Minutes of June Meeting
National Space Society’s Oklahoma Space Alliance chapter held its regular monthly Meeting on June 9, 2018 at Earl’s Rib Palace in Moore, Oklahoma. In attendances were OSA president David Sheely, Russ Davoren, Claire and Clifford McMurray, John Northcutt, Tim Scott and Syd Henderson.
We watched a video of NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine at the Humans to Mars Summit. It took 66 years from the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the first Transcontinental Railroad, and 49 years after Sputnik to build our first “railroad” into space.
Dave, Claire and Cliff went to the ISDC in Los Angeles and reported on some things that they found there.
SEDS of University of San Diego at San Diego have a small rocket test stand which they displayed at ISDS. Their website shows small rocket launches.
We watched a video on how the Neumann Drive works. This is an ion drive that uses a wide variety of (mostly metallic) fuels to produce large specific impulse. (See Space News)
We saw a video on the Japanese ispace lunar rover.
We watched a video of the Chinese launch of the Queqiao communications satellite that will relay information from the Chang’e 4 lander and rover which will land on the far side of the Moon this December. Queqiao will be in a large “halo orbit” around the Earth-Moon L2 point (the one above the far side of the Moon).
We watched several shows of “This Week at NASA,” and a video on GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On) which will use a laser interferometer between two spacecraft to measure fluctuations in the Earth’s gravity, including those caused by melting glaciers and changing climate.
We watched the SpaceX launch of a communications for Bangladesh. They landed the first stage.
We watched a video of the first Chinese private rocked. This was a sounding rocket that didn’t go into orbit, but it’s a start.
You can find links to many of these and more in the June Update, which is online at http://osa.nss.org/Update1806.pdf.
We have $1004.87 in our checking account and $267 in cash, for a total of $1271.87.
The July 14 meeting will be at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. Plan is to carpool from Norman and return the same night. [See above.] We’ll be having lunch at the Cosmosphere, so if you are not part of the carpool, you’ll want to take off no later that 7:30 a.m.
Future topics: Tim: What nations are doing what in space?
The NSS chapters page still has Steve Swift as OSA president.
Since we had a relatively small meeting, we held off on the Bezos video mentioned in Update.
--Minutes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray.
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
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