Minutes of May Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met at the McMurray house on May 16. Attending were Claire and Clifford McMurray, Syd Henderson and Tom Koszoru.
We have lost the big display at the Norman Public Library to their Summer Reading Campaign. There are two flat display cases in the main reading room. Claire will check to see if we can use them. There is a whole wall there we can put stuff on. We should be looking for book covers to put in the cases around the rovers. We need to put together a book and video list.
Kip wants to do a cookout in early June.
We had a total of eight people on Yuri’s Night. Syd needs to put notes for Yuri’s Night on our web site.
The Planetary Society needs to be in the contact information in the back of the newsletters. The Air Space Museum at Science Museum Oklahoma should be eliminated. [I’ve replaced it with a generic contact for the Science Museum.—SFH]
Can we get Kim Vowell to send us minutes for the May 27 OSIDA meeting?
Syd will pay the $54 fee for the Post Office Box and be reimbursed.
David Baxter wants governors of all fifty states to designate July 16-24 (the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission) as a space observance. July 20 would be Space Exploration Day.
The ISDC preliminary schedule is now on-line.
Check Virgin Galactic for updates on their web site.
The most visible thing we will be doing at SoonerCon will be covering the con suite. Tom has videos and equipment. We need to see about getting stomp rockets. Tom has a large cooler. We discussed refreshments. Since we are covering the con suite, we will need to bring refreshments for that period; Cookies, chips, queso, corn balls, candy, carrots, ranch dressing. We can make our own veggie tray. Dotson has 7-grain chips.
We need to talk to Leonard about panels at SoonerCon.
Find a way to fund a business school project at OU on marketing the Oklahoma Spaceport.
We need to bring cameras to SoonerCon.
Tom wants to request a deadline on our startup kit.
We can do a scale model of the Solar System.
Take Space Solar Power off agenda for May and add for June.
We can do a quiz at SoonerCon. We need prizes for a quiz panel.
Between Meetings Activities
Claire and Clifford McMurray went to Florida in mid-May to see the launch of the Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Oklahoma Space Alliance hosted the con suite at the SoonerCon Science fiction convention in Oklahoma City. We set up at 7:00 p.m. and stayed open past 11:00 p.m. We had 39 people on our sign-up sheet, of whom about 30 were new people. Our party was opposite the Sinnercon costume party, the Art Auction and the Charity Auction.
Claire and Clifford McMurray and Syd Henderson participated on a panel introducing Oklahoma Space Alliance and private space flight. Clifford McMurray and Tom Koszoru participated on a panel on Benefits of the Space Program, along with Christopher Carson and William Ledbetter. Finally, Clifford and Claire McMurray, Tom Koszoru and William Ledbetter formed a panel on Space Exploration and the Obama Administration.
Claire, Syd, and Tom, and briefly Tim Scott, met at the McMurrays' on June 13 to work on the Norman Public Library exhibit. We took a field trip to inspect the site. We have a wall space 44 feet wide and about 81 inches high; however, we will mostly be using the top part of this because of furniture. We also have two display cases. We spent much of the meeting putting together a space timeline from Space News's 50 years in Space articles. We're dividing this into "How Did We Get There" (1915 -1969), "What Have We Done Since" (1969 - 2009), and What Could Come in the Future. Syd suggested that we also have a section "What's Happening Now?" Claire favors separating commercial operations and governmental. Syd and Tom both brought books to display. Tom wants to display his wooden model of a Space Shuttle, probably on top of one of the display cases since it won't fit inside. The exhibit will be in a gazebo-shaped reading room between the main stacks and the children's library.
After the display we had dinner with hot dogs, fruit, and potato salad brought by the members.
--Minutes submitted by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
To contact Oklahoma Space Alliance, e-mail Syd Henderson.
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Copyright �2008 Oklahoma Space Alliance.