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mostly-history · 5 years

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Joyce Secciani, a WASP pilot from 1943 to 1944 (USA).

Information on Secciani (x):

Joyce had always wanted to fly - probably from the day she was born, which was December, 1921, in San Diego, California, where she lives today. She spent all of her school years in El Centro and upon graduating from high school, signed up for the government sponsored Civil Pilot Training program at Central Junior College.

Joyce was really serious about flying. She sold her horse and stopped studying piano so she could devote all her energies to flying. After getting her private license, she joined a flying club with 10 members and shared a 65 h.p Interstate plane. After the attack at Pearl Harbor, private flying was not allowed within 200 miles of the U.S. coast. So, with the wings removed and secured along side the fuselage, Joyce helped another member of the club transport the plane on a trailer to Arizona.

As soon as she heard about Jacqueline Cochran's program she applied in January, 1943, and headed for Houston, Texas where the training program began. There Joyce joined Lois Brooks, Lois Hollingsworth, Betty Deuser, Emma Coulter, Mabel Rawlinson, Marcia Courtney, Florence Knight and others in class 43-3. There were no military quarters, so they lived in a motor court or what is called a motel today. On May 16, 1943, the trainees flew all the planes from Houston to Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas. They joined the rest of class 43-4, which had replaced the last of the male cadets.

After graduating in July, 1943, Joyce and several classmates were sent to New Castle Army Air Base, Wilmington, Delaware. They were not there long enough to start flying when the received orders to report to General Hap Arnold's office in Washington, D.C. After a few days of orientation and training, the group was reassigned to Camp Davis (now Fort Davis) as part of the Tow Target Squadron near Wilmington, N.C. They trained and towed targets in front of the firing line for anti-aircraft guns to shoot at. They also flew tracking missions at night so the artillery could practice spotting planes with searchlights.

Unfortunately, classmate Mabel Rawlinson was killed when the engine failed in her Douglas A-24 and she crashed in the woods. Just two days later, Joyce also had engine failure in an A-24. According to the Army accident report, Joyce and the instructor managed a belly landing, the engine was detached from the rest of the plane, the plane caught fire after stopping, and both Joyce and her instructor suffered minor injuries but no burns.

In January, 1944, Joyce, Marcia and several others were transferred to Liberty Field, Camp Stewart, Hinesville, Georgia, where they trained and flew missions with radio controlled targets. The targets were modified Culver Kaydets, PQ-8's and PQ14's, which were controlled from the copilot seat of a UC-78 or AT-11. They also flew administrative flights taking personnel or equipment from one base to another.

In April, the Lois's, Betty, and Emma, were ordered to Biggs AAF in El Paso, Texas, while Joyce, Florence Knight, Mary Nelson, Gertrude Brown, Dorothea Shultz were assigned to March Army Air Base in Riverside, California. At March, there were about 40 WASP pilots in the Tow Target Squadron. They supported artillery training and radio controlled target planes at several California locations. Most were at Camp Irwin (now Fort Irwin) where they flew off a dry lake bed called Bicycle Lake. Other flights were from a field in Van Nuys where Joyce flew 100 miles out to sea to support RADAR tracking missions. While flying in southern California, Joyce also checked out in a P-63 King Cobra. It was then that she met SSgt. Mario Secciani, who maintained these and other fighter planes. As a fighter, the P-63 was a single seater, so after studying the aircraft manual and getting some advice, Joyce took off on her own and had the thrill of flying that beautiful aircraft.

During the month of June, Joyce attended Army Airforce School of Applied Tactics in Orlando, Florida. Unfortunately, there was no flying involved.

After the WASP were disbanded on December 20, 1944, Joyce was sad to leave, but proud to have served with this great group of women pilots. In memory of this service, she designed and carved from wood a small statue of a WASP returning from her last long mission. She was in her flight suit with goggles, map in hand, and a parachute slung over here shoulder. The pedestal bore the inscription "Mission Completed". Later in life Joyce learned how to cast bronze copies of the carving.

Meanwhile, Joyce got her civilian pilot ratings for single and multi-engine planes, and for commercial and instrument flying. In 1945, she and Mario got married and she found a job with Flabob Flying Service at a small airport in Riverside where she flew charter flights, checked out returning military pilots transitioning from fighters and bombers to the light civilian planes, and helped out in the office and hanger.

Soon Mario was discharged and they moved to Chicago for a short time. But with so many military pilots returning to civilian life, she found that flying jobs were hard to come by. After five years, they returned to California and settled in El Cajon, near San Diego, where they built a house and raised two children, Lynn and Lee.

When the kids started school, Joyce went to work as secretary to the principal for the school district. It was great having the same schedule as Lynn and Lee.

Since then, she has been active in promoting the WASP story. She helped set up the WASP exhibit at the San Diego Aerospace Museum, which was gutted by fire at one point. The museum moved to a new location and a new display was installed. In 1992 she supported an oral history of the WASP by Gail Gutierrez for California State University in Fullerton. Now, May, 2003, she enjoys retirement with Mario, Lynn and Lee, the 5 grandchildren, her garden and her bicycle.

#history #military history #aviation history #ww2 #usa #wasp #joyce secciani

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handeaux · 5 years

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Remembering The Poetry Of Neil Armstrong

The oeuvre of Neil Armstrong, poet, is slight, consisting as it does of only two published stanzas, and that bit of doggerel clouded by controversy. On the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, here is the story of that poem. Almost all of the participants in this incident are now deceased, so you will just have to trust your proprietor’s memory.

Neil Armstrong’s appointment to the aerospace engineering faculty was quite a coup for the University of Cincinnati, for the city of Cincinnati and for the state of Ohio. Only two years after his voyage to the moon, Armstrong could have written his own ticket anywhere and certainly did at the university, where he negotiated a private secretary and absolute veto power over public appearances and media access.

Managing the public information office at UC through most of Armstrong’s tenure was a veteran United Press International and Cincinnati Post reporter named Al Kuettner, who had spent most of the 1960s covering the civil rights movement. For several years, Kuettner followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from speech to demonstration to assassination. Kuettner wrote a memoir about his civil rights experiences titled “March to a Promised Land.” The book was published in 2006, when its author was 93.

