The Juno Mission: Eyes on Jupiter

This is the meeting for the week of June 19, 2017 through June 25, 2017

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This Meeting at a Glance:Program: The Juno Mission: Eyes on JupiterProgram Description: Learn about the planet Jupiter through the mind of one of the Juno Mission researchersSpeaker: Dr. Phil Valek, Space Science and Engineering division of the Southwest Research Institute

Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page. Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time.Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you; read it while on public transit, waiting in line for coffee, or even at the park! Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!

Welcome to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley!

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Message from President Mitty

Rotary Year + New Member Maxi 

New to our meetings? Then I want to welcome you to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley's online meeting! Every week we curate inspiring and educational content in an online format like the one you're seeing here. As you continue reading, watching, and scrolling, our hope is that you'll leave feeling a little bit more inspired. As an online Rotary club, we have these asynchronous meetings online, but we also meet in-person in the Silicon Valley / San Francisco bay area for service projects and for social events. Keep reading on, and feel free to also join us for one of our in-person events if you can make it!We're back from the Rotary Convention in Atlanta, and back to the start of the work week. As this Rotary year is coming to a close next week, I want to start by thanking everyone who is tuning into our meeting this week. If you're new, welcome! If you've been here before, welcome back. And if you're one of those members or guests who has been visiting us for months now, I want to express my personal thanks to you and to salute you. We can continue creating great content, but the impact of our meetings is up to who attends them. While being a member of our club doesn't solely depend on attending meetings, we like to think that our meetings are both interesting and inspiring; to the point you want to say "yes, it's worth my time to do these!"Members know that they can do meeting makeups by attending other Rotary club meetings, Rotaract club meetings, Interact club meetings, or even Rotary events like conferences, service projects, fellowships, or conventions. But what I love is that over 90% of our members continue to attend the meetings weekly with stellar attendance records. No Rotary club is perfect, but I would like to think what sets us apart from your average Rotary club is that we'll never stop moving forward in ways to improve our club experience through innovation.As we enter a transition period between President-elect Stephen and myself, I want to thank everyone who has been with us on our journey thus far. This has just been the start. There is so much more innovation to be had.I want to give a personal shoutout to our newest club member, Maxi Bustos! Maxi will get a warm induction in this week's meeting, but it's wonderful to see more Rotary program alumni come join our ranks. Maxi also attended the Rotary International Convention last week in Atlanta, so extra kudos to him. He found out he was accepted to our club while the convention was happening!I also want to give a huge thank you shoutout to our immediate past president Rushton Hurley. Rushton has been an amazing mentor, and is an all-around amazing guy. He's also been great at consistently bringing in some program speakers, including Dr. Phil Valek, ours peaker this week who shares some pretty stellar insights (see what I did there?) about the Juno mission and Jupiter! Rushton, we don't say this enough - but thank you for your amazing contributions to your club!

Yours in service,

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Mitty Chang,

PresidentRotary eClub of Silicon Valley

president@siliconvalleyrotary.com

Weekly Inspiration: How a Father-Son Duo Turns Trash Into

Every week we start our meetings with a short video highlighting innovation, inspiration, entrepreneurship, or social change. This week we are featuring a video from Great Big Story on converting trash into art.

In 2010, Chinese farmer Yu Zhilin and his son Yu Lingyun opened up their own metalworking shop in the country's Hunan Province. Inspired by the futuristic robots from the movie “Transformers,” the pair began fashioning original statues from scrap metal. Their first design took about a month and a half to build, but they’ve since created an impressive array of statues, giving new life to discarded car parts along the way. It’s not just the success of their new business that makes this father-son duo happy; the craft itself has brought them closer together.



Incredible! Have you ever gone dumpster diving to create something?

Coffee with a Rotarian: Nate

Getting to know our fellow members and Rotarians is an important part of Rotary. Our club runs a regular initiative called “Coffee with a Rotarian,” where members are paired with other Rotarians to get to know each other in a 1 on 1 coffee session either in-person or virtually. These Coffee with a Rotarian initiatives are spearheaded by member Tzviatko Chiderov.

This week we feature a coffee session between members Nathan "Nate" Gildart from Japan and Tzviatko Chiderov from South Africa!

