~ Meet Our Leaders ~ ~Board Member Duties & Election info~
New York Space
Society
Chapter
of The National Space Society
President
– Harold Egeln
Harold
is a journalist, working as a full-time staff reporter for the Courier-Life
weekly newspaper group in Brooklyn, since April 2005. He is host of the weekly
"JobsTV" program on Brooklyn Community Access Television. He worked
as a media aide for a NYC Council-Member from Oct.2004 to Apr. 2005. Harold
worked for the "Home Reporter" and "Brooklyn Spectator"
weekly newspapers from 1989 to 2004, and was also an environmental columnist
["Eco-Frontier'] and editor for the "Downtown" arts newspaper in
Manhattan from 1992 to 1995.
Previously,from 1984 to 1989, he was the staff executive
director of a large nonprofit peace advocacy organization, the New York
Committee for a SANE Nuclear Policy ( now “Peace Action”), coordinating the
work of seven chapters within the city and liaisoning with other groups and the
national office in Washington, DC. (There were 7,000 members in the city.) He
has been a peace and human rights activist and organizer since the late 1960s,
leading grassroots groups, publishing newsletters, doing media work, and
organizing meetings, conferences and rallies.
Egeln has a lifelong deep interest, since early childhood in Irvington, NJ, in
the space program, astronomy, cosmology and science fiction, and by the
mid-1980s he joined the National Space Society, the Planetary Society and L-5
Society. He is working on a book about the human dimensions of space travel and
cosmology. Harold is the director/founder of S.P.A.C.E., a research group for
anomalous phenomena, founded in March 1992. He has lived in Bay Ridge,Brooklyn
since 1982.
Vice
President – Manny Pimenta
Manny
has been actively involved in space advocacy for over 7 years. He joined the Space
Frontier Foundation in 2000 and attended his first Return To The
Moon Conference (RTM II) In Las Vegas in July. Two years later, Manny ran the
fourth Return To The Moon Conference (RTM IV) in Houston as Conference
Chairman, and then RTM V in Las Vegas. He has served on the Board of Directors
and ran the Space Frontier Foundation Return To The Moon project for 3 years.
He has been an Advocate with the SFF for over five years and is currently the
Advocate Director.He also joined ProSpace,
a citizens lobbying organization, and has participated in the annual March
Storm lobbying drive in Washington DC for the past six years.Manny has an
Electrical Engineering degree from NJIT and a Master’s in Computer
Science from Stevens Institute of Technology.
He has worked in telecommunications, material handling, and military radar
systems. He found it astonishing that we had been to the Moon almost 40 years
ago and, in this age of high end computer games, the Internet, and advanced
consumer graphics, we still did not have an interactive virtual model of the
Moon. All this amazing NASA data just sitting on the shelf, not being enjoyed by
the people who actually paid for it (the taxpayers) seemed like an unfortunate
waste. So he decided to create Lunar Explorer as a way to bring the richness of
the information and experience of Space to everyone. Much of his inspiration
comes from having been born in Lisbon, Portugal
and the rich legacy of discovery and exploration that made
Portugal one of the world powers of the 15th century. Exploration is
the primal drive of the Human species and Manny believes that the 15th
century spirit should be re-awakened as we set out to colonize Space..He has
presented at many Space Conferences and events, ha spoken at NYU and at Rutgers
University on large scale permanent Lunar bases, and often visits schools in
his area to talk to children about how important Space Settlement is to our
Survival and Prosperity as a species. One key message that he always leaves
with his audiences is that everyone has something to contribute to the Grand
Adventure of Space Settlement and exploration and, if they have an interest,
there are unlimited opportunities to participate.
Honorary Executive VP –
Edward Belbruno
Edward Belbruno is a graduate of the Courant Institute of
New York University, where his advisor was Juergen Moser. He is a Visiting
Research Collaborator in the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics
at Princeton University. His areas of interest are celestial mechanics,
dynamical systems, dynamical astronomy, and aerospace engineering.
He has always loved outer space, and his work led to the
first application of chaos theory to space travel — spectacularly demonstrated
in 1991 when his calculations rescued a Japanese spacecraft that would have
missed the Moon without the assistance
of his theoretical work applied to this immediate problem
the photo by Maia
Reim
Belbruno is
president and founder of the company Innovative Orbital Design, Inc. and he
holds many international patents on routes in space. He has published numerous papers in the fields of mathematics,
aerospace engineering, dynamical astronomy and he has three books in process. Capture Dynamics and Chaotic
Motions in Celestial Mechanics is his latest book. He consults regularly
with NASA, and recently has appeared on NBC's Today Show twice to discuss space
related issues.
He is also a professional artist who has held many one-man
shows worldwide, including in Paris, Rome, Turin, Los Angeles,
Minneapolis, New York, Boston, and
Washington. His oil paintings are in major collections, including NASA
headquarters' executive collection in
Washington. He loves sports, particularly fixed spin cycling and boxing,
which he says keeps him on his toes.
Secretary
- Eugene Cervone
My name is Eugene Cervone and I am the Secretary of the
National Space Society's New York City Chapter. I am married and my wife
and I have lived in Canarsie, Brooklyn
since 1981. I am a graduate of Nassau Community College and have
developed a keen passionate interest in America's space exploration
program since the Russians launched the first Sputnik ("Fellow
Traveler") on October 4, 1957 and NASA was born a year later. I've
read extensively about the early astronauts and history of NASA and its various
manned space exploration missions over the
last four decades, especially the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs of
the 1960's and early 70's
Since the early 1990's, I've been a proud, loyal member of the National Space Society, Planetary Society and Amateur Astronomers Association of New York. I've attended various events involving space-related activities in the New York City area and Washington, DC for the spectacular collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter and 25th Anniversary celebration of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. I wrote a feature article entitled "Riding the VASIMR Rocket to Mars & Beyond", which appeared in the March/April 2000 issue of Ad Astra magazine.
Treasurer
– Fran Cervone
Bio coming soon
Contributing ScienceWriter –John Pazmino
John
has been the author of SpaceWalk ( What’s Up In The Sky), a monthly page on our
chapter website, for over a year now. He is an Active member of the Amateur
Astronomers Association(AAA) at which he has given many lectures. Although a
hydroelectric engineer by career he
spends much of his time
educating people on the wonders of our City(NYC) and our Universe.
Public
Affairs Project Director – Open