Minutes of December Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance chapter of National Space Society had its regularly scheduled meeting on December 12, 2020. However, due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we held the meeting online via Zoom. (Because of Covid-19 we decided to postpone our holiday celebration until people had a chance to get vaccinated.) Attending were Clifford and Claire McMurray, Russ Davoren, Ron Lajoie (by phone), Robin Scott, Tim Scott, David Sheely, and Syd Henderson.
OSA president Clifford McMurray presided over the meeting. He did an Update discussing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at http://osa.nss.org/Update2012.pdf, so I’ll cover the highlights that aren’t covered there.
We elected officers for the year 2021. David Sheely is President, Clifford McMurray Vice-President, Syd Henderson Secretary and Tim Scott Treasurer.
Our Quote of the Month was by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. Dr. Abdul was head of India’s space program and from 2002 until 2007 was President of India. He died in 2015 at the age 83.
Hayabusa 2 sample capsule landed in the Australian outback on December 5, bringing 100 milligrams from the asteroid Ryuku back to Earth. It is now going to asteroid 98943 2001 CC21 in 2026 and 1998 KY26 in 2031. The latter is spinning so fast nothing can land on it.
We watched videos of the Chang’e 5 launch and landing on the Moon. Space.com also has a video of the lander separation. We watched a video of the robotic docking (which was the first robotic docking in lunar orbit). Chang’e 5’s lunar sample is much larger than any returned by Russia.
Astronaut Kate Rubins, who is currently aboard the ISS, was one of the eighteen astronauts chosen for the first batch of Artemis astronauts. [Other familiar names included Joe Acaba, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Nicole Mann, Anne McClain and Jessica Meir. Also note Michael Hopkins, who is also aboard the ISS, is now a member of the Space Force.]
There is a long tradition of using dolls as gravity indicators, which is one of the reasons a glittery stuffed dinosaur was carried aboard SpaceX’s demo flight. This also explains why we watched video of Baby Yoda aboard the Crew-1 mission.
We watched a video of launch and separation of Rocket Lab’s “Return to Sender” mission.
We looked at the first group of Artemis astronauts, which consist of nine men and nine women. Stephanie Wilson, age 54, is the oldest member, and from NASA’s 1996 astronaut class, while several are from NASA’s 2017 astronaut class, the youngest being Jessica Watkins at age 32. One member who got her name in the papers a while back was Anne McClain, who went through a nasty divorce which evolved into a fraud case involving her ex-wife.
We watched a video of Starship 8’s launch maneuvers and spectacular explosion on landing. The term used was “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly.”
We watched a video of Dragon Cargo Ship docking with ISS.
We now have $627.26 in the checking account and $267 in cash, for a total of $894.26. We also had several people renew their memberships, which is not reflected in this total.
--Minutes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray.
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