By Janet Felts, Public Outreach Liaison

This has been a devastating week for Alabama as tornadoes rolled through part of the state on Wednesday, including the Huntsville/North Alabama area. Businesses have been closed and communication sparse as about one million people have been without electricity. We hope to have power in Huntsville Monday afternoon. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones and homes during this tragedy.

Before the storm interrupted business as usual, the Rocket City Space Pioneers were busy getting ready for the International Space Development Conference that will be held in Huntsville May 18-22. Dynetics and RCSP are a sponsor of the conference, and we have been planning our booth layout and hardware, as well as videos, signage and literature. Tim Pickens, RCSP team leader, will be actively involved in the conference. He will participate in the Google Lunar X PRIZE panel and the Space Investment Panel, as well as serve as emcee at one of the dinners and speak at a couple of sessions.

The conference will be a great opportunity for RCSP to network and promote our mission. I'm looking forward to it!

Our educational team member, the Huntsville Center for Technology, shipped its entry in the Skills USA competition this week. They did an outstanding job building a display of the moon with the RCSP lander circling it. The moon has Fred Haise's signature on it they obtained when they interviewed him a few weeks ago at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

We wish HCT well in the state competition and hope they go on to the national competition. Good luck!

Check out our latest videos and posts at www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com.

We hope things will be back to normal next week. More to come . . .