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

October 2024 Update (pdf format)

September 2024 Outreach (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)October 12 Meeting

Oklahoma Space Alliance will meet at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 12, 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 next to Norman Computers. Please enter through the Cyber Hall door. The Cyber Hall is at 914 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 October 12, 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 September meeting
Posters
Membership Business
Space Week is now

Video (to be announced, possibly to do with space week)
Chat

Minutes of September 14 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting

Oklahoma Space Alliance met September 14, 2024, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Adam Hemphill, Ian Clark, Kip and Claire McMurray, John Northcutt, Kevin Sampson, Tim Scott, and Syd Henderson 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/Update2409.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.

        The Cyber Hall address is 914 West Main, and we will be using that as the meeting address so people know which door to go to. Ian is a new attendee and we got his contact information.
        We had a discussion on radar detection of possible UFOs which appear to experience g-forces not survivable by humans.
        Red spirit lightning going into the extreme upper atmosphere. Pictures were shown on the cover of the September Update.
        Starliner returned crewless. The thrusters, that were of such concern that Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are staying on the ISS, were not actually part of the return capsule, separated from the capsule and burned up on reentry. [Meanwhile, Suni Williams has taken command of the ISS.)
        We may need to establish a common standard for spacesuits so all types will be compatible with interfaces. (The space suits Wilmore and Williams wore are incompatible with SpaceX Dragon Capsule.)
        The ISS has LIDAR for active docking support.
        We watched a video of spacewalks on the Polaris Dawn mission. These were the first spacewalks on a private mission, but the astronauts did not completely leave the spacecraft but held on to a ladder that projected out. The suits they were testing are not capable of operating separately from spacecraft so are not Moon capable. [I think SpaceX is working onBo suits that are.] The two astronauts who spacewalked did not do so at the same time. We watched a video of the launch ofN Polaris Dawn. Astronaut Sarah Gillis and earth-bound musicians participated in a concert of music from Star Wars. Participants included singers and musicians for Haiti, Sweden, Brazil, Uganda, the United States, Venezuela, and more.
        Boeing is currently valued at $96.60 billion in marketing capitalization, which is comparable with companies such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
        The crawler that carries rockets to the launch pad gets six feet per gallon.
        Boeing now has a much younger workforce because they are not paying competitive salaries, especially for Seattle.
        Chang’e 5 landed 43.1°N 51.8° W on the Moon but still found water-rich material.
        Syd is going to check on Heavens Above to see if they give viewing information for the ACS3 Solar Sail satellite. NASA has an app so you can track it.
        We now have $775.38 in the checking account and $267 in cash for a total of $1042.38.
        Tim will not be at the October meeting. Syd will give the financial information.

--Minutes By OSA Secretary Syd Henderson

October 2024 Update (pdf format)

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 July 2024 Meeting
Minutes of August 2024 Meeting
Minutes of September 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.