Tag: india

Space Force Developing Offensive Capabilities in Space

Article by Frank Wolfe                                       October 19, 2020                                   (satellitetoday.com)

• In 1958, the United States was the first nation to test an ‘Anti-Satellite’ (ASAT) weapon, launched from a bomber. Since then, Russia, China, and India have demonstrated their abilities to destroy orbiting satellites as well. US Air Force and Space Force officials have largely promoted the resilience and redundancy of US space assets and protecting them from enemy attacks. At last year’s Space Symposium, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein stated, “If …your country is interested in participating in manned spaceflight, then you should not be …creating (a) risk to manned spaceflight. So demonstrating any capability that would create more (dangerous space) debris, in my mind, is a step in the wrong direction.”

• That type of thinking may have changed in 2007 when the Chinese demonstrated their anti-satellite weaponry on one of their own satellites, creating a swarm of space debris. “That was a clarifying event,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations. “I can almost chart from there the establishment of the Space Force, because suddenly space was contested.” “[T]hat kinetic attack on a satellite really shook the foundations that this is no longer a benign environment, and we started asking the questions about are we properly structured and organized and doing the right kinds of things to be able to maintain our advantage.”

• “[T]o some degree, the aggressive behavior of our competitors has clarified what we need to do as a nation and in the Department of Defense,” Saltzman continued. “They awoke the great giant that is the United States. [W]e are now moving rapidly toward developing capability to ensure that we maintain that strategic advantage…for a long time.” “I think the best defense sometimes is a good offense.”

• In April, after Russia tested a direct-ascent ASAT, John “Jay” Raymond, the Space Force’s chief of space operations, called it “further proof of Russia’s hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control proposals designed to restrict the capabilities of the United States, while clearly having no intention of halting their counter-space weapons programs.”

• A recent ‘Roadmap for Assessing Space Weapons’ report from Aerospace Corporation‘s Center for Space Policy and Strategy said that the U.S. should not rush headlong into the development of new space weapons. “To avoid Russia and China imposing unnecessary costs on the United States, US decisions on space weapons should not be made simply in reaction to China and Russia’s space weaponization. US decisions on space weapons require an exhaustive comparative analysis of the value to US national security to develop, build, and deploy any type of space weapon, and the downsides to such a decision. Is the United States better off with or without space weapons of any type? …The analysis might lead to a conclusion that certain types of weapons or certain functions of such weapons are advantageous while others are not.”

 

 Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein

The U.S was the first nation to test Anti-Satellite (ASAT) weapons in 1958 with bomber-launched ASATs, and three other nations have demonstrated the ability to destroy orbiting satellites — Russia, China, and, most recently, India, with a test in March last year. Officials from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force have largely confined themselves to talking about building the resilience and redundancy of U.S. space assets and protecting them from enemy attacks, such as ASATs.

At last year’s Space Symposium, Air Force leaders discussed space deterrence through a lens of rapid response to adversary actions, and then Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein told Via Satellite sister publication Defense Daily that an ASAT test “absolutely isn’t the way” to demonstrate a space deterrent capability.

  Air Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman

“If you take the long view and your country is interested in participating in manned spaceflight, then you should not be contributing in any way, shape or form to creating risk to manned spaceflight,” he said. “So demonstrating any capability that would create more debris, in my mind, is a step in the wrong direction.”

That thinking may be changing.

                John “Jay” Raymond

“I was on the ops floor in 2007 when the Chinese shot their own satellite down,” Air Force Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Space Force’s deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, said during an Oct. 16 Aerospace Nation forum sponsored by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “That was a clarifying event, and I can almost chart from there the establishment of the Space Force because suddenly space was contested.”

“We knew there was other kinds of [space] contesting going on, but that kinetic attack on a satellite really shook the foundations that this is no longer a benign environment, and we started asking the questions about are we properly structured and organized and doing the right kinds of things to be able to maintain our advantage,” Saltzman said.

