Changing of the Guard...

With the end of the 1995-96 academic year approaching quickly, I have been searching for a new editor of The Ascending Node for next year. Although I have enjoyed being editor for the past year, next year I will need more time for classes.

Our new editor will be Kirsten Tynan. Kirsten is a past UASEDS president and a Mechanical Engineering senior. She has been a great help with this year's newsletter, and I have no doubt that she will make a great editor.

This year there have been a lot of changes to The Ascending Node. We have tried to incorporate regular features, which was more successful last semester. We had our White Noise section, which was an avenue for expression of ideas relating to the space industry. Warren Ockrassa was a regular columnist and provided great food for thought. We also had a monthly puzzle, which Kirsten helped with. Michael Koller was also a regular contributor, both in White Noise and in feature articles. Mark Elowitz provided invaluable scientific information for many issues, including star charts. We recently added meeting minutes to the Node, and had hoped to eventually get progress reports from our officers to keep everyone up to date on SEDS activities. Distribution of the newsletter was also expanded to include more areas of campus. People also volunteered to be cartoonists on several occasions, but writers' block and time usually got in the way. We had also planned on having interviews of our speakers, etc., and hopefully this will be pursued next year.

This semester, the Node has been maintained by Aaron Schultz on our website. This area was in desperate need of a volunteer, and thanks to Aaron for taking care of it.

Thanks to everyone who contributed and helped to copy and fold.

There is only one more issue left of the Node for this semester. It has not been decided if the Node will be published during the summer. If you have any comments, suggestions, or other feedback (always appreciated), email andrea@seds.org