Minutes of June Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met at Earl’s Rib Palace in Moore on June 9. In attendance were Steve, Brian and Karen Swift, Dave Sheely, Jerry, Rachelle and Stephanie Thibedeau. Vickey Richartz, Tim Scott, Russ Davoren, Dennis Wigley, John Northcutt, Richard Holtzschue, Will Decker, Claire and Clifford McMurray, and Syd Henderson. We had several guests from the new OU SEDS chapter, including Eric S4undby, Michelle and Frederick Rodriguez and Jordan Little.
We currently have $1014.70 in our checking account and $267 on cash, for a total of $1281.70.
SpaceX is now certified to launch national security space missions. This puts them in competition with the United Launch Alliance. SpaceX will be so much cheaper than ULA that ULA may not be in competition in five years.
The Air Force’s X-37B is an unmanned mini-shuttle about 29 feet long, about the size of a small school bus. For some details, see www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/09/x37b-mystery-mini-shuttle/1756923/ .
The Chinese are applying to fly on XCOR’s Lynx spacecraft.
Airbus’s Adeline has an engine section that can fly itself back to a runway.
We watched a video of a Falcon 9 launch and its landing attempt.
The US Senate said no to military contractors using Russian RD-180 rocket engines. This is a blow to the United Launch Alliance, who uses them to launch Atlas V rockets which carry military satellites to orbit. ULA had made a request to buy more engines, but Senator McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, turned them down. [There was already a moratorium on buying them due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ULA has a dozen coming from a previous contract, but otherwise they will have to wait for their new Vulcan rockets, which use American made engines, to come on line in 2022.]
NASA has a detector called “Finder” that was used in Nepal to detect the heartbeats of Nepalese trapped under debris after the recent earthquake.
The Shackleton Energy Company is forming a consortium with 100 partners to create a lunar base to mine water. The overhead is $18 billion.
NSS Chapters are free to take a position on the Space Launch System provided they make it clear that it is a chapter position and not that of the NSS as a whole.
Oklahoma Space Award won an NSS award for excellence in public outreach. It is on the meet-up site but not yet on the website.
Claire will be talking at SoonerCon with Larry Nemecek about Enterprise in Space.
There will be an interview with a person on the New Horizons Pluto project in the next issue of Ad Astra.
Since our next meeting time is close to the Pluto flyby, do we want to have a Pluto observation party instead?
Note on OSIDA Meeting
The Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority didn’t have its June meeting due to lack of a quorum. Since this would have been the meeting at which officers are selected, that will be done at the July meeting.
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray.
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
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