“And so, to some degree, the aggressive behavior of our competitors has clarified what we need to do as a nation and in the Department of Defense,” he said. “They awoke the great giant that is the United States, and we are now moving rapidly toward developing capability to ensure that we maintain that strategic advantage. We’re going to be able to compete in that area for a long time.”

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Space Force Needs to Prepare for a Cold War in Earth’s Orbit

 

Article by Luke Dormehl                            March 14, 2020                           (digitaltrends.com)

• The United States launched Explorer 1, its first satellite, into space on January 31, 1958. Since then we have ramped up our reliance on these orbiting objects with every passing year. Today, there are over 2,000 active satellites in orbit belonging to both governments and private industry with more going up all the time.

• Three-star US Air Force Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, who retired in July 2017, is worried about satellites. He’s not worried about the tremendously increasing number of satellites in Earth’s orbit. He’s worried about other nations’ capabilities to disable them or knock them out of orbit. Says Bogden, “Space is a new warfighting domain. Our job is to try and help the Department of Defense to become space warfighters.”

• One of the greatest threats to American satellite assets is the new ‘hunter-killer satellites’. These can fire jets of plasma to blast objects out of orbit. They are claimed to be useful in cleaning up space junk – shooting at an inactive satellite until it eventually disintegrates in the Earth’s atmosphere. But a hunter-killer satellites can also knock an active satellite from its designated orbit, rendering it useless. Bogden says that these hunter-killer have already been deployed by rival nations into space.

• Bogden is also concerned about foreign satellites getting too close to our satellites, or even smashing into them – called a “conjunction” of satellites. But hunter-killer satellites can also disrupt an active satellite by merely getting close to it, disrupting its maneuverability and its electro-magnetic field.

• Another threat involves anti-satellite missiles fired from the ground. China, India, and Russia have all demonstrated such weapons as a show of force.

• Knocking out satellites has the potential for massive damage. From a military perspective, satellites carry out worldwide sensing and imaging, and space-based communications, which are crucial for global voice and data communications on Earth. We also rely on satellites for GPS, or the global positioning system. Loss of these capabilities, says Bogden, could put America at an enormous ‘warfighting disadvantage’.

• For example, in January 2015, the US Air Force took just one of its GPS satellites offline. Somehow a fractionally wrong time was accidentally uploaded to the remaining satellites and caused twelve hours of severe problems. Global telecommunications networks were compromised. Police, fire and EMS radio equipment in parts of the US stopped working. BBC digital radio was knocked out for a couple of days for many people. And an anomaly was detected on electrical power grids. All from a time discrepancy of just thirteen-millionths of a second. If several satellites were disabled, it would be nothing short of a disaster.

• To avoid this type of scenario, we rely on a 1967 ‘Outer Space Treaty’ among Russia, Britain and the United States that provides guideline in settling disputes regarding the allocation of resources in space, and a 1963 treaty prohibiting nuclear explosions in outer space. But sixty years ago we didn’t consider space a ‘war-fighting domain’ as we do today. As Bogden says, “[W]e felt that no-one would [ever] threaten our space assets.”

• [Editor’s Note]  Just like our electric grid and the internet, we are completely dependent on the 2218 satellites currently orbiting our planet (that we know of). And the world’s military and commercial titans are just starting to ramp up the number of satellites that will be deployed in the near future. The Pentagon has announced a National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA) satellite constellation consisting of seven layers of military capabilities. The first layer alone will deploy hundreds of satellites. (see Exoarticle here) The US, Russia and India all have its own GPS navigation system satellite constellations. (see Techworm article here) And one of the Pentagon’s NDSA layers will be an entirely new back-up GPS system. Yet all of these government satellites will be dwarfed by the commercial use of satellites in the future. Elon Musk alone plans to deploy up to 45,000 internet satellites in a SpaceX Starlink mega constellation. It’s no wonder that the Pentagon’s ‘first offensive space weapon’ is a ground-based satellite communications jamming system. (see The Drive/The Warzone article here)

Of course, this ‘modern’ anti-satellite weapons technology is primitive compared to what we truly have in space already, unknown to the vast majority of the world. It appears that the deep state will use a new military space race as their next Cold War distraction from what is really going on. Still, our inexorable encroachment into space only increases the odds that the secret space programs and the ubiquitous extraterrestrial presence will have to reveal itself to the world.