For a hard-bitten old reporter, Kuettner was truly creative at press agentry and came up with many good ideas to promote UC throughout a decade in which the school was lobbying to join the state system of public universities. Some of these ideas involved Neil Armstrong, and the former astronaut almost invariably shot them down.

Kuettner’s secretary was the formidable Claire Young, who had joined the university’s public relations staff a good decade before Kuettner. In fact, Ms. Young (Kuettner, a son of the Old South, always pronounced that honorific as “Mizz” Young), had been hired by UC’s first public relations director and was always ready to help Mr. Kuettner conform to the rules of the office, whether he liked it or not.

Ms. Young also got along famously with Professor Armstrong, who deferred to her on some matters, a fact not lost on Mr. Kuettner, who occasionally called upon Ms. Young to run interference with the celebrity professor. On one occasion in particular, Kuettner discovered that legendary Cincinnati newsman Al Schottelkotte had walked out of an interview with Neil Armstrong’s raincoat, leaving Schottelkotte’s nearly identical raincoat behind. It was Claire Young who sorted out the exchange in a way that left two substantial egos unbruised.

And so, when a request arrived in 1978 for Professor Armstrong to provide a quote or first-person account of his moon landing for the Mini Page, a nationally syndicated children’s section carried in many newspapers, Al Kuettner asked Claire Young to forward the inquiry to Neil Armstrong. Ms. Young explained that the Mini Page was aimed at children and this sold Armstrong on participating. Rather than jotting a few lines of prose, Armstrong penned eight lines of poetry, clearly aimed at a juvenile audience. Here is how they appeared on the Mini Page, as published in the Cincinnati Post [15 July 1978]:

Unfortunately, through an editing error that was never fully explained, the Mini Page deleted two words from Armstrong’s final line. Although the astronaut’s scansion is remarkably (How shall I put this?) . . . not egregious for an engineering professor, the absence of those two words truly screwed up the meter in that last line and Armstrong was wroth.

He fired off a memo to Ms. Young, expressing his outrage that the Mini Page staff had “taken considerable advantage of my good nature,” and that he would never consent to such a request ever again. As it turns out, the Cincinnati Post [14 July 1979] reprinted the entire poem in its original form a year later, as the 10th anniversary of the moon landing neared. Here is the original manuscript of the poem as Armstrong intended it, preserved in the University of Cincinnati Archives:

Claire Young retained all of the correspondence related to this poem. Typical of Armstrong’s UC memoranda, none are signed or initialed. He knew that anything with his signature became an instant collector’s item.

Kuettner prevailed upon Armstrong to participate in a news conference on 11 June 1979 to be held at the now-demolished Faculty Club on the UC campus. Kuettner’s argument to Armstrong was, either he could agree to one hour-long news conference with 80 reporters, or he could endure 80 hour-long interviews. Armstrong agreed. The June date, more than a month before the actual anniversary, allowed the newsweeklies like Time, Newsweek and U.S. News to file copy in advance, and for foreign media to gain closer access than they could at the official NASA news conference in July.

In fact, something like 80 reporters did show up for the news conference, ranging from a representative of Armstrong’s hometown Wapakoneta News to Morton Dean of CBS. A reporter from Belgium rolled out a sleeping bag in Kuettner’s office. Your proprietor, celebrating his first year in the employ of the university, checked credentials at the door and passed out copies of a prepared statement Armstrong made before taking any questions. Essentially, Armstrong bemoaned the doldrums into which the United States space program had fallen and urged the development of a permanent space station, a lunar base and expeditions to other planets.

Once the questions started, Armstrong answered gamely. Someone handed him a copy of Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff.” He flipped through it and said, “No index. It must be fiction.”

The day was quite a success. Kuettner retired at the end of that month. Armstrong left UC a year later. Claire Young retained her role as conscience and institutional memory in the public relations office well into the current century.

Despite the legend, Armstrong was hardly invisible on campus. Like most professors, he spent most of his time in his office or in nearby classrooms, but your proprietor passed him several times on the engineering quad and he always responded cordially to greetings.

#Neil Armstrong #University of Cincinnati #Al Kuettner #Claire Young #Al Schottelkotte

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jethomme · 6 years

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California Voters: Vote YES on Proposition 10--Fairness to Renters paying in excess of 30% of their income on rent.

Make it clear to greedy developers and unscrupulous landlords that the rent is too damn high! We’re counting on grassroots supporters to step up and vote for Proposition 10 on November 6. Your vote and your voice COUNT! Give the right of city self-determination back to each city government = local control. People on fixed incomes like retirees, veterans, and others require reasonable rents. Median home values have increased by 80% since 2011. More than half the renters in the state of California spend MORE than 30% of their income on rent (Haas Institute for Fair & Inclusive Society, UC Berkeley).

Vote for fairness, or do not be surprised at budding chaos.

Partial list of endorsements follow:

Congresswoman Barbara Lee

Congresswoman Maxine Waters

State Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin (fmr)

State Senator Ben Allen

State Senator Connie M. Leyva

State Senator Kevin De Leon

State Senator Ricardo Lara

State Assemblymember David Chiu

State Assemblymember Laura Friedman

State Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher

State Assemblymember Mike Davis (fmr)

State Assemblymember Phil Ting

State Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer

State Assemblymember Rob Bonta

State Assemblymember Tony Thurmond

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin

Berkeley Rent Board Member Igor Tregub

Berkeley Rent Board Member Leah Simon-Weisberg

Beverly Hills Vice Mayor John Mirisch

Culver City Vice Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells

Culver City Councilmember Daniel Lee

El Cerrito Mayor Gabriel Quinto

Emeryville Mayor Ken Bukowski (fmr)

