Tag: Elon Musk

Amazon/Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos’ Day Trip to Space

July 25, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jackie Wattles July 20, 2021 (cnn.com)

• On Tuesday July 20th, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, along with three other passengers strapped into their New Shepard crew capsule (pictured above) atop a rocket at Bezos’ Blue Origin’s launch site in rural West Texas to blast off on an 11-minute, supersonic joy ride. The capsule traveled 65 miles above the desert landscape, topping out at an altitude of 351,210 feet. At the peak of the flight path, the passengers were weightless for about three minutes and were allowed to unstrap themselves from their seat to float around and soak in panoramic views of the Earth and the cosmos. This flight marked the first-ever crewed mission for Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital space tourism vehicle, upon which the company plans to take wealthy thrill seekers on high-flying journeys in the future.

• Riding alongside the multi-billionaire were Bezos’ brother, Mark Bezos; Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and one of the “Mercury 13” women who trained to go to space in the 20th century but never got to fly; and an 18-year old recent high school graduate named Oliver Daemen who was Blue Origin’s first paying customer and whose father purchased his ticket. Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest people, respectively, ever to travel to space.

• Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000, six years after he started Amazon, with the goal of making spaceflight more affordable and more accessible. A few of his rivals in the industry — most notably Elon Musk and Richard Branson — both started their space ventures around the same time. While the suborbital New Shepard vehicle is the first fully operational piece of space hardware the company has developed, Bezos plans to build spinning orbital space stations where people can live and work. The company is also working on a much larger rocket, called New Glenn, and a lunar lander that it hopes will be used to support NASA missions.

• Thus far, the reservations for a trip to space have been offered solely to participants in an auction that Blue Origin concluded last month. The auction’s winner was a mystery bidder who agreed to pay $28 million for a ticket. He or she was expected to be on Tuesday’s spaceflight, but the high-priced traveler had to reschedule due to ‘scheduling conflicts’. Blue Origin is planning to conduct two more New Shepard tourist passenger flights this year.

• Bezos has not indicated what Blue Origin will charge space tourists or what the Dutch 18-year-old Daemen’s father paid for his ticket. The company said that the auction did give a strong indication that there are plenty of people anxious to go: 7,600 people from 159 countries registered to participate in the bidding war. These early suborbital space tourism flights will be prohibitively expensive to the vast majority of people, and that’s not expected to change anytime soon.

• “Blue Origin was founded by Jeff Bezos with the vision of enabling a future where millions of people are living and working in space to benefit Earth,” the company said in a press release. “To preserve Earth, Blue Origin believes that humanity will need to expand, explore, find new energy and material resources, and move industries that stress Earth into space. Blue Origin is working on this today by developing partially and fully reusable launch vehicles that are safe, low cost, and serve the needs of all civil, commercial, and defense customers.”

• An online petition garnered more than 162,000 signatures asking for Bezos never to return to Earth. Bezos, who is worth about $200 billion, has funded the company almost solely out of his own pocket. Repeated promises of benevolence and benefit to a ravaged Earth has critics concerned that the ultra-wealthy view outer space as their own personal escape hatch. “They are largely right,” Bezos told CNN’s Rachel Crane of critics who say billionaires should focus their energy — and money — on issues closer to home. “We have to do both. We have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those, and we always need to look to the future. We’ve always done that as a species, as a civilization.” But regarding his sojourn to space on Tuesday, Bezos declared it “the best day ever”.

Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, went to space and back Tuesday morning on an

**Oliver Daemen, Wally Funk, Jeff and Mark Bezos**

11-minute, supersonic joy ride aboard the rocket and capsule system developed by his space company, Blue Origin.

Riding alongside the multibillionaire were Bezos’ brother, Mark Bezos; Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pilot and one of the “Mercury 13” women who trained to go to space in the 20th century but never got to fly; and an 18-year old recent high school graduate named Oliver Daemen who was Blue Origin’s first paying customer and whose father, an investor, purchased his ticket.

Funk and Daemen became the oldest and youngest people, respectively, ever to travel to space. And this flight marked the first-ever crewed mission for Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital space tourism rocket, which the company plans to use to take wealthy thrill seekers on high-flying joy rides in the months and years to come.

The four passengers on Tuesday strapped into their New Shepard crew capsule at Blue Origin’s launch site in rural West Texas just before the rocket lit its engines at 8:12 am CT, sending the vehicle blaring past the speed of sound and up to more than 65 miles above the desert landscape, topping out at an altitude of 351,210 feet. At the peak of the flight path, the passengers were weightless for about three minutes and were allowed to unstrap themselves from their seat to float around and soak in panoramic views of the Earth and the cosmos.

The launch was visible to reporters on the ground, with the rocket streaking across the almost cloudless Texas sky with a blooming contrail. The bright blaze of the rocket engine looked almost like a star or planet as it rose into the sky. Bezos and crew could be heard on Blue Origin’s livestream cheering as they moved about the capsule during the microgravity portion of the flight.

“It’s dark up here, oh my word!” Funk could be heard saying.

Bezos declared it “the best day ever” on his communications check upon landing.

3:29 minute video of Blue Origin spaceflight and landing (‘CNBC Television’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. ExoNews.org distributes this material for the purpose of news reporting, educational research, comment and criticism, constituting Fair Use under 17 U.S.C § 107. Please contact the Editor at ExoNews with any copyright issue.

UFOs Could Be From Outer Space According to Government Report

July 18, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Mark Whittington July 4, 2021 (thehill.com)

• The government’s much maligned ‘Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena’ report, which analyzes 144 credible UFO reports sighted by military personnel between 2004 and 2021, has caught the attention of many UFO enthusiasts who wonder if the report describes alien spacecraft propelled by an advanced technology. Yet, the report makes no conclusions. It suggests that not one explanation exists for all of the UFOs, and further study is needed.

• As the nine-page report stands, it seems to be a rather thin gruel. Some portions were left out, resulting in accusations of a cover-up. On the other hand, UFO researchers have accused the government of cover-ups of the true origins of UFOs for decades. While American intelligence organizations are reluctant to draw any definitive conclusions, they seem to be particularly interested in the small number of incidents in which the unidentified objects’ aerial behavior seems to violate the laws of physics.

• What if some kind of alien intelligence is responsible for some of these sightings? What kind of conclusions can we draw? First, the aliens don’t seem to be particularly interested in making direct contact with Earth humans. There are no indications that UFOs will land on the White House lawn. On the other hand, they also seem to be uninterested in keeping their existence a secret. A civilization that is capable of crossing the interstellar gulf would likely have the technology to ‘cloak’ its spacecraft from prying eyes if it wanted to.

• Do these aliens want us to see them, or to at least suspect they exist? For what purpose? Presuming that the aliens are not hostile, and we have no reason to suspect they are, what is their ultimate purpose? Do they intend to establish first contact? Would an advanced civilization even view the President of the United States as the person most worthy of establishing first contact?

• A political leader may not be viewed as the most significant person on our planet. Instead, they may want to establish first contact with a technological visionary, someone who has demonstrated the ability to imagine a future better than the present and is working diligently to achieve that goal – someone who harbors no petty, political ambitions or egotistic passions. The task of speaking for the human species will be a heavy one indeed. We can only hope that Elon Musk is ready – if and when they do come.

• [Editor’s Note] What if the UFOs seen by military personnel around Navy ships are actually drones using reverse-engineered advanced electromagnetic anti-gravity propulsion technology gleaned from recovered extraterrestrial craft and developed by private American aerospace companies? And what if they are simply testing this technology against the Navy’s most advanced radar systems – unbeknownst to the ship’s officers? And what if the Pentagon brass are using this “UFO phenomenon” and the cagey UAP report to make us think that they may be of extraterrestrial origin, and have our Earthly adversaries think so as well?

If we’re choosing an Earth representative to speak to the extraterrestrial beings in the Galactic Federation of Worlds on behalf of humanity, can we at least choose someone who has tried to expose the truth about the extraterrestrial presence and the off-shoot secret space programs without any hidden agenda, rather than leaving it to a career deep state politician who has actively and shamelessly assisted in debunking and ridiculing the UFO phenomenon and extraterrestrial presence in order to cover-up the truth? Please?

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has released its Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena report. The report analyzes 144 reports of UAPs, what the government calls UFOs, being sighted by military personnel between 2004 and 2021. Eighty of the reports referred to objects that were tracked by multiple sensors. Twenty-one of the reports describe 18 incidents in which the objects displayed unusual flight characteristics.

“Some UAP appeared to remain stationary in winds aloft, move against the wind, maneuver abruptly, or move at considerable speed, without discernable means of propulsion. In a small number of cases, military aircraft systems processed radio frequency (RF) energy associated with UAP sightings.”

These incidents have caught the attention of many UFO enthusiasts who wonder if they describe alien spacecraft propelled by an advanced technology. Nevertheless, the report makes no conclusions. Among the possibilities include airborne clutter such as balloons, other aircraft, or birds, atmospheric phenomena, United States government experimental aircraft, foreign government experimental aircraft (i.e. Russian or Chinese) or “other” (i.e. aliens.) The report suggests that further study is needed to identify what military pilots are seeing. It suggests that not one explanation exists for all of the UAPs or UFOs.

As the nine-page report stands, it seems to be a rather thin gruel. Some portions were left out, resulting in accusations of a coverup. On the other hand, accusations of government coverups of the real origins of UFOs have cropped up for decades. The accusations have been part of popular culture, such as in the long-running TV series “The X-Files.”

Leaving aside the pop-culture-fueled suspicions of a secret government conspiracy, the report suggests that the examination of these UFOs (or UAPs, being the preferred, approved label) is an ongoing process. While American intelligence organizations are reluctant to draw any definitive conclusions, they seem to be particularly interested in the small number of incidents in which the objects demonstrated weird behavior that seemed to violate the laws of physics.
Let us propose, as a hypothesis, that some kind of alien intelligence is responsible for some of these sightings. What kind of conclusions can we draw?

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Launch 2,824 Satellites to Provide Global High Speed Internet

May 18, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Malvika Gurung May 1, 2021 (trak.in)

• The FCC has given the American aerospace company SpaceX approval to deploy 2,824 Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit, to provide high-speed internet connectivity services for rural areas and those where fiber optic cables and cell towers are unable to reach. With the Starlink satellites in place, internet speed will increase up to 100 megabytes per second.

• Lowering the altitude of satellite positioning will improve space safety and reducing power flux density emissions, thereby improving the interference environment and lower elevation angles to improve the customer experience. Lower altitudes and significant maneuverability should result in lower collision risk and an improved orbital debris environment.

• On April 28th, SpaceX launched 60 more Starlink satellites from the Space Launch Complex at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. SpaceX has transcended its initial internet constellation of 1,440 broadband satellites. The company ultimately aims to deploy about 12,000 satellites in all. The Starlink constellation will cost it roughly $10 billion.