 

“The bottom line,” said retired three-star general Chris Bogdan, “is that we want to learn how to fight in space. Just as we know how to fight on air, land, sea, and, in some respects, in cyberspace. Space is a new warfighting domain. Our job is to try and help the Department of Defense to become space warfighters.”

Bogdan knows a thing or two about militarized combat. Over a 34-year career in the U.S. Air Force, Bogdan rose from a test pilot, flying no less than

   Lieutenant General (ret) Chris Bogdan

30 different aircraft types, to the rank of lieutenant general. For the last five years of his career, before he retired in July 2017, he was program executive officer for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program for the Air Force, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and 11 allied nations. He has one of those grizzled, no-nonsense voices which suggests that he has forgotten more about warfighting before breakfast that day than you’ve ever known in your entire life. On balance, that’s probably not a bad guess.

                  a hunter-killer satellite

Right now, Chris Bogdan is worried about satellites. But not for the same reason that many people are. Recently, satellites have gotten a bum rap. Astronomers have sounded the alarm regarding the plan of individuals like Elon Musk to launch enormous, sky-blotting mega-constellations of satellites. Bogdan doesn’t seem to be so tied up in knots about extra stuff being shot into space, however. Instead, he’s far more concerned about the stuff that’s already in space being shot down. Or, at least, being tampered with.

He’s particularly uneasy about things called hunter-killer satellites, deployed by one of the United States’ “pure adversaries,” being used to screw with America’s network of “space assets.”

A new kind of threat

A hunter-killer satellite represents a new kind of threat. In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2018, researchers from the Australian National University describe a hunter-killer satellite that can fire jets of plasma to blast objects out of orbit. They suggested that such a satellite could be used to help clean up space junk; shooting it down until it eventually disintegrates in Earth’s atmosphere. But such a tool could be used for more malicious purposes as well. A hunter-killer satellite might damage or purposely knock off-course a crucial active satellite, thereby negatively impacting its ability to operate.

“What we’re most concerned about is what we call conjunction,” Bogdan said. “That’s a space term describing two things colliding in space. But you don’t need to actually hit something in space to affect it or reduce its capability. You can fly a hunter-killer satellite close enough to a satellite that you can disrupt maneuvering or its electro-magnetic field to do a host of different things.”

How far away from deployment does he think these hunter-killer satellites, developed by those who don’t have America’s best interests at heart, might be? “I believe they’ve already been deployed,” he said.

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UFOs Responsible for Chandrayaan Failure

Listen to “E104 9-22-19 UFOs Responsible for Chandrayaan Failure” on Spreaker.
Article by Denzil Rithesh D’Souza                       September 8, 2019                        (asianage.com/india)

• [On September 6th, India’s Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander was scheduled to land near the South Pole of the Moon. At the last minute, it deviated off course and crashed. The cause for the crash is still unresolved.]

• Sabir Hussain, a Chennai based independent researcher on UFO sightings and director of the Indian Society for UFO Studies, believes the loss of communication and telemetry was no accident but a warning from extraterrestrials. Said Sabir, “UFO researchers around the world believe that the extraterrestrials have sent a message to the Indian government to ‘get rid of your nukes before you explore other worlds’.” “Why do you think the Americans refused to go to the Moon after 1973?”

• “[T]he failure of Chandrayaan 2 is not at all surprising to me,” says Sabir. “Both India and Pakistan have been openly threatening each other with nuclear attacks. But what the leadership of both these nations do not realize is that they can use their nuclear weapons only if the UFOs decide to allow them.”

