Oklahoma Space Alliance NSS Chapter UPDATE for December 2009
December Meeting and Christmas Party: Note New Time
The Oklahoma Space Alliance will have its annual Christmas
POTLUCK Party on December 19 at the Koszoru residence, 514 Fenwick Court in
Norman. Prospective members are welcome. Meet at 5:00 p.m., eat at 6:00
p.m. Elections will be at 7:00 - 7:15 p.m. Clifford McMurray is back from
his trip to Antarctica and will hopefully bring lots of pictures. Call
Claire at 405-329-4326 (H) or 863-6173 (C) to discuss what to bring, or
email sydh@ou.edu.
This will be the meeting at which we elect officers. Ballots will
be mailed in Outreach in November. You can vote at the meeting if you wish;
if you cannot, votes will be accepted through e-mail or by snail mail. We
will also be selecting officers of the Mars Society of Central Oklahoma. An
agenda will be posted at chapters.nss.org/ok/osanss.html
To get the meeting either: (1) Take the Robinson Street west exit
off I-35. Proceed west to 36th Street where you will turn left, and go south
until you turn left on Rambling Oaks (about half a mile north of Main
Street). Fenwick Court is the third street on the left. Tom's house is the
last on the left side, or (2) Take the Main Street west exit off I-35,
proceed west past the Sooner Fashion Mall, and turn right at 36th Street,
and go north until you turn right on Rambling Oaks (about half a mile north
of Main Street). Fenwick Court is the third street on the left. Tom's house
is the last on the left side.
For more information, call Tom at 366-1797, Syd at 321-4027, or Claire at
329-4326.
Agenda:
1.. Introductions (if necessary)
2.. Read and approve agenda
3.. Read and approve minutes and reports of activities
4.. Old Business
a.. Food
b.. Elections
5.. Read and discuss mail
6.. New Business
7.. Create New Agenda
Minutes of November Meeting
Oklahoma Space Alliance met on the afternoon of November 21 at the
Koszoru's. Attending were Claire McMurray, Tom and Heidi Koszoru, John
Northcutt and Syd Henderson. Our guests were Adrian Lucy, Alyssa Grimley and
Erin Longworthy from the newly formed Oklahoma University chapter of SEDS,
the Students for the Education and Development of Space.
Can we do Second Life on University computers?
National Science Foundation grants go to science groups.
Syd can start a Facebook Oklahoma Space Alliance page or group.
Adrian recommended starting a page and can give advice on how to do it.
"Blast!" is a feature documentary about the BLAST telescope and the
scientists who created it (seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLAST!_(2008_film)). Educational packet is
$250, which includes the movie and educational DVD.
When is Conestoga? April 23 - 25, 2010. Yuri's Night (April 12) is
on a Monday in 2010. The 2011 Yuri's Night is on a Tuesday and will mark the
50th anniversary of manned spaceflight.
SEDS will be asking for UOSA funding for rocketry and education.
They are doing a rocketry program that they want to expand to educational
outreach. They can do a Yuri's Night celebration on campus, perhaps around
the Observatory.
NSS has a deal with escript for credit card purchases. You can name
up to three groups to receive money from credit card transactions.
The Planetary Society is trying to rebuild their solar sail project.
The Christmas Party will be 5:00 p.m. on December 19 at the Koszoru
house. Unfortunately, this will be the day after OU has its finals so the
SEDS members won't have a chance to attend.
Oklahoma Space Alliance officer nominations:
President: Tom Koszoru
Vice-President; John Northcutt
Secretary; Syd Henderson
Treasurer: Tim Scott
Claire is nominated for correspondence secretary as an appointed
rather than elected position. Claire should be listed as contact person on
website.
We received newsletters from the Luna Project, whose website ishttp://www.lunarcc.org/. We met Chris Carson of the Project at Soonercon
earlier this year.
