Editorial

What a month it’s been - your editor’s PC has been afflicted with the dreaded CHDS    ( Crashed Hard Disk Syndrome ) and as a result the ASSA Jo’burg Centre IT department has had to resort to pencil and paper and a backup PC which is a little slow and retarded compared to the one normally in use.  Which has also resulted in a combined “Yearend 2003” issue covering both December 2003 and January 2004.  I hope this has not been too much of an inconvenience and yes, rest assured, steps have been initiated to prevent a recurrence of the situation.

Venus is really bright in the evening sky and should make a beautiful combination with the sickle Moon in the early evening on Christmas day.  In the morning, Saturn and Jupiter are still looking really good.  Orion also looks magnificent, especially after rain has cleared the muck and bullets from the atmosphere and the clouds have retreated.  Mars is still in everyone’s sights with a total of four spacecraft with three landers arriving at the Red planet from Christmas Eve onwards over the next couple of weeks.

Eben van Zyl has submitted a really interesting article on the “Process of Accretion” which has certainly corrected some of my misconceptions about how the whole process worked, and our Chairman Dave Gordon “chats” once again in his regular column - lucky Dave - over the next few months, he’s getting to do what most of us only dream about doing!

Evan Dembskey supplies another in his “Web between the Worlds” articles, and Brian Fraser supplies us with the heavenly happenings for the first 2 months of 2004.  Strange, it seems only a short while back that all the people were looking to celebrate the new millennium and we’re already well into it.

Your editor has also grabbed an article or three from the space agency email lists and amongst these is one which reminds us to celebrate the ISS’s birthday - has it been up that long already???

The Committee wishes You and Yours all the Very Best over the Festive Season.

The Editor - chris@penberthy.co.za

 The 2003/4 Committee of the Johannesburg Centre