• Former US Air Force Missile Launch Officer, Robert Salas, witnessed a UFO switching off ten nuclear missiles under his command in 1967, and concurs with Sabir. Salas noted that Mr Hussain cited numerous instances and statements to support his claim of alien interference in the world ‘s nuclear affairs. Said Salas, “Astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, has openly stated that aliens have already visited earth. US astronaut, Gordon Cooper in his 1978 letter to the UN has acknowledged it. Mercury Seven astronaut, Donald Slayton, has described seeing a three feet wide UFO from his P-51 fighter jet at an altitude of 10,000 feet in 1951.”

• Soviet cosmonaut and Soyuz-5 spacecraft pilot, Yevegni Khrunov, cosmonaut, Vladimir Kovalyonok and cosmonaut, major general Pavel Popovich have also acknowledged UFO sightings, one of them on May 5, 1981 from the Salyut-6 space station.

• Sabir says that in 2014-2015, the UFOs were toying with American nuclear aircraft carriers, Theodore Roosevelt and Nimitz. “UFOs are very concerned about humans playing with nuclear weapons.”

• [Editor’s Note]  See more on Sabir Hussain in ExoNews article: “The War Strategist’s Guide to the Galaxy”.

 

While the reasons for the failure of India’s Chandrayaan-2 programme are still being studied, some bizarre theories on what could have led to it are already making the rounds – extra terrestrials interfering with the moon landing!

Mr Sabir Hussain, a Chennai based independent researcher on UFO sightings and director of the Indian Society for UFO Studies (INSUFOS) believes the loss of communication that Isro scientists suffered with the Vikram lander just before it was to land on the moon’s surface was no accident but a warning from extra terrestrials.

                          Sabir Hussain

” You will not be allowed to land on the moon unless ‘they’ decide to allow you. The Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) researchers around the world believe that the extra terrestrials have sent a message to the Indian government to ‘get rid of your nukes before you explore other worlds’,” he said.

“As a researcher studying the UFO-Nuclear Weapons, the failure of Chandrayaan 2 is not at all surprising to me,” Mr Hussain added in a chat with the Deccan Chronicle.

“Recently some Indian ministers have been making very irresponsible and dangerous statements on the use of nuclear weapons. If we had taken the warnings on UFO activity seriously, this situation could have been averted. Why do you think the Americans refused to go to the Moon after 1973?” he asked.

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The War Strategist’s Guide to the Galaxy

Listen to “E89 9-8-19 The War Strategist’s Guide to the Galaxy” on Spreaker.
Article by Denzil Rithesh D’Souza                    August 25, 2019                  (deccanchronicle.com)

• On June 11th, 2019, the Director of the Indian Society for UFO Studies, Sabir Husain, filed a “Public Interest Litigation” pleading directly to the Supreme Court of India, asking that the court direct the Indian government to take UFO sightings seriously, and to form an organization to keep tabs on extraterrestrial activities. During this time of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan over the region of Kashmir, Sabir warns that the primary threat to India is that extraterrestrial UFOs have been known to intentionally incite attacks between terrestrial enemies by posing as an enemy aircraft or initiating a cyber-attack, in order to provoke or escalate a war.

• In the Public Interest Litigation filing, Sabir cites a February 26, 2019 incident which caused an air strike against Pakistan, the downing of an Indian fighter jet, and the loss of an Indian helicopter by friendly fire as an example of possible UFO interference. In what is known as the ‘Balakot airstrike’, an Indian fighter jet was shot down over Pakistan after Indian fighter jets had bombed an area near the Pakistani town of Balakot. Sabir claims that the Indian jet was actually trying to shoot down a Pakistani drone. But when the Indian pilots encountered the drone, it suddenly changed course and disappeared. Pakistan later denied having a drone in the area.