Fontana School Board Member Mary Sandoval

Fowler Mayor Don Cardenas

Highland City Mayor Pro Tem Jesus Chavez

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti

Los Angeles City Councilmember David Ryu

Los Angeles City Councilmember Gil Cedillo

Los Angeles City Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson

Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin

Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz

Los Angeles City Councilmember Robert Farrell (fmr)

Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn

Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl

Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member George McKenna

Malibu City Councilmember Lou La Monte

Mountain View Mayor Lenny Siegel

Mountain View Councilmember Pat Showalter

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf

Oakland City Councilmember Dan Kalb

Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks

Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan

Redlands City Councilmember Eddie Tejeda

Richmond Vice Mayor Melvin Willis

Richmond City Councilmember Jovanka Beckles

Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin (fmr)

San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen

San Francisco Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer

San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim

San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin

San Jose Councilmember Don Rocha

San Jose Councilmember Sergio Jimenez

Santa Barbara Community College Board of Trustees Vice President Jonathan Abboud

Santa Clara City Councilmember Nassim Nouri

Santa Cruz City Councilmember Chris Krohn

Santa Monica City Councilmember Kevin McKeown

Santa Monica City Councilmember Sue Himmelrich

Santa Monica City Councilmember Tony Vazquez

Santa Monica Rent Board Member Caroline Torosis

Santa Monica Rent Board Member Nicole Phillis

Tulare City Council Member Jose Sigala

Ukiah Mayor Phil Baldwin (fmr)

Vallejo School Board Member Ruscal Cayangyang

West Hollywood City Councilmember Lindsey Horvath

West Hollywood City Councilmember Lauren Meister

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

City of Berkeley

City of Beverly Hills

City of Oakland

City of Palm Springs

City of San Francisco

City of Santa Monica

City of West Hollywood

City of Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors

Monterey County Board of Supervisors

San Francisco City/County Board of Supervisors

PUBLICATIONS

Los Angeles Times

Sacramento Bee

ColoradoBlvd.net

The Daily Californian

East Bay Express

Hoy Los Angeles

KnockLA

San Francisco Bay Guardian

Santa Maria Times

AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROVIDERS

Housing California

Affordable Housing Alliance

Affordable Housing Network of Santa Clara County

Berkeley Student Cooperative

Christian Church Homes

Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO)

East LA Community Corporation

Esperanza Community Housing Corporation

Marty’s Place Affordable Housing Corporation

Mission Economic Development Agency

Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California (NPH)

Oakland Community Land Trust

Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing (SCANPH)

Tenderloin Housing Clinic

Thai Community Development Center

TRUST South LA

Venice Community Housing Corporation

Women Organizing Resources Knowledge and Services (WORKS)

TENANT/HOUSING RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS

Housing NOW! California

Tenants Together

Affordable Homeless Housing Alternatives

Alameda Renters Coalition

Anti-Eviction Mapping Project

Arcata Lazy J Homeowners Association

Asian Law Alliance

Berkeley Tenants Union

Beverly Hills Renters Alliance

Bill Sorro Housing Program (BiSHoP)

California Coalition for Rural Housing

Causa Justa / Just Cause

Chinatown Community for Equitable Development

Coalition for Economic Survival

El Comite de Vecinos del Lado Oeste, East Palo Alto

Comite de la Esperanza

De Rose Gardens Tenant Association (DRGTA)

East Bay Housing Organizations

East Palo Alto Council of Tenants Education Fund

Equity Housing Alliance

EveryOne Home

Fair Housing Advocates of Northern California

Gamaliel CA

Glendale Tenants Union

Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League

Homes for All

Homeless Student Advocate Alliance

Housing 4 Sacramento

Housing Long Beach

Housing Rights Committee San Francisco

Hunger Action Coalition Los Angeles

Inquilinos Unidos

Isla Vista Tenants Union

LiBRE (Long Beach Residents Empowered)

Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN)

Los Angeles Tenants Union

Manufactured Housing Action

Mountain View Tenants Coalition

Oakland Tenants Union

Orange County Mobile Home Residents Coalition

Pasadena Tenants Union

People of Color Sustainable Housing Network

People Organized for Westside Renewal (POWER)

Poverty Matters

Property Owners for Fair and Affordable Housing

The Q Foundation

Renters of Moreno Valley

Sacramento Housing Alliance

Sacramento Tenants Union

Sanctuary of Hope

San Diego Tenants United

San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition

San Francisco Tenants Union

Santa Ana Tenants United

Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR)

Shelter for All Koreatown

Sonoma County Manufactured-Home Owners Association

Sonoma Valley Housing Group

South Pasadena Tenants Union

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE)

Students United with Renters

Union de Vecinos

United for Housing Justice (SF)

United Neighbors In Defense Against Displacement (UNIDAD)

Uplift Inglewood

Urban Habitat

TENANT LEGAL SERVICES

Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus

BASTA

California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation

Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice

Centro Legal de la Raza

Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto

Crow & Rose, Tenant Lawyers

East Bay Community Law Center

Eviction Defense Center

Eviction Defense Network

Inner City Law Center – Los Angeles

LA Center for Community Law & Action

Law Foundation of Silicon Valley

National Lawyers Guild – Los Angeles

Public Advocates

Public Counsel

Public Interest Law Project

Western Center on Law and Poverty

LABOR & WORKERS RIGHTS

California Labor Federation

AFSCME California People

AFSCME Local 3299

AFT Local 2121

AFT Local 1521

Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace & Justice

California Faculty Association

California Federation of Teachers

California Nurses Association

California Teachers Association

Central Coast Alliance United For A Sustainable Economy (CAUSE)

Employee Rights Center San Diego

Humboldt and Del Norte Counties Central Labor Council AFL-CIO

International Union of Painters & Allied Trades Local 510

Jobs with Justice San Francisco

Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

Los Angeles Black Worker Center

Oakland Education Association (OEA)

National Union of Healthcare Workers

Painters & Allied Trades 36

Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers Retirees

San Bernardino and Riverside Counties Central Labor Council

SEIU California

SEIU Local 1021

SEIU Local 99

SEIU Local 221

SEIU Local 521

SEIU Local 721

SEIU Local 2015

SEIU USWW

UC Student-Workers Union UAW Local 2865

United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America UAW Local 5810