In an attempt to provide high-speed internet connectivity services for rural areas and those where fiber optic cables and cell towers are unable to reach, the American aerospace company SpaceX has gotten approval to deploy over 2000 Starlink satellites at a lower earth orbit, by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

On April 28, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, United States.

**deploying Starlink satellites above Earth**

FCC has approved SpaceX to deploy 2,824 satellites at a lower earth orbit, as part of

**a ‘train’ of Starlink satellites in the night sky**

its Starlink project, to deliver high speed broadband internet to untethered regions.

SpaceX Gets Approval on Tuesday

The centibillionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX had asked FCC for approval to fly 2,824 satellites at a lower orbit of Earth, as part of its Starlink project, as per which the internet speed will increase up to 100 megabytes per second.

According to Starlink’s website, “Starlink will deliver high speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive or completely unavailable.”

57 second video of SpaceX deploying Starlink satellites into orbit (‘Chris Danelon’ YouTube)

1:58 minute video of a train of Starlink satellites across the sky, April 2020 (‘ViralVideoLab’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

China, Russia and the New Space Race

April 27, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by James Stavridis April 12, 2021 (bloomberg.com)

• Russia and China are contesting the US militarily, from the Arctic to the Baltics to the South China Sea. A few weeks ago, the two nations agreed to build a joint research station on the Moon. In an online statement, the China National Space Administration said the base would be open to “all interested countries and international partners”. But if you look at recent Russian and Chinese space operations, they have a distinctly military bent. And the idea of general political and military cooperation between the two is gaining speed, from massive war games on the Siberian border to warship deployments in the eastern Mediterranean and the North Atlantic.

• Washington needs to understand the strategic approach being taken by both of these US rivals in space. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the lesser-known Secure World Foundation have recently released reports highlighting a cluster of Russian activities that have caught the attention of the US intelligence community. These include significant antisatellite missile tests throughout 2020; flights of Russian spacecraft very near US spy satellites; tests of projectile launches in space; and fraying ties with the US in civilian and scientific space cooperation.

• As the supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, this article’s writer, James Stavridis, spent a good deal of time with the then-Russian ambassador to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin. Rogozin went on to serve as deputy prime minister in charge of all Russian defense and space industries. Since 2018, Rogozin has been the head of Roscosmos, the equivalent of NASA. Given his strong defense background, Rogozin brings a military thrust to the Russian space program.

• Ten years ago, Rogozin told Stavridis that Russia’s military future was in space. In 2014, Rogozin mocked the US space program on Twitter as needing a trampoline to bring astronauts to the International Space Station. After a successful commercial launch by SpaceX in 2020, Elon Musk tweeted back, “The trampoline is working.”

• China doesn’t have the decades-long history that Russia has in the space domain, but the Chinese are accelerating rapidly. China had landed a lunar module on the Moon, returning soil samples. It launched a Mars probe that is currently orbiting the red planet. And it has plans to build a Moon base, along with Russia. All of this is part of an emerging “space culture” in China.

• Chinese efforts in space have an increasingly military feel to them as well. China has 363 satellites in space, second only to the U.S. (with more than 1,300). The Chinese have been conducting anti-satellite tests for nearly two decades, including missiles and lasers. They have devoted considerable effort to sharpening offensive cybertools that can go after US space assets. The Chinese have also fired more rockets into space than any other country for three years straight.

• As Russia and China come together to operate in the cosmos, their overall military and strategic cooperation will increase as well. The fledgling US Space Force must be part of a US response. America needs a small but elite US Cyber Force working alongside our allies, much as China and Russia intend to do. And Washington needs a coherent plan for private-public cooperation and to prioritize defense dollars for space.

• [Editor’s Note] The author of this article, retired Admiral James Stavridis, is intent on associating Russia with China’s CCP. And where is he now that he has retired from the US Navy? He is an operating executive with the Carlyle Group, a notorious bastion of the deep state elite trying to stoke a war between the US, China and Russia. China has invited “all interested countries and international partners” to join them in the development of a Moon base. After the deep state stopped utilizing Russian space rockets to bring Americans to the International Space Station in favor of their darling, Elon Musk, why wouldn’t Russia be interested in another Moon program? And didn’t the Russian navy just work with the US Navy to bottle up the Evergreen container ship ‘Ever Given’ in the Suez Canal, which reportedly contained not only trafficked humans but weapons of mass destruction?

What is really going on is a war between the deep state and non-compliant Alliance countries like Russia. Deep state shills like Admiral Stavridis only want to demonize Russia and stir up World War III to give the deep state a path to total control over the planet and the solar system. Unfortunately, Administrator Biden is also a deep state lackey who supports this evil agenda. It is up to the white hats in the US military to excise the deep state trolls from its ranks, completely remove the deep state from power, and set the planet on a course of peace and prosperity – including our expansion into space to stand alongside our space cousins – which the deep state has actively prevented since WWII.

Russia and China are looking hard at how they should allocate defense spending to

contest the U.S. militarily, from the Arctic to the Baltics to the South China Sea. Near the top of both national shopping lists are military operations and assets in space, and the most intriguing aspect of their decision to look to the stars is that they are going to do it together.

Most notably, the two nations agreed a few weeks ago to build a joint research station on the moon. In an online statement, the China National Space Administration said the base would be open to “all interested countries and international partners,” which sounds relatively benign. But if you look at recent Russian and Chinese space operations, they have a distinctly military bent. And the idea of general political and military cooperation between the two is gaining speed, from massive war games on the Siberian border to warship deployments in the eastern Mediterranean and the North Atlantic.

What should the U.S. be doing?

First, Washington needs to clearly understand the strategic approach being taken by both of these rivals, who are now peer competitors, at least in space.

We should begin with Russia, which has had a very long and successful track record in space operations dating back to Soviet times. The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the lesser-known Secure World Foundation have recently released reports highlighting a cluster of Russian activities that have caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community.

These include significant antisatellite missile tests throughout 2020; so-called close aboard flights of Russian spacecraft very near U.S. spy satellites; tests of projectile launches in space; and fraying ties with the U.S. in civilian and scientific space cooperation. (The two nations have previously worked together closely, especially on the International Space Station.)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

SpaceX Civilian Passengers Heading Into Space This Year

April 18, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Anthony Cuthbertson April 2, 2021 (msn.com)

• In the autumn of 2021, Jared Isaacman will sponsor and participate in the first-ever ‘all civilian’ three days in orbit commercial ‘Inspiration4 mission’ on a SpaceX Dragon rocket. Isaacman, 38, is himself a pilot and will serve as spacecraft commander.

• On Earth, Isaacman is the head of Shift4 Payments, a credit card-processing company in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He is covering the bill for what will be SpaceX’s first private flight, while raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Isaacman is donating $100 million to St. Jude. A lottery was created to offer other donors a chance to fly in space, raising another $13 million.

• In addition to the previously announced passenger Hayley Arceneaux, 29, a St. Jude physician assistant who was treated there as a child for bone cancer, two others were chosen by lottery. They are: Ms. Sian Proctor, 51, a college instructor and space art artist from Tempe, Arizona chosen by a panel of judges, and Mr. Chris Sembroski, 41, a former Air Force missileman from Everett Washington and Space Camp counsellor who took the place of a friend who declined to fly for personal reasons

• Proctor applied three times to Nasa’s astronaut corps, coming close in 2009, and took part in simulated Mars missions in Hawaii. She was born in Guam where her father worked at NASA’s tracking station for the Apollo mission moonshots. She plans to teach from space and create art up there, too. “To me, everything that I’ve done… has brought me to this moment,” she said.

• Their SpaceX Dragon capsule will launch no earlier than mid-September, aiming for an altitude of 335 miles. That’s about 75 miles higher than the International Space Station, on the same level with the Hubble Space Telescope.

• The next-generation SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is still undergoing testing and is yet to land successfully after flying to a high altitude. But other SpaceX flights using the craft are expected to follow the Inspiration4 mission before Elon Musk’s company begins commercial operations of its Starship vehicle.

• Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has already reserved the first Starship tickets for a trip around the Moon scheduled for 2023.

SpaceX has revealed the final members of its civilian crew who will take part in the

first-ever commercial space flight later this year.

The new passengers are Sian Proctor, a community college educator in Tempe, Arizona and Chris Sembroski, a former Air Force missileman from Everett Washington. They will join flight sponsor Jared Isaacman and another passenger for three days in orbit this autumn.

Mr Isaacman also revealed some details about his Inspiration4 mission, as the four gathered at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center this

week. He’s head of Shift4 Payments, a credit card-processing company in Allentown,

Pennsylvania, and is paying for what would be SpaceX’s first private flight while raising money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Their SpaceX Dragon capsule will launch no earlier than mid-September, aiming for an altitude of 540 kilometres (335 miles). That’s 120 kilometres higher than the International Space Station and on a level with the Hubble Space Telescope.

Mr Isaacman, 38, a pilot who will serve as spacecraft commander, did not reveal how much he’s paying. He’s donating $100 million to St. Jude, while donors so far have contributed $13 million, primarily through the lottery that offered a chance to fly in space.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Elon Musk’s Girlfriend is ‘Ready to Die With Red Dirt of Mars Beneath’ Her Feet

April 17, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Bhavya Sukheja March 31, 2021 (republicworld.com)

• On March 30th, SpaceX’s Starship prototype, SN11, blasted off from the Starbase test site near Boca Chica Village, Texas. (see 5:44 minute video below) The rocket reached a height of 6.2 miles (10 kilometres) before beginning the landing procedure. About six minutes into its test flight, the stainless steel prototype Mars rocket failed and blew up over Texas. Space X CEO Elon Musk optimistically tweeted that a “significant” event took place before the landing sequence involving the engines.

• Before the launch, Musk’s 33-year-old girlfriend, Grimes (aka Claire Elise Boucher, pictured above with Musk), posted an image on Instagram posing in front of SpaceX CEO’s Starbase facility in Texas. In the caption, the Canadian singer wrote that she is “ready to die with the red dirt of Mars beneath my feet Starbase Tx”.

• The Canadian pop singer Grimes shares a son with Musk, named ‘X Æ A-Xii’. Grimes had previously admitted that she wants to help bring life to Mars. She had even confessed that she wants to relocate to the planet after she turns 50 in a bid to help erect a human colony there. Grimes said that she expects the move to the Red Planet will be “a case of manual labor until death, most likely,” but hoped that could change.

• Meanwhile, Grimes’ partner, Musk, claims that SpaceX will touch their spaceships down in Mars “well before 2030”. Musk plans to send one million people to Mars by 2050 and build a city there.