• Hours later on February 27th, an Indian military helicopter was returning to base when its radar transponder failed to identify the helicopter as ‘friendly’, and the Indian base shot it down with a missile killing six officers on board. Sabir suspects that extraterrestrials caused the transponder interference to provoke further action by the Indian military against Pakistan.

• Sabir argues that extraterrestrial UFO provocation between earthly enemies is not unprecedented. In 1972, UFOs appearing on radar nearly triggered a war between the United States and the USSR. The two countries later signed a treaty in which they recognized the presence of UFOs and agreed to carefully analyze an aircraft violating a country’s airspace before ordering a retaliation.

• Sabir notes that UFOs were reported in the vicinity of US military bases in 1945, and since then UFOs have been seen over many other nuclear sites around the world. “The extraterrestrials can remotely control the earth’s nuclear assets, trigger a missile or even deactivate or render them defunct…” says Sabir.

• UFO sightings have been reported along the Indo-Pak border since 1977. Sabir claims that forty other countries are currently on guard against UFOs. He urges the Indian government to create a special agency to monitor UFO activity as well. “The (American) CIA’s secrecy surrounding extraterrestrial findings has created a false perception that UFOs are a myth,” says Sabir. “We need to take seriously the substantiated reports (of UFOs).” “[N]uclear destruction can happen in a minute if aliens manipulate tensions.”

• Sabir’s Public Interest Litigation filing references the support of nine military officers and scientists from the US, UK, France, Chile and Peru, with seven of them writing directly to the Supreme Court of India. Researchers from thirty countries are lined up to testify before India’s Supreme Court.

• Finally, Sabir noted the many UFO sightings reported around India. On July 16, 2019, locals in southern Tamil Nadu reported seeing numerous UFOs above the Rocket Propulsion Research Center. The government dismissed them as drone cameras. But when the facility shined spotlights on these ‘drones’, they immediately disappeared. On June 7, 2018, a UFO was seen hovering above the Parliament of India. On September 17, 2017, a UFO was sighted above the Indian Prime Minister’s residence. In 2013, Indian soldiers reported seeing hundreds of UFOs entering Indian air space from China over a period of a few months. Indian scientists blamed these hundreds of sightings on the planets Jupiter and Venus.

• July 1976 was the year of the first UFO sighting reported in India, where a flying saucer was seen along the Indo-Pak border. The pilots of the two MIG-21 fighter jets that were sent to engage with the saucer said that it “zipped away” at a speed of 4,170 kilometers per hour (or 2,600 miles per hour). On January 11, 1977, three UFOs reportedly circled around an Indian Air Force transport jet in mid-air for some time. On July 16, 1977, an Air India 747 was about to land on the Kolkata Dum Dum Airport runway when a UFO, the same size as the jumbo aircraft, came head on towards it. The pilot braced for a collision but the UFO disappeared.

• As a veteran UFO researcher of 20 years, Sabir told the Deccan Chronicle that, “India needs to take the reported UFO sightings more seriously. Further ignorance can cause irreversible damage to India-Pakistan-China in the form of nuclear wars triggered by decoy UFOs. The extraterrestrials are manipulating drone wars between India and Pakistan forces.”

 

“Wars are not merely because of the earthly border politics but also due to smart sabotages by greater extraterrestrial forces from beyond the globe.”

Have we got your attention yet? “The attacks from either side of the enemy countries are sabotaged by means of radar and detection-proof Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) transponderless Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) manipulated from beyond the globe… The UFOs are found hovering over nuclear reactors or missile areas, military bases … the extraterrestrials can remotely control the earth’s nuclear assets, trigger a missile or even deactivate or render them defunct…”

                          Sabir Hussain

Sounds like something out of a sci-fi film, doesn’t it? It is an excerpt, in fact, from a PIL filed with the Supreme Court of India on June 11 this year, by Chennai-based independent researcher on UFO sightings by Sabir Husain, Director of the Indian Society for UFO Studies (INSUFOS). He asks, in his plea, that the court direct the government to take UFO sightings seriously and form an organisation to keep tabs on extraterrestrial activities.”

