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

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

July 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)

August Meeting (note change in meeting place).

Oklahoma Space Alliance will meet at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 8, at the McMurray house. Prospective members are welcome. The 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, leftat Aspen Lane, and right at Aspen Circle. or (2) Take the Highway 9 east of I-35, turn left at Imhoff Road, left at Poplar, left at Aspen Lane, and right at Aspen Circle.

Saturday, August 8, 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 May and June Meeting
Plans for 2026
ISDC 2026

Video (to be announced)
Chat

Minutes of July 11 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting

        Oklahoma Space Alliance met July 11, 2026, at Clifford McMurray’s house in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Adam Hemphill, Clifford McMurray, Dave Sheely, Chris Tayloe and Syd Henderson. OSA President Clifford McMurray. presided over the meeting. He did an Update discussing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at https://osa.nss.org/Update2607.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
        China is the first country outside of the United States to recover a first stage intact. China has a lot of rockets that are intended to be reuseable.
        Launch pad 39B at Cape Canaveral is under construction so New Glenn will eventually be able to launch from there too. Jared Isaacman still thinks Blue Moon 1 can be launched by the end of the year. The explosion from the last test of a New Glenn lower stage shattered windows a mile from the pad.
        Pegasus’s most recent flight was its 45th and will be the last. It was the first space mission for the rocket since 2019 (although there was a Space Force test in 2021). Cost of the LINK mission was $30 million. If the LINK mission is successful, it should give the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory another five years of life. We still don’t know how LINK is going to grab it.
        Aeolus has a minimum lifetime of one Martian year to conduct its Martian atmospheric science investigations, according to NASA contract, but of course NASA has a history of extending the lifetime of missions.
        Victus Haze was launched from New Zealand June 19 toward a target launched in May. It beat the previous readiness for launch by eleven hours.
        Starfall is SpaceX’s answer to Varda’s space manufacturer satellite. Varda was the spacecraft that was having difficulty finding a place to land due to FAA regulations.
        In 2016, mouse embryos were sent into space on China’s Shijian-10 microgravity satellite to test whether embryos consisting of a few cells would develop into blastocysts. In 2023 Japan did it as well, aboard ISS. Nobody has ever done a full mouse development in space.
        The cost to the Artemis program of cancelled projects (because Artemis was revised) is $5.9 billion. This includes the adapter and launch tower. The latter increased in cost from $300 million to $2 billion. HALA went in cost from $187 million to $1.9 billion and wouldn’t have been delivered until 2031.
        A Mars rover that is being repurposed as a lunar rover would still use a spare RTG.
        The CubeSat which has a tiny RTG uses tritium but will also have solar panels.
        China is putting manned and unmanned Moon programs under one organization.
        JPL has been under Cal Tech since 1958.
        The Orion capsule is too big for a Falcon Heavy but a modified Dragon could be carried for Moon missions. Nothing else currently flying is big enough to replace SLS (but upcoming rockets will be).
        New Horizons went into hibernation last August. It’s gone 300 million miles since then and has been storing data all that time, now it’s ready to transmit it.
        Previous billionaires wanting to book a trip to the Moon and beyond were Dennis Tito and Jared Isaacman. The latter is busy at the moment.
        Vast is already building space station so why not use that technology to build satellites as well.
        Star Catcher was the company that wants to beam solar power to other satellites.
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Minutes By OSA Secretary Syd Henderson

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

July 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 May 2026 Meeting
Minutes of June 2026 Meeting
Minutes of July 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.