LUNAR On-Line

LUNAR's on-line presence is brought to us largely through the efforts of Dave Redell, LUNAR #322. Dave arranged for the computer to host our site, registered the domain name lunar.org, and created (and maintains) much of the on-line information that you'll find there. I can assure you that it represents a lot of work! LUNAR owes Dave a heartfelt thanks for his efforts.

To access the on-line LUNAR, one needs a computer connected to the Internet and a software program called a network browser. Mosaic (developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is the mother of all browsers, but Netscape Navigator (developed by Netscape Communications Corporation) is arguably the more popular and capable browser.

In the past, the Internet (which started as the ARPANet in 1969) was the playground of scientists, academicians and government contractors. In 1993, if you said "Internet" at a cocktail party, you would most likely be greeted by a blank stare. However, within the last year, access to the Internet has suddenly become available to the average citizen through on-line services such as America Online and Prodigy, and through ISP (Internet service providers). Even if you are not yet connected, chances are that, unless you've just recovered from a long coma, you know something about it.

Now, I can readily access the Internet from my home in Livermore, and exchange e-mail with my sisters in Tennessee and Texas, and with my mother in Colorado. While developing this article, I've already accessed the net several times to verify some of my facts. It's a remarkable explosion in technology, and LUNAR is there, too!

There's a lot of stuff to see on LUNAR's web pages. For example, you'll find our launch and meeting calendar, directions to our launch site, a gallery of photos from past launches, on-line issues of the LUNAR'clips (this newsletter!), our club bylaws, pointers to member rocket pages, pointers to other rocket and space-related information on the Internet, and more! And, it's easy to update this information so that it reflects current decisions and schedules. When the 1996 launch and meeting calendar is finalized, it will be available via the web before it will be generally available elsewhere.

The on-line version of the LUNAR'clips is in some ways better than the hard copy version that we mail to the membership. In particular, the on-line version often has color images or additional visual material that doesn't appear in the hard copy version because of printing costs. Currently, the on-line version is only created after completing the final hard copy version. But because of the inherent delay in duplicating, addressing, stamping and mailing the newsletter, the on-line version is available to a wide audience sooner. Readers in Dublin, California, and Dublin, Ireland, both have virtually equal access to the newsletter.

LUNAR has truly gone global!

Copyright © 1995 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.

Information date: Oct. 14, 1995 lk