Elon Musk’s girlfriend, Grimes, on March 30, took to Instagram to express her

extraterrestrial interests and reveal that she is “ready to die on Mars”. While her partner Musk continues with his efforts to touch down on the Red Planet, the 33-year-old singer posted an image on social media, posing in front of SpaceX CEO’s Starbase facility in Texas. In the caption, Grimes wrote that she is “ready to die with the red dirt of Mars beneath my feet Starbase Tx”.

In the picture, the Canadian singer, who shares son X Æ A-Xii with Musk, wore a long-sleeved black top with a red plaid skirt with black boots and floral leggings while posing in front of both massive cranes and the interior of Musk’s Starbase facility in Texas. It is worth mentioning that Grimes had previously admitted that she wants to help bring life to Mars. She had even confessed that she wanted to relocate to the planet after she turns 50 in a bid to help erect a human colony there.

According to Daily Mail, Grimes, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher, had even said that the move to the Red Planet would be a case of manual labour until death most likely but admitted that she hoped that could change. Meanwhile, her partner, Musk, earlier this month had claimed that his company will touch their ships down in Mars “well before 2030”. Musk plans to send one million people to Mars by 2050 and build a city there, however, it hasn’t all been plain sailing so far in his plans.

5:44 minute Space X Starship SN11 launch and flight test (‘Space Videos’ YouTube)

5:32 minute Grimes music video ‘Genesis’ (‘Grimes’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Why Elon Musk Believes Aliens Do Not Exist – For Now

April 9, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Kirsty Card March 24, 2021 (dailystar.co.uk)

• SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has tweeted in the past that he IS an extraterrestrial alien. But in a March 23rd post, Musk tweeted: “Strongest argument against aliens’ … (modern) camera resolution has advanced, but UFO pictures have remained the same.” In other words, Musk concludes that extraterrestrials do not exist since the images of UFOs that we see are just floating blobs of light.

• Many Twitter followers concurred with Musk’s denial of an extraterrestrial presence. One ‘explained’ that most cameras “are only capturing 400-700 nanometers” and are not capable of capturing “true reality”. Entrepreneur Amit Paranjape added that since the birth of smartphones, random UFO sightings have dropped.

• Due to Musk’s reputation in the space industry, his tweet has sparked a debate. Of the more than 11,000 comments, artificial Intelligence scientist Lex Fridman was among his detractors, tweeting: “that’s exactly what an alien would tweet”.

• Twitter user ‘Evilspot’ seems to think that Musk is only kidding. “He does believe aliens are real,” said Evilspot… “it’s just kind of upsetting that every ‘ufo sightings’ is like 180p or something..why are the images always look like crap!” Twitter user ‘Ash WSB’ responded that “aliens move very fast.”

• In 2020, Musk claimed that the Egyptian pyramids were made by extraterrestrials. This prompted a Twitter response from Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation, Rania al-Mashat: “I follow your work with a lot of admiration. I invite you & SpaceX to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders. Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you,’ she added. Musk seemed to take the claim back, responding by linking an article describing how the pyramids were more likely built by humans living in an Egyptian settlement. “This BBC article provides a sensible summary for how it was done,” Musk wrote with the link.

• Musk’s current opinion that aliens do not exist comes just two days after the US government said it has evidence of UFOs breaking the sound barrier without a sonic boom. And the former Director of National Intelligence (John Ratcliffe) recently claimed that UFOs are making maneuvers that are impossible with our known technology.

• [Editor’s Note] UFOs – both alien and those belonging to various secret space programs – use electromagnetic, anti-gravity warp drive propulsion, such as that patented several years go by Salvatore Pais with the US Navy. This creates an electromagnetic force field around the UFO craft, creating a cocoon of its own internal environment. From the ground, this looks like a blob of light, and that’s what people often capture in their photos. No doubt, Musk is aware of this.

While it appears that Musk is constantly flip-flopping on the UFO issue, he is simply parroting what his deep state handlers tell him to say so that he can hang onto his multi-billion dollar government-financed space travel, tunnel boring and artificial intelligence projects. Once the deep state is defeated and eradicated (soon hopefully), Musk will say whatever his new masters tell him to say – perhaps even the truth. But it hardly matters to Musk.

The billionaire CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, has previously stated on Twitter that he is an alien – but seems to have changed his mind on the subject.

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted: ‘Strongest argument against aliens’ along with two charts that shows camera resolution has advanced, but UFO pictures have remained the same.

The post in the early hours of the morning on March 23 concludes that extraterrestrials don’t exist, due to most images showing floating blobs, but many of the comments argue otherwise.

One user replied ‘that’s exactly what an alien would tweet,’ while another explains that most cameras ‘are only capturing 400-700 nanometers’ and are not capable of capturing ‘true reality.’

Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX received more than 11,000 comments, 41,000 shares and 400,000 likes to the post.
Many of his bizarre tweets typically get a lot of attention, but due to Musk’s reputation in the space industry, this one sparked a debate.

Artificial Intelligence scientist Lex Fridman was among those who disagree with the tweet, who said ‘this is exactly what an alien would tweet.’

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Does Biden Take Space Seriously?

March 23, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Charles Beams March 12, 2021 (politico.com)

• In 2017, President Trump resurrected the National Space Council where senior government and industry leadership would plan and organize the U.S. and the world roles in a new ‘space century’. Putting the Vice President in charge was vital to the council’s integrity. Now, the Biden administration’s decision to assign oversight of space to the National Security Council has fueled speculation that the high-level National Space Council will be discontinued.

• Does Administrator Biden and his senior advisers truly appreciate the gravity of the situation and the opportunities before us in the final frontier? Seventeen industry groups representing hundreds of companies critical to our nation’s space future have recently endorsed keeping the National Space Council. They says that retaining the council “will provide stability and continuity to the United States’ space endeavors, enabling historic exploration and scientific achievement”. Its continuation would reflect that space is indeed a real priority.

• Serious questions regarding space need to be addressed in the next few years. These will require senior attention and active support across the Executive Branch. Should one person, ie: Elon Musk, monopolize the commercial space sector? Or should it be regulated to encourage small business growth in space? How should we encourage fair play among nations in space? How should we respond to anti-competitive Chinese business practices? And how can we prevent the growing menace of space debris from inhibiting future generations’ expansion into space?

• One specific policy issue that the National Space Council would manage is the evolution of the United States Space Force. Space Force is charged with protecting and ensuring free and fair access to space and defending contested domains where commercial companies and developing nations are increasingly operating. Space Force must create a culture to recruit and retain world class intellects and leaders to guide a developing military domain that is more defined by artificial intelligence, autonomous robotics and machine learning, than bullets and bombs. In the coming decades, Space Force must become a military service that understands, partners with, and sometimes puts commercial and civil needs before warfighting requirements. Guidance from the highest levels is essential for the Space Force to be successful.

• To date, however, no senior appointees have been nominated for the most senior space positions, including the NASA administrator or the space policy and space acquisition positions in the Pentagon. Without the high-level attention of a strong National Space Council, low earth orbit will become a no man’s land of discarded satellite and rocket debris, exploited only by the ultra-wealthy. The unique ability of the space sector to promote commerce, enhance international trade, strengthen diplomacy, and prevent military conflict will be lost.

• If the Biden administration cannot see the value in the National Space Council to lead a coherent space policy for a new century, it should disband it. Pretending it is important while assigning it no clear purpose would be a waste of time and resources, and actually hamper progress in space. The decisions the Biden administration makes regarding the National Space Council, Space Force, NASA and commercial space policies will determine whether space will remain a safe, nonpartisan domain for an economy to flourish or will become an inhospitable orbital minefield where only military hegemons joust for supremacy.

The early signs coming from the Biden administration have more than a few of us

worried about its approach to space policy.

The decision to assign oversight of space to the National Security Council has fueled speculation that the high-level National Space Council will be discontinued. And it comes at a time when a similar lack of seriousness by White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and her flippant comments about the Space Force are playing out in the media.

The two recent events beg the question: do President Joe Biden and his senior advisers truly appreciate the gravity of the situation and the opportunities before us in the final frontier?

The rumors of dismantling of the National Space Council should give us all pause. Resurrecting the council in 2017 and putting the vice president in charge was vital to focusing senior government and industry leadership on organizing the U.S. and the world for a space century.

Which is exactly why 17 industry groups representing hundreds of companies critical to our nation’s space future have recently endorsed keeping it. Retaining the council “will provide stability and continuity to the United States’ space endeavors, enabling historic exploration and scientific achievement,” they wrote in their letter to President Biden’s chief of staff. Its continuation would reflect that space is a real priority for our new president.

Serious space questions need to be addressed in the next few years that require senior attention and active support across the executive branch.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Indonesian Residents Unhappy With SpaceX Launchpad

March 22, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Akanksha Arora March 10, 2021 (republicworld.com)

• Earlier in March, SpaceX launched a second Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It was the 6th launch toward completing the ‘Starlink’ mission of a constellation of thousands of small internet communications satellites in orbit around the planet. Musk claims that internet service will improve from here, and officials at launch sites in the United States are content with SpaceX’s progress.

• People living on Papuan Island in Indonesia aren’t so happy. Indonesia has offered Papuan Island to Elon Musk for the launch of his SpaceX project. Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime and investment affairs said that Musk and the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, had discussed the plans in December, and that Musk sent a team to Papuan Island in January to look at the potential investment.

• Papuans deny the Indonesian government’s claim that the local Papuan government was consulted about the planned launch facility. The tribal chief of Papuan Island, Manfun Sroyer, said that he fears that Papuan residents will be forced from their homes, and that the spaceport would encroach upon traditional hunting grounds. Papuan residents deny that the SpaceX launch facility would bring a positive economic impact to the community. They say that it will lead to deforestation in the region and devastate the ecosystem. It will also increase the presence of the Indonesian military and if the people protest, they will be immediately arrested.

Indonesia has offered its Papuan island to Elon Musk for the launch of his SpaceX

project. The residents of the island do not seem to be happy about it as they have said that Musk is not welcome on their land. According to the reports by The Guardian, the residents said that Musk’s presence on the island would devastate the ecosystem and also drive people from their homes.

Residents unhappy

Papuans on Biak do not agree with the government representative who told The

Guardian that the plan was being developed after consulting the Papuan government and local communities. He also believed that this development would bring positive economic impacts. The residents, however, said that this will lead to deforestation in the region and increase the presence of the Indonesian military. According to the reports by The Business Insider, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime and investment affairs said that Musk and the Indonesian president Joko Widodo had discussed the plans earlier in the month of December. Musk was planning to send a team to the island in

**Falcon 9 rockets with Starlink satellites**

January to look at the potential investments.

The tribal chief of the island Manfun Sroyer said that he fears that the residents will be forced from their homes. He further added that the spaceport would cost the people their traditional hunting grounds. He also said that if people protest they will be arrested immediately.

