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There are usually a few individuals idling in The Pod Bay, and it has a good level activity. I'd hate to see that activity slump as we move further into beta (as it seems to be with most sites).

I think a good way to keep the activity levels high would be to schedule chat events. What sort of events do you think would be interesting?

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    $\begingroup$ The main locus of activity should be the Q&A imho. That's what stays forever... $\endgroup$ – Deer Hunter Aug 7 '13 at 16:31
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    $\begingroup$ @Deer of course, these aren't meant to detract from Q&A, but rather promote activity on the site. Not a lot of Q&A typically goes on in chat rooms, but if we could schedule some sort of "interview with an expert" in chat, that would be fantastic. Blender has done this twice: Jonathan Williamson followed by Campbell Barton. Other sites have much more casual events, for example EE.SE has a weekly hangout $\endgroup$ – JohnB Aug 7 '13 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ This would be great. We Physics folks have one every other Tuesday, and we have fun (or crickets, it oscillates). It's a nice way to promote community bonding. $\endgroup$ – Manishearth Aug 7 '13 at 18:01
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Spaceflight Now - Worldwide launch schedule

                         Spaceflight Now - Worldwide launch schedule

                          Example schedule feed from spaceflightnow.com

Website sadly doesn't host a RSS feed of its own, so I've created it using page2rss.com:

@DeerHunter has prepared it using feed43.com:

Notes: The RSS feed converted from the Spaceflight Now web page that @DeerHunter prepared has a better format, especially the RSS feed titles make a lot more sense and are more descriptive than how page2rss.com parsed it.

We have already successfully hosted a live launch event in our chat room, The Pod Bay, for the ULA Delta IV rocket launching the Wideband Global SATCOM satellite into orbit:

    Images from live feed of the ULA Delta IV rocket launching the Wideband Global SATCOM satellite

       Images from live feed of the ULA Delta IV rocket launching the 6th Wideband Global SATCOM satellite.

Looking forward to more live feeds covering launches throughout the world.

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    $\begingroup$ Nicely done, this one is likely to be more than useful so i integrated it into the feeds of the room. Will also use it to schedule events a few days in advance so we can gather up a nice crowd $\endgroup$ – RhysW Aug 8 '13 at 9:53
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There are non-launch events too -

  • Juno's Earth fly-by in October 2013,
  • Cassini's Titan fly-by also in October 2013

to name just a couple.

Perhaps we may have SEx.SE events scheduled against non-launch events. These may not be accompanied by a video/data feed though ...

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NASA's Project Morpheus will often live stream their tests, and it can be pretty fun to watch:

Morpheus Live

The issue with scheduling these is that they usually announce the tests the day of the event:

Good morning world! It's a great @NASA_Johnson day for a #TetherTest. Join us for a great #rocket test fire. We'll go LIVE later on the web!

— @MorpheusLander

This makes it hard to schedule a chat event for it, but I think it would still be a good thing to help build our community.

Here's a truncated video of one of the streams:

Project Morpheus Tether Test 27

Tether test

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    $\begingroup$ Other space sites provide links to live broadcasts of rocket launches. $\endgroup$ – Deer Hunter Aug 7 '13 at 16:30
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Astrobites feed: http://astrobites.org/feed/

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Mars Daily feed: http://www.marsdaily.com/marsdaily.xml

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