UFCW Local 770

Unite HERE Local 11

Unite HERE Local 2850

Unite HERE Local 2

United Educators of San Francisco

United Taxi Workers of San Diego

United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA)

Warehouse Worker Resource Center

POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

California Democratic Party

Green Party of California

Peace and Freedom Party of California

Our Revolution

AAPIs for Civic Empowerment Education Fund

Alhambra Democratic Club

Americans for Democratic Action Southern California

Bernal Heights Democratic Club

Bernie Sanders Brigade

California Progressive Alliance

Chicano Latino Caucus of the California Democratic Party

Democratic Socialists of America

Democratic Socialists of America East Bay

Democratic Socialists of America Los Angeles

Democratic Socialists of America Orange County

Democratic Socialists of America Peninsula

Democratic Socialists of America Pomona Valley

Democratic Socialists of America Sacramento

Democratic Socialists of America San Diego

Democratic Socialists of America San Francisco

Democratic Socialists of America Santa Cruz

Democratic Socialists of America Silicon Valley

Democratic Socialists of America Ventura County

East Area Progressive Dems

El Dorado County Democratic Party

Feel the Bern Democratic Club Los Angeles

Green Party of Santa Clara County

Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club

Humboldt County Democrats

Inland Empire for Our Revolution

International Socialist Organization

Los Angeles County Democratic Party

Napa County Green Party

NorCal4OurRevolution

North Valley Democratic Club

Our Revolution

Our Revolution East Bay

Our Revolution Progressive Los Angeles

Our Revolution Santa Ana

Our Revolution Ventura County

Party for Socialism and Liberation – SF

Peninsula Young Democrats

Progressive Democrats of America California PAC

Progressive Democrats of America San Fernando Valley

Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains

Richmond Progressive Alliance

San Bernardino County Young Democrats

San Diego Central Committee of the Peace and Freedom Party of CA

San Diego County Peace and Freedom Party

San Francisco Berniecrats

San Francisco County Democratic Party

San Francisco Latino Democratic Club

San Luis Obispo County Democratic Party

San Luis Obispo County Progressives

San Pedro Democratic Club

Santa Monica Democratic Club

Socialist Alternative Los Angeles

Socialist Party of Ventura County

Stonewall Democratic Club

UC Berkeley Young Democratic Socialists of America

Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club

West Hollywood-Beverly Hills Democratic Club

CIVIL RIGHTS/LIBERTIES ORGANIZATIONS

ACLU of California

ACLU of Northern California

ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties

ACLU of Southern California

Advocates for Black Strategic Alternatives

African American Cultural Center

American Indian Movement Southern California

APGA Tour

API Equality – LA

Black Community Clergy & Labor Alliance

Brotherhood Crusade

CARECEN

Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA)

Committee for Racial Justice

Council on American-Islamic Relations California (CAIR)

Dellums Institute for Social Justice

Fannie Lou Hamer Institute

Institute of the Black World 21st Century

Latino Equality Alliance

Los Angeles Urban League

MLK Coalition of Greater LA

Muslim Public Alliance Council (MPAC)

National Action Network Los Angeles

National Urban League

Services Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN)

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) Bay Area

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) San Jose

Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Greater Southern California

United Native Americans

Urban League of San Diego County

Youth Justice Coalition

HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS

Access Support Network San Luis Obispo & Monterey Counties

AIDS Healthcare Foundation

APAIT (Special Service for Groups)

Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement

Black Women for Wellness

Latino Health Access

San Francisco Human Services Network

Sierra Foothills AIDS Foundation

St. John’s Well Child & Family Center

Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases (WORLD)

SENIOR ORGANIZATIONS

California Alliance for Retired Americans

Monterey County Area Agency on Aging

Senior and Disability Action

Social Security Works

FAITH INSTITUTIONS & LEADERS

Rev. James Lawson

AME Ministerial Alliance – NorCal

Bend the Arc – Southern California

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee

California Church IMPACT

Cheryl Ward Ministries

Christian Church Homes

Church Without Walls – Skid Row Los Angeles

Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice – Los Angeles (CLUE)

Congregational Church of Palo Alto

Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (COPE)

Congregations Organizing For Renewal (COR)

First AME Church – Los Angeles

Greater Long Beach Interfaith Community Organization (ICO)

Holman United Methodist Church – Los Angeles

Inland Empire African American Pastors

Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity

Jewish Center for Justice

LA Voice – PICO Affiliate

Lutheran Office of Public Policy – California

McCarty Memorial Christian Church – Los Angeles

Multi-faith ACTION Coalition

Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)

Oakland Community Organizing – PICO Affiliate (OCO)

PACT: People Acting in Community Together – PICO Affiliate

PICO California

Poor People’s Campaign of California

Sacramento ACT – PICO Affiliate

Sojourner Truth Presbyterian Church

Unitarian Universalist Faith in Action Committee

STATEWIDE, REGIONAL & LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS

ACTICON

Advancement Project California

Alliance for Community Transit – Los Angeles (ACT-LA)

Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE Action)

Allies for Life

All Peoples Community Center

ANSWER SF

Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN)

Associated Students of UC Santa Barbara

Block by Block Organizing Network

Brave New Films

California Bicycle Coalition

California Calls

California Environmental Justice Alliance

Californians for Justice

California for Progress

Californians for Safety and Justice

Californian Latinas for Reproductive Justice

California Partnership

California Reinvestment Coalition

Chicano Latino Caucus of San Bernardino County

Chispa

Coalition to Preserve LA

CDTech

Central Hollywood Neighborhood Council – Los Angeles

Committee to Defend Roosevelt

Communities for a New California

Community Coalition

Consumer Watchdog

Courage Campaign

Creating Freedom Movements

Crenshaw Subway Coalition

D5Action

Dolores Huerta Foundation

The East Oakland Collective

East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

Ensuring Opportunity Campaign to End Poverty in Contra Costa County

Environmental Health Coalition

Friends Committee on Legislation of California

The Fund for Santa Barbara

GLIDE Foundation

The Green Scene TV

Ground Game LA

The Hayward Collective

Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council – Los Angeles

Hyde Park Organizational Partnership for Empowerment

Indivisible SF

Inland Empire United

Inland Empowerment

InnerCity Struggle

Justice House

Kenwood Oakland Community Organization

Korean Resource Center

LA Forward

Latino Economic Development Center

Latinos United for a New America

Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability Central Valley

League of Women Voters of California

League of Women Voters of Los Angeles

Liberty Hill Foundation

Livable California

Los Feliz Neighborhood Council – Los Angeles

Million Voter Project

Mission Neighborhood Centers, Inc.