SpaceX Rocket all set to launch

The SpaceX Rocket launch will be taking place on March 11th at 3:13 AM EST. This is the second rocket they are sending for the Starlink Launch this month and the 6th in total for the Starlink mission. The launch will be taking place in their Falcon 9 Rockets from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. SpaceX Launch for Starlink is being highly anticipated by everyone.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

SpaceX Reveals its Starport Plans in South Texas

March 21, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Eric Berger March 8, 2021 (arstechnica.com)

• The US Army Corps of Engineers has posted a public notice about the spaceport that Elon Musk’s SpaceX proposes to construct in Boca Chica, Texas, at the southern tip of the state along the Gulf of Mexico. The major hardware includes orbital and suborbital launch pads, landing pads, structural test stands, and a ground support “tank farm”.

• What is striking about this architectural drawing is the relatively limited amount of land that SpaceX has to work with, as a substantial portion must be devoted to stormwater flooding ponds. All of these facilities will be concentrated within a couple dozen acres, in stark contrast to the expansive launch sites in Florida at the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

• Since acquiring the south Texas launch site in 2014, SpaceX’s planned scope of activities has grown from planning about 10 Falcon 9 launches a year to launches of the massive Starship vehicle. SpaceX has acquired two floating oil rigs, named Phobos and Deimos, that are being converted at shipyards along the Texas coast into massive floating launch pads (see video below). The plan is to launch Starships on suborbital hops from the ground launch pad in Texas to the floating platforms towed and anchored out in the gulf waters. The Starships can be launched from there into space without collateral damage.

• Musk has also proposed the incorporation of nearby Boca Chica Village into a new city, called Starbase, Texas. Such a city would need to have at least 201 residents and follow state rules for incorporation. Prior to SpaceX’s arrival, the small Boca Chica community consisted of several dozen homes. In recent years, the company has sought to buy out or otherwise remove residents so that it has more control over its nearby launch activities. SpaceX is also undergoing an environmental assessment in south Texas for evaluation by the Federal Aviation Administration.

As part of a federal review process for its plans in South Texas, details of SpaceX’s

proposed spaceport have been made public. They were posted late last week in a public notice from the US Army Corps of engineers, which is soliciting public comments on the changes.

Most notably, the new documents include a detailed architectural drawing of the multi-acre site at the southern tip of Texas, along the Gulf of Mexico. The major hardware that exists or will be built includes:
• Two orbital launch pads, one of which is already under constriction
• Two suborbital launch pads, one of which already exists
• Two landing pads, one of which already exists
• Two structural test stands for Starship and the Super Heavy booster
• A large “tank farm” to provide ground support equipment for orbital flights
• A permanent position for the totemic “Starhopper” vehicle at the site’s entrance

What is striking about this architectural drawing is its compact nature, largely because SpaceX has limited land to work with at the facility and must include stormwater ponds to mitigate against flooding. All of these facilities will be concentrated within a couple dozen acres, which is in stark contrast to more expansive launch sites in Florida at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

However, SpaceX appears confident that it can control the launch and landing of its vehicles such that any mishaps will not severely damage nearby equipment. This is a non-traditional and possibly risky bet, but SpaceX has always been willing to take risks during development programs in order to move more quickly.

8:22 minute video on Starship Floating Launch Platform (‘Science of Space’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Aliens On Earth? Elon Musk Has His Doubts

March 8, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Christine Andas February 22, 2021 (ph.asiatatler.com)

• As the CEO and founder of SpaceX, the first private company to launch a spacecraft to reach the International Space Station and to send humans to space, Elon Musk (pictured above) would most probably know if aliens do exist. In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, Rogan asked him whether extraterrestrial beings exist and are visiting the Earth. Shaking his head, Musk responded by saying, “No… To the best of my knowledge… there is no direct evidence [of] alien life [on Earth].”

• Musk then insinuated that if extraterrestrial beings were here on Earth, with so many people possessing iPhones why aren’t there any good photos of them, noting that the pictures and video released by the Pentagon and the CIA of hovering UFOs have been grainy black and white footage. The use this to claim that it is still unclear whether UFOs are indeed of extraterrestrial origin.

• In addition to being the CEO of SpaceX rocket manufacturing and Tesla Motors electric car manufacturing, Musk is the co-founder of Neuralink which develops brain-machine interfaces, and OpenAI which is developing next generation Artificial Intelligence. Musk is also the CEO of The Boring Company, which bores underground transportation tunnels. All of this has made Musk the “Richest Man in the World”.

• One need not go too far to find others who harbor doubts about the existence of extraterrestrial life – visiting the Earth or not. Most mainstream scientists and astronomers would agree. In 1979, American mathematical physicist Frank J. Tipler strongly insisted that aliens do not exist and that humans are the only intelligent species in the galaxy. In 1961, the mathematician Frank Drake developed the ‘Drake Equation’ wherein he estimated that there are likely only ten other planets in the Milky Way galaxy that might harbor extraterrestrial civilizations. Recently, Tom Westby and Christopher J. Conselice used the Drake Equation to arrive at their own estimate that no more than 36 alien civilizations exist in the galaxy. And of course, none of them have reached Earth.

• [Editor’s Note] Let’s see. A high-profile space transportation company clinging to outdated rocket propulsion technology. An electric car manufacturing company. A company developing Artificial Intelligence and a sister company integrating that technology into the human brain. And a deep underground tunnel boring company. Elon Musk’s vast fortune depends entirely on the Deep State and the cabal’s nefarious plans for the future. So of course Musk is going to go along with the Deep State’s cover-up of the existence of the numerous extraterrestrial races with whom cabal operatives here on Earth continually interact. The Deep State has been keeping the existence of extraterrestrials and their advanced technology from the people of Earth since the inception of the CIA and Majestic 12 in 1947. They simply want this highly advanced alien technology all to themselves, so that they can dominate the Earth and our solar system. Since Musk is so closely tied to this elite cabal of government, bankers and industrialists, he must know the truth about the extraterrestrial presence. This makes Elon Musk a liar and a Deep State stooge, as I have been saying for years.

“To the best of my knowledge… there is no direct evidence [of] alien life [on earth],” Elon Musk recently said in a new interview

with Joe Rogan. Rogan was hoping Musk would know (or at least hint at) the existence of these cosmo beings but Elon only responded by shaking his head, saying “no”.

“Somebody’s gotta at least have an iPhone 1 level camera,” he added. This rings true considering all the UFO footage that the Pentagon released last year and CIA’s UFO files which were released recently. The Pentagon’s grainy black and white footage revealed a hovering figure. Although the unidentified flying object was evident in the footage, it’s still unclear if it was the work of an extraterrestrial being.

As the CEO and founder of SpaceX, the first private company to launch a spacecraft to reach the space station and send humans to space, Musk would most probably know if aliens do exist. He has mastered multiple fields namely rocket science, engineering,

transportation and aerospace. Apart from SpaceX, Elon is also the CEO of Tesla Motors and The Boring Company. He is also the co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. Currently, Elon’s prowess and success have earned him the title “Richest Man in the World”.

CONTRASTING INTELLIGENT LIFE STUDIES

One would think that the copious amount of alien studies, footage, and documents that we have would finally answer the questions we have been asking for years. But these discoveries are only revealing contrasting finds made by scientists and astronomers alike.

In 1979, American mathematical physicist Frank J. Tipler strongly insists that aliens do not exist and that humans are the only intelligent species to exist in the galaxy.

The Drake Equation which Frank Drake started in 1961 is an argument used to estimate the number of alien civilisations in the milky way galaxy. It helped Drake estimate 10 planets in the milky way. Since then, various scientists have used the Drake Equation in an attempt to make the best guesses. It helped Tom Westby and Christopher J. Conselice in their new study. They claim that alien life is existent but rare—only 36 alien societies reside within the milky way.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Elon Musk Announces ‘There will be a Marscoin!’ Cryptocurrency

March 5, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Brian McGleenon February 16, 2021 (express.co.uk)

• The digital currency known as ‘Dogecoin’ is similar to the more famous, and lucrative, ‘Bitcoin’. Dodgecoin, which was created in 2013, has long traded for less than one cent. Implying that the digital currency field had “too much concentration”, the Tesla and SpaceX mogul, Elon Musk offered via Twitter to pay major Dodgecoin holders real money to to simply void their account.

• Then, the founder of currency trading platform Binance tweeted an idea: “Develop a new ElonCoin. Offer them to the existing non-major dogecoin holders to void their wallet. You wouldn’t need to pay dollars to make those majors dogecoin holders richer than they already are and allocate your time and support to make the ElonCoin the (new) currency of the Earth.” “Maybe call it MarsCoin? Musk tweeted back what could be the seed of the world’s first extra-terrestrial currency: “There will definitely be a MarsCoin!”

• Musk needs to be careful about making statements that could manipulate market prices. As CEO of a traded company, Musk’s statements are regulated to ensure investors have equal access to news that can significantly affect share prices. Cryptocurrencies, however, are not regulated in the same way as normal company shares and would fall outside the current rules against market manipulation, regardless of whether he owns the cryptocurrency or not.

ELON Musk announced today on Twitter a plan for new digital currency, tweeting, “there will definitely be a MarsCoin!”

The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla made the claim in a Twitter thread about dogecoin. Mr Musk tweeted: “If major dogecoin holders sell most of their coins, it will get my full support. Too much concentration is the only real issue.

“I will literally pay actual $ if they just void their accounts.”

Then one follower of Mr Musk tweeted an idea: “Develop a new ElonCoin.

“Offer them to the existing non-major dogecoin holders to void their wallet.

“You wouldn’t need to pay dollars to make those majors dogecoin holders richer than they already are and allocate your time and support to make the ElonCoin the currency of the Earth.”

It was the founder of currency trading platform Binance that then postulated the idea, “Maybe call it MarsCoin?

It was then that Mr Musk came back with what could be the seedling of the world’s first extra-terrestrial currency.

He tweeted: “There will definitely be a MarsCoin!”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Why Has NASA Not Sent Anyone to Mars?

February 28, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Jess Romeo February 10, 2021 (daily.jstor.org)

• In 1969, humans first set foot on the Moon. With each step, the entire universe seemed to open up. Where would NASA and its brave astronauts go next? “At the time of the Moon landing, it was generally expected that the United States would quickly go on to Mars,” writes aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society Robert Zubrin.

• As Zubrin relates in The New Atlantis: “Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recalled thinking ‘perhaps I could help [NASA] plan a Mars mission’. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the Moon, remembered feeling that ‘it wasn’t unreasonable to hope’ he’d be assigned to a Mars-bound crew. Gene Cernan, the twelfth and last man on the Moon, recounted with sadness the time that he finally faced the facts: ‘I’m not going to Mars.’”

• In the half-century following Apollo 11, NASA’s human spaceflight program stagnated. After 1972, no astronaut would stray further than 300 miles from Earth.

