Yuri’s Night 2012 – Executive Team

Yuri’s Night Press Release: It’s been less than four months since we celebrated the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight with Yuri’s Night 2011, but it’s already time for us to start gearing up for 2012. Over the last two months, we’ve received dozens of fantastic applications for this year’s Executive, and we’re pleased to announce the official composition of our 2012 Global Team. “Not only do this year’s new arrivals include leaders of such organizations as Astronauts4Hire, SEDS, and the Federation of Galaxy Explorers,” said Assistant Director Brice Russ, “but we’re bringing back most of the YN11 Global Team members that made last year’s festivities such a resounding success. I’m extremely excited to see what we can accomplish this year.” As with last year, the 2012 Executive will be split up into four teams–Operations, Outreach, Media, and Digi. (Italicized names below indicate returning members) OPERATIONS TEAM: (led by Executive Director Ryan Kobrick) Chief Financial Officer (and Assistant Director) – Tim Bailey Chief Strategist/Director of Event Expansion – Nicholas de Leon Director of Marketing – Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto Contest Manager – Greg Wagner Directors of Special Projects – Marcia Fiamengo, Alan Steinberg Director of Awesome – Carolyn Belle OUTREACH TEAM: Directors of Outreach: Ray Sanders, H. Aziz Kayihan Regional Outreach (US): Rayna Hall Regional Outreach (International): Sudeep Neupane Science Center Outreach: Cat Aboudara Middle/High School Outreach: Mikayla Diesch College Outreach: Abby Dickes Regional Outreach (Europe): Dorian Bozicevic, Maria Pflug-Hofmayr Regional Outreach (Asia): Nur Liyana Che Md Azim Regional Outreach (Middle East): Amin Jamshidi, Serkan Yildiz, Nouf Al-Jalaud MEDIA TEAM: (led by Assistant Director Brice Russ): Web Content Coordinators: David Parmet, Rick Hanton Director of Social Media: Jen Scheer Media Liaison: Rob Shannon DIGITEAM: (led by Master of Electrons Jeffrey Alles) Geospatial Coder: Rocky Persaud Apps Developer: Stephen Prater Webcast Producer: Benjamin Higginbotham Webcast Coordinator: Brian Simmons Rick Hanton and Jen Scheer will also serve as DigiTeam members as needed. Loretta Whitesides and Chris Lewicki also return as members of the Yuri’s Night Board of Directors, along with Ryan Kobrick, Tim Bailey and Brice Russ.

School science experiments launched into space on Endeavour’s final flight

Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto Image Credit: Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto ©2011

Science has been a part of the Space Shuttle Program from the very beginning. The Most recent mission, STS-134, was no exception. Endeavour, making its final flight, carried a pallet of micro gravity experiments created by students from around the United States. Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto from Rancho Santa Fe Elementary in Litchfield, Arizona, spent more than a month at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida helping to set up and analyze the experiments. She was responsible for loading the experiments for the flight aboard Endeavour, and for retrieving the experiments once the space shuttle had landed. The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program , which gives schoolchildren the ability to design real experiments that fly in low Earth orbit, was begun by National Center for Earth and Space Science Education in June of 2010. Children from around the country posed questions such as:

“Can honey be used as a preservative on long duration space flights?” “How does exposure to microgravity affect the swimming patterns and development of zebra fish?” Videos showing the lab work can be seen on ustream, and a description of the program is at STEMStream TV. Student teams submitted 447 proposals, from which 16 were selected—one for each community. You can visit the SSEP Community Network Hubsite for the list of winning proposals. And a second Student Spaceflight Experiments Program opportunity was created when STS-135 Atlantis was added to the space shuttle flight manifest. Veronica is the Arizona regional coordinator for the Planetary Society, at-large director for the National Space Society, president of the Arizona regional coordinator for the Planetary Society, at-large director for the National Space Society, president of the Phoenix chapter of the National Space Society, commander of the Family Living Analysis on Mars Expedition and co-founder of the non-profit organization, Astronauts4Hire.

Veronica Will Speak at the Phoenix Astronomical Society

The Phoenix Astronomical Society will host its next meeting on Thursday 6 January at Paradise Valley Community College (PVCC) in room G-147. The meeting room opens at 7 pm, and the meeting starts at 7:30, and goes to 9:15. Bring a snack to share. Bottled water will be provided by PAS. The previous meeting on 2 December meeting featured Richard Greenberg from Tucson, who did a very interesting presentation on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. 11 January is the Centennial School Star Party from 5:30 – 8pm. 13 January is the PAS Telescope Workshop & Star Party at PVCC from 7pm to 10pm by the Telescope Dome. 22 January is the PARTY OF THE YEAR! The PAS Social. Consult the PAS Times for additional information.

The speaker at this month’s meeting on 6 January, is Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto from the Phoenix chapter of the National Space Society. Her topic is “Astronauts for hire”. Astronauts for Hire is a non-profit corporation whose members are available for hire by researchers to conduct experiments, including parabolic trajectory microgravity research flights. Astronauts4Hire serves as the matchmaker among the suborbital research community, training providers, and spaceflight operators. Veronica Ann Zabala-Aliberto has lived and traveled across the United States and Canada. She has had the opportunity to work on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover missions, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission and was the Coordinator for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera located within the Science Operations Center at Arizona State University. As Commander of the Family Living Analysis on Mars Expedition (F.L.A.M.E.) from 2005-present, Zabala-Aliberto has gained expertise in lunar and martian analogue studies, human factors adaption and education outreach. Mission highlights included that of commanding international crews to the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) which are noted to be the first lunar and martian studies to incorporate children under the age of eighteen in a series of analogue missions. During her field seasons at MDRS, she accumulated a total of 150 EVA hours with a total of combined lunar/Martian simulation time of 320 hours. In addition to being an avid adventurer, aviation enthusiast and noted space activist, Zabala-Aliberto spends most of her time educating and inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers and explorers and promotes robotic and human space exploration and settlement. She has been invited to give keynotes and lectures from various venues such at the NASA Summer Mars and Robotics Camp to various scientific and leisure conventions and conferences. She currently serves as the Phoenix, Arizona Chapter President for the National Space Society (Chapter President 2000present, Board of Directors 2006-2008) and just recently won an election to serve as an At-Large Director for the National Space Society (2010-2014). She has been a Mars Society Phoenix Chapter member (Chapter President from 2000-2006, Chapter member from 2000-present), Jet Propulsion Laboratory Solar System Ambassador (2004-present), Planetary Society State Coordinator (2006-2009), Yuri’s Night Coordinator for Phoenix, Arizona (2008-present), and Geological Society of America member (2008-present).