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  Moon

Credit: Credit: Spencer SooHoo

One of the perks of living in Southern California is the ability to attend events sponsored by JPL. Starting with the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1996, I was fortunate enough to be at the Pasadena Convention Center with many other space enthusiasts to share the excitement for the lander and rover airbag touchdown on Mars. Hundreds of us in the auditorium cheered as the first images came back. The last event I attended was for the Mars InSight landing in 2018. The SWAG bag included a bottle of water labeled "Mars Water" (it's still on my desk, unopened). While it would have been great to attend an in-person event in Pasadena for the Perseverance Rover, I was able to share the event with 30 other LAAS members via Zoom. We started the Zoom session around 10:30AM with just a handful of members who used the time to socialize, and at the peak, there were 31 attendees. Despite some initial problems with audio lags, we held our collective breathes as the JPL commentator ticked off the passing of each milestone and finally let out a sigh of relief as we heard the announcement that the landing was successful. One of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it has motivated us to look at technologies like Zoom video conferencing. This is no replacement for in-person meetings, but it does eliminate the travel and traffic barriers for many of our members. One member who moved to Colorado was able to attend, as well as another one who has moved to Washington, DC. There is no doubt that once the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, most LAAS in-person events will incorporate Zoom to allow more LAAS members to participate.