Minutes of August 2021 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance chapter of National Space Society had its regularly scheduled meeting on August 14, 2021, at the McMurray residence in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending were David Sheely, Adam Hemphill, Tom and Heidi Koszoru, Clifford and Claire McMurray, Tim Scott, and Syd Henderson. Robin Scott and Seth Potter attended by Zoom. OSA president Dave 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/Update2108.pdf, so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
We watched a video of the launch VSS Unity (the operational SpaceShipTwo vehicle) carrying Richard Branson, two pilots and three other passengers to the edge of space. (I believe all the passengers were employees of Virgin Galactic). There’s a mild dispute as to whether the crew went into space. They went more than 50 miles up (the US definition) but not 100 km (about 61 miles), which is the international definition.
We watched a video of the flight of the first crewed flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket carrying four passengers more than 100 km into space [so there’s no dispute that they went into space. In addition to Jeff Bezos and his brother, this fight carried 82-year-old Mercury astronaut candidate Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen from the Netherlands, making them respectively the oldest and youngest people to go into space. Unlike Unity, the Blue Origin capsule is automated, so there was no pilot.
News 9 in Oklahoma City reported on the Oklahoma Spaceport talking about commercial space, since Oklahoma was the first landlocked state to get a launch license, although New Mexico, where Unity launched from, is also landlocked. New Shepard launched from West Texas, which is also far from the sea.
The Russian module Pirs is the first module of the Space Station to be discarded.
We watched a video of the contract for Gateway to Northrup Grumman.
We watched a video of the launch of a reusable spaceplane. The video included a history of USAF 37B.
We watched an NSS video on asteroid detection and deflection,
We watched video taken on July 24 by the Ingenuity Mars helicopter which appears to show signs of past water courses.
We watched a video by “A Day in Space” featuring Buzz Aldrin.
Motion: We are willing to support a chapter whether is by supporting members of it or by some other method.
Arvest Bank has not been sending us bank statements since the fiasco with the mailbox. Tim Scott will check and find out what is going on.
The new Dune movie [which will be part one of two] is opening in late October and Kip thinks we should go as a group
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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