Oklahoma Space Alliance

OKLAHOMA SPACE ALLIANCE

A Chapter of the National Space Society

Who We Are:

        Oklahoma Space Alliance is the central Oklahoma Chapter of the National Space Society, one of the largest space advocacy groups in the country, and has existed for more than 20 years. Our purposes include promoting the exploration and development of space, educating the public to current events in space and the usefulness of an active space program, all with the intent of promoting a space-faring civilization.
        Oklahoma Space Alliance hosted the 23^rd Annual International Space Development Conference on May 27-31, 2004. We previously hosted three Regional Space Development Conferences, assisted with earlier ISDCs, put displays in malls, hosted lectures, sponsored television interviews, hosted viewing nights, worked with other space-oriented groups and maintained local contact with the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority.
        Oklahoma Space Alliance helped out with the 2007 International Space Development Conference which was hosted by the National Space Society of North Texas in Dallas Texas from May 24 - 28, 2007, and put together a commemorative exhibit for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. This exhibit ran through July of 2009. (See below for details.)
        We do a bimonthly newsletter called Outreach and a monthly e-mail newsletterUpdate to keep our members informed of current developments in space and upcoming events they might be interested in. Editor of Outreach is Syd Henderson and editor of Update is David Sheely. David also does an Update most months when Outreach is published.

Oklahoma Space Alliance is now on Facebook at Oklahoma Space Alliance

July 2024 Outreach (pdf format)

July 2024 Update (pdf format)

Space Priorities (pdf format)

Outreach & Update

Outreach and Update are the newsletters of Oklahoma Space Alliance. Outreach is published in odd-numbered months and is sent both by post and by e-mail.Update is published in even-number months and is sent by e-mail. The December Update is often replaced by a meeting announcement election ballot, in which case the November minutes will be published in the January Outreach. You must be a member of Oklahoma Space Alliance to receive Outreach by post unless you are on our courtesy list. To receive newsletters by e-mail, contact Syd Henderson at the address at the bottom of the page. The newsletters listed below are slightly edited to turn them into web pages.
Outreach is edited by Syd Henderson, and Update by Clifford McMurray (except the June 2024 was by Adam Hemphill)

July Meeting

Oklahoma Space Alliance will meet at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 13, at the location next to Norman Computers on West Main. Prospective members are welcome.
The meeting room is in the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers. Norman Computers is at 916 W Main St, opposite Norman High School. The phone number is (405) 292-9501. To get to the meeting space from points north, take the Highway 77 exit off I-35, and continue south until you reach Main Street. Norman Computers is about a block and a half west of this on the south (left) side of a small mall.

Saturday July 13, 2:00 p.m. (tentative)

Introductions and review of Space events this past month
What’s Happening in Space, News, Pictures, and Videos approximately one hour. See http://osa.nss.org before the meeting for items to be discussed.
Break
Oklahoma Space Alliance Chapter Business Discussion

Review OSA treasurer’s report.
Minutes of May and June meetings
Posters
Membership Business
ISDC 2024

Video (to be announced)
Chat

Minutes of June 8 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting

        Oklahoma Space Alliance met June 8, 2024, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Adam Hemphill, Kevin?, Tim Scott, Dave Sheely, and Syd Henderson. Claire and Kip McMurray were at his 50th class reunion. OSA President Adam Hemphill presided over the meeting Adam presented an update containing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at https://osa.nss.org/Update2406.pdfso I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
         Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne shut down prematurely on its sixth launch (which is why they’re no longer flying). Problem is that they can’t do a full vacuum test on Earth.
         Levitating trains have an advantage on the Moon since they have no moving parts for moondust to get into. The levitating train project is called FLOAT, FLOAT is magnetic robots levitating over a three-layer track. Cars can be put on these. FLOAT is part of a ten-year LunA initiative by DARPA.
         16 Virtus Solis solar power satellites would cover the whole world.
         All our commercial crew spacecraft rely on Airborne Systems for parachutes. SpaceX just bought a second supplier for parachutes.
         Isar Aerospace is a German company although they intend to launch from a new spaceport in Norway. They will manufacture 80% of Spectrum launchers themselves.
         High-Energy rockets are designed to launch directly into high orbits as opposed to launching to LEO and transferring to a high orbit.
         Supernova’s solar-thermal propulsion rocket will begin launches in late 2025 so they must already working on hardware.
         We watched the launch and re-entry of Starship’s fourth, successful missions. This was the first time we actually had a coverage all the way from orbit to landing, thanks to Starlink.
         No changes in bank account.

--Minutes By OSA Secretary Syd Henderson

Minutes of January 2024 Meeting
Minutes of February 2024 Meeting
Minutes of March 2024 Meeting
Minutes of April 2024 Meeting
Minutes of May 2024 Meeting
Minutes of June 2024 Meeting

Minutes of previous meetings

Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
Copyright 2024 Oklahoma Space Alliance.