Oklahoma Space Alliance NSS Chapter UPDATE for February 2012
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February 2012 Meeting:(NOTE TIME and LOCATION)
Oklahoma Space Alliance will meet at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, February 11, 2012 at Denny’s on the I-240 access road on the north side just east of Pennsylvania Avenue in southern Oklahoma City. The street address is 1617 SW 74th Street and the phone number is 685-5414. This is in the middle of a long line of eating places so we can use the opportunity to scout out potential meeting places. Claire and I found out in November that it is easier coming from the east to get off at the previous exit (Western Avenue) and proceed down the north access road.
We only have the meeting place until 6:00 p.m.
Agenda:
Voting for the Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award added to New Business.
The National Space Society has a new Executive Director, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Damphousse USMC (Retired).
[From the NSS Press Release: “LtCol Damphousse brings a wealth of space, operations, and legislative leadership experience to the position of Executive Director. Until his recent retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps following a 22-year career, he served as Chief of Advanced Concepts for the National Security Space Office (NSSO) and the DoD Executive Agent for Space in Washington, DC. In this capacity he led the NSSO’s space-based solar power effort and championed the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) concept as a near-instantaneous crisis response capability. His work on the latter resulted in the publication of a concept of operations and technology roadmap for suborbital/SUSTAIN missions. He has also served as Florida Senator Bill Nelson’s NASA Fellow, the Senator’s principal advisor for all civil and national security space matters, where he played an instrumental role in advancing new commercial spaceflight activities.”]
Steve brought examples of logos from other NSS chapters as a guide to replacing our own. Leigh brought the logo that she’s been working on, and we will adopt it with some minor revisions, mostly adding “Oklahoma Space Alliance” and “National Space Society” to the rim, and adding color to the versions that require it. This can be added to Outreach as well, either as a black and white version for copying, or printed directly on the cover.
We’ll ask Tim to send a copy of the Treasurer’s report and put it in the minutes.
For Yuri’s Night, April 12, we will have a couple of people put their heads together. Tom and Syd will get together. Bill it as a celebration of space flight to add a more international flavor.
Moon Day is July 20 and commemorates the landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon. We postponed discussion of this until the March meeting.
Russ dropped off copies of the Winter 2011/2 issue of Ad Astra at the public library in Moore. Syd dropped off copies at the January OSIDA meeting.
Leigh brought a poster for the Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! Festival in Kansas City May 18 – 20. Syd took it home.
Fundraising: Steve will be soliciting donations, possibly for a scholarship as a prize for an essay contest. Tom wants to have a memento. Bring this up for discussion in March after we discuss Goals and Objectives. Leigh suggested talking to local artists about models and puzzles.
Steve suggested commercial space programs as a theme for library displays. He wants a small group of us to work on this. Leigh suggested space habitats. We’d like to have ideas by next month.
Speakers and topics: Our meetings would be enriched if we had speakers and videos. Some ideas for speakers, topics and groups we can work with:
Boeing is bringing in 700 more aerospace workers. Burns Flat/OSIDA, the Oklahoma Astronomical Society, Tripoli Rocket Club, the National Weather Center, Remote Sensing (through OU School of Earth and Energy). There are professors at OU that work on alternative architecture. OU has a speaker’s bureau we can contact.
Add the ISDC as a topic for the next meeting.
Jim Trombly talked on Mars 500. Next month he will talk on the Delta Program.
Steve talked about “What’s Happening in Space.” [See his e-mail of January 17.] Among the topics were: the Sky Safari App, which allows you to use your cell phone to figure out what, you are looking at. (This may be limited to Apple products).
Paul Allen has announced that he and Burt Rutan have reunited to build an air-launched privately funded manned rocket to be carried by the largest aircraft in history; the project is called Stratolaunch. Despite its size one of the few airstrips than can handle the airplane is at the Oklahoma Spaceport.
SunSat Design is an international competition intended to accelerate the design, manufacture, launch and operation of the next-generation satellites that will collect energy in space and deliver it to earth as electricity. Winners will be announced at the International Space Development Conference in May.
Tom, Tim and Syd will do the Annual Report.