Here is what Nate had to say about Tzviatko:


Incredible video, Nate! Thank you for sharing about Tzviatko but also about your adventure!

New Member Welcome: Maxi Bustos

We love our members. Without them, this club wouldn’t exist. This section is a segment is dedicated to introducing our newest additions to our club!

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“President Mitty here. It is with distinct pleasure that I am able to welcome our newest member, Maximiliano "Maxi" Bustos. Members are the lifeblood of every club and of Rotary. It is because of the selfless service, dedication, resources, contributions, and time of our members that Rotary is able to do the life-saving work it does in our local communities and in the world.This week we are celebrating the official member induction of Maxi Bustos. While Maxi's self-introduction video is not yet ready, I do want to share a little bit about him.Maxi currently works at Google's Mountain View headquarters as a software engineer attached to the Gmail web team. He was a member of Interact and Rotaract for almost 9 years in Argentina before moving to Silicon Valley about a year and half ago. His service project interests are focused upon infrastructure, technology, and education projects.”Here's a photo of Maxi below at the Rotary International Convention last week in Atlanta, Georgia!

Welcome, Maxi!

“President Mitty here again.Maxi, by becoming a member of our club, you each are joining the global family of Rotary as fellow Rotarians. You each now share this title with over 1.2 million leaders, activists, professionals, and miracle workers. It is because of the work of Rotarians that those without shelters have shelters, those without food have food, those with illness are cured, those without education receive it, and so much more. Whether it is the impact you will each make in your local community or in the global community, we know you each will live and think by the Rotarian creed of The Four Way Test: “First, is it the truth? Second, is it fair to all concerned? Third, does it build goodwill and better friendships? And fourth, is it beneficial to all concerned?”It is my distinct honor to officially welcome you both as the world’s newest Rotarians, and the newest members of our club’s global family.Maxi, it is my distinct honor to officially welcome you both as the world’s newest Rotarians, and the newest members of our club’s global family.Members and guests, please join me in welcoming Maxi to our club!”Check back next week for Maxi's self-introduction video!

For Members Only: Updates

This segment of the meeting is dedicated to our club members. This section includes announcements and new initiatives. Guests, you are welcome to read this section or just skip it.

New Rotary Year coming up! Leadership transition.

New Rotary Year begins on July 1! We're transitioning leadership to President-elect Stephen over the next couple of weeks!

Past Member Announcements:

  • May website updates: The /join page has been updated, New secure https:// SSL connection, new Our Members Page

  • Club Fundraiser on August 6 "A Taste of Good with Rotary" in Livermore, CA: Looking for help, donations, gift prizes, etc! Email Andrew Taw

  • Message from Treasurer-elect Heather on Automatic Dues: Make sure to check your emails! We are switching our system over to automatic dues rather than manual payment. Treasurer-elect Heather has more info for you!

  • TRF Challenge coins: Members who donate the following amounts will receive the following coins: $1000 - Gold, $500 - Silver, $200 - Bronze. Go ahead and request your Challenge Coin via the online form here then!

  • Service Blotter Submissions: Click here to fill out The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey

Our Events & Projects

We hold our meetings online, but we hold regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley every month! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of our events and service projects listed here.

Also be sure to join our Meetup Group for automatic calendar updates and to RSVP for our events! These are open to all guests as well!

https://www.meetup.com/siliconvalleyrotary/

Upcoming Events:

All times are Pacific Time! (San Francisco time)More events coming soon! All events are open to guests, unless otherwise mentioned. Feel free to join us! If you ever have questions, please email president@siliconvalleyrotary.comJuly events coming soon!

Special: Club Charity Fundraiser "A Taste of Good with Rotary" - Sunday, August 6, 2017 at Retzlaff Vineyard in Livermore, California

Save the date for Sunday, August 6, 2017 for our club's first annual charity fundraiser! This delicious food and wine lunch event will indulge your taste buds while we enjoy amazing company, live music, silent auctions, auctions, and ticket drawings. More info coming soon.