--Minutes by Oklahoma Space Alliance Secretary Syd Henderson\
Between Meetings Activities
Claire attended the December 3rd SEDS meeting at OU. They are
interested in a Yuri's Night party, but prefer Friday, April 9th on the
South Oval. They would like OSA to come up with a speaker or two (maybe from
FAA/CAMI?), and maybe a BotBall event. Since it could rain, they also want
to schedule a space-related movie (in a dorm, so they don't have to pay
copy-right fees) and some space-related games. They are working on getting
cooperation from the Physics & Astronomy department to hold part of the
event at the observatory (or telescopes at the South Oval), and they'd like
to do some rocket launches if they can find the rocket club and a reasonable
place to launch, such as the Lloyd Noble parking lot. One of them has taught
himself enough rocket science to design his own engine, and is hoping to get
help from an OU engineering lab to build it.
At a meeting of the video group associated with the Norman Arts
Council, Claire met Cassandra Ketrick, who said the group might be
interested in making a space-related music video to post on FaceBook. We
have in-principle agreement from Diana Gallagher Burke to use one of her
songs for the purpose (as we did, more crudely, in the 90's). It remains to
be seen whether we can find the right visuals to go with the right song for
space promotion purposes. We might be able to get agreement from a different
singer/songwriter such as Leslie Fish. I'm thinking of old filk, but there
may be modern filk that would work better.
Space News
Great NASA Giveaway: No, private individuals can't line up. But NASA centers
and state-approved educational institutions are eligible to receive surplus
shuttle-related equipment just for the cost of transportation-everything
from space food to used space suits to shuttles-when the shuttle program
ends "next year." Discovery will go to the Smithsonian; the fate of Atlantis and Endeavour is still to be determined, according to FOX news. One hopes
that NASA will keep a prudent reserve of the stuff that can be used aboard
the space station, since current plans call for continuing the ISS program
with manned launches from Russia and cargo launches by Russia, Japan, and
future US commercial providers.
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Space Explorer launched Dec 14 at 6:09 a.m.
Pacific Standard Time (14:09 Universal Time) from Vandenberg Air Force Base
in California. WISE rode a Delta II rocket into a polar orbit 326 miles (525
km) high. The camera's pictures will be orders of magnitude more detailed
than our previous infra-red telescope. If all goes well, the frozen hydrogen
aboard will last long enough for 1½ complete sky maps. For more information,
go to www.nasa.gov and enter "WISE" in the search box.
STS-129 Ascent Video Highlights from mike interbartolo on Vimeo.
He says, "Watch this video compiled by NASA of the beautiful launch of the
Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-129. It's gorgeous and proves that all space
launches should come with their own Celtic soundtracks." The video plays
interesting games with time and camera angles. Many of the shots are taken
in space, and show what you never see on TV. For full credits, see the
video: http://io9.com/5418689/space-shuttle-atlantis-the-beautiful-music-video-launch
Solar System Formation:
At http://www.skyandtelescope.com/skytel/beyondthepage/8594717.html you can
find an animation illustrating the "Nice model" (named for the French city)
of our solar system's formation. It was proposed by Alessandro Morbidelli
(Cote d'Azur Observatory, France), Rodney Gomes (National Observatory of
Brazil), Kleomenis Tsiganis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
and Hal Levison (Southwest Research Institute, Colorado).
Click on the image to display a 7-megabyte QuickTime movie illustrating how
trillions of planetesimals in the early solar system changed the orbits of
the outer planets. If your computer doesn't already have QuickTime, you can
download a free copy from www.apple.com.
Oklahoma Space Alliance UPDATE Addendum:
Global Dimming:
From http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnnLnl8L2w&feature=related & related videos.
In Israel, the German Alps, & many other places, the amount of solar energy
reaching Earth has fallen by average 4-5% (but 22% in Israel). Yet Earth
seems to be warming.
For 100+ years, agricultural scientists have been measuring the "pan
evaporation rate"-the amount of water which must be added to a pan, to bring
the level to yesterday's level. BUT in the 1990's the rate of evaporation
started falling. That's puzzling, with global temps going up, since higher
temps should increase evaporation. But it turns out that the key factors are
sunlight (dominant), humidity and wind. It's the energy of photons that
kicks the water molecules out of the pan. On the average, there's been 100
mm of water less evaporation from l945-1985. Decline was found in Russia,
Europe & USA. There's real "global dimming."