The PIL has references to nine military officers and scientists from five countries-US, UK, France, Chile and Peru, seven of them writing directly to the Supreme Court of India. There is even a reference to Nuclear Physicist Stanton Friedman, who wrote the foreword for Hussain’s forthcoming book, ‘Accidental UFO Apocalypse’. The current Director-General of the Chile UFO Research Agency has also promised to write about the phenomenon and its implications on the Indo-Pak relationship. The PIL says 30 countries are ready to testify before the court! Sabir Hussain is the only representative selected from India to approach UN with a delegation from 30 countries and is supported by the Chinese government, said Hussain.

Balakot strikes

Sabir Hussain has extensively researched UFO sightings over the last 20 years. He tells Deccan Chronicle, “India needs to take the reported UFO sightings more seriously. Further ignorance can cause irreversible damage to India-Pakistan-China in the form of nuclear wars triggered by decoy UFOs. The extra terrestrials are manipulating drone wars between India and Pakistan forces, which also impacted the strikes in Balakot.”

Sabir analysed his observations in India with regard to UFO sightings from the latest in Indo-Pak border to the reported beginning in 1977. He also drew analogy with the sightings since its first reported instance in US military base in 1945 and later in different countries depending on their nuclear upgrades.

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Triangular Entity With Bright-Glowing Light Spotted in Skies

by Nirmal Narayanan                  June 3, 2019                   (ibtimes.co.in)

• A video from ‘Sharad Acharya’ in India shows a glowing, triangular-shaped UFO in the sky. “This is something different. This is not the sun. I believe this is not a UFO, this is something else,” says the eyewitness in the video.

• YouTube conspiracy theorists argued that Planet Nibiru (alias ‘Wormwood’) has now appeared in the skies and is now on a collision course towards the earth. Others say it is an alien spaceship from deep space. So-called “experts” dismiss it altogether, saying that the strange structure is the result of the sun’s rays penetrating through the clouds.

 

A strange and mysterious clip apparently taken from India is now the hottest debating point among conspiracy theorists and alien enthusiasts. This short video clip initially shared on YouTube by a user named ‘Sharad Acharya’ shows a triangular glowing entity hovering in the skies.

“This is something different. This is not the sun. I believe this is not a UFO, this is something else,” says the eyewitness in the video.

The video later gained publicity after it was shared by conspiracy theory YouTube channel ‘Mavixxx’. As the clip went viral, conspiracy theorists started putting forward various theories explaining the bizarre sky sighting.

Most of the conspiracy theorists argued that Planet Nibiru alias wormwood has now appeared in the skies, and the earth is soon going to witness a series of natural disasters. Conspiracy theorists believe that Nibiru is a rogue killer planet that has been lurking at the edges of the solar system, and it is now on a collision course towards the earth.

1 minute video of triangular fireball in the Indian sky (Sharad Acharya)

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Trump’s NASA Pivot

by Marina Koren        October 7, 2017        (theatlantic.com)

• Trump wants to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020, shifting the focus away from Obama’s Mars agenda.

• Trump wants to establish a lunar base, or an orbiting “cislunar” base, before heading to Mars.

• Mars proponents worry that we’ll get stuck on the Moon.

• India’s space program plans to visit the Moon next year.

• Both Russia and China plan to visit the Moon by the 2030’s.

• The European Space Agency envisions building a “moon village.”

• NASA wants to send the Lunar Rover to the back-side of the Moon.

• They all might be very surprised by what they find on the dark side of the Moon.