Our club's event chair: Andrew Taw

Happy Dollars: Do Good by Sharing Something Good

Each week we ask our members to share stories with the club and toss in a few dollars to support our efforts. The primary goal of this section is to provide a fun way of getting to know each fellow members and guests, while giving back to a good cause.

Happy dollars is an opportunity to share something positive that has happened in your life whether it is personal or business. Think of it as your opportunity to brag a little, but also put a little bit into a karma jar. The money donated through happy dollars is put to charitable use, and the message that you leave for happy dollars will be posted in our online meeting the following week for the entire week for folks to see! (Pending that it's appropriate!)

Last week's happy dollars went towards powering our club's projects and service grants.

Thank you to member Rory Olsenfor his donation to Polio Plus fund! Rory had this to say:"All is well. Please apply my gift to Polio Plus."

Thank you to member Nate Gildart for his generous donation of $10. Nate had this to say:"Had a good time in Australia and had breakfast with the Rotary Club of Sydney Cove."

Thank you all for your donations last week!

This week's happy dollars donations will be going to help fund our club projects and service grants!

Happy dollars is also a great opportunity to share with the group about something good that has happened to you, while giving back to a great cause.

So what are you happy about? Share with us below, and help support one of our future leaders!

Selected Six

Every week at the bottom of our meetings, there is a comments section for members and guests to tell us what they enjoyed about the meeting or to ask questions to the speaker. We select six comments every week from last week’s meeting to be featured during this week’s meeting.

Here are six comments selected from last week's meeting about Lessons from Solo Sailing the World:

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Member Rushton Hurley (California, USA) had this to say:"Neal, it was cool to hear your perspectives - at first, the hiccup with the recording made me wonder if I'd be able to follow, but your message did come through. The enthusiasm for history and the power of your mother's story really made an impression. Thanks so much for giving us some of your time! Loved the Little Inventors video, as well - the look on the girl's face when she saw her idea come to life was priceless."

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Member Megan Breyer (California, USA) had this to say:"Neal, thanks so much for taking the time to share your story - you always have such an inspirational message to share! Time for me to re-read your book :)Kudos to whoever found that Little Inventors video - loved it! Constantly amazed at what kids can do."

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Guest Leanza Tupfer had this to say:"Amazing to hear of Neal Petersen's story! I've also never heard of solo yacht sailing but it sounds like an amazing way to explore the world."

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Member Brett Sham (Sydney, Australia) had this to say:"I had a great time in Atlanta hanging out with all the other club members there, thanks for all the fun and fellowship. The highlight of my week was the presentation by Bill Gates and the update on our fight against polio. Can't wait to repeat this again in Toronto! Neal, thanks for such an insightful presentation. I love your passion and outlook on life and the lessons you learnt growing up. Was also interesting to hear your statistics of people that have sailed solo around the world vs people that have been into space, as I visited the Kennedy Space Centre today and had lunch and a meet and greet with an astronaut!"

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Member Kenneth Oku (California, USA) had this to say:"Thank you Neal for taking the time to present and share your very unique story. Great job, I understand what you were saying and agree with it strongly. To the eClub, great job representing at the Rotary International convention in Atlanta! Brett, Angela, Kristi, Mitty, Yvonne, Raquel, Stephen, it was nice to have a solid group to share the experience with. I don't think I will make Toronto sadly, but I hope to see y'all in Germany!"

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Member Richard Knaggs (South Africa) had this to say:"Thank you for the Inventor Video with Dominic Wilcox. He is right, our children have amazing imaginations and as a result huge potential for inventions. I have a 10 year old boy in our school who has designed chairs and desks that are made out of cardboard. His vision is to help with the needy who do not have furniture and to help children in schools who have experienced a natural disaster and have lost all of their furniture. Please see the pics below. He is currently sharing his designs with a disaster relief centre in Knysna, South Africa who are involved in providing relief to victims of recent devastating fires. Thank you for the video Neal. You have achieved an incredible feat of which I am sure you spent much time pondering life because you speak so profoundly. I wish more of us could experience such a journey in order to grow as you have. You are Proudly South African. If you are ever in Cape Town I would love for you to come and visit our school, Parklands College, to come and inspire our children and teachers."