Mobilize the Immigrant Vote

Neighbors United – San Francisco

9to5 Los Angeles Chapter

North Bay Organizing Project

Orange County Civic Engagement Table

Organize Sacramento

Pasadenans Organizing for Progress

People for Mobility Justice

Places in the City

PolicyLink

Pomona Economic Opportunity Center

Progressive Alliance – San Bernardino County

Progressive Asian Network for Action

Public Bank LA/Revolution LA/Divest LA

Rampart Village Neighborhood Council – Los Angeles

Right Way Foundation

Rubicon Programs

RYSE Youth Center

Sacred Heart Community Service

Sero Project

SF Neighbors United

The Sidewalk Project

Sierra Club of California

Sierra Club of San Gorgonio Chapter

Silicon Valley De-Bug

Skid Row Coffee

Sociedad Organizada de Latinas Activas

Solidarity – Bay Area

SolidarityINFOService

Southeast Asian Community Alliance

South of Market Community Action Network

STAND LA

Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE)

University of California Student Association

Urban Tilth

Velveteen Rabbit Project

Wilshire Center Koreatown Neighborhood Council – Los Angeles

Working Partnerships USA

Xochipilli Latino Men’s Circle

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scienceblogtumbler · 4 years

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Students’ shoebox-sized satellite gets green light for launch

Most graduating seniors expect to write a final thesis, or perhaps co-author a paper or present a poster or talk at an academic conference.

By the time Paul Köttering graduates from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2021, he and his team hope to have launched a satellite.

Despite the shelter-in-place mandate during the coronavirus epidemic — Köttering is spending the remainder of the semester at his parents’ home in London — he and a team of UC Berkeley undergraduates are huddling weekly via Zoom in preparation for the launch next year of a shoebox-sized experiment to test new satellite navigation technology that is based on campus research.

This past February, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that it would cover the costs of the launch — up to $300,000 — through the CubeSat Launch Initiative, which focuses on flying small experiments as auxiliary rocket payloads.

To actually build the satellite, the UC Berkeley team is raising about $15,000 dollars through crowdfunding and the campus’s Big Give campaign, and seeking donations of equipment from numerous manufacturers. They’ve already received a $4,950 grant from the UC Berkeley Student Technology Fund.

“The NASA grant is just for the launch, so we have still got to supply and manufacture the satellite ourselves,” said Kӧttering, a junior majoring in applied mathematics and physics. “Luckily, the cost of CubeSats has dropped significantly over the past three to four years. The communications systems, power systems, control systems — a lot of those are just off-the-shelf, commercial parts, so they are quite cheap. The payload itself is the more expensive item, but again, a lot of that comes from in-kind donations from companies.”

Junior Paul Kӧttering, sheltering-in-place in London. (Photo courtesy of Paul Kӧttering)

Called QubeSat, or quantum CubeSat, the group’s satellite will test a new type of gyroscope based on quantum mechanical interactions in imperfect diamonds. The diamond gyroscope was invented in the UC Berkeley laboratory of physicist Dmitry Budker, a Professor of the Graduate School who is now also at the Helmholtz Institute at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.

The student team is part of an undergraduate aerospace club called Space Technologies at Cal (STAC) that has already flown experiments aboard balloons and the International Space Station — an impressive record for a group that started only four years ago. Some of the group’s graduates have gone on to work for SpaceX, Boeing and other aerospace companies.

Boasting about 65 members from a range of majors, including physics, math, engineering, chemistry and environmental sciences, they’re currently working on four projects they hope will push innovative new space technologies.

“UC Berkeley doesn’t have an aerospace program, and it is great that there are students that are that motivated,” said David Sundkvist, a researcher at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) who is one of the group’s mentors. “Their project definitely was a winner because it is interesting, and it also has synergy with the whole campus in that it comes from Berkeley research. I think that made it possible for them to win this slot on the launch manifest, definitely.”

The QubeSat team plans to use some of the unique facilities available at SSL, including the vacuum chambers needed to test the spaceworthiness of the satellite.

The CURIE mission consists of two CubeSats separated by a few kilometers and equipped with large antennas to measure radio emissions from coronal mass ejections. Using interferometry, UC Berkeley space scientist David Sundkvist hopes to pinpoint where the emissions come from. (Graphic courtesy of David Sundkvist)

Sundkvist is leading his own CubeSat project, the CubeSat Radio Interferometry Experiment (CURIE), which also received good news in February: It, too, is guaranteed a launch slot in the next few years, with similar funding from NASA. The CURIE — with a budget of $3.2 million, in addition to the launch subsidy — involves two identical satellites that will try for the first time to do radio interferometry in space. Interferometry, which integrates data from two separate radio antennas — for CURIE, the satellite receivers will be a couple of kilometers apart in Earth’s orbit — should more precisely pinpoint and track radio emissions from huge solar eruptions, called coronal mass ejections, that hurtle toward Earth and can disrupt communications satellites or even endanger astronauts in space.

Diamonds are for navigation

Kӧttering got involved in the CubeSat project after hearing about the great experiences of other STAC members, including sophomore Vidish Gupta, who, as a freshman, worked alongside seniors to design an experiment that flew a year ago on the Blue Origin rocket to the edge of space and back. During the trip, the automated experiment recorded roundworms — C. elegans, commonly found in biology labs — as they revived under little to no gravity, or microgravity. The team is still analyzing those results.