 

Rumors that the Trump administration was more interested in the moon than Mars began circulating days after the inauguration. Leaked memos published in February revealed the president’s advisers wanted NASA to send astronauts there by 2020, one part in a bigger plan to focus on activities near Earth rather than missions deeper in the solar system. Vice President Mike Pence spoke vaguely of a return to the moon in a speech in July. In September, the administration nominated a NASA chief who extolled the construction of lunar outposts. All signs pointed to a significant shift in the country’s Mars-focused space agenda of the last seven years.

This week, the Trump administration made it official.

“We will return NASA astronauts to the moon—not only to leave behind footprints and flags, but to build the foundation we need to send Americans to Mars and beyond,” Pence said Thursday at the inaugural meeting of the National Space Council, an advisory body his administration recently revived.

The vice president’s comments marked a pivot from Barack Obama’s directive for a “Journey to Mars,” established in 2010, and harkens to the aspirations set forth by the George W. Bush administration. The Obama administration had maintained that some kind of human activity in cislunar space—the region between the Earth and the moon—was necessary to test technology for a mission to Mars, but the efforts would amount to a pit stop, not a destination. While Pence did not provide details on what kind of “foundation” Americans would build on the moon, the new direction was clear: Americans should be spending more time in their cosmic backyard before flying off into the solar system.

“It’s a 180-degree shift from no moon to moon first,” said John Logsdon, a space-policy expert and former director of the Space-Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The announcement is obviously good news for space-transportation companies and lunar researchers lamenting the country’s 45-year absence from the moon. For those in the Mars camp, many of whom aim for a human mission to the planet by 2033, the news puts their ambitions on shakier ground.

“Most of the people who are Mars-centered worry that we’ll get stuck on the moon.”

The administration’s push for a return to the moon may be unambiguous now, but plenty of questions remain, ranging from the basic, like when and how, to the intriguing, like the role commercial spaceflight companies might play. NASA also wouldn’t be starting from scratch. The space agency has spent the last decade building the Space-Launch System and Orion, a rocket and spacecraft intended to carry people into deep space but also to build a cislunar way station called the Deep-Space Gateway. NASA planned to use the Deep-Space Gateway as a place for astronauts to prep for deep-space journeys, but the new shift could see the station being used for lunar landings.

Both time-tested contractors and growing commercial companies will be eager to work on potential lunar activities. Boeing is currently developing a capsule that would ferry people into low-Earth orbit, and SpaceX said its proposed mega-rocket, which is mostly intended to fulfill Elon Musk’s Sim City-esque ambitions for Mars, could contribute to travel to the moon. Musk, well aware of the political benefits of it, leaned heavily into lunar ambitions. “It’s 2017. We should have a lunar base by now,” he said recently. “What the hell’s going on?”

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From India to Infinity

by Come Carpentier de Gourdon

The meeting attended by a large number of scholars, journalists and intellectuals (at India International Centre, New Delhi on April 18th, 2012),was opened by the chairman of Har-Anand Publlishers, Mr. Narendra Kumar Goel who asked the author of the book to make some introductory comments.

Mr Come Carpentier proceeded to outline four important themes discussed in the book:

1-India’s legacy as an eminent member of a Pan-Eurasian civilization whose origins go back at least ten thousand years and which used to be called “Indo-European” or “Aryan” but is now more accurately identified as “Eurasian” (J. Greenberg), “Paleolithic continuity” (Allinei), “Nostratic” (Holger Pedersen) or even “Anatolian” (Colin Renfrew). Sanskrit is the most complete and elaborate surviving language from that advanced very widespread and culturally rich continental civilization which gathered many different ethnic populations.

There is a great deal of evidence that such a civilization was pluralistic, inclusive and open. As its main heir enjoying uninterrupted continuity with it India has always displayed the same features and as such it provides both a platform for inter-religious and inter-national unity but also reconciles many apparently contradictory antonyms such as monotheism and polytheism, order and chaos, finite and infinity etc…

2-The scientific knowledge acquired and preserved from ancient times in India has acquired new relevance with the rise of the “new sciences” such as quantum physics, epigenetic biology, astrophysics and cybernetics which are testing and confirming some of its precepts and conclusions.

