Congressman Franks is a conservative Reagan Republican, and he has spent most of his life working on children's issues and trying to build a better future for all children.

Congressman Franks is serving his third term in the United States Congress, representing the Second District of Arizona. He serves on the Armed Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee, where he is the ranking member of the Constitution Subcommittee. He is an active member of the Republican Study Committee, and serves on a host of task force and caucus groups, including the House Working Group on Judicial Accountability, the Education Freedom Caucus, the House Working Group on Waste, Fraud and Abuse, the Liberty Caucus, the Human Rights Caucus, the India Caucus, the Anti-Terrorism Caucus, and is co-founder of the Israel Allies Caucus (IAC).

How do you actively engage an entire group of 7th and 8th grade students? You invite Dr. Winn to come speak to your classes about forensic engineering. Our gifted program here at Mohave Middle School can be a tough audience but when Dr. Winn came as our guest speaker, they were fascinated by his presentation and eagerly peppered him with questions about his profession. After arriving into Phoenix around noon, Dr. Winn spent the rest of the afternoon sharing his expertise with three separate classes and then, filled with boundless energy, spent the evening speaking at the Phoenix Chapter’s AIAA dinner meeting and 2008 Region VI Student Conference kickoff.

His presentation to our Mohave kids included video clips, diagrams, and images of several plane crashes which he had been called in to investigate. Dr. Winn guided students through the application of some of the basic principles of geometry and physics so that they could reconstruct the events that must have occurred immediately preceding the crash. Students eagerly responded to a series of questions which Dr. Winn posed while he led them through real life applications of their schoolbook learning.

Inviting an expert speaker like Dr. Winn does more than expose students to new areas of learning. His presence moves students to consider developing the skills that will be valuable in the world beyond the classroom. Thank you for sharing your expertise with us, Dr. Winn. Your enthusiasm may be just enough to invigorate one of our future engineers sitting in our Mohave classrooms.

The Arizona Republic (8/10, Jarman) reported, "A ramp-up in government spending on space exploration and high-tech missile-defense systems is turning space into the next frontier for Arizona companies looking for a lucrative source of new business during these challenging economic times." The state Department of Commerce "has made expanding the...aerospace industry a top priority." Further, "space programs...have become an important source of general-fund revenue for the state's universities." The Republic noted that "the space business...has traditionally been subject to sharp peaks and valleys," but now appears to be "on the upswing." The article details increased government spending on NASA, and to contractors involved in missile defense, satellites and other space-based systems. Going forward, some industry officials expect "funding for NASA's exploration programs continue to grow while funding will flatten for national-security programs, and decline for some Department of Defense programs."

On April 14 and 15, 2008, over 100 members of AIAA were in Washington DC to meet with their members of Congress. Among the attendees were AIAA members from the Phoenix and Tucson Sections working in association with other Section members from Region VI (California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Nevada). The offices of local Congressmen (Flake and Shadegg) were among those visited.

AIAA’s Public Policy Committee sponsors an annual event called, Congressional Visits Day (CVD). While AIAA is often called upon to testify in Congress on aerospace issues, CVD is a proactive, grassroots activity to involve AIAA members in face-to-face dialogue with their Congressional representatives. This is considered a much better way to communicate with members of Congress. It has the potential to connect with Members from across the country, regardless of their committee membership or affiliations.

In all, 177 Congressional offices were visited. Reports from the visiting members will be incorporated into a future Aerospace America article, but early reports indicate significant interest from Congressional members on educational and workforce issues, acknowledgement of the inadequacy in aeronautics and space research funding, and growing understanding of the need to clarify international trade restrictions.

Closer to home, visits with the staff of Congressmen Flake and Shadegg found views less supportive as most issues discussed lead to sustained or increased roles for the federal government.

Requests for visits were made to all local Representatives, including both Senators. In the coming year, AIAA Phoenix Section will seek to improve these communications.

AIAA serves the aerospace community as a respected voice on public policy issues – giving members a powerful voice in government decisions affecting the aerospace industry, contributing technical expertise and policy guidance to Congress and the Executive Branch. AIAA staff and members regularly testify before the House and Senate on aerospace issues.

For AIAA’s 2008 Congressional Visits Day, AIAA’s Board of Directors approved ten key policy issues. The issues come to the BoD principally through a process managed by the Public Policy Committee with support from the Technical Committees

The key policy issues are: 1) Maintain Leadership in Aeronautics Through a Robust and Accountable National Aeronautics Research and technology Strategy; 2) Address the Challenges of Military Space Acquisition; 3) Integrate Aerospace Workforce Development; 4) Increase Emphasis and Funding for Technology and Engineering in STEM Education; 5) Lessen the Impact of Export Controls on Domestic Aerospace Industry; 6) Improve Air Cargo Security and Screening; 7) Promote Homeland Security by Facilitating the Use of UAV’s in the National Airspace; 8) Promote Robust and Affordable Space Transportation; 9) Sustain U.S. Human Spaceflight Leadership; 10) Recapture American Leadership in Space-related Life and Physical Sciences.

