Minutes of April 2021 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance chapter of National Space Society had its regularly scheduled meeting on April 10, 2021 at the McMurray residence. Attending in person were David Sheely, Adam Hemphill, Clifford and Claire McMurray, Tim Scott, and Syd Henderson. Attending via Zoom were Seth Potter, and Robin Scott. OSA president David Sheely 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/Update2104.pdf , so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
We watched a video on the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, which was nearing its launch date at the time of the meeting. We watched a video on #dearMoon the project with Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to send to ten to twelve people around the Moon on a SpaceX Starship, since the project has always been flexible. He’s now looking for eight people to fill out the crew. Presumably one of the other members will be the pilot. Maezawa has been proposing various versions of this project for four years, usually using a Dragon capsule. Originally, it was to be two people and Maezawa was looking for a wife to accompany him. Then it was to be a larger crew of artists and writers. Now he’s broadened his proposed crew to include a variety of professions. The launch will depend on Starship becoming ready for crewed flights, so it may be a few years yet.
Elon Musk says Starship will reach orbit many times by 2025.
We watched a video of the Astroscale space debris retrieval. They will be doing tests this month [April].
We watched a video of China and Russia plans to team up in running a Moon base. The European Space Agency has also expressed interest in teaming up with China on Moon missions. [They are also teaming up with the US.]
We discussed the plans to drop discounts for commercial use of the Space Station. Adam said that it may be good that NASA is dropping the discount now before companies using the Space Station had committed themselves to the lower cost.
We watched a video of the launch of China’s new Long March 7A. This rocket is capable of carrying a five-ton satellite to geosynchronous orbit.
We watched a video of SpaceX’s launch of Starship SN11 and its explosion while returning.
We now have $884.21 in our checking account and $267 in cash. $200 of this is earmarked for our contribution to the Colombia NSS chapter that is starting up.
Following the meeting, which took place two days before Yuri’s Night, we watched the Russian video Gagarin: First in Space. This is a fictionalized account with some documentary footage.
--Minutes by OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray.
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