Thanks to our many supporters, over 400 girls had sponsored registrations: Rice Space Institute; NASA Cluster and MMS Missions; Wiess School of Natural Science; University of Houston, Downtown; National Space Biomedical Research Institute (Baylor College of Medicine); Professor Neal Lane; and the Baker Institute for Public Policy. The girls experienced over 15 hands-on activities in the street fair (including a solar telescope and a Discovery Dome), and over 35 workshops led by women scientists and engineers. Thanks to all the presenters and volunteers and to Deloitte for their sponsorship!

No Details || Top

As a thank-you for hosting JFK's famous "to the moon" speech, Rice received a piece of the Moon October 10 at the Rice/Navy game at the Rice Stadium. The rock will be on display until March 2010. Additional news link: http://bit.ly/bZ7Pr

No Details || Top

John Freeman and Patricia Reiff are Rice faculty who analyzed data from the Moon in the heydey of Apollo. Recent interest in Lunar science has ushered in many new lunar measurements, from remote sensing to lunar impacts looking for water.

No Details || Top

July 17-20 drew many happy people to the Discovery Green in downtown Houston to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Lunar Landing. Thanks to Greg Marshall and his volunteers! Visitors enjoyed space activities and space-related shows in the Discovery Dome and on the big screen. A fullsized cutout photo of JFK giving his famous "to the moon" speech on the Rice campus Sept 12, 1962, behind the actual podium (left) was a big hit. Two "Discovery Domes" (right) were on hand to wow the crowd. One showed "Future Moon" from HMNS (narrated by Walter Cronkite) and one showed "Dawn of the Space Age" by Mirage 3D, both in fulldome (filling the interior of the inflatable dome). Discovery Dome (www.discoverydome.com) is an outreach of the Rice Space Institute in partnership with HMNS.

No Details || Top

Weatherford, Oklahoma is the home of the Stafford Air and Space museum. On May 19, 2009 it hosted eleven Apollo astronauts and VIPs to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo X mission. RSI Director Patricia Reiff was onhand to present gifts to Gen. Stafford, here shown in front of the his Discovery Dome. Here she is presenting a copy of the JFK "to the Moon" speech, given in the Rice stadium September 12, 1962. She also presented to the Museum three full-dome planetarium shows to be shown in his Discovery Dome: "Earth's Wild Ride" (produced by Rice University); "Future Moon", (produced by HMNS), and "The Nature of Science", produced by Ott Planetarium. The Stafford museum is one of more than 90 Discovery Domes worldwide, an outreach of the Rice Space Institute (http://www.discoverydome.com).

No Details || Top