Greetings and welcome to the start of the 08-09 calendar year for Phoenix AIAA! For those of you who have joined us since the end of the last calendar year my name is Mark Longanbach and I am the returning Chair for our section. I work for EchoStar Corporation in Gilbert, AZ as a spacecraft engineer. I dedicate as much of my spare time as I can to see Phoenix AIAA succeed but I also enjoy my hobbies of rocketry, reading, and the occasional card game.

Now that you know a little bit about me, I’d like to share some of the things Phoenix AIAA has done in the past year. We did:

• 8 Dinner Meetings
• A trip to Luke AFB
• 2 Distinguished Lecturers: Randii R. Wessen ("Future US Planetary Exploration") and Bob Winn ("Mistakes and Deceptions in Aircraft Accident Reconstructions")
• 2 Joint Meetings with ASME & SAE
• 5 Social Events (4 Happy Hours and a wine tasting)
• 2 Major Educator Events: Sponsored ASTA (Arizona Science Teachers Association) and AzSEF (Arizona Science & Engineering Fair)
• AND We Supported the 2008 Region VI Student Conference

Wow! What a year. Thank you to all the volunteers who had helped out during these events. Without your efforts our year wouldn’t have been as successful as it was.

During the summer break your council was hard at work organizing the upcoming year and it’s going to be a great one! As you can tell, we are pushing Public Policy hard this year. I hope to see many of you come out to our opening event on August 30th. In addition to public policy, we’re going to expand our role in Arizona’s aerospace education by recruiting more educator associates, sponsoring more events for our teachers, and getting as many volunteered engineers and speakers as we can out to them.

Going into this new calendar year Phoenix AIAA has many goals we intend to achieve. If you’d like to be a part of this process please contact me at phoenixaiaa@gmail.com. I am always open for comments, suggestions and criticisms.

August is for Aerospace

Public Policy Reception & Discussion

Saturday, August 30

Phoenix AIAA is pleased to welcome

The Honorable Trent Franks

United States House of Representatives, AZ 2nd District

Date:	Saturday, August 30th, 2008
Time:	11:00 am Networking & Tour 12:00 pm Lunch Reception 1:00 pm Congressman Trent Franks
Location:	Challenger Space Center 21170 N. 83rd Avenue (map) Peoria, AZ 85382 (623) 322-2001
Menu:	Deli Buffet with pasta, fruit salad and dessert.
Cost:	Donations Welcome

Please make reservations by Thursday, August 28th. Contact Mark by phone or email: (602) 403-5318; phoenixaiaa@gmail.com

Traveling West on Loop 101 (From the East Valley):

• Exit onto 75th Avenue
• Turn Right off the exit ramp, heading North on 75th Avenue
• Turn Left onto Deer Valley Road
• Turn Left onto 83rd Avenue
• The Center is the large white building on the right
• The Challenger Space Center is adjacent to the Sunrise Mountain High School campus

If you are receiving this newsletter and are not an AIAA member, please take this time to consider becoming one. Joining the AIAA is an excellent opportunity to enter into the professional aerospace community. Among many other benefits, the AIAA will help you find jobs, boost your resume, and gain important knowledge in your field of interest. AIAA membership is $85 annually and includes a number of benefits for the professional. Students currently enrolled at a college or university can become members for just $20 a year and receive similar benefits. Educator Associates can join for FREE! All memberships include a subscription to AIAA’s monthly magazine, Aerospace America, and also a monthly email newsletter written by your local section. Please visit www.aiaa.org for more information. You may contact our membership representative, Rob Sears, for information on joining the AIAA Phoenix section.

A new book in the Space In Miniature series has just been published. SIM #7 is titled Apollo Lunar Module and covers the configuration history of the spacecraft that first landed a man on the moon. This 49-page soft-bound book is printed in black and white on coated paper, and has numerous line drawings and photographs that provide the model builder a concise reference on all nine manned flights. With 59 numbered figures plus 15 pages of color pattern drawings, this guidebook is a unique resource for the serious space modeler.

The book starts with a brief history of the Apollo program followed by a mission-by-mission narrative description of the hardware evolution of the Lunar Module from Apollo 9 through Apollo 17. On of the challenges of modeling a Lunar Module is determining the correct thermal blanket pattern for each mission. The book provides a description of these blanket materials and then has a page of scale, multiview drawings devoted to the Ascent Stage and the Descent stage of each mission, showing how these patterns changed. This is followed by an illustrated article on how to build a detailed version of the 1/48th scale Monogram kit, a comprehensive kit list, plus kit reviews of all the popular kits ever released of this spacecraft.

SIM #7 - Apollo Lunar Module sells for $12 plus shipping and is available on line at www.spaceinminiature.com or by sending a check for $13.99 (which includes first class postage to U.S. addresses), payable to Michael Mackowski, to 1022 W. Juanita Ave., Gilbert, AZ 85233. The other titles in the SIM series are still available. For additional details, contact the publisher at 480-926-4765 or by email at mike@spaceinminiature.com.

For more information please visit: http://www.spaceinminiature.com/