• People might blame this lack of human spaceflight on waning public support for the endeavor, lack of funding for NASA, or the fickleness of a democratic government during peacetime. But Zubrin is of a different mind. Historically, Zubrin argues, public support played a relatively small role in the space program in the 1960s. Lack of money is no excuse either. NASA actually has significantly more money today (adjusted for inflation) than it did when it first sent astronauts to the moon.

• As for that democratic “fickleness”, Zubrin points out that “many great things have been accomplished by democratic means during times of peace in the United States, including massive public works like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway System.”

• The real problem is what Zubrin calls a “change in mode of operation.” After Apollo 11, NASA lost sight of its clear, driving purpose. Human spaceflight projects became aimless and slow-moving. NASA has spent hundreds of billions of dollars over the past half-century with very little results. George H.W. Bush’s ‘Space Exploration Initiative’ in 1989 quickly collapsed. Barack Obama’s ‘Journey to Mars’ had no specific deadlines to accomplish anything. And despite establishing Space Force, the Trump administration’s ambitions were vague and Mars was never a top priority.

• Nowadays, Earth’s interaction with the Red Planet begins and ends with robots. But with people like Elon Musk vowing to colonize the Moon by 2026, perhaps the dream is closer than it seems.

• [Editor’s Note] The facts given in this article point to the causes for the NASA space program’s stagnation over the past fifty years, but not the underlying reason. The reason is that the deep state elite who presided over the creation of vast and competing secret space programs were incredibly greedy. They wanted to keep all of the advanced extraterrestrial technologies, to which they were exposed through their off-planet exploits, only to themselves. So in the 1950s, they set up the “civilian” NASA under the authority of the military industrial complex and invented a “Moon mission” using outdated rocket technology, while they continued to develop their secret space programs using advanced electromagnetic anti-gravity warp drive propulsion technology. Once the deep state put on their Apollo 11 show in 1969 and gave the world a bone to keep them quiet, they came up with other sinister ways to divert the public’s attention over the decades. Deep state agents used any excuse to discredit any real-world space program through the influence of a complicit media (just as they discredited the UFO phenomenon), paving the way for complicit legislators to give space activities the lowest priority. But don’t be fooled. There are millions of people currently residing on the Moon, Mars, and many other celestial bodies within and outside of our solar system.

In 1969, humans first set foot on the Moon. With each step, the entire universe seemed to open up. Where would NASA and its

brave astronauts go next? As it turns out, nowhere. In the half-century following Apollo 11, NASA’s human spaceflight program stagnated. Even our closest planetary neighbor, Mars, seems like an impossible destination—but this wasn’t always the case.

“At the time of the Moon landing, it was generally expected that the United States would quickly go on to Mars,” writes aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society and advocate for human exploration of Mars. As Zubrin relates in The New Atlantis: “Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recalled thinking “
‘perhaps I could help them [NASA] plan’ a Mars mission. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man on the Moon, remembered feeling that ‘it wasn’t unreasonable to hope’ he’d be assigned to a Mars-bound crew. Gene Cernan, the twelfth and last man on the Moon, recounted with sadness the time that he “finally faced the facts: ‘I’m not going to Mars.’”

After 1972, no astronaut would stray further than 300 miles from Earth.

People might blame this lack of human spaceflight on waning public support for the endeavor, lack of funding for NASA, or the

fickleness of a democratic government during peacetime. Zubrin is of a different mind: “Each of these explanations is intuitively plausible,” he argues, “But […] taken together, they amount to a profound misunderstanding of how democratic peoples can do great things.”

Historically, Zubrin argues, public support played a relatively small role in the space program in the 1960s. “An analysis by historian Roger Launius found that […] lunar exploration in general almost never enjoyed majority support in contemporary polls.” Lack of money is no excuse either, Zubrin adds, as NASA actually has significantly more money today (adjusted for inflation) than it did when it first sent astronauts to the moon.

As for that democratic “fickleness,” Zubrin points out that “many great things have been accomplished by democratic means during times of peace in the United States, including massive public works like the Erie Canal, the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway System.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

“Earth to Earth” Space Travel With Supersonic Airliners

January 8, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Thomas Burghardt December 26, 2020 (nasaspaceflight.com)

• The future of ‘Earth to Earth’ commercial transportation in the 2020’s appears to lie in two alternatives: ‘suborbital flights’ which fly above the official American boundary of space at 80 kilometers altitude, and ‘supersonic aircraft’ that stay within the Earth’s atmosphere. The suborbital craft will get you there faster (arriving anywhere on Earth in under an hour), while the supersonic aircraft will get you there safer. SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are the only two companies flying humans into space today.

• The CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, developed the suborbital flight concept in 2017 to transport large payloads to Mars for colonization. By attaching additional ‘Raptor engines,’ the ‘Starship’ craft’s launch system is also able to transport cargo – and eventually passengers – suborbitally from one place to another on Earth without the need for the ‘Super Heavy’ booster rocket (which is required to push the Starship craft fully into space). Test flights of the suborbital Starship system could begin in 2022.

• Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic’s ‘SpaceShipTwo’ is another suborbital craft flying in lower Earth orbit. The spacecraft is carried into the upper atmosphere by piggy-backing on a larger airplane and launches from there. Virgin Galactic and its manufacturing partner, Scaled Composites (a wholly owned subsidiary of Northrop Grumman), plan to develop a next generation version of SpaceShipTwo (‘SpaceShipThree’?) to provide suborbital trans-continental spaceflights for passengers once it has proven itself with cargo flights.

• Astra is another spacecraft company that has plans to conduct Earth-to-Earth suborbital cargo transportation using its ‘Rocket 3’ design, possibly beginning in 2022.

• Boom Supersonic rolled out its ‘XB-1’ prototype supersonic aircraft in November 2020. It plans to develop its supersonic passenger airliner, ‘Overture’, in 2021, and plans to be operational – carrying up to 88 passengers at ranges up to almost 5000 miles – by 2029. Both Japan Airlines and the Virgin Group have placed orders for the Overture craft. Notwithstanding, Virgin Galactic recently unveiled a partnership with Rolls-Royce to develop its own supersonic aircraft capable of Mach 3, with a passenger capacity of up to 19 people.

• Aerion Supersonic, with headquarters in Melbourne, Florida (just south of Space Force station Cape Canaveral), is developing its ‘AS2 Supersonic Business Jet’, in partnership with Boeing and General Electric. It is designed to carry up to 10 passengers at speeds up to Mach 1.4.

• Both hypersonic suborbital space travel and supersonic atmospheric flight methods produce sonic booms. Supersonic aircraft produce sonic booms along the entire flight path. (This contributed to the demise of the Aérospatiale and the Concorde supersonic craft.) Rockets, on the other hand, only cause audible sonic booms during landing. The shockwaves created during a rocket launch move upwards and away from any observers to hear them.

• Aside from sonic booms, rockets will produce potentially dangerous noise levels and ‘blast danger areas’ during launch, especially those on the scale of SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy booster. Companies such as SpaceX plan to solve this by launching and landing far offshore from population centers, which will require additional transportation between the spaceport and the destination city. Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division is developing the ‘X-59 QueSST’ (Quiet Supersonic Technology) for NASA’s Low-Boom Flight Demonstration Program, to decrease the intensity of the supersonic shockwave so as not to disturb populated areas. Test flights for the X-59 are scheduled to begin in 2023 to inform legislation on approving supersonic air travel over populated areas.

• A safety advantage that winged aircraft have over propulsively landed rockets is the ability to glide in the event of an engine failure. These new supersonic airliners and spaceplane concepts are designed to be able to glide towards a controlled emergency landing. Vehicles which rely on their engines to land safely, such as Starship, do not have this contingency.

• The costs of space launches and the limited capacity on supersonic airliners will mean higher ticket prices. Will the appeal of shorter travel time outweigh the increased price? Some vehicles, such as Blue Origin‘s New Shepard rocket or Virgin Galactic’s own SpaceShipTwo, cater to ‘space tourists’ who will book a flight just to experience high speed air travel or suborbital spaceflight. They may even opt for a ticket on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon or Starship craft to experience low orbit space.

• Companies developing suborbital and supersonic commercial craft are also conscious of their carbon footprint. Their engines are designed to remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as is emitted by the flight system, to achieve ‘carbon neutrality’. SpaceX’s ‘Starship Mars’ is designed to capture methane on Mars in order to refuel the craft for its return trip to Earth.

Commercial spaceflight companies are preparing to enter a new market: suborbital flights from one place to

another on Earth. Aiming for fast transportation for passengers and cargo, these systems are being developed by a combination of established companies, such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, and new ones like Astra.

Technical and business challenges lie ahead for this new frontier, and an important piece is the coming wave of supersonic aircraft which could offer safer but slower alternatives to spaceflight. These two different approaches could face off in the 2020s to be the future of transportation on Earth.
(Lead image via Mack Crawford for NSF/L2)

Suborbital space travel

The most prevalent concept for suborbital Earth to Earth transportation comes from none other than Elon Musk and

SpaceX. Primarily designed for transporting large payloads to Mars for the purpose of colonization, the next generation Starship launch system offers a bonus capability for transporting large amounts of cargo around Earth.

Musk first presented this idea in 2017, envisioning suborbital spaceflights between spaceports offshore from major cities. These launch and landing facilities would be far enough to reduce the disruption of rocket launch noise levels and sonic booms produced by landing vehicles, connected to land by a high speed form of transportation such as speedboats or a hyperloop.

Originally, these Earth to Earth flights were expected to use both stages of the Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) rocket, since evolved and renamed to the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster. In 2019, Musk revealed that these suborbital flights could instead utilize only the Starship vehicle with no booster, achievable for distances of approximately 10,000 kilometers or less. In order to meet thrust requirements, a single stage suborbital Starship would include an additional two to four Raptor engines.

**Aerion Supersonic‘s ‘AS2 Supersonic Business Jet’**

Given the inherent danger of rocket powered space travel, the Starship system will complete many, possibly hundreds of flights before flying passengers, with the first Earth to Earth test flights beginning as early as 2022.

Another side effect of the Starship Mars architecture, which requires that methane be captured from Martian resources to refuel spacecraft and return to Earth, is that the same propellant production processes can be used on Earth to make Starship operations carbon neutral.

The idea of carbon neutrality, removing as much carbon from the atmosphere as is emitted by the system, is a crucial part of ensuring that future transportation systems do not contribute to the harmful effects of climate change. Musk has confirmed that carbon neutrality is an important goal of the Starship program.

SpaceX is not the only major commercial spaceflight company with a suborbital transportation concept. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic also has a vision of space travel around Earth. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon flying astronauts to Low Earth Orbit, and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo flying crew on suborbital trajectories above the official American boundary of space at 80 kilometers altitude, are the only two commercial companies actively flying humans to space today. A successor to SpaceShipTwo is planned that could provide trans-continental spaceflights for passengers.

