Minutes of November Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met at Harry Bear’s All-American Grill in Moore on November 9, 2013. In attendance were Steve, Karen and Brian Swift, Vicky, Dave Sheely, Claire McMurray, Russ Davoren, Dennis Wigley, John Northcutt, Tim Scott and Syd Henderson.
Annual reports will be done in a new format.
Report on OSIDA meeting: They have finally moved into the new operations center. They are spending money on runways and taxi lights. [See notes on OSIDA meeting below.]
Art Contest: Claire talked to Leonard Bishop, who is running the art contest at SoonerCon. He’s willing to help. David Lee Anderson says all artists have digital capacity. We can probably get a table. David says we can start with one city. One of David Lee’s friends is an art teacher. We should invite David Lee to our December meeting.
Our treasury has $957.37 between our bank account and cash.
Our nominations for 2014 officers are Steve Swift for President, David Sheely for Vice President, Syd Henderson for Secretary, and Tim Scott for Treasurer.
Christmas Party: Claire can’t have it at her house. We need to come up with an option in the next couple of weeks.
Yuri’s Night is on a Saturday this year, which would be our regular meeting day. Options are (1) Moore Library, (2) an enhanced meeting, or (3) a dinner (not at Harry Bear’s). We could have a catered dinner at Science Museum Oklahoma, or the Stafford Museum in Weatherford. We should also check out the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. We will decide at our January meeting. Someone needs to find out what would be possible. Russ volunteered to do some preliminary inquiries.
Russ Davoren did a presentation of autographs, slides and stories involving his experiences with people in the space program. These included Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, James Lovell, Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, Dick Gordon, space engineer Guenter Wendt, Rusty Schweibert, Al Worden, Sally Ride, Shannon Lucid, Burt Rutan, Anousheh Ansari, and many others,
We watched a slideshow by ISS astronaut Karen Nyberg.
What’s Happening in Space?
On October 7. SpaceX’s Grasshopper launcher made its final test hop to 744 meters. For details and video, see
www.space.com/23193-spacex-grasshopper-rocket-highest-hop-video.
Sierra Nevada’s first flight test of its Dream Chaser test flight suffered failure of its landing gear. Prior to that, the test had proceeded perfectly. For article see http://tinyurl.com/m2zura7. (The link goes to aerotechnews.com but is too long to print in full.)
We watched a promotional video for SpaceShipTwo, Virgin Galactic’s suborbital space tourist vehicle. Details and video at http://tinyurl.com/mg6nd5v. (Link to space.com article).
Gwynne Shotwell, the President and Chief Operating Office of SpaceX was profiled as one of the movers and shakers in space industry.
SpaceShipTwo had a tail stall event in its September 29, 2013 test flight. For a follow-up report from New Space Journal, see http://tinyurl.com/n242on6.
The European Space Agency sent Albert Einstein to the ISS http://phys.org/news/2013-11-mission-europe-cargo-freighter.html.
A NASA laser communication test set a new data rate record of 622 megabytes per second between the Earth and the Moon. See
gizmodo.com/nasa-has-a-622-mbps-data-connection-to-the-moon-1450623457.
NBC teams up with Virgin Galactic for ‘Space Race’ Reality Show: http://tinyurl.com/mawsw9v (link to NBC news). NBC has rights to broadcast Virgin Galactic’s first passenger flight. ‘Space Race’ features a competition for a seat aboard SpaceShipTwo.
Shanghai built lunar rover that is part of China’s Chang’e 3 mission, http://tinyurl.com/ka7urpt (link to spacetravel.com).
Spaceflight Joins with NanoRacks to Deploy Satellites from the ISS: http://nanoracks.com/spaceflight-joins-to-deploy-satellites.
India successfully launched its first probe to Mars:
www.space.com/23464-india-launches-mars-orbiter-mission.html.
A crew was launched to the International Space Station, carrying an (unlit) Olympic torch. See, for instance, http://www.spaceflightnow.com/station/exp38/launch/.
We watched a video with Elon Musk. “Life has to be more than just solving problems… The future has a chance of being much better than the present.”
“Mars is a real fixer-upper of a planet.”
--Minutes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Notes on OSA Christmas Party
Oklahoma Space Alliance held its Christmas Party at the Koszoru’s house on December 14. We also had a brief meeting to elect officers. The OSA officers for 2014 are Steve Swift President, David Sheely Vice President, Syd Henderson Secretary, and Tim Scott Treasurer. We also discussed a potential chapters project to put together a manual on how to throw an International Space Development Conference.
I didn’t keep track of how many people arrived and left, but it must have been around 20, several of whom weren’t OSA members.
Claire received a box full of winter issue of Ad Astra and several of us took copies to distribute.
--Notes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Notes on OSIDA Meeting
The Oklahoma Space Industrial Development Authority met on November 15, 2013. Board members present were Jack Bonny, Jay Edwards, Donald Wetekam, R. Allen Goodbary, Robert Conner and Robert Cox. There were five people in the audience in addition to Executive Director Bill Khourie, secretary Kim Vowell, and legal advisor Brinda White. Steve Swift, Dave Sheely and Syd Henderson attended on behalf of Oklahoma Space Alliance.
Bill is meeting with officials (from Oklahoma Department of Commerce, I believe) about the development of a marketing website. What will be on the site, in addition to pictures of buildings and facilities?
Dr. Stephen McKeever gave an overview of the International Space Summit. Technology has not kept up with the development of spaceports. Military airspace is allocated for specific purposes by the FAA and that’s not commercial space. Commercial spaceflights at spaceports associated the military cannot guarantee that they can fly when scheduled because military needs may interfere. One advantage the Oklahoma Spaceport has is that it has what it says it has. However, the spaceport cannot rely on space commerce exclusively and will need to diversify.
The demise of Rocketplane was discussed.
Goodbary: We could do point to point flights (from one spaceport to another).
McKeever: We can look at current launch sites that always have a site for emergency landings.
General Edwards is concerned that the vehicle may not have enough fuel both to get up and to get anywhere.
There was a discussion on whether to let Bill try to set up an International Space Summit in Oklahoma. Mr. Wetekam’s not sure we’re ready to do that, although he would support investigating and going forward enough to decide whether to commit to the summit. The board voted to let exploration begin.
How can OSIDA let the state know that it is generating revenue while still requiring state money for operations?
The OSIDA board approved their budget unanimously.
--Notes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
--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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