Be sure to leave a comment at the end of this week’s meeting after you watch the program below, and perhaps you’ll see your comment featured next week!

Program: The Juno Mission - Eyes on Jupiter

Every week we bring to you a new program on innovation, education, technology, and humanitarian service. This week our guest this week is Dr. Phil Valek of the Southwest Research Institute and the Juno Project.

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Dr. Phil Valek completed his undergraduate studies at Illinois State University in 1994, where he was awarded a B.S. in both physics and mathematics. He obtained his Ph.D. in physics from Auburn University, where he worked both with laboratory plasma experiments and space plasma experiments. Dr. Valek was also a team member on the Medium Energy Neutral Atom (MENA) imager that flew aboard NASA’s IMAGE satellite. His primary responsibility was setting up and characterizing the ion/neutral atom source used for calibration and performing the MENA calibration.

Dr. Valek joined the Space Science and Engineering division at the Southwest Research Institute in 2001. His work includes data analysis from current missions, calibration of space flight instruments, and the development of instruments. He is responsible for the Instrumentation Development and Calibration Facility in the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute. This facility is used in the testing and calibration of prototype and space flight instrumentation.

Recent experience in NASA space science missions includes Principal Investigator for A MicroElectrical Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Velocity Filter for Low Energy Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) Instruments, Funded Team Member of the Medium Energy Neutral Atom (MENA) imager, IMAGE MidEx Mission, Calibration Lead of Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers (TWINS), Calibration Lead, Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP), New Horizons Mission to Pluto, is a Co-Investigator on the Magnetospheric Multi-Scale (MMS) instrument suite and is Sensor Lead for the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) on the Juno mission to Jupiter.

In 2005 Dr. Valek became an adjoint member of the graduate faculty of the Physics Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

His talk today is on the Juno mission. The Juno spacecraft arrived at Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Fifty-three days laterduring the first perijove (closest point to Jupiter) the instruments were on and viewing Jupiter from a new perspective. To make these new observations, Juno needed to be a mission of firsts. It is the first mission to go into orbit over the poles of Jupiter. Its orbit has the closest approach to Jupiter in order to duck under the harsh radiation belts, and as a result is the fastest-ever man-made object. And it is the first solar powered spacecraft to be in orbit around the outer planets. These first allow the state of the art instrument suite to understand the Jovian system like never before.

Jupiter was the first of the planets to form. By understanding this planet, we will better understand how our solar system formed. Juno does this by studying the interior, the atmosphere, and the magnetosphere of Jupiter. The interior structure is hidden from view by the clouds. We are peering into the interior by mapping the massive gravitational and magnetic fields. The atmosphere of the planet is covered in swirling storms and bands; Juno studies the atmosphere using a suite of imagers to view the system in a broad spectrum, from the infrared to the ultraviolet. The magnetosphere of Jupiter extends from the cloud tops back down its tail to the orbit of Saturn. If we could see this invisible structure at Earth, it would appear to be twice the size of the full moon. The magnetosphere is studied with sensors that measure the distributions of the particles and fields, and with imagers to measure the aurora.

In this talk, Dr. Phil Valek will go over how Juno is studying Jupiter and some of the discoveries we have made.

Ahead of Dr. Valek's talk today, you can watch this short video to get a sense of how NASA and SwRI have made media available so that one can get a sense of Juno's flight path. Enjoy!



Please join us in welcoming Dr. Phil Valek!


Related Links

Ask a question. Leave a comment!

Have a question for Phil? Leave a comment or a question in the comments below! Or just tell us how your week has been!

Upcoming Program Schedule

All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 45 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.

Upcoming Recordings:

  • None at the moment!

If you would like to join us for any of the live recordings, please email president@siliconvalleyrotary.com with your request. Requests will be checked up until 5 minutes prior to the recording time. Please note the timezone is all California, USA time.

You’re Almost Done! One last thing: The Attendance Survey...

Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done. First, we have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.

Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeups.Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you. If you think you may want to join our eClub at some point in the future, we would strongly recommend you fill out the attendance form as it will improve your chances of success for your membership application.More importantly, for all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment below in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!

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The Final Stretch to End Polio, with Keynote Address from Bill Gates

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Lessons from Solo Sailing the World