While no technical details of a “SpaceShipThree” have been announced by Virgin Galactic, it is fairly likely that the vehicle would be air launched, similar to the SpaceShipOne and SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplanes. SpaceShipThree was originally intended to be a orbital vehicle, developed jointly by Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

How Elon Musk and the US Could Establish a Martian Government

January 2, 2021
ExoNews Editor

Article by Adam Smith December 24, 2020 (independent.co.uk)

• NASA has announced plans for the Artemis Moon mission to establish a lunar base in 2024, followed shortly thereafter by actual inhabitants. And NASA anticipates a manned mission to Mars by 2033. On the other hand, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, plans to send the first SpaceX craft to Mars by 2022, with humans following within the next four to six years. Musk envisions people living in glass domes as they terraform Mars to support life.

• Musk and SpaceX are already laying the groundwork for a Mars colony. A section of the company’s ‘Starlink’ satellite internet service user agreement states: “For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. …Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”

• Is this a joke, or is it the beginning of a Mars constitution based on existing legislation? Current law resides in the 2020 Artemis Accords and the 1957 Outer Space Treaty. A section that reads: “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means,” is meant to prevent outright “land grabs” by Earth nations. Lawyer Randy Segal points out that, “The whole of space law contemplates that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something we can all share together.” Segal suggests that Musk could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution, just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles. Does it have any legal precedent or enforceability? No. But it could start a conversation about how legislators should go about planning for a Mars constitution.

• In 2016, Musk said his intentions for a Martian government would be a direct democracy, where people vote on the issues themselves rather than through politicians. “[I]t would be people voting directly on issues,” said Musk. “[T]he potential for corruption is substantially diminished in a direct versus a representative democracy.”

• Noting that SpaceX’s goal is to send hundreds of thousands of people to Mars until they have established a truly sustainable colony, SpaceX General Council, David Anderman, expects to “impose our own legal regime” on Mars within our lifetime and “faster than you think.” But it will be “interesting to see how it plays out with terrestrial governments exerting control,” says Anderman.

• Legally, Musk has more of a chance of creating a community rather than an independent colony. A ‘community’ would operate under the governance of the United States. It could be that, in the future, legislators will see the need for a constitution that governs the entirety of Mars, rather than having laws split into geographical jurisdictions. Experts suggest that that the most beneficial Martian government will be one that is eventually decided on Mars itself.

• Professor Von der Dunk, a space law expert at Nebraska College of Law, thinks that it is prudent to determine how legal conflicts should be addressed in space. But companies such as Space X and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin can only go so far. While companies may set the agenda, it will ultimately be up to governments to decide whether to adopt it.

• Bezos envisions millions of people in living in bucolic Martian cities with farms and rivers and universities. But Bezos is taking an intentionally slower approach to space than Musk, and has no opinions on Martian constitutions or legislation.

• An example of how to fashion Martian laws could come from Earth’s mining communities, where Congress was happy to sanction local mining laws as long as they did not conflict with those of the United States, says space lawyer Scot Anderson. There is a human impulse to create stability through the law. An early legal framework could be applied to the entirety of Mars in a way that could not be done on Earth. Legal experts say it is likely that once the first community is established on Mars, it would seek to self-regulate fairly quickly due to the difficulties of interplanetary communication.

The moment when the first human sets foot on Mars is becoming ever-closer. The 140 million mile

distance between Earth and the Red Planet is set to be breached within the next two decades, Nasa predicts.

Just recently, the space agency announced its plans for its Artemis moon missions – aiming to take place in 2024 – which could establish a lunar base on the Moon as a stepping-stone before the first planetary spacewalk.

For some, however, simply taking the first step on an alien planet is not looking far enough into the future. Once a community is set up on Mars, discussions will need to be had about exactly how it is governed and functions. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is one of those people planning for such a future, and seems to already be setting the groundwork in the terms of service of the company’s current products.

In the user agreement for the company’s satellite internet service Starlink, one particular paragraph stands out: “For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonisation spacecraft, the parties recognise Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities,” the governing law section states.”

“Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”

SpaceX did not respond to multiple attempts for more information from The Independent, but experts suggest that the addition of this segment could actually have two purposes: the first is that it is a joke; the second is that it is laying groundwork for a Mars constitution – based on how permissive the existing legislation for space exploration actually is.

The section Musk has added is “a bit of tongue in cheek with his contracts… referring to this Martian constitution he’s going to be drafting,” according to Randy Segal, of the law firm Hogan Lovells. “He’s trying to include in his commercial terms… how you’re going to comply with applicable law.”

The applicable law here are the 2020 Artemis accords and the 1957 Outer Space Treaty (by which signatories of the Artemis Accords say they will abide). Amongst that legislation includes the line: “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” As a result, these treaties stop space exploration becoming a “land grab”, as Segal describes it.

However, the regulations are, in general, “motherhood and apple pie” Segal says – an American phrase to mean something that no reasonable person could disagree with, such as the provisions of transparency, interoperability, and emergency assistance with regards to space exploration.

“The whole of space law contemplates that those of us on this planet share the rights and responsibility to make space something we can all share together,” Segal says.

“Generally, if a clause is unlawful you would read the rest of the contract to be enforceable and standing alone. He has added a section relating to Mars services (which is not being provided today, so has no effect),” but in five or 10 years “he can revise his contract.

“I don’t know that a provision like this other than being humorous and anecdotally noteworthy is something that does anything to the rest of the contract at all. He could be trying to lay some groundwork for offering up an independent constitution… just like he did for electric cars and reusable launch vehicles. Does it have any precedent or enforceability? The answer I’d say is clearly no; but if you say something enough, people might come around.”

While Musk’s contracts might not be legally potent (or“gibberish”, as one professor deemed them), they are likely to start a conversation about how legislators should go about planning for a Mars constitution. This is something that SpaceX’s General council, David Anderman, is seemingly already looking into.
“Our goal is to be able to send 1,000 starships with 100 people in them every two years,” Anderman said, according to Business Insider.

“We’ll start with 100, then a couple hundred, then 100,000, then a million until we have a truly sustainable colony. It will happen in my lifetime. Faster than you think.”

He also said he expected SpaceX to “impose our own legal regime,” but that it would be “interesting to see how it plays out with terrestrial governments exerting control.” Anderman did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Independent before publication.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

British Doctor in Bid to Own Mars and Save the Earth

December 11, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Tom Bull November 29, 2020 (dailystar.co.uk)

• The 1967 Outer Space Treaty was signed to prevent nuclear weapons from being sent into space. Dr. Phil Davies is concerned that the treaty is outdated, and that the private sector wants to abolish it to make it easier to mine and explore space. Davies also thinks that there could be a catastrophic arms race in space with nuclear weapons suspended above our heads.

• “If we can update the Space Treaty to accommodate what the Americans and ultimately what others want, then it stays strong and allows them to do their business. It doesn’t allow for nukes up there,” says Davies. “[W]hen there is only one law that stops us from putting weapons in space, …there is going to be a nation we are worried about.” “No one is mature enough to handle nukes in space. …[T]hreats could come from anywhere. America, China, or North Korea could go too far. Once you do that you change everything.”

• About ten years ago, Davis, a 55-year-old former RAF doctor, started shining a powerful laser at the planet Mars to liberate carbon dioxide on the alien planet. In doing so, he says he is creating an atmosphere. Under current UN space law, if you can show that you have taken steps to make an unpopulated planet ready for ‘sustained use’, you are entitled to stake a claim as the rightful owner of the alien territory.

• Davis is part of a ‘Mars for Sale multinational group’ of 150,000 folks who make a collective claim to own Mars in the name of world peace. Even the space pioneer Elon Musk has proposed accelerating a sustained Martian atmosphere by dropping bombs on Mars to release the trapped CO2.

• This isn’t about being the first on Mars. Davies and his group simply hope to “sting” the UN into updating its space laws to stop ‘nasty’ countries from weaponizing space in a bid to mine unexplored planets. “[T]he desire of greed is higher than the desire for peace,” says Davis. “If we could stir that up and show we’re going to be difficult to deal with … they’ll have to update the law in that direction.”

• But when the time comes, Davis believes he and his 150,000 friends who have purchased tracks of Martian land will be first in line to own the Red Planet. “There are no other celestial land claims filed with the UN,” says Davis. “[O]ne day it will be feasibly possible for humans to go to Mars and set up factories or who knows.” “[U]p will pop our claim. It will have been filed. As long as somebody is alive, then it’ll have to be dealt with.”

Dr Phil Davies knows that he seems a bit whacky when he points a laser at Mars from the back garden of his Hampshire home.

The doctor, who has made headlines for claiming he owns the Red Planet, takes the jokes and funny looks in his stride.

Because he, along with 150,000 others, are on a mission for world peace – to protect mankind from what he says is a real threat of nuclear weapons dangling above our heads.

About ten years ago, the 55-year-old started shining a powerful laser through space to liberate carbon dioxide on the alien planet 91 million kilometres away.

In doing so, he says he is creating an atmosphere, and, under current space law, is entitled to stake a claim at being the rightful owner of the martian territory.

Dr Davies says he is making it ready for sustained use, and in a court, his claim would stand up to scrutiny.

UN regulations state that to own part of a planet you have to show you have made it ready for ‘sustained use’.

But for the space-loving GP, it isn’t about being the first man on Mars. It’s about beating the world’s superpowers in a game of chess.

“It is all about the Outer Space Treaty,” he told The Daily Star. “That’s the only law that stops aggressive weapons in orbit above earth.”

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Elon Musk Breaks Silence on UFOs and Alien Tech – ‘I Have Seen No Evidence’

October 28, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Sebastian Kettley October 13, 2020 (express.co.uk)

• Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo recently asked President Trump if there are UFOs, seeing that the Pentagon has set up a UFO/UAP Task Force. Trump said: “Well I’m gonna have to check on that, I mean I’ve heard that, I heard that two days ago, so I’ll check on that. I’ll take a good, strong look at that.”

• Bartiromo then tweeted a thanks to the President, and tagged Elon Musk (pictured above) and Jeff Bezos in the tweet: “Thx @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will f/u on this. Humans want to know. Has earth been visited. @elonmusk & @JeffBezos as earth great space explorers, what do U think? Have we been visited. We will discuss tomorrow @MorningsMaria @FoxBusiness 8a.” “Earth great explorers” refers to Musk’s ownership of SpaceX and Bezos’ ownership of Blue Origin, two leading spacecraft manufacturers and operators.

• “I have seen no evidence of an advanced civilization visiting Earth,” Elon Musk replied in a tweet. “Fuzzy pics that are worse than a 7/11 security cam frame grab don’t count!” “[T]here are literally >1000 percent more cameras than 10 years ago, but still zero clear photos.”

