Minutes of October Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met at the McMurrays’ house in Norman, Oklahoma on October 12. In attendance were Clifford and Claire McMurray, Dave Sheely, Mike Hopkins, Adam Hemphill and Syd Henderson. OSA President Clifford McMurray presided over the meeting. He also did an Update with links to the videos he presented. This can be found at http://osa.nss.org/Update1910.pdf so I’ll cover the highlights.
We went through an article on a NASA agreement with Australia. Australia is a big mining country which will be helpful when we start developing resources on the Moon and Mars. The Australian Space Agency only formed last year.
We watched a video of NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine explaining Artemis Phase 1. (Artemis 2 is the mission that will actually land people on the Moon.)
We went through an article on China’s plans for lunar spacecraft.
NASA wants to enable commercial free-flying platforms to provide destinations for commercial companies.
We watched a video of Axiom Space’s modules for commercial users of the ISS. Axiom plans to eventually have a commercial space station. Nanoracks has a more modest ambition.
We went through an article and video on Northop Grumman’s satellite servicing mission, MEV, which will extend the life of Intelsat 901, which is in geostationary orbit. MEV will remain attached to Intelsat 901 for five years, then move it to a graveyard orbit,
The Senate Appropriation Committee would like to see a five-year budget profile of NASA’s plan to return to the Moon.
The SLS could launch four Mars sample return missions on one flight.
We went through an article on meat-growing in space using a 3-D printer.
Mike informed us that cosmonaut Alexei Leonov died on October 11.
We went through several episodes of This Week at NASA.
The Hubble Space Telescope has detected water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.
TESS detected the tidal disruption of a star by a black hole. This event takes place only once every 10,000 – 100,000 years in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way.
Business: We’re hoping to arrange a meeting with Oklahoma City’s congresswoman Kendra Horn. Dave, Clifford and Adam will attend.
Tom and Heidi Koszoru are both laid up, so the Christmas Party will probably be at the McMurrays.
In January it will be time to decide again about meetup.
We watched Elon Musk’s presentation of Starship. This will be 50 meters long, 9 meters in diameter, and have a dry mass of 85 tons. Raptor has three sea-level engines and three vacuum engineers. Superheavy has 37 engines total.
We also watched a conversation with Elon Musk from the web show “Everyday Astronaut.”
--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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