Why? The sun hasn't changed (actually, some solar emission has recently gone
down-nutrinos?. But that's a different story.)
It must be changes in Earth's atmosphere. Soot, ash etc. creates haze.
Unlike CO2, it's not transparent to visible light. The northern Maldive
Islands get polluted air from India. In the southern islands, air is
unpolluted. Four years of monitoring & sampling discovered a 3-kilometer
depth of polluted air. which cut sunlight by 10%--much more than anyone had
thought possible. Partly the particles themselves block sunlight. But they
also turn clouds into "giant mirrors" because more and smaller water
droplets can form around the particles, and many small droplets reflect more
light than fewer larger droplets. Satellite images show the same thing is
happening all over the world where there's industrial activity.
Tragically, the more-reflective clouds can alter rainfall patterns. This may
be one cause of the sub-Saharan drought in the 1970s & 1980s. The rain belt
failed to shift northward enough to cause the monsoon, apparently because
the northern-hemisphere ocean was insufficiently warmed. The same thing
could happen to the Asian monsoon if Asian industry increases and does not
control air pollution. Air pollution controls in Europe & North America have
markedly reduced air pollution (though not greenhouse gasses). The
implication was that that may be why the sub-Saharan drought ended.
On the other hand, many scientists believe that global warming-not
dimming-causes droughts, according to http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090416144520.htm. The same
article claims that intermittent mega-droughts have been normal for the
sub-Saharan region over the last 3000 years. The evidence is in lake
sediments that apparently correlate to fluctua-tions in sea surface
temperatures (based on tree-ring variations and computer simulations), a
pattern called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
Ancient droughts couldn't have been caused by industrial pollution, but I
suppose volcanic activity might have been involved, if there's been that
much of it in the right places.
According to Global Dimming scientists, we might get a "double whammy" if we
keep reducing the cooling pollutants-as we need to do for health-while still
increasing the warming pollution of greenhouse gasses, because that would
speed up the warming. Until recently, cooling pollution somewhat balanced
warming pollution. Some scientists think this would produce 3 degrees Celsius of warming sooner
than expected. The last time the Earth was 3 degrees warmer was 3 million
years ago, when there was a natural increase in greenhouse gases. The sea
level was 75-80 feet higher then, and would probably rise that much again.
Due to weather patterns in that case, the Amazon could be drier & more
vulnerable to fire, releasing even more CO2.
An article at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080930081357.htm
indicates that over the last 120,000 years there were 3 periods when the
Sahara was green. They coincided with times that the changing direction of
the earth's rotational axis provided maximum solar energy in the tropical
Atlantic Ocean. This increased moisture production and pushed the African
monsoon further north, increasing precipitation in the Sahara.
Most models do not take full account of global dimming, and may be
underestimating the global warming effect. If we reduce pollution-based cooling, at least one model suggests as much as 18oC of overall warming
could occur by the end of this century. In that case, many plant species
would not survive, and the frozen [methane] hydrates under northern oceans
might escape into the atmosphere. Since methane is a stronger greenhouse gas
than CO2 (or water), this could be a major problem.
Climate scientists apparently don't see a way out. However, a guest at a
recent FenCon pointed out that the earth could be significantly cooled by
one payload of fine particles such as diatomic earths lofted into the jet
stream and released there. That would be cheap (relatively), easy, and
temporary but would probably cool northern latitudes more than the tropics.
Northern countries might resist such forcible cooling. If dimming does cause
droughts, tropical countries might also be badly affected. However, it seems
to me it should stop release of frozen methane if that becomes necessary
(unless we wait so long that the jet stream pattern changes drastically).
Book Report: Death from the Skies! These Are the Ways the World Will End... by Phillip Plait, Ph.D. (author of Bad Astronomy, also an award-wining blog
at www.badastronomy.com)
I found this book fascinating. Dr. Plait writes clearly and with a casual,
highly-readable style. Useful features include a good index, and an appendix
listing stars within 1,000 light years which will eventually go nova. Even
more useful, he proposes defenses against many of the possible disasters.
