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

September 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)

September Meeting

Oklahoma Space Alliance will meet at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 14, 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 September 14, 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 July and August meetings
Posters
Membership Business
ISDC 2024

Video (to be announced)
Chat

Minutes of August 10 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting

        Oklahoma Space Alliance met August 10, 2024, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were Adam Hemphill, Mark Deaver, Steve Marino, Kip and Claire McMurray, Jackson O’Neal (from OU-SEDS), Dave Sheely, 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/Update2408.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
        At the time of the meeting, Starliner (the Boeing Crew Flight Test vehicle) was still attached to the ISS and its two-person crew still aboard the International Space Station. We had a vote on whether we thought they would come back to Earth aboard Starliner, and whether there would be any more Starliner flights, and voted no on both. [Well, Starliner’s crew capsule returned to Earth without them, and the second will be probably be true although Boeing has another flight scheduled for next year.] Steve Marino mentioned that if they make any change in software (which they did so Starliner can operate without astronauts), they have to recertify the whole thing.
        The order to have six people return aboard a Dragon capsule would require delaying revisions, so they’ll probably send a regular Dragon up with two free seats and return Butch and Suni in February.
        The June failure of a Falcon Block 9 was the first for that configuration,
        Adam thinks Boeing should concentrate on their commercial side and getting their 737 fixed while working on the inevitable replacement. Boeing’s pay in Seattle is not competitive there (but might be elsewhere, such as Oklahoma).
        SpaceX is going to build the deorbit vehicle for the ISS, but NASA will operate it. Russia has already said they’ll cease support in 2028.
        We looked at the stock market histories for Intuitive Machines and Rocket Lab.
        We watched a video of ADRAS-J’s inspection flyby of its intended target, a Japanese upper stage.
        Naro-1 was South Korea’s first orbital vehicle in 2013. Their current orbital vehicle is Nuri. [Unlike Naro-1, all of Nuri is built by South Korea.]
        The planet Mercury has patches of graphite on its surface, and it is suspected that deeper in the crust, this becomes diamond.
        We watched a video of the ISS Olympics.
        In contrast with the Chinese booster that was destroyed, the SpaceX booster broke up in a much lower orbit and no debris was produced.

We currently have $797.67 in the checking account and $267 in cash.
After the meeting, we watched a 2018 ISDC video of a talk on Moon Direct by Robert Zubrin

--Minutes By OSA Secretary Syd Henderson

Minutes of July 13 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, Mark Deaver, John Northcutt, Kevin Sampson, Tim Scott, Dave Sheely, 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/Update2407.pdf so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
        Why is China doing static rocket tests within a building? [This refers to the static test of Long March 10 in June. ‘Tis still a mystery.]
        Ariane 6 did have problems reducing the orbit of the second stage so it will stay in orbit and will be doing an uncontrolled reentry quite a while in the future.
        If NASA does mothball ISS, as has been proposed, there could be a potential problem with space debris hitting the mothballed space station.
        We watched a video of Tianlong 3’s accidental launch, brief burst of freedom, and subsequent crash. The private company that created it had previously successfully reached orbit with Tianlong 2.
        Only a small part of the pallet of batteries from the ISS dropped through the roof of the man who is suing NASA. The whole pallet weighed over a ton but thankfully most of it burnt up on reentry.
        Space piracy could include taking control of orbiting satellites.
        SpaceX had a second stage failure while launching twenty Starlink satellites. These communications satellites were released and they will try to boost them to a higher orbit. Rockets on Starlink satellites are low-thrust. [It looks like the satellites were allowed to burn up.] For the moment the United States has no capacity to launch people to the ISS. [SpaceX has resumed launches and will launch a crew to the Space Station at the end of August.]

This Week @ NASA apparently stopped on May 31 so we had to look elsewhere for space news.
The upper stage of a Long March 6A is creating orbital debris. This is not due to the upper stage breaking up. The pieces of debris are tiny and may be insulation.

--Minutes By OSA Secretary Syd Henderson

September 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 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.