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 C;ifford McMurray. Clifford also does an Update most months when Outreach is published.

Oklahoma Space Alliance is now on Facebook at Oklahoma Space Alliance

May 2026 Update (pdf format) (Information to be presented at May meeting)

May 2026 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)

May Meeting

        Oklahoma Space Alliance will meet at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 9, at the location next to Norman Computers on West Main in Norman. 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 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.
         After the meeting, we will have a belated Yuri’s Night pizza party the McMurray house, with a space video to celebrate. Prospective members are welcome. Their house is at 2715 Aspen Circle in Norman. To get to the meeting either: (1) Take the Lindsey Street east exit from I-35, turn right at Berry, and proceed to Imhoff Road. Turn right at Imhoff, right at Poplar Lane, left at Aspen Lane, and right at Aspen Circle. or (2) Take the Highway 9 east off I-35, turn left at Imhoff Road, left at Poplar, left at Aspen Lane, and right at Aspen Circle.
        Saturday, May 9, 2:00 p.m.

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 April Meeting
Plans for 2026

Video (to be announced)
Chat

Minutes of April 11 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting

        Oklahoma Space Alliance met April 11, 2026, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Clifford McMurray, Mark Deaver Dave Sheely and Syd Henderson. We had postponed the Yuri’s night party, and some potential attendees got confused and thought the meeting itself was also cancelled. OSA President Clifford McMurray. presided over the meeting He did an Update discussing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online https://osa.nss.org/Update2604.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
        This was the meeting after the launch of Artemis II, which increased the number of living people who have been to the Moon from five to nine. There are four moon walkers still alive. [Buzz Aldrin, David Scott, Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt. Fred Haise of Apollo 13 went around the Moon but didn’t land for obvious reasons.] The Canadian astronaut was the first person to fly to the Moon was wasn’t American.
        There was a lot of publicity about the astronauts experiencing an solar eclipse as they went around the Moon. The reason this was unusual was that the astronauts went to the Moon while the Moon was full. Note that the “ring of fire” you saw in some photographs was false because the Moon is too large at the distance they were.
        The astronauts got a recording greeting from the late Jim Lovell who recorded it shortly before his death.
        Carlos Garcia-Galan, former deputy manager for the defunct Lunar Gateway, is now leader of the Moon Base initiative. “The Gateway team, both NASA and industry and the international partners, were an awesome team,” Garcia-Galan said in an interview afterward. “While I do believe an orbiting outpost has value in our overall exploration goals, this doesn’t mean that we can’t do it later. We need to be focused on the surface, and everyone wants to be on the surface. So I’m super excited, and I’m sure the rest of the Gateway team will be once they start to shift their focus.” [Arstechica.com] The 362 anticipated missions to set up Moon Base include the installation of a nuclear reactor to power the Base.
        NASA doesn’t think any of the proposed commercial space stations are on track. They will spend $280 million on them, which would be sufficient to supply one of them.
        It’s not clear if the nuclear-powered SR-1 mission would go into orbit around Mars or go farther out. Power adds up to 20kW. It’s very aggressive to get it done by 2008.
        There are $1.1 billion cuts to the ISS budget in the proposed Administration budget (which is odd since the mission of ISS has been extended). NASA’s whole budget would be cut by 23%, which is a rerun of last year’s proposal. Artemis is getting nearly half the remaining budget.
        We’re having difficulty with the Early Warning System during the Iran War causing problems for Israel and Oman. We want satellites that can handle this from space, which will be part of the Space Force budget.
        Russia anticipates a crewed mission from Baikonur to the ISS this fall.
        Mark wonders how Musk is going to cool off his AI satellites. [AI processing produces a huge amount of heat.]
        SpaceX’s IPO is to raise $75 billion in capital. The $1.75 trillion valuation would make SpaceX #6 in the world. [If you’re curious, the top five market capitalizations are Nvidoa, Apple, Alphabet. Microsoft and Amazon.] Thus the IPO is a small part of the valuation of the company.
        Space tourism is anticipated to go from $2.6 billion in 2026 to $27 billion in 2034.
        In June 2025, China already achieved refueling in orbit, so the one in “Update” is the second.
        Shimuzo’s plan to use the Moon to produce solar power would require 6800 miles of solar panels to go around the Moon. It also appears to be pretty wide. I’m a tad skeptical.
        Blue Origin has 11,000 employees and Bezos is contributing billions of his own money to keep it solvent.
        Blue Ring would carry multiple cube sats and use kinetic deflection to deter dangerous asteroids. It has a “slam cam” to observe the result of the impact. [Presumably of the deflector, not the asteroid hitting the Earth.]
        We watched a video of the Tianlong 3 launch failure.
        SpaceX had another Starlink satellite break up on December 17 of last year. The debris from the latest will reenter in a few weeks.
        We watched a video from Moon Base detailing their ten-year plan.
        Phase 1: (to 2028) 25 launches, 21 landers, two tonnes of payload to surface/ [Per spacecraft?] Communications increase to greater than 500 Mbps. VIPER will map volatiles for lunar resource prospecting.
        Phase 2: (2029-32) 27 launches, 24 landings. Seven rovers including a pressurized rover. Solar panels during the day, RTGS at night.
        Phase 3: (2033 -36) 29 launches and landings. Long duration, 8 metric tonnes per launch.

We watched a video on Artemis program update. Artemis IV will spend six days on the Moon, with the whole mission lasting 21 days. The first mission with a Centaur V upper stage will be Artemis V.

Minutes By OSA Secretary Syd Henderson

May 2026 Update (pdf format) (Information to be presented at May meeting)

May 2026 Outreach (pdf format)

Minutes of January 2026 Meeting
Minutes of February 2026 Meeting
Minutes of March 2026 Meeting
Minutes of April 2026 Meeting

Minutes of previous meetings

Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Clifford McMurray
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
Copyright 2026 Oklahoma Space Alliance.