The QubeSat team meets weekly via Zoom to discuss the satellite design and prepare to begin building it for a 2021 launch. Left to right, starting at the top row, are Justin Chen, Vidish Gupta, Edmund Chen, Drake Lin, Max Burns, Paul Köttering, Yuki Ito, Saisaran Kidambi, Bianca Monique Luansing, Bhavesh Kalisetti, Megan Yu, Joon Park and Sally Peng. Team member Krishnakumar Bhattaram is not pictured. (Image courtesy of Vidish Gupta)

Before applying for the NASA funds, that 15-member CubeSat team explored various possible experiments — it was looking for something small, cheap, but innovative — before settling a year ago on its final proposal: to test a quantum gyroscope.

“The small-satellite community is becoming very, very large and keeps CubeSats very popular,” said Gupta, the project lead who is majoring in electrical engineering and computer sciences and will be building electronics for QubeSat. “We saw there were a couple of different technologies that are still kind of holding this back, and one of the big ones was a gyroscope technology for controlling the satellite, since you need to know where you are and the direction you’re going.”

To make the sensors, synthetic diamonds are blasted with nitrogen, some of which kick out carbon atoms and take their places, creating nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers that have weird properties. One of these properties, studied by Budker’s group for more than 10 years, is that the NV centers’ atomic spins are very sensitive to magnetic fields. Magnetometers based on NV diamonds have already been launched to measure small changes in Earth’s magnetic field.

The NV-diamond, a quantum gyroscope, will sit in the middle of the magnetic coils, which will be encased in a box that blocks outside magnetic fields, which would interfere with the measurements. (Diagram by STAC team)

The QubeSat team plans to employ another quantum characteristic of NV centers: The spins of the nitrogen atoms precess or wobble in a magnetic field, like the wobble of a spinning top, and the frequency of that precession changes with the atoms’ orientation. The team’s experiment will incorporate a tiny, solid-state laser to excite the NV centers, a radio frequency generator to ping the atoms and a photodiode to detect the light they emit. The intensity of the emitted light provides a measure of the 3D orientation of the spacecraft.

“In comparison to more traditional onboard micromechanical gyroscopes, quantum gyroscopes provide improved resolution, improved drift stability and increased temperature operational range,” Kӧttering said. “QubeSat’s upcoming mission will allow us to evaluate the effect of the harsh space environment — including extreme temperatures, radiation and magnetic field variation — that could affect the gyroscopes’ performance in small-scale spaceflight.”

One of Budker’s former postdoctoral fellows, Andrey Jarmola, who is advising the QubeSat team, points out that the team’s attempt to demonstrate the diamond gyroscope in a satellite is ambitious. He and his colleagues are only now showing that the diamond gyroscope — what he called a nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscope — works in the lab.

But the stability and sensitivity of diamond gyroscopes promise to be better than those of the standard MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) gyroscopes in our cellphones, automobile airbag sensors and image stabilizers in cameras. And unlike other sensitive gyroscopes, diamond gyroscopes can be miniaturized and use less power.

“The number of applications of gyroscopes is just enormous. They are used in all mobile devices and for navigation for both the military and industry. It is a huge market,” Jarmola said, noting that he has invited some of the team members to work on the project in the lab in UC Berkeley’s physics department. “The students are very enthusiastic, and I really like consulting them and the idea of working with them in the future.”

Enthusiasm, dedication and ambition are hallmarks of the QubeSat team and the other STAC teams, which are working on high altitude balloon, microgravity and artificial intelligence lunar rover experiments.

Sophomore Vidish Gupta working on the design for QubeSat’s main flight computer at his home in Los Angeles. (Photo courtesy of Vidish Gupta)

“The reason why STAC exists is because there is no aerospace department on campus,” said Kӧttering, who is among many students and faculty lobbying UC Berkeley to create such a department. “There is no major or minor, so we try and act as a community in a place where all the students interested in aerospace can come, get involved, actually get hands on project experience, get their project hopefully flown or launched and also really develop those skills.”

And this group on campus is passionate about making space accessible to all — it’s the goal of the growing NewSpace movement — including future undergraduates in fields such as science, technology, math and engineering (STEM).

“QubeSat’s secondary goal is to increase the accessibility of space and to inspire STEM education. The QubeSat team and the larger STAC community hope to introduce high school and college students to our work though community outreach in the East Bay, giving them the support and inspiration to pursue microsatellite projects and careers in the burgeoning NewSpace era,” Kӧttering said.

source https://scienceblog.com/515945/students-shoebox-sized-satellite-gets-green-light-for-launch/

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wkyi-blog · 6 years

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3 Reasons Why I’m Long LA Tech ☀️

Goodbye summer, and hello still sunny weather! After graduating from HBS this past May, I decided to spend this summer being a tourist in my hometown and reconnecting with friends, places, and experiences in LA. I ended up learning about their passions, their industries, and their thoughts on the LAtest trends. I especially enjoyed wandering around their chill-tech office, which revealed a lot about their culture. After learning from 20 of the fastest growing tech companies across major industries, I’m long on LA tech because of the following key reasons:

Recent home run exits and influx of institutional and industry-specific capital to seed and grow the next tech generation

Uniquely diverse industries going through a creative renaissance (creative capital of the world as Mayor Garcetti officially established)

Universities producing large tech talent pools while favorable climate attracting and retaining talent

1. Recent home run exits and influx of institutional and industry-specific capital to seed and grow the next tech generation

If SF Bay Area is in its mid 50’s like a seasoned CEO, then LA is in its early energetic 30’s as a newly minted Director. SF Bay Area has seen massive exits, dating back to the 1960s when Intel was founded, 1970s for Apple and Oracle, then 1990’s for eBay, Yahoo, PayPal, and Google, then followed by the 2000’s Facebook, Twitter, Uber, and Tesla. On the other hand, LA has recently seen a few home runs from Snap, Dollar Shave Club, Beats by Dre, and Oculus VR. After employees vest at Snap and Google Venice, they’ll spin off to either found startups or become angel investors for other founders looking to build. This won’t happen overnight, but it is inevitable as families establish roots in the community.