Goals and Objectives:
Tom spoke about his space artifacts project which he wants to do with SpaceX.
Fundraising.
Bridges to other organizations.
Increased student awareness of space (including library displays)
Steve suggested we have a planning meeting once a month separate from the regular meetings. This would free the regular meetings up for events that will attract the public. We should be able to have them at the Moore Public Library.
Tom is now Update editor.
Oklahoma Space Alliance has a chapter vote for the Robert A. Heinlein Award. At the meeting, George Lucas had 1 first and 2 thirds, Sally Ride had 2 first and 1 third, Elon Musk had two firsts, and Anousheh Ansari a first and a second. John Young got the remaining first-place vote. [However, Clifford McMurray voted by e-mail, which meant the chapter vote was Elon Musk, Sally Ride and Anousheh Ansari.]
Jim Trombly’s e-mail address was incorrect in the newsletter and his phone number needs to be changed. [Steve Swift’s e-mail was also incorrect.]
Our next meeting will be at Denny’s on February 11.
Notes on January 11 OSIDA Meeting
The Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority met at the Oklahoma Department of Transportation building in Oklahoma City. Jack Bonny, Joe King, Phil Kliewer, Lou Sims and Darryl Murphy were the board members present. Oklahoma Spaceport Executive Director Bill Khourie and the OSIDA legal advisor were present. Steve Swift and Syd Henderson attended on behalf of Oklahoma Space Alliance and comprised the audience.
There will be the FAA Space Transportation Conference in Washington DC in mid-February. Governors of states with spaceports are invited to attend. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin cannot attend, but the state Science Secretary will go in her place. Other governors are also sending subordinates such as spaceport directors; Bill Khourie will be going. There are eight spaceport states, including Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alaska, California, Ohio, and Florida (two spaceports).
The Operation Control Center rebid process will take a 90-day window to select a new bidder. This building was supposed to be completed last September, but the company responsible couldn’t get funding, so the process has to start all over again.
Signage and lights at the spaceport are almost complete and are being done swiftly. The Spaceport hasn’t had signage since the Air Force did it long ago.
The video is very inexpensive; they can do another hundred for $200. Syd obtained one for Oklahoma Space Alliance.
One of the workers on the golf course died. His son will be taking over.
Bill will send the OSIDA board criteria to update the website.
OSIDA meetings will be on the second Wednesday of each month. This year there is no conflict with the FAA conference in February.
A windstorm last August damaged the roof of one of the buildings at the Spaceport and there was a torrential rainstorm a few weeks later that caused some interior damage. A temporary repair is in place.
After the meeting, Steve and Syd met with the board members and Bill Khourie. Syd mentioned Stratolaunch to Bill and Bill noted that the runway at Burn Flats is long and wide enough to handle the gigantic airplane that will carry the space ship into the stratosphere.
Dear Oklahoma Space Activist
Oklahoma has a Space Port. This Space Port could create jobs in Oklahoma if we developed a good marketing strategy. Horizontal launch and landing facilities will become the launch and landing of choice, especially with re-usable launch equipment that Virgin Galactic plans to use in the near future.
Space and Science on line Magazines:
Astronomy: http://www.astronomy.com/
Astronomy Now: http://www.astronomynow.com
Discover: http://discovermagazine.com/
Nature http://www.nature.com/
New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/
Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/
Science News: http://www.sciencenews.org/
Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/
Sky and Telescope: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/
Space.com http://www.space.com/ (This has some connection to Space News.)
Wikipedia: www.wikipedia.org
You can sign up for e-mail updates from Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, and Space.com. A lot of these sites have useful news feeds.
The advance viewing information in Outreach comes from hard copies of Sky and Telescope and Astronomy as well as the website
Heavens Above (Satellite predictions) http://www.heavens-above.com/
Organizations:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
NASA: Jet Propulsion Laboratory: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
Oklahoma City Astronomy Club: http://www.okcastroclub.com/
SpaceX: www.spacex.com
and NSS http://space.nss.org/
OSIDA is http://www.state.ok.us/~okspaceport/, but the web site is being reconstructed.
