[LUNAR Announce:] Ames launches, new rules to follow

[david raimondi]

LUNAR -

I have good news, I have our signed 2012 permit with Ames in hand.

There is one rule that has changed for 2012, and this will have an impact on
our launches held at Ames. We are limited to 350 people on the airfield at a
time. If a person leaves, we can let someone else go on the airfield. If the
number of people start to exceed 250 people, LUNAR will need to assign
additional people to crowd control.

If the club is expecting more that 350 people to attend a launch, we must
notify Base Operations in advance, (when I file the NOTAM).

The first impact I see is this starts to limit our outreach events and
forces the club to try and spread groups across multiple launches. This
happens to a degree by itself, but we will no longer be able to host several
scout troops at a time. This might also impact the way the Ames Educational
directorate works with us.

This new rule stems from the ATC group noticing at the July and August
launches that we had approximately 400+ people at the launch.

There is some good news in all of this. Those attending the launch might get
to launch more often. The bad news is for those who arrive later in the
morning, you risk not being allowed on the airfield and the very end of the
launch.

With that said, The Ames launch for Saturday Jan 28th. is on.

Dave