Minutes of November Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance held its regular monthly Meeting on November 11, 2017 at Earl’s Rib Palace in Moore, Oklahoma. In attendance were Steve, Karen and Brian Swift, Tom Koszoru, John Northcutt, Dave Sheely, Rosemary Swift, Rachelle Thibodeau, Dennis Wigley, and Syd Henderson. OSA President Steve Swift presided over the meeting. Steve did a “What’s Happening in Space” for the meeting. It is online at http://osa.nss.org/1711%20Whats%20Happening.pdf so I’ll cover the highlights.
Since the December meeting is the Christmas Party, this was Steve’s last meeting as President, so we had some nostalgia along with this month’s space news.
SpaceX tied the record for most commercial launches in one year. We watched a video of the record-breaking launch and the landing of the first stage on a platform.
Bigelow and United Launch Alliance are planning an orbital base that will orbit the Moon.
Christmas will be at Tom Koszoru. He will supply turkey and ham, while the rest of the meal is pot luck. We should arrive at 5:00 p.m. and eat at 6:00 p.m.
This was the meeting at which we nominated the officers for 2018. (Nominations are not closed until the Christmas party, but ballots go out on December 1.) Nominated were Dave Sheely for President, Clifford McMurray and Tom Koszoru for Vice-President, Syd Henderson for Secretary and Tim Scott for Treasurer. Kip and Tom both indicated that they would run if nobody else ran, but since both dropping out would leave us with no candidate, I left them both on the ballot.
We had a second round of voting for the Heinlein award, which, when added to the votes at the October meeting, resulted in
Neil de Grasse Tyson 15 points (and three firsts)
John Young, 13 points (and two firsts)
Michael Collins, 12 points (three firsts)
Which are our chapter nominees. Anousheh Ansari finished fourth with 9 points and two firsts.
Steve went over what he considered the most significant achievements during his six years as OSA President. These included:
Reusable launch vehicles
3D Printing
Robotics
Water on the Moon and Mars
The Kepler Survey that has discovered so many exoplanets
To which I added Detection of Gravitational waves.
Minutes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
--Minutes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray.
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
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