Becky Cross

The IGNITE Foundation, Inc. 

Everyone (especially in the D. C.area), is encouraged to widely distribute this Invitation Package. Look forward to some interesting energy next week.

Ken Cox, ATWG Forum Director