The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing occurs this month. The Apollo 11 mission was launched by a Saturn V rocket on July 16, 1969. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their Lunar Module (LM) on July 20th, and walked on the lunar surface, while Michael Collins remained in lunar orbit in the command and service module (CSM). All three landed safely on Earth on July 24th. The Apollo 11 moon landing, as well as the preceding and subsequent missions, including the Apollo 8 December 1968 lunar orbit flight, captured the world’s attention at the end of the turbulent 1960s. 

It is fitting to mention this anniversary in an engineering society newsletter since the accomplishment was made possible by engineers of all disciplines. It is important to note that when President Kennedy announced the moon landing goal on May 25, 1961, just twenty days after the first US crewed spaceflight Freedom 7, NASA did not have detailed plans for the mission. The scientific principles were known but landing men on the Moon by the end of 1969 required significant technological creativity and planning, and the largest commitment of resources ($25 billion; $153 billion in 2018 dollars) ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. 

The Apollo program stimulated many areas of technology, leading to over 1,800 spinoff products as of 2015. The flight computer design used in both the lunar and command modules was one of the driving forces behind early research into integrated circuits (IC). By 1963, Apollo was using 60 percent of the United States’ production of ICs. The Apollo program also had cultural impacts. It affected environmental activism in the 1970s due to photos taken by the astronauts. The most well-known include Earthrise, taken by William Anders on Apollo 8, and The Blue Marble, taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts. The Blue Marble was released during a surge in environmentalism and became a symbol of the environmental movement as a depiction of Earth’s frailty, vulnerability, and isolation amid the vast expanse of space.¹ 

 Section News 

The annual IEEE Capital Region summer picnic will be help on July 20th from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM at the EDW Knights of Columbus Council Picnic Pavilion (5115 Little Falls Rd, Arlington, Virginia 22207). This is a joint activity of the NoVA, Washington and Baltimore Sections. It is a great opportunity to meet and network with other local IEEE members. We will provide hamburgers, hot dogs, and vegetarian options along with accompanying fixings and beverages. We ask that attendees bring a side dish or desert to share if possible. 

Note that if you plan to attend the IEEE Picnic, please don’t miss the opportunity to discuss the benefits and the process of becoming Senior IEEE Member in informal and relaxed atmosphere. If you have been an IEEE Member for at least 10 years, and you have significant career achievements over a period of 5 years, you may be eligible to successfully apply for advancement for Senior Member. Many prospective applicants make the mistake of assuming that “significant performance” requires special awards, patents, or other extremely sophisticated technical accomplishments, but this is not the case. Substantial job responsibilities such as team leader, task supervisor, engineer in charge of a program or project, engineer or scientist performing research with some measure of success (papers), or faculty developing and teaching courses with research and publications, all are indications of significant performance. 

Volunteering 

IEEE NoVA always welcomes new volunteers. We have one-time events for which help is needed and longer-term roles that need to be filled. Let me know if you wish to explore ways to work with your fellow IEEE members. 

Volunteer opportunities also exist outside of the IEEE organization. The American Association for the Advancement of Science needs scientists, engineers and physicians to assist K-12 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) teachers in the District of Columbia and adjacent counties, including Loudoun and Howard Counties, during the 2019-20 school year. The details of the collaboration are worked out between the teacher and the volunteer, and may involve giving demonstrations, assisting in lab experiments, lecturing on special topics, assisting with homework, etc. The hours are flexible, and volunteers attend a one-day orientation session before being assigned to schools. To see how volunteers are assisting their teachers, view the video clips at https://www.aaas.org/programs/STEM-volunteers . If you care about K-12 STEM education and have time to share your knowledge with students and teachers, please send a note to bcalinge@aaas.org with your home address, or call Betty Calinger, 202-326-6629. 

Upcoming Events 

The best way to stay informed of local activities is to visit the NoVA website’s pages https://r2.ieee.org/nova/events/ that lets you search for events of interest, or https://r2.ieee.org/nova/calendar/ that provides a list of the next 2 months events. 

Note that if you have trouble getting to events that interest you (and who doesn’t have trouble commuting in the DC area!), many events are broadcasted via WebEx and you can attend virtually. You must register and under Special Instructions request WebEx login information. 

The events currently scheduled for next few months include:

Special Forums, Seminars, and Conferences 

The 2019 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering Technologies (CHASE) is scheduled to be held in Arlington, Virginia September 25-27, 2019 with the IEEE Computer Society participating as a sponsor of this event. More information can be found at https://conferences.computer.org/chase2019/. 

Best wishes, 

Michael Olex 

Chair, IEEE Northern Virginia Section 

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¹ All facts and figures regarding the Apollo Program are from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Mission_summary