Minutes of September13 Oklahoma Space Alliance Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met September 13, 2025, at the Cyber Hall and Gaming Lounge at Norman Computers in Norman, Oklahoma. Attending in person were Clifford McMurray, Adam Hemphill, John Northcutt, David Sheely, and Syd Henderson. OSA President Clifford McMurray presided over the meeting. Clifford did an Update discussing links to material covered in the meeting and this is online at https://osa.nss.org/Update2509.pdf, so I’ll cover the details that aren’t covered there.
The successful launch of SpaceX’s Starship 10 included the first time opening the pod bay doors. Ship landed within three meters of designated landing spot. There will be one more launch of version 2 of Starship in October, then version 3 through the rest of the year.
JUICE will be the first spacecraft to orbit a moon of a planet other than Earth. Scientists lost contact with it for twenty hours on July 26. They have done a software update to prevent this problem from recurring.
NASA is trying to become a customer for commercial communications companies for the Moon and Mars.
SpaceMD has a contract to create a cancer “kill switch”. They are going to launch a PIL-BOX that will increase volume 200 times.
The UK’s DSIT funding goes to the UK Space Agency anyway. The criticism is that the UKSA lacks a coherent space program,
Interstellar Comet 3I/Atlas is cruising through the Solar System at 130,000 miles per hour. JUICE will be 43,million miles from 3I Atlas, and all probes on or around Mars will be watching. [The comet will come considerably closet to Mars than to Earth.] The Psyche probe will get within 28 million miles of it. The Lucy probe may pass through the comet’s tail but it will not be able to look at it since 3I/Atlas will be between it and the Sun.
We have already spent $50 billion on going back to the Moon. The revised SLS would eliminate the need for the new launch tower.
The chief of Energia, Russia’s leading human spacecraft manufacturing company, says it is in critical financial condition. It was already underfunded, and the interminable Ukraine war is eating into funding that could otherwise support human spaceflight.
We watched a video on Reflect Space on solar power. I was speculating that this plan would give astronomers nightmares.
Kip thinks SpaceX can retrieve material from Mars but Adam doesn’t think SpaceX has shown ability to do deep space operations.
There are more replication errors in stem cells in space. Kip asks how much of this is due to Zero-G. Adam suggests doing two tethered space stations or rotating part of a single space station.
We watched a Space Minds interview with Varda Space.
--Minutes By OSA Secretary Syd Henderson
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Clifford Mcmurray
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
Copyright ©2025 by Oklahoma Space Alliance.