On 17 January, NATO released its space policy. The document states: “Potential adversaries are increasing their own use of space, thereby extending their ability to project power over greater distances, with increased precision, speed and effectiveness. They are also using space capabilities to track NATO and Allies’ forces, exercises, and […]
Tag: Space
Elon Musk’s Unregulated Space Projects Endanger Global Security
China recently submitted a document to the United Nations Office for Space Affairs to raise awareness of how its Tiangong space station twice “implemented preventive collision avoidance control” in order to ensure its safety after Musk’s satellites came uncomfortably close. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk seemingly fashions himself as a 21st-century […]
Space Dildoing With William Shatner
Overpaid breakfast hosts on an Australian network sniggered, wondered and pondered. Why is that top throbbed Blue Origin capsule heading to space shaped that way? Is Jeff Bezos’s effort nothing more than a phallic spurt into the heavens? The implications are flowing: Can he hold it? Will he come in […]
US Deterrence And The Weaponisation Of Space
From 21 to 26 August, the 36th Space Symposium was held in Colorado Springs, US, which showed a clear trend on the part of Washington to militarise space. For almost a week, senators, high-ranking military officials, scientists, representatives of the country’s military and industrial complex, and foreign guests discussed various […]
Branson Goes To Space
Profligate, vain and utterly pleased with himself, British billionaire Sir Richard Branson could boast about his latest adventure of megalomania. Unlike others of the stinking rich set, he is incapable of keeping quiet. He pretends to be the people’s tycoon. His wealthy adventurism is as much for himself as it […]
China, Russia Team Up For Final Frontier
In the old Frank Sinatra song, flying to the moon meant “playing up there with those stars” and seeing “what life is like on a-Jupiter and Mars” — in other words, “filling the heart with song”. But in the third decade of the 21st century, it is epochal politics — […]
Missions To Mars: Mapping, Probing And Plundering The Red Planet
In the first month of 2020, Forbes was all excitement about fresh opportunities for plunder and conquest. Titled “2020: The Year We Will Conquer Mars”, the contribution by astrophysicist Paul M. Sutter was less interested in the physics than the conquest. A potentially very crowded scene was described. Various countries […]
Lunar Lunacy: Competition, Conflict And Mining The Moon
The discussion about mining the Moon resembles that of previous conquests: the division of territory; the grabbing of resources; language of theft and plunder. All of this is given the gloss of manifest destiny and human experiment. Such language is also self-perpetuating: the plunderer is only as good as the […]
US Begins Active Militarisation Of Space
On 19 June, the unclassified section of the Pentagon’s new space defence strategy was released, and it clearly states that the US views the environment as a field of operations. The publicly available document is short in length, but it clearly shows the position and intentions of the US military […]
SpaceX, NASA And Space Privatisation
It would be too simple to regard the latest space venture, funded by Elon Musk, as entirely a matter of vast ego and deeply-pocked adventurism. But it would be close. The successful delivery of astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken of NASA as part of the joint mission with SpaceX […]
Cosmic Gangster Capitalism: Elon Musk Crowds the Heavens
“I don’t trust glib reassurances from satellite operators without precise details.” Alice Gorman, space archaeologist, May 26, 2019 Astronomers tend to have their eyes, and minds, not merely in the clouds but beyond them. The dream of unimpaired vision tends to come with the territory; the better the uninterrupted line, […]
Lunar Narratives: Landing On The Moon, Politics And The Cold War
The Moon landing anniversary this weekend was given a vigorous clean-up, with the Cold War finding a back seat when it was, in fact, the main driver. The Moon project was a fundamental political poke, soaked by competitive drives. The science was the instrumental ballast and has come to provide the heavy cosmetics to romanticise what is, at best, an effigy.





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