There has been an influx of institutional capital from long-time VC’s and new industry-specific VC’s. Upfront Venture and Greycroft continue to raise massive $400M and $250M funds respectively, while newer funds like Fifth Wall Ventures (real estate tech), Bonfire Ventures (SoCal B2B), Embark Ventures (deep tech), and CAA Ventures (entertainment) provide more industry expertise. As both tech talent continues to increase and venture capital continues to follow in lockstep, there will be healthy incubation and support for startups in the growth stage in the coming decade.

2. LA is uniquely diverse in its industries going through an innovation renaissance

Some of the major industries in LA are media, entertainment, transportation and logistics, aerospace, e-commerce, real estate, and health & wellness.

As the original entertainment capital of the world, LA is the home of major offices of Disney, Netflix, and Creative Artist Agency (CAA). Media has no boundaries when it comes to expanding to other countries. With the massive population in China, there are a lot of opportunities to create content in LA and then scale internationally. And the reverse is true, as Chinese media giant ByteDance ($75B) and Spotify have just opened offices in West Hollywood and downtown LA, as they look to connecting with content creators and hiring talented engineers and business development teams. Also, Intel recently built a 10K square feet dome studio for volumetric VR/AR video productions, taking advantage of the creative content, talent, and real estate in LA.

Gaming is well positioned in LA, as top gaming developers Blizzard Activision and Riot Games (League of Legends, Tencent acquisition) are born and raised here. Gaming is growing massively and globally because of its scalable and democratic nature, in which anyone in the world can play or create new games with just an internet connection. With the rise of eSports, LA leads much of the innovation as the top developers have already experimented the past few years. They have taken a page out of NFL and NBA sports leagues to create their own like Overwatch League and building physical stadiums for live events drawing in 11M viewers. As a result, they are creating new job opportunities and pulling in talent from traditional sports leagues to enhance their business development.

Transportation gets a bad rap in LA, but that just shouts opportunity especially in such a large metro area with the second largest population in the U.S. Recently, Santa Monica approved some of the biggest players: Bird is based out of Venice Beach, and LimeBike is aggressively putting its stake in the ground, while Uber (via Jump) and Lyft are inevitably establishing themselves. Driving has been the main mode of transportation for most people, except in West LA most recently. After living in Venice Beach for a summer, I noticed the medium distance last mile could easily be solved with ridesharing, and the short distance last mile can be solved by scooters. Cars are not going away anytime soon, but we do see a major platform shift into multi-modal transportation that can involve public transportation, ride sharing, scooters, and then our feet. (Perhaps they’ll be running shoe-sharing on the streets...). The new modes of transport will lead to more frequent social interactions; this density will lead to more and faster information sharing, which is often cited as an interactive ecosystem for creativity and innovation.

Frontier mobility tech has quite literally launched few moonshot ideas in LA. During World War II and the advent of Cold War, LA became the nation’s hub for weapons research and aerospace, and it has had a residual effect on today’s massive bets in mobility. Now, it is the home of SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Hyperloop, and a fellow USC Trojan’s startup Relativity Space, building and launching 3D printed rockets in days. Also, Uber Elevate is partnering with NASA to launch their first pilot city in LA, because its highways can greatly benefit from air taxis. Every year, LA experiences forest fires, so drone startups like DroneBase and AirMap have been hatched out of necessity, capturing data from hundreds of feet above ground while optimizing for safety and cost. Many of these decades-long infrastructure bets require industry-specific talent and a vast amount of land to test products, both of which are ideal in LA.

Fashion, e-commerce, and CPG companies are able to competitively differentiate in LA thanks Hollywood and media. Some of the biggest consumer brands are right in LA, because fashion and beauty is a big part of its culture. For example, Jessica Alba founded The Honest Company and Gwyneth Paltrow founded Goop, both CPG companies have capitalized on their founder’s star power. From the investor side, Ashton Kutcher and Kobe Bryant both have their VC’s investing in consumer startups like Bird and BodyArmor (Gatorade competitor), respectively.

Health & Wellness has always been a big part LA culture due to the entertainment sector and “sun’s out guns out” weather. In fitness, SoulCycle, Rumble Boxing, and CorePower yoga studios have opened up locations from West Hollywood to downtown LA. In meditation, Headspace has been growing rapidly driven by a trend towards mindfulness. From a tech perspective, my section mate from HBS Amira is founding Struct Club, a technology platform for fitness instructors, transforming the way they design and teach classes because of the health and fitness industry and culture in LA.

Real estate is multi-faceted in LA ranging from beach-side resorts in Malibu to Beverly Hills and to large suburban inland neighborhoods. In fact, one of the largest real estate brokerage companies CBRE $16B along with others is headquartered in downtown LA. This sounds like a traditional industry and not tech-enabled, because it really hasn’t experienced much innovation until recently. For example, storage is a very antiquated industry dominated by Public Storage ($37B) but starting to be disrupted by LA-based Clutter, an on-demand storage startup capitalizing on the underutilized storage spaces due to LA sprawling nature. Though it will not change overnight due to the inertia of the industry, it has already started to shift and will accelerate when incumbents play catch-up.

3. Universities producing large tech talent pools while favorable climate attracting and retaining talent

LA Metro has 10M people making it the second largest city in the U.S., but it hasn’t really claimed itself as the second hottest tech scene. Sure, it has Silicon Beach, but I personally cringe when I try to boast about it. Part of the reason for lagging is timing. As we segment the total population we find that LA has great technical universities such as USC, UCLA, CalTech, UC Irvine, and Harvey Mudd producing almost 10% of the nation’s engineering graduates. But many of them end up being brain drained to SF and NY. My friends and I are prime examples of this. Lastly, we find that professional training is critical in producing experienced talent. Think of this as the Google, Facebook, Amazon, tech powerhouses that produce talent that learn from the best and end up leaving and starting their own companies. Now, LA has Snap, Google, and other tech-enabled industries training next generation of entrepreneurs not only in the internet space.

