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CA L I F O R N I A P O LY T E C H N I C S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y “Provocative Perspectives” series kicks off with JewishPalestinian comedy duo. IN ARTS, 7
Volume LXXIV, Number 33
Republican Party looks for a leader. IN NEWS, 3
Car sharing company arrives on campus to help car-less students get around mustang daily
Your roommate shells out $7,200 a year for her car. You pick up groceries, cruise to the beach and catch a movie at the drive-in for a daily $72 fee, then return the car you’ve reserved online to it’s parking spot on campus.You don’t own a car; you share one with other Zipcar members. Zipcar, the world’s largest carsharing service, arrived at Cal Poly on Oct. 22, parking four self-service cars in two lots on campus for faculty, staff and students 18 and older to rent. The two Toyota Priuses and two Scion XBs are available all the time, thus eliminating the need for personal cars. As Cal Poly’s commuter and access coordinator for the University Police Department, Susan Rains helps students, faculty, staff and visitors use alternative transportation like the bus system, bike paths, Amtrak and carpools. Rains said she’s been working on getting a car sharing service on campus for four years. Rains researched how it would work here and if they would be willing to come here because it wasn’t common at universities at the time, she said. “Originally I was at a conference and learned about car sharing
and thought it would be a great fit for our campus, because at the time the parking lots were overfull, and it was very busy and we were trying to get people into alternative moves of transportation and giving them incentives to do that,” she said. She plans to use the Zipcars and hopes other people try them out, she said. “I think once they get used to it, they would really like it. It’s very user friendly,” she said. Cal Poly chose Zipcar because the University of California (UC) system signed a contract in June 2009 that California State Universities (CSU) could opt to join. There are cars at three CSU and near or on all but one of the 10 UC campuses. Zipcar was also more affordable than the other car sharing service in San Luis Obispo, FunRide, which opened this summer, Rains said. Cal Poly is among the 140 college campuses that have partnered with Zipcar; others include MIT, Columbia, Georgetown, American University and Harvard University. About 20 people signed up in the first couple of days since ZipCar came to campus, but Rains expects more as word gets out via ads in the Mustang Daily, e-mails to on-campus residents, a parent newsletter and an open forum in November. John Williams of Scoville Public
Zip Cars on California campuses
5 at CSU Long Beach 3 at CSU Chico 9 at UCLA 9 at UC Santa Cruz 8 at UC Davis 8 at UC Irvine 12 at UC San Diego 4 at UC Santa Barbara
Relations said they’ve been pleased with the performance of Zipcar across the country. While there are only four cars available now, they’ll add cars as membership increases, he said. Rains said as they expand, they plan to have Zipcars parked at the residence halls on campus. “My hope would be to hopefully have eight to 10 vehicles on campus,” she said. see Zipcar, page 2
SLO bank robbed yesterday
courtesy photo
The above unidentified man robbed Chase Bank in downtown San Luis Obispo yesterday at around 2:20 p.m. mustang daily staff report
Yesterday an unidentified man robbed Chase Bank on Chorro Street in downtown San Luis
IN SPORTS, 12
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Zipcar gives Poly a lift Kate McIntyre
Women’s soccer goalie has been nearly unstoppable in the net this year.
Obispo, police said in a press release. The man passed a note to the teller demanding money and claimed he had a gun at approximately 2:20 p.m., police reported.
Katy Skeeters, a Cal Poly philosophy junior, was in the bank during the robbery. She said she was totally unaware of what was going on until after the robber had left. “I was at the teller when another teller locked the door,” she said. Skeeters said everyone in the bank was locked in for 30 minutes until the police came and said that it was safe to leave. He was dressed normally so most people there were “completely oblivious,” she said. The police describe the suspect as a 35-40-year-old, white male who is 5 feet 10 inches tall and 200 pounds with dark hair. He was last seen walking toward Garden Street after the robbery. Anyone with information is encouraged to call the San Luis Obispo Police Department at (805) 781-7312.
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Poly builds Satellite Kelsey Shimasaki special to the mustang daily
On Oct. 30, satellites designed by about 25 Cal Poly engineering students in the CubeSat lab will be launched out of Wallops Island, Va., at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility. This is the latest in a series of satellites launched by Cal Poly. The upcoming launch, formally known as the Sub-Orbital CubeSat Experimental Mission (SOCEM), is in coordination with Kentucky Space and NASA Wallops. The goal of the launch is to demonstrate a new, faster approach to space access. It involves a merger of CubeSat and Terrier Improved Malemute, a small rocket that the CubeSats will be placed into to be launched. A CubeSat is a 10 cm cube satellite with a mass of up to 1 kilogram. The satellites can last
for about six months in space on average, and serve a variety of purposes, including taking photographs and scientific research. “The concept for CubeSat came from a collaboration between Professor Bob Twiggs at Stanford and Dr. Jordi Puig-Suari at Cal Poly around 1999,” PolySat project manager Justin Foley said. The development of CubeSats has allowed universities worldwide to experiment with space exploration. The group of students in CubeSat is responsible for maintaining the CubeSat Project’s specifications for satellite size and weight, launch coordination, communicating with other satellite builders and building the Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployer (P-POD). The P-POD is a rectangular box that up to three satellites are placed into prior to being launched. Once the satellites are in space, they are discharged from the P-POD. “CubeSat is unique in that all other satellite builders, whether they be universities or companies, go through them for launches and information regarding how to get manifested for a launch,” Foley said.
The Cal Poly PolySat Project involves a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate engineering students working to design, construct, test, launch and operate a CubeSat, the Cal Poly PolySat Web site said. “The members of PolySat are responsible for building Cal Poly’s CubeSat class satellites,” Foley said. “PolySat is similar to all the other organizations in the world who are building CubeSats, but is also unique in that we interact more
f r e quently with C u b e S a t , because we all work in the same room.” According to the Cal Poly CubeSat Web site, the CubeSat Project is an international collaboration of more than 40 universities, high schools and private firms. CubeSats are a popular project among universities because of their small size, which makes them relatively inexpensive to build. In addition, by using consumer-offthe-shelf components, building one satellite costs thousands of dollars compared to the millions it would cost to build a full-size satellite. “The downside of using consumer-off-the-shelf components [COTS] is that they don’t last as long,” said Ivan Bland, a student who has been working on the CubeSat Project. “COTS components are not space rated. They do not undergo rigorous qualifications as space-rated components do.” It takes approximately two years to completely build one satellite. “This is an advantage to the student,” Foley said, “because they can come in and see the beginning of the project to the end.” The door to the building of the CubeSat lab is kept locked at all times due to International Traffic in Arms Regulations. This government organization requires that certain precautions be taken concerning anything going into space.