Team Background (and the first challenge faced):

October 15^th, 10:00am: The four team members plan on meeting at 3:30pm to further discuss the Space Apps challenges

October 15^th, 12:00pm: Two members have dropped from the team

October 18^th, 5:30pm: Team-up social fails to link the two-person team with others intent on tackling a similar Space Apps challenge, and the team of two becomes a team of one

October 19^th, 12:00pm: Despite the valiant and extended efforts of several Space Apps Mentors and Volunteers, the team dissolves

October 19^th, 1:00pm: After discussing the challenges with his wife, and assuring her that chores will be completed the following week, the final team member convinces her to join him on an epic quest to the far reaches of the Solar System, beyond Neptune, and into the Kuiper Belt. Team forms anew as a team of two! Thus began Outer Plutoid Travel, travel agency for the Trans-Neptunian Spaceway.

Project Background:

Team Outer Plutoid Travel, Kalen and Amber Braman, formed to tackle the Trans-Neptunian Spaceway Challenge. Kalen, an aerospace engineer and longtime Toastmaster, brings his love of all things space and his skills at presenting to the table, while Amber, a lifelong arts and crafts lover, brings her own awesome skills. Together, they mixed their sensibilities to create a retro-styled take on the TNS Challenge.

Step 1 involved researching the TNOs, tackled by Kalen, while Amber tackled researching retro-styled imagery and fonts in order to inform her poster design. Together, they brainstormed ideas and came up with the three posters for Eris, Makemake, and Haumea, based upon the eccentric orbit of Eris, the intriguing blend of compounds on Makemake’s surface, and Haumea’s fast rotation, two moons, and ring.

Step 2 involved Amber sketching out the posters and choosing a color palette, while Kalen worked on the text for the travel webpage.

Step 3 involved Amber painting the poster, a long arduous process that required several painstaking layers of paint for each poster. Meanwhile, Kalen wrote out the script for the Team video and developed more content to the webpage.

Step 4 involved editing the poster images as well as other images, recording audio for the video, and then splicing those all together for the video presentation.

Be sure to check out our travel page in the link below!

Project Webpage:

https://www.facebook.com/OuterPlutoidTravel/

Resources Used:

solarsystem.nasa.gov/solarsystem/kuiper-belt/in-depth for general background info

wikipedia.org for general background info and to find references to explore

Various retro-styled imagery from internet searches to help provide stylization for the hand painted graphics

McGranaghan, R., et al., “A Survey of Mission Opportunities to Trans-Neptunian Objects,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 64, pp. 296-303, 2011.

Sicardy, B., et al., “Size, density, albedo and atmosphere limit of dwarf planet Eris from a stellar occultation,” European Planetary Science Congress Abstracts, Vol. 6, 137-8, 2011.

Brown, M., et al., “Methane and Ethane on the Bright Kuiper Belt Object 2005 FY9,” The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 133, pp. 284-289, 2007.

Brown, M., et al., “Satellites of the Largest Kuiper Belt Objects,” The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 639, L43-L46, 2006.

Snodgrass, C., et al., “Characterisation of candidate members of (136108) Haumea’s family,” Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 511, A72, 2010.

Ortiz, J.L., et al., “The size, shape, density, and ring of the dwarf planet Haumea from a stellar occultation,” Nature, Vol. 550, pp. 219-223, 2017.

OpenShot version 2.4.4, an open source video editor

facebook community page for the travel webpage

youtube.com to upload our video

Various NASA image repositories for credited images