• Musk, 49, is no stranger to controversy. In July this year, he warned that artificial intelligence threatens to overtake humanity “in less than five years”. He was also among 28 people who in 2015 signed a statement warning against “intentionally signaling other civilizations in the Milky Way”. The document, published by the Berkeley SETI Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley, was in response to SETI’s sister program, METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) actively calling out to beings in space, not just listening and observing.

• The SETI statement reads in part: “We know nothing of ETI’s (extraterrestrial Intelligence) intentions and capabilities, and it is impossible to predict whether ETI will be benign or hostile. …[I]t is likely that other communicative civilizations we encounter will be millions of years more advanced than us. …As a newly emerging technological species, it is prudent to listen before we shout. …Intentionally signaling other civilizations in the Milky Way Galaxy raises concerns from all the people of Earth, about both the message and the consequences of contact.”

• [Editor’s Note] What is more plausible? That Elon Musk travels among the world’s super-elite but has never heard about the multitude of intelligent extraterrestrial beings that have been working with the military industrial complex since the 1950s; or that Musk is a puppet of the deep state and is doing what he is told? Let’s take a closer look. Musk didn’t really say there are ‘no ETs’, just that he’s seen “no evidence” of them. This is the standard lie that the deep state has been propagating since the inception of the CIA right after the Roswell UFO crash and cover-up in 1947. This also gives Musk some wiggle room if he’s ever cornered about lying. He’s covering his bases.
Then Musk arrogantly repeats another standard deep state lie – that there are no good images or video of UFOs. Actually, there is a TON of good images and video of UFOs. (see recent ExoArticle about the 1990 Calvine UFO incident in the Scottish highlands where the photos were so good that the British government has refused to released them until 2070.) But the deep state wants people to think there are no compelling photos.

Another deep state tactic is to keep people afraid of unknown hostile extraterrestrials. The Berkeley SETI Research Center and the University of California, Berkeley are well-known deep state institutions. The deep state created METI, just as they did SETI, and used it to instill fear in the minds of the public. Elon Musk was right in line to sign this SETI statement of hostile aliens, even though he claims not to believe in aliens.

Finally, Musk is at the forefront of alerting/alarming the public about artificial intelligence taking over the planet. These are all fear tactics that the deep state employs to convert the benign extraterrestrial presence into an extraterrestrial enemy, and that the people of Earth can only turn to the deep state to save them from this existential threat. This is simply a new manufactured threat to humanity, replacing the old “Cold War” threat which the deep state concocted in the 1940’s when they labeled the Soviet Union/Russia as the bogeyman.

SPACEX boss Elon Musk has shot down conspiracy theorists and UFO truthers, saying there is no convincing evidence alien extraterrestrials have ever visited our planet.

Elon Musk, 49, is no stranger to controversy and he has been responsible for some bizarre statements over the years. In July this year, he warned artificial intelligence threatens to overtake humanity “in less than five years”. He has also co-signed a document warning of the consequences of recklessly attempting to contact alien civilisations beyond our solar system.

And yet, it appears as though the South African tech mogul behind SpaceX and Tesla draws the line at one thing: reports of UFOs visiting our planet.

In a series of revealing tweets, Mr Musk shared exactly what he thinks about unverified sightings and “fuzzy pics” of supposed alien spacecraft.

His comments were prompted by Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo asking the US President Donald Trump about reports the US Department of Defense has set up a UFO task force.

When asked outright if there are UFOs, President Trump said: “Well I’m gonna have to check on that, I mean I’ve heard that, I heard that two days ago, so I’ll check on that.

“I’ll take a good, strong look at that, but I will tell you this, we now have created a military the likes of which we have never had before.”
Ms Bartiromo then tweeted the President’s response to Mr Musk and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and Blue Origin.

She tweeted: “Thx @POTUS @realDonaldTrump will f/u on this. Humans want to know. Has earth been visited. @elonmusk & @JeffBezos as earth great space explorers, what do U think?

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Pentagon Taps Elon Musk’s SpaceX to Track Hypersonic Weapons from Space

October 28, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Nolan Peterson October 6, 2020 (wearethemighty.com)

• The US Department of Defense has awarded Elon Musk’s ‘Space X’ a $149 million contract to build satellites to track hypersonic missiles, as part of the Space Development Agency’s planned “mega-constellation” of weapons-tracking satellites. Both SpaceX and L3 Harris Technologies Inc. will produce four satellites for the Pentagon each. The satellites will be equipped with ‘wide field of view’ ‘overhead persistent infrared’ (OPIR) sensors.

• The commercial-built satellites will form the first layer of a planned surveillance network to track hypersonic missiles. Under the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture, the US will put into orbit a constellation of hundreds of satellites, primarily in low Earth orbit, to track maneuverable hypersonic missiles — a weapons technology currently under development by both Russia and China.

• In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new weapons that he touted would be able to defeat US missile defense systems. Among those new weapons was the ‘Avangard’ hypersonic glide vehicle, supposedly capable of flying at Mach 27. The Avangard reportedly went operational in December.

• In August, China tested a ballistic missile capable of carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle. The flight paths of intercontinental ballistic missiles can be easily predicted after launch. Hypersonic missiles, however, can be steered in flight, making them much harder to track and a more evasive mark for anti-missile defense systems.

• Some experts warn that the Pentagon’s ‘Hypersonic and Ballistic Missile Tracking Space Sensor’ program doesn’t have enough funding and is plagued with challenges when it comes to integrating with other missile defense systems and linking to advanced interceptors and directed energy weapons.

• The US Space Force already possesses missile-tracking satellites in high geosynchronous orbits. The new satellites will operate from much lower orbits and will therefore have a comparatively limited field of view, requiring the creation of a constellation of satellites that can effectively hand off tracking responsibilities as they follow the flight path of a hypersonic weapon from horizon to horizon.

• SpaceX and L3 Harris are expected to deliver their first of eight satellites by fall of 2022. Initial operating capability is expected by 2024. The entire missile-tracking constellation is planned for completion by 2026.

• SpaceX has already launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Dragon capsule, powered into orbit by the company’s Falcon 9 rocket. It marked America’s return to active spaceflight operations after a nine-year hiatus following the last space shuttle flight in 2011. SpaceX was recently selected by the Space Force to carry out national security space launch missions over the next five years. SpaceX’s Starlink program is currently creating a mega-constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit to provide global broadband coverage for high-speed internet access. SpaceX anticipates Starlink will achieve “near global coverage of the populated world by 2021.”

SpaceX has won a $149 million Department of Defense contract to build satellites to track hypersonic missiles, marking the first government contract for building such equipment for Elon Musk’s groundbreaking commercial spaceflight company.

As part of the Space Development Agency’s planned “mega-constellation” of weapons-tracking satellites, both SpaceX and L3 Harris Technologies Inc. will produce four satellites for the Pentagon to track hypersonic weapons. The L3 Harris contract to build its four satellites is reportedly valued at $193 million.

The eight commercially produced satellites will be equipped with wide field of view (WFOV) overhead persistent infrared (OPIR) sensors. Those satellites will form the first layer of a planned surveillance network to track hypersonic missiles.

Under the Space Development Agency’s National Defense Space Architecture, the US will put into orbit a constellation of hundreds of satellites, primarily in low Earth orbit, to track maneuverable hypersonic missiles — a weapons technology currently under development by both Russia and China.

In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled new weapons that he touted would be able to defeat US missile defense systems. Among those new weapons was the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, supposedly capable of flying at Mach 27. The Avangard reportedly went operational in December.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

We’ll Find Intelligent Aliens ‘Within Our Lifetimes’ in Discovery That Will ‘Shake Humanity’, Says Expert

August 19, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Harry Pettit August 9, 2020 (thesun.co.uk)

• Armenian astrophysicist Dr Garik Israelian, 57 (pictured above, left, with Brian May), currently a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Canary Islands (Spain), boasts decades of experience in the field of astrophysics, and has published more than 500 scientific papers on black holes, neutron stars and more. He helped the rock band ‘Queen’ guitarist Brian May, an astrophysicist himself, complete his PhD. The pair have since set up a science festival together.

• Speaking to The Sun newspaper following last week’s launch of the Perseverance Mars rover, Dr Israelian said “I think we will discover intelligent life in our lifetime”, or at least some hard evidence of intelligent life. It will be “the kind of discovery that will shake humanity” to its very core, and force us to rethink how we look at our place in the universe,” he said.

• Even sooner – within the next decade – Dr Israelian thinks we’ll detect alien microbes, possibly on Mars. “It would be quite interesting for science, but I think it would make us realize ‘life is such an incredible thing, we’d better take care of what we’re doing on our own planet’.”

• Dr Israelian gives the Perseverance Mars rover a ten percent chance of finding alien microbes on the Red Planet. The $2.1 billion rover will land on the Martian surface in February and proceed to dig up hunks of soil and rock in search of alien microbes. Many top scientists believe Mars was home to tiny microbes billions of years ago and may still host life today.

• Dr Israelian thinks that the discovery of Martian microbes would bring humanity a step closer to colonizing Mars. While the colonization of Mars has been met with heavy criticism, Dr Israelian thinks mankind will likely turn to it when Earth’s warming climate begins to render our planet inhospitable.

• SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk thinks that ‘terraforming’ Mars could make the planet habitable. If certain gasses were released into the atmosphere it would create a greenhouse effect. Even a nuclear explosion could assist in the terraforming. With an atmosphere, Mars’ climate could return to a state in which life could flourish as it did long ago.

• Dr Israelian and Dr Brian May’s annual festival, ‘Starmus’, combines music and science and is in its ninth year. “It was a result of our never-ending discussions about science and arts,” Dr Israelian said. Professor Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox and Neil Armstrong are previous Starmus speakers. Starmus 2021 will be held in Armenia, and will mark the 50th anniversary of Mariner 9, the first Mars orbiter. It will be streamed online.

Speaking to The Sun, Armenian astrophysicist Dr Garik Israelian, 57, said he expected experts to find brainy extraterrestrials within his lifetime.

On top of that, the stargazer and friend of Queen guitarist Brian May thinks we’ll detect alien microbes – possibly on Mars – within the next decade.

The shock discoveries would shake humanity to its very core, and force us to rethink how we look at our place in the universe, he said.

“I think we will discover intelligent life in our lifetime,” Dr Israelian told The Sun.

“At least, we will find clear signatures [evidence of life] that have come from intelligent life. It’s the kind of discovery that will shake humanity.”

He added: “It would be quite interesting for science, but I think it would make us realise ‘life is such an incredible thing, we’d better take care of what we’re doing on our own planet’.”

Dr Israelian boasts decades of experience in the field of astrophysics and has published more than 500 scientific papers on black holes, neutron stars and more.

The famed space-master helped rocker May, an astrophysicist himself, complete his PhD and the pair have since set up a science festival together.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

House Lawmakers Propose Navy Ranks for Space Force

August 3, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Oriana Pawlyk July 21, 2020 (military.com)

• A House of Representatives amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, as proposed by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, would have the Space Force adopt the Navy’s ranks and structure. On July 20th, the House approved the proposed amendment to the NDAA legislation, and the vote on the overall bill is pending.

• Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said that “a good reason to use Navy ranks in the Space Force is to better distinguish [Space Force] personnel from Air Force personnel, kind of like [the Marine Corps] using different ranks than the Navy.”

• Retired Lt. Col. Peter Garretson said that a naval command structure would align with strategic similarities space operations have to laws of the sea. “In maritime theory, navies exist in order to secure commerce,” he said. The space domain has evolved beyond putting equipment in orbit to fostering free movement for commercial purposes, much like ocean shipping routes. Businessmen such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are now monetizing the domain and even plan to create space colonies. “Once that happens,” said Garretson, “it starts to look a lot more like naval power.”

• Last month, Space Force announced how its personnel will be organized. The service will operate with three primary field commands: Space Operations Command which will support combatant commanders with Space Force personnel and capabilities; Space Systems Command which will acquire space systems from industry; and Space Training and Readiness Command which will be responsible for training space professionals.

• Other pending Space Force decisions include uniform updates, insignia and a logo design. Officials are also deciding what to call its members.

House lawmakers have signed off on a proposal calling for the military’s sixth branch to adopt the Navy’s ranks and structure.

The amendment to the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, proposed by Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, would require the Space Force to use “the same system and rank structure as is used in the Navy,” according to a summary of the text. Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, medically retired as a lieutenant commander.

The House approved proposed amendments to the NDAA legislation in a 336-71 vote Monday; it is expected to vote on the overall bill this week.
“A good reason to use Navy ranks in the Space Force is to better distinguish [Space Force] personnel from Air Force personnel, kind of like [the Marine Corps] using different ranks than the Navy,” Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said last week via Twitter.

Harrison had previously told Military.com that Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, head of the Space Force, getting the title of “chief of space operations” is similar to the Navy’s “chief of naval operations” role — hinting that the newest branch of the military could follow in the Navy’s footsteps.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Mouse on SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket, or Frozen Oxygen?

June 5, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Yash Tripathi June 1, 2020 (republicworld.com)

• On May 30th, American astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, created history by blasting off into space via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Millions of people from across the world were glued to the live stream of the ‘spectacular’ launch of US astronauts from American soil for the first time in nine years. It was a proud moment for Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, which is now the first private company to send a craft to space.

• While the world was watching, a mouse was seen walking on the carrier. One internet user posted a short clip showing the small animal walking around the fuselage. (see 41-second video below)

• The person posting the clip on Twitter said, “Looks like a mouse hitchhiked a ride on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket launch today!” “The mouse showed a truly amazing ability to withstand heat!” Many people who saw the ‘mouse’ walking on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket find it unbelievable. Some have said it is frozen oxygen dripping from an engine. Others say it is a flat-out fake. Neither NASA nor SpaceX have commented. The mouse appears to be walking around freely despite the heat and the laws of gravity.

• [Editor’s Note] If you look closely at the original footage of the image, you can see several more of these “mice” coming from the bag-like component and falling away before the mouse appears walking back and forth.

SpaceX has become the first private organisation to send a spacecraft to space. Two US astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, created history by blasting off into space with the NASA-SpaceX Crew Dragon launch on May 30, but they are not alone in the vast space. According to reports, a mighty mouse was seen on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule’s fuselage. A video has surfaced on the internet and has everyone shocked.

Is there a mouse on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket?

Millions of people across the world were glued to the live stream of the ‘spectacular’ launch of US astronauts from American soil for the first time in nine years. It was a proud moment for Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, which is now the first private company to send a craft to space. While the world was watching America create history, the mouse was seen walking on the carrier. One of the internet users posted the short clip showing the small animal running and walking around the fuselage.

41 second video of ‘mouse-like’ movements on the Falcon 9 launch booster (‘Salman’ YouTube)

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

NASA Sets Out Its Red Lines for 2024 Moon Landing

May 28, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by John Varge May 16, 2020 (express.co.uk)

• The ‘Artemis Program’ is NASA’s project – supported by other international space programs and private companies – to establish a permanent human settlement on the Moon by 2028, beginning by landing two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024. On May 15th, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords (see here). NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: “Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon. We go, together.”

• NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.” This vision is in accordance with the “peaceful purposes only” principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the founding document of international space law, which has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the US.

• The Accords seek to ensure no “harmful interference” by one nation in the off-Earth affairs of another, and to publicly disclose their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data. Artemis partners pledge to protect historic sites and artefacts on the Moon and other cosmic locales, as well as to help minimize space-junk.

• Private Moon landers will begin to ferry NASA science and technology experiments to the lunar surface next year. The Accords also cover the space mining of resources on the Moon, Mars and asteroids conducted under the auspices of the Outer Space Treaty. Moon landers will be built by commercial companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. SpaceX is currently developing its huge ‘Starship’ vehicle to help colonize Mars. Starship will launch atop a huge rocket called ‘Super Heavy’, but will land on, and launch off of, the Moon and Mars on its own. Other companies awarded contracts, worth a total of $967 million for 10 months of work, are Blue Origin and Dynetics.

• NASA’s Jim Bridenstine said, “This is the first time since the Apollo era that NASA has direct funding for a human landing system, and now we have companies on contract to do the work for the Artemis program.” “America is moving forward with the final step needed to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024,” including the first woman set foot on the lunar surface.

The US Space Agency has always recognised that international cooperation will be vital if its Artemis programme is to succeed. Artemis is the ambitious project to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024, as a precursor to establishing a permanent human lunar settlement by 2028. On Friday, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords, which stress the peaceful nature of its exploration.

In a tweet, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote: “It’s a new dawn for space exploration!

**NASA’s Jim Bridenstine and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, doing his famous ‘Zoolander’ impression**

“Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon.

“We go, together.”

In accordance with principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.”

The outer Space Treaty (OST) is the founding document of international space law.

It has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the United States and other leading space powers.

The OTS stipulates that space exploration should be carried out for peaceful purposes only.

Artemis partners will also be required to be completely transparent about their activities, which means publicly disclosing their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data.

The Accords also cover space mining, which NASA sees as key to humanity’s exploration efforts over the long haul.

NASA officials said the ability to extract and use resources on the moon, Mars and even asteroids would be critical “to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development”.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Tom Cruise Plans to Shoot the First Movie in Space

May 15, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Philip Ellis May 5, 2020 (yahoo.com)

• Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline reports that the actor, Tom Cruise, will partner with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to be the first to shoot an action movie in outer space. Cruise is reportedly in talks with NASA, although at present no studio is involved. While the film project is described as being in “the early stages of liftoff”, and there are no details available surrounding the plot of the film or its budget.

• Tom Cruise is known for going all-out and taking risks while filming, insisting on performing all of his own ‘high-octane’ stunts in his movies, even when it leads to serious injury, like the time he broke his ankle during an action sequence in Mission: Impossible – Fallout.

• SpaceX was founded by billionaire Elon Musk in 2002, with the mission of reducing the costs of transporting humanity to Mars. The organization’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is due to launch on May 27, marking SpaceX’s first ever flight with humans aboard.

Tom Cruise is known for going all-out and taking risks while filming, insisting on performing all of his own stunts in his movies, even when it leads to serious injury, like the time he broke his ankle during an action sequence in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. And it looks like he’ll soon be taking his daredevil approach to acting further than ever — where no movie star has gone before.

According to Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline, Cruise is rumored to have partnered with Elon Musk’s SpaceX on his most ambitious project to date; an action movie that would be actually be shot in outer space. Fleming writes that Cruise is already in talks with NASA, although no studio is involved at present.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Dominic Cummings Wants Britain to Build a Manned Moon Base

March 14, 2020
ExoNews Editor

Article by Ciaran McGrath March 4, 2020 (express.co.uk)

• Dominic Cummings oversees Britain’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) as a special adviser to PM Boris Johnson. To mark the 50th anniversary of Britain’s Black Arrow rocket, which launched the UK into the space age, Cummings proposes that Britain consider “projects that could bootstrap new international institutions that help solve more general coordination problems such as the risk of accidental nuclear war.” “The most obvious example of a project like this,” said Cummings, “…is a manned international lunar base.”

• Cummings referred to plans devised by George Mueller, a former associate administrator for NASA, who is credited for masterminding the Apollo missions that included a Moon base – plans that Cummings said had been “tragically abandoned” in the 1970s.

• Cummings has little faith in older institutions like the UN and the EU to deliver workable solutions to global coordination problems. He believes that such solutions will more likely emerge as byproducts of new, large projects such as developing and building a Moon base. Such a Moon base would stimulate basic science, create an infrastructure for space industrialization, and encourage cooperation between the great world powers. Says Cummings, “[S]hifting our industrial/psychological frontiers into space drastically reduces the chances of widespread destruction.”

• Back in 1969, Mueller’s plan was to establish a space station in lunar orbit as a mobile base. From there, a lunar craft would go back and forth from the orbiting station to the surface of the Moon, systematically exploring the surface. When they’ve found a suitable place, they will establish the lunar base there.

• In 2018, space entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted that he planned to build a base on the Moon by 2028.

• US Vice President Mike Pence has called on NASA to build a space platform in lunar orbit and put American astronauts on the Moon’s south pole within five years “by any means necessary”.

• Last year, Jeff Bezos of the ‘Blue Origin’ space company announced his plan to transport people to a manned lunar base by 2024. To this end, his company is working on the ‘Blue Moon’, a robotic space cargo carrier and lander for making cargo deliveries to the Moon.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the blast-off of Britain’s Black Arrow rocket, launching the UK into the space age – and with 25 percent of the world’s small telecommunications satellites currently build in Britain, the potential is plain for all to see. Mr Cummings, who is overseeing a wide-ranging Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) outlined his ideas in a blog published last June, less than a month before he was appointed Boris Johnson’s special adviser.

He wrote: “We need to consider projects that could bootstrap new international institutions that help solve more general coordination problems such as the risk of accidental nuclear war.

“The most obvious example of a project like this I can think of is a manned international lunar base which would be useful for a) basic science, b) the practical purposes of building urgently needed near-Earth infrastructure for space industrialisation, and c) to force the creation of new practical international institutions for cooperation between Great Powers.”

Mr Cummings referred to plans devised by George Mueller, NASA’s former associate administrator, and the man widely credited with masterminding the Apollo missions, for precisely such a base – plans which Mr Cummings said had been “tragically abandoned” in the 1970s.

Mr Cummings, who was campaign director for Vote Leave, had little faith in Brussels to deliver workable solutions.

He said: “The old institutions like the UN and EU – built on early 20th Century assumptions about the performance of centralised bureaucracies – are incapable of solving global coordination problems.

“It seems to me more likely that institutions with qualities we need are much more likely to eme

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE