Blog

• Meeting Notes

Home Page: SacramentoL5Society.org

SacL5 Officers: Joe Bland President, Jan Rosten VP, Ed Kulis Secretary/Website Admin (click name to email)

Minutes

• Greetings – Attendees!
  • Joe Bland, Paul Turner, Ed Kulis, Jan Rosten, Michael Abramson 

SPECIAL ITEM – VOTING SECTION

Discussion and vote on officers.* (Joe Bland)

The following members were nominated for offices:

• President: Joe Bland
• Vice President: Jan Rosten
• Secretary: Ed Kulis
• PLEASE SEND YOUR VOTES FOR OFFICERS TO:
  • Joseph Bland <[email protected]> or Jan Roston <[email protected]>
    • You may submit yourself for nomination for one of these offices within one week of receipt of these minutes provided you are a member in good standing of NSS.
    • You may vote for the above nominees or other subsequently announced following dissemination of these meeting minutes
    • You may change your votes up until the end of the next Sacramento L5 Society monthly meeting scheduled for February 8, 2025 at 6 PM PST.

ELECTION DETAILS

• To vote, you are required to be either an NSS member in good standing (i.e., paid NSS dues) or a SacL5 member in good standing (i.e., paid SacL5 dues, presently $30). 
• To run for office, you need to (a) be an NSS member in good standing (per NSS rules) and (b) be willing to attend most virtual SacL5 monthly meetings.
• if you wish to run for an office, please let Jan and Joe know within the next week.)
• NSS has no position on Chapter Members but Chapter Officers must be members of the NSS.

NOTE: VOTES AT THE JANUARY IN-PERSON MEETING IN FAVOR OF THE FOLLOWING TWO RESOLUTIONS WERE UNANIMOUS BUT MAY BE VOTED ON BY THOSE ELIGIBLE.

• – Discussion and vote on changing yearly dues. (Joe Bland)
  • No change to the dues. They will remain $30 per year due in January
• – Discussion and vote on changing the SacL5 monthly meeting time and/or day. (Eric James and Joe Bland)
  • For convenience in scheduling dinners  the meetings will henceforth begin at 6pm on the  second Saturday of the month and last 90 minutes

END VOTING SECTION

Meeting Business

• President’s & Treasurer’s report. (Joe Bland)
  • Status of “frozen”checking account.
  • Original checking account was frozen after a phishing attack. No funds were lost.
  • A new bank account is necessary to unfreeze the funds in the original account.
  • Funds are available for withdrawal and transfer to a new account 
  • Status of “new” checking account.
  • Some good possibilities for interest bearing accounts
  • Opening new account requires paper work from NSS verifying that SacL5 is a non-profit under NSS.
  • Joe following up on obtaining that paper work. Present new NSS leadership policies and the resulting changeovers in NSS leadership positions is complicating the resolution of this issue.
• Update on SacL5 website. (Ed Kulis)
  • No change this month on website: https://sacramentol5society.nss.org/

• NSS Chapters’ Assembly. Note: NSS CA is independent of NSS. (Jan Roston), 
  • No info – Jan will attend next meeting
• NSSCA chapter resources subcommittee. (Ed Kulis)
  • Ed will work with Perri on next newsletter
• NSS Chapter Committee (Joe Bland)
  • No current information presented.
• NSS
  • Karlton Johnson is the new CEO NSS & Chairman National Space Society Board of Governors. He is replacing Anita Gale, who died suddenly last year, and was a stalwart supporter of NSS Chapters and their independence. Mr. Johnson appears to be more oriented towards controlling Chapters and “protecting” the NSS brand.
    • https://nss.org/karlton-johnson-biography/
• Update on activity in XHS school contact and the SacL5 Minicube Build Grant Program (Ed Kulis)
  • No response from Xavier Hight School
  • Will no longer attempt to contact XHS
  • Will work with them if they showed a committed interest 
• Update on activity in SES school contact and the “Sacramento L5 Society’s MiniCube Grant Program” (Paul Turner)
  • Paul will contact SES school regarding interest and activity
• • Update on moving SacL5 funds into an interest-bearing account (Joe Bland)
  • See above “Status of “new” checking account.

Old Business

• Development of White Paper on an “Open Space Organization (OSO) (Michael Abramson)
• Michael presented the current state of the proposed white paper.
• We will look for other names since “Open Space Organization” has awkward connotations and  “Outer Space Organization”
• may be in use by other organizations.
• Here are a few alternative suggested by Michael and Joe:
  • Open Outer Space Organization (OOSO)
    • United Outer Space Organization (UOSO)
    • Space Development Organization (SDO)
    • Space Developers Organization (SDO)
    • Outer Space Development Organization (OSDO)
    • Outer Space Developers Organization (OSDO)
    • United Space Development Organization (USDO)
    • United Space Developers Organization (USDO)
    • United Outer Space Development Organization (UOSDO)
    • United Outer Space Developers Organization (UOSDO
    • Organization of Outer Space Development  (OOSD)
    • Organization of Outer Space Developers  (OOSD)

New Business (the attending members)

• • Discuss starting items for a balloon flight device using one or two MiniCube flights (Ed Kulis, Paul Turner)
  • Attendees received favorably the idea for a build of a device using the talents and interest of the SacL5 members.
  • Preliminary objective defined as
  • Video recording of surrounding on ballon assent and descent
  • Elements of the effort will include: 
  • Video record of research and build
  • Use of Arduino build kits
  • Demonstration of publicly available CAD and 3D printing tools and services
  • Ed Kulis and Paul Turner to head up investigation of this new direction

Discussion on “Space News Items” (the attending members)

• Imminent Blue Origin New Glenn Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Statio
• The company, founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, has been building toward this moment for years. Named after John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, the New Glenn heavy lift rocket represents a leap forward for Blue Origin.
  • https://spacecoastdaily.com/2025/01/blue-origin-new-glenn-rocket-launch-from-cape-canaveral-space-force-station-now-set-for-1-a-m-monday/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Glenn

Update on member projects

• Update on Eric’s steam engine (Eric James)
  • Eric has made progress on build of rocker arm steam engine model.
  • Eric will provide more information and possibly pictures and/or videos for the next meeting. Here is a link to a YouTube video of a similar model:
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmh0a2Ol0u8
• Update on potential NASA grant application and related subjects (Joe Bland)
  • Joe’s patent applications on energy generation, storage, and distribution still in process