starship-design: URANOS Club Newsletter No. 4.

[Zenon Kulpa <zkulpa@zmit1.ippt.gov.pl>]

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   CLUB * for * EXPANSION * of * CIVILIZATION * into * SPACE
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No. 4              URANOS CLUB NEWSLETTER            07.II.2000

This is the new issue of our irregularly published 
electronic newsletter.

To receive further issues of this newsletter, 
please send a letter stating so to the address:
                   <uranos@uranos.eu.org>
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Changes to the URANOS site:
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- The layout of biographical pages has been completely
  redesigned and extended, namely:
  -- the individual biographies were placed on separate pages,
     which makes for faster loading and easier navigation;
  -- new biographies (of M.G. Bekker and K. Siemienowicz),
     portrait of T. Banachiewicz, as well as English
     translations of all Polish biographies were added;
  -- biographies of Banachiewicz, Tsiolkovsky, Hevelius, 
     Copernicus, Sagan, and Wolszczan were supplemented 
     and extended;
  -- several new biographical notes are in preparation - 
     the names were already placed on the lists in the main 
     biographical pages, to serve as advance notices;
  -- the quality of some portraits has been improved;
  -- illustrations depicting important contributions of the
     given person were included in some of the biographies.
- A new page has been aded to the Polish section of the site -
  entitled "What to do in Poland," it contains an overview 
  of opportunities of active participation in space exploration 
  available currently in Poland.
- Many pages have been updated and extended with new data 
  and entries, among others:
  -- we have added several new entries to the lists of Polish 
     space research institutions and organizations
     (among others, Solar Observers Society, and Division
     of Aircraft Engines of Warsaw Technical University -
     the latter offering lectures on the fundamentals  
     of astronautics and space rocket propulsion);
  -- we have added many new links to the list of Polish space 
     websites and somewhat reorganized the list; 
     to keep up with the growing number of new Polish sites,  
     unfortunately often of rather low quality, we raised 
     the selection criteria for the list;
  -- we have added a few interesting new links to the general 
     list of recommended websites; 
  -- we have added two new entries to our list of recommended 
     Polish-language books ("Treasures from Beyond the Earth" 
     by Pilski and "T. Rex and the Crater of Doom" by Alvarez)
     and updated the information about the "NASA Solar System 
     Atlas").
  -- a few new names of space objects of Polish origin were
     added;
  -- the list of website developers has been updated, and 
     an acknowledgements section has been added to the 
     "URANOS Group" page, to honor the people who sent us 
     useful data included in the pages.
- We have done another round of checking all external links,   
  deleting the dead ones and updating many others.
- We have reorganized and corrected all navigation menus; 
- Many pages have been shortened by deletion of repeated texts.
- As usual, we have introduced numerous small improvements and 
  corrected various errors.

Other information:
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- We offered space on our webserver for the official site of 
  the Polish Astronautical Society - it should appear there soon.
- As a result of our collaboration with the Mars Society Polska
  (MSP - the Polish Chapter of The Mars Society), our e-mail
  list <klub@uranos.eu.org> started to serve also as an official
  contact and discussion list for the members of MSP.
- The <klub@uranos.eu.org> discussion list now counts 
  43 subscribers.
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