Each chapter begins with a relevant disaster scenario. The chapters are:
Target Earth: Asteroid and Comet Impacts [The space program can probably
save us from asteroids, but comets are much harder because a) their gas jets
make their orbits erratic & b) they're faster.]
Sunburn [Some problems from solar flares; massive problems from coronal mass
ejections; climate change. Some defense possible but expensive.]
The Stellar Fury of Supernovae Responsible for the elements in our bodies.
No candidates close enough to kill us at this time, but stellar orbits
change...]
Cosmic Blowtorches: Gamma-Ray Bursts [Devastating but none likely to be
aimed at us; see above]
The Bottomless Pits of Black Holes ["Our galaxy is lousy with black
holes...{but} space is big.."]
Alien Attack! [We're probably safe from viruses, bacteria or even BEMs, but
not self-replicating probes, if any]
The Death of the Sun [Death for us & the environment, unless we move Earth.
See later chapters]
Bright Lights, Big Galaxy [Every large galaxy contains a supermassive black
hole. Ours is currently inactive, but if activated chances are ~ 1/30 the
destructive beam would hit us.]
The End of Everything [Things get so far apart light can't get here anymore,
and protons decay...]
and Epilogue: What, Me Worry?[Odds calculated, meaning of far-future
certainties discussed]
Oklahoma Space Alliance Officers, 2009 (Area Code 405)
Tom Koszoru, President 366-1797 (H)
Claire McMurray, Vice-President/Update Editor 329-4326 (H-no msg) 863-6173 (C-msgs OK)
Syd Henderson, Secretary & Outreach Editor 321-4027 (H)
Tim Scott, Treasurer 740-7549 (H)
OSA E-mail Addresses and Web Site:
claire.mcmurray at sbcglobal.net or at nss.org (Claire McMurray; can forward to Cliff)
T_Koszoru at cox.net (Heidi and Tom Koszoru)
sydh at ou.edu (Syd Henderson)
ctscott at mac.com (Tim Scott)
lensman13 at aol.com (Steve Galpin)
dmcraig at earthlink.net (Nancy and David Craig).
E-mail for OSA should be sent to sydh@ou.edu. Members who wish their e-mail addresses printed in Outreach or Update, and people wishing space-related materials e-mailed to them should contact Syd.
Other Contact Information
NASA: www.nasa.gov. Huge info source. Assorted phone numbers are also in there somewhere.
The Mars Society , Box 273, Indian Hills CO 80454. Old website doesn’t work: use http://www.marssociety.org/portal. Interested in human settlement on Mars: active projects.
The Planetary Society, http://www.planetary.org/home/. Phone from US & Canada: 1-800-9WORLDS (1-800-996-7537). Outside the US & Canada, phone 1-626-793-5100. Interested in exploring the solar system & beyond, mostly robotic. Nice magazine.
Science Museum Oklahoma (formerly Omniplex), 2100 NE 52nd St, Oklahoma City, OK 73111. Museum information: 405-602-6664 (old 800# doesn’t answer) Their new web site is http://www.sciencemuseumok.org/default.htm, but one must click on “Agree” or “Disagree” to enter the site
Oklahoma Space Industrial Development Authority (OSIDA), 401 Sooner Drive/PO Box 689, Burns Flat, OK 73624, 580-562-3500. Web site www.state.ok.us/~okspaceport.
Tulsa Air and Space Museum, 7130 E. Apache, Tulsa, OK 74115, Phone (918)834-9900.
Web Site is www.tulsaairandspacemuseum.com.
Congress of the United States: 202/224-3121 (switchboard). Senate: www.senate.gov/
House of Representatives: www.house.gov. You can email most from those main web sites.
Write to any U. S. Senator or Representative at [name]/ Washington DC, 20510 (Senate) or 20515 [House].
President of the United States: www.whitehouse.gov. Click on “Contact Us” for email.
Postal mail: The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500
Contact person for Oklahoma Space Alliance is Claire McMurray
PO Box 1003
Norman, OK 73070
Webmaster is Syd Henderson.
Copyright ©2009 Oklahoma Space Alliance.