For current sky viewing, you want Astronomy and Sky and Telescope. I have subscriptions to both which is how I can go to the end of next month. A lot of these links have news feeds
Oklahoma Space Alliance Officers, 2012 (Area Code 405)
Steve Swift, President 496-3616 (H)
Jim Trombly, Vice-President 219-0283 (H)
Syd Henderson, Secretary & Outreach Editor 321-4027 (H)
Tim Scott, Treasurer 740-7549 (H)
Claire McMurray, Correspondence Secretary 329-4326 (H) 863-6173 (C)
Tom Koszoru Update Editor 366-1797
OSA E-mail Addresses and Web Site:
(Replace "at" with @ symbol.)
sswift42 at aol.com (Steve Swift)
jtvt at inbox.com (Jim Trombly)
sydh at ou.edu (Syd Henderson)
ctscott at mac.com (Tim Scott)
cliffclaire at hotmail.com (Claire McMurray)
T_Koszoru at cox.net (Heidi and Tom Koszoru)
john.d.northcutt1 at tds.net (John Northcutt)
lensman13 at aol.com (Steve Galpin)
E-mail for OSA should be sent to [email protected]. Members who wish their e-mail addresses printed in Outreach, and people wishing space-related materials e-mailed to them should contact Syd. Oklahoma Space Alliance website isosa.nss.org/index.html. Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
Other Information
The National Space Society's Headquarters phone is 202-429-1600. Executive Director is Gary Barnhard, <nsshq at nss.org>. The Chapters Coordinator is Bennett Rutledge 720-529-8024. The address is: National Space Society, 1155 15th Street NW, Suite 500, Washington DC 20005 Web page is space.nss.org. For details on the NSS chapters network, see http://space.nss.org/nss-chapters-directory/.
Oklahoma Space Industrial Development Authority (OSIDA), 401 Sooner Drive/PO Box 689, Burns Flat, OK 73624, 580-562-3500. Web site www.state.ok.us/~okspaceport.
Science Museum Oklahoma (former Omniplex) website is www.sciencemuseumok.org. Main number is 602-6664.
Tulsa Air and Space Museum, 7130 E. Apache, Tulsa, OK 74115.
Web Site is www.tulsaairandspacemuseum.com. Phone (918)834-9900.
The Mars Society address is Mars Society, Box 273, Indian Hills CO 80454. Their web address is www.marsociety.org.
The Planetary Society phone 626-793-5100. The address is 65 North Catalina, Avenue, Pasadena, California, 91106-2301 and the website is www.planetary.org. E-mail is [email protected].
NASA Spacelink BBS 205-895-0028. Or try www.nasa.gov. .
Congressional Switchboard, both Senate & House, is 202/224-3121.
Write to any U. S. Senator or Representative at [name]/ Washington DC, 20510 (Senate) or 20515 [House]. To find contact & other information your congressperson, see www.house.gov/. For senators, use www.congress.org/
OKLAHOMA SPACE ALLIANCE
A Chapter of the National Space Society
MEMBERSHIP ORDER FORM
Please enroll me as a member of Oklahoma Space Alliance. Enclosed is:
___________________ $10.00 for Mem¬bership. (This allows full voting privileges, but covers only your own newsletter expense.) ___________________ $15.00 for family membership
___________________ TOTAL amount enclosed
National Space Society has a special $20 introductory rate for new members ($35 for new international members). Regular membership rates are $45, international $60. Student memberships are $20. Part of the cost is for the magazine, Ad Astra. Mail to: National Space Society, 1620 I (Eye) Street NW, Washington DC 20006, or join at space.nss.org/membership. (Brochures are at the bottom with the special rate.) Be sure to ask them to credit your membership to Oklahoma Space Alliance.
To join the Mars Society, visitwww.marssociety.org. One-year memberships are $50.00; student and senior memberships are $25, and Family memberships are $100.00. Their address is Mars Society, Box 273, Indian Hills CO 80454.
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OSA Memberships are for 1 year, and include a subscription to our monthly newsletters, Outreach and Update. Send check & form to Oklahoma Space Alliance, 102 W. Linn, #1, Norman, OK 73071.
Your Update Editor,
Tom Koszoru
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
Copyright ©2012 Oklahoma Space Alliance.