Weather is not just small talk when people talk about LA. There is a good reason why people live here. Spoiler alert - it’s because there are beaches, it’s always sunny, and the sun usually makes people happier. New York, Chicago, Boston can be freezing, while San Francisco frequently fools you because it looks sunny until the fog rolls over. Good weather matters.

There are LA specific challenges, but I remain optimistic

However, the future will be a bumpy ride up, because there is a reason for how long it’s taken for LA to establish itself as a contender for the tech throne. LA is notorious for its traffic, and I’ve personally experienced 3 hour round trip drives from east to west LA visiting companies. There are metros being built and mobility startups, but it’ll take years or decades to truly solve the commute problem. Homelessness continues to be a major issue with almost 60K homeless, only second to NYC, as I’ve witnessed many tents set up near tech companies in Venice Beach and downtown LA. This may continue to happen if affordable housing doesn’t meet demand while many homeless from colder states are moving to LA for a better weather. The city has been experimenting with creative ideas like subsidizing homeowners to build backhouses to provide more supply and lower cost of living. Whether this will solve the problem is less important in the short term, while LA’s private and public sector’s innovative attitude is more promising in the long term.

Despite all the challenges, as an LA native, I remain optimistic about what the future of LA tech community looks like. Having lived in NY, SF, Boston, I’ve noticed there are similar energy and innovation that have allowed tech to thrive in those areas, while differentiating LA with its massively diverse industries and, of course, its unparalleled weather.

What city are you long or short tech? Feel free to share your thoughts and if you’re working on an interesting startup let me know if I can help! [email protected], LinkedIn, FB Messenger, Instagram.

Wilson

P.S. Many thanks to all the old and new friends for indulging me and my musings at their workplace!

#losangeles #la #tech #startup #vc #venturecapital #founder #entrepreneur

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brookstonalmanac · 7 years

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Events 12.3

915 – Pope John X crowned Berengar I of Italy as Holy Roman Emperor. 1775 – The USS Alfred becomes the first vessel to fly the Grand Union Flag (the precursor to the Stars and Stripes); the flag is hoisted by John Paul Jones. 1799 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Wiesloch: Austrian Lieutenant Field Marshal Anton Sztáray defeats the French at Wiesloch. 1800 – War of the Second Coalition: Battle of Hohenlinden: French General Moreau decisively defeats the Archduke John of Austria near Munich. Coupled with First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte's earlier victory at Marengo, this will force the Austrians to sign an armistice and end the war. 1800 – United States presidential election, 1800 The Elector College casts votes for President and Vice President that resulted in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. 1818 – Illinois becomes the 21st U.S. state. 1834 – The Zollverein (German Customs Union) begins the first regular census in Germany. 1854 – Battle of the Eureka Stockade: More than 20 gold miners at Ballarat, Victoria, are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licences. 1898 – The Duquesne Country and Athletic Club defeated an all-star collection of early football players 16-0, in what is considered to be the very first all-star game for professional American football. 1901 – In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt asks Congress to curb the power of trusts "within reasonable limits". 1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia is discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at California's Lick Observatory. 1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show. 1912 – Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia (the Balkan League) sign an armistice with the Ottoman Empire, temporarily halting the First Balkan War. (The armistice will expire on February 3, 1913, and hostilities will resume.) 1919 – After nearly 20 years of planning and construction, including two collapses causing 89 deaths, the Quebec Bridge opens to traffic. 1920 – Following more than a month of Turkish–Armenian War, the Turkish dictated Treaty of Alexandropol is concluded. 1927 – Putting Pants on Philip, the first Laurel and Hardy film, is released. 1944 – Greek Civil War: Fighting breaks out in Athens between the ELAS and government forces supported by the British Army. 1959 – The current flag of Singapore is adopted, six months after Singapore became self-governing within the British Empire. 1960 – The musical Camelot debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. It will become associated with the Kennedy administration. 1964 – Free Speech Movement: Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property. 1967 – At Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, a transplant team headed by Christiaan Barnard carries out the first heart transplant on a human (53-year-old Louis Washkansky). 1971 – Indo-Pakistani War of 1971: Pakistan launches a pre-emptive strike against India and a full-scale war begins claiming hundreds of lives. 1973 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter. 1976 – An assassination attempt is made on Bob Marley. He is shot twice, and plays a concert two days later. 1979 – In Cincinnati, 11 fans are suffocated in a crush for seats on the concourse outside Riverfront Coliseum before a Who concert. 1979 – Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini becomes the first Supreme Leader of Iran. 1982 – A soil sample is taken from Times Beach, Missouri, that will be found to contain 300 times the safe level of dioxin. 1984 – Bhopal disaster: A methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom would later die from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history. 1989 – Cold War: In a meeting off the coast of Malta, U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev release statements indicating that the Cold War between NATO and the Soviet Union may be coming to an end. 1992 – The Greek oil tanker Aegean Sea, carrying 80,000 tonnes of crude oil, runs aground in a storm while approaching A Coruña, Spain, and spills much of its cargo. 1992 – A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague. 1994 – The PlayStation was released in Japan 1997 – In Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, representatives from 121 countries sign the Ottawa Treaty prohibiting manufacture and deployment of anti-personnel landmines. The United States, People's Republic of China, and Russia do not sign the treaty, however. 1999 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere. 2005 – XCOR Aerospace makes the first manned rocket aircraft delivery of U.S. Mail in Kern County, California. 2007 – Winter storms cause the Chehalis River to flood many cities in Lewis County, Washington, and close a 20-mile portion of Interstate 5 for several days. At least eight deaths and billions of dollars in damages are blamed on the floods. 2009 – A suicide bombing at a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, kills 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government. 2012 – At least 475 people are killed after Typhoon Bopha makes landfall in the Philippines. 2014 – The Japanese space agency, JAXA, launches the space explorer Hayabusa 2 from the Tanegashima Space Center on a six-year round trip mission to an asteroid to collect rock samples.

#Events

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