3-Politically India is seen as a potential ally but also as a challenge by the still hegemonic western, mostly Anglo-Saxon empire whose ideological basis is Judeo-Christian and which fears India’s intellectual and spiritual otherness that keep it outside the dominant materialistic-consumerist-reductionist paradigm. India’s traditional approach to scientific inquiry is similar to the method practiced by Leonardo da Vinci and escapes the institutional dogmatism that characterizes the contemporary scientific establishment.

4-India’s ancient cosmology is also finding increasingly solid support in the new vision of the universe which is emerging out of “ufological” observation and research as presented in the science of Exopolitics. Instead of being a closed system surrounded by a dead and inanimate universe, the Earth is found to be an open living planet in constant interaction with the living, biologically thriving surrounding cosmos, inhabited by many species, some of which must necessarily be far more advanced than ours. We are compelled to review our notions about mankind’s place and the structure of the world in the light of the evidence gathered in this field.

Three scholars had been invited to comment.  The first one, Dr Oscar Pujol, an eminent Sanskrit and Indological scholar from Spain who is the director of the Cervantes Institute in New Delhi (Spanish National Cultural Centre) gave a fairly detailed account of the book which he described as “mind boggling” and “refreshing” at the same time. He dwelt on the new scientific vision proposed by the book and in particular, on the notion that “Super-Human”, possibly extraterrestrial or extra-dimensional forms of intelligence are interacting with mankind in a more or less covert or surreptitious way to help us gain and take advantage of technologies which have the potential of saving both mankind and the planet from the grave crises that are engulfing them and threatening their survival. He hailed the optimism of that vision and commended the author’s willingness to brave official and academic rejection by openly discussing the theme of “aliens”. Dr Pujol concluded by saying that the western enlightenment anthropocentric approach, as opposed to the Indian traditional “biocentric” vision was technically “asuric” (demonic) because it subordinated the whole to a part. He applauded the author’s proposal for a synthesis between insight and experimentation, between knowledge and wisdom and between tradition and innovation, defined as “Cosmosophy” and meant to provide solutions to global issues.

The second discussant, Prof. Bharat Gupt, retired from Delhi University, Founder Trustee of the International Forum for India’s Heritage  expatiated further on the theme and pointed out that as an Indian scholar he was fully at home with the concept of various inhabited worlds and of many types of semi-divine and divine beings and also with the notion of cyclical time space. He acknowledged the growing evidence of Secret Government and military related R&D programs in certain countries presented in the book, about UFO-related matters and called for another Armand Assange to find and release secret documents on the matter. He also emphasized the need for scholars both in India and abroad to undertake research into those neglected aspects of traditional scholarship instead of only arguing the same tired old ethnological, linguistic or social controversies.

The third commentator, Prof. Lokesh Chandra, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Buddhist literature, art and philosophy and the Director of the International Academy of Indian Culture, continued in the same vein by pointing out that the concept of many dimensions and many universes is an inherent part of Indian cosmological and physical models and that the Hindu-Buddhist worldview is always open, indefinite, evolving and expanding. He pointed out that one of the universe’s names in Sanskrit which means “brahmanda” or “the expanding egg”. That notion of constant movement and evolution is quite different from the “Semitic” definitive and closed description of the world from beginning to end, as the book FROM INDIA TO INFINITY argues and Lokesh Chandra suggested that the authoritative faith-based profession of monotheism had opened a rift between religion and empirical reality from which Hinduism and Buddhism are both immune, at least at the metaphysical level. He ended by saying that he wished “All Indians would read this book” to understand the importance of their won heritage and the role they should play in the modern age.

Among the audience, one of the world’s most famed scientists and scientific policy-makers Prof. MGK Menon, ex-Chairman of the India International Centre who was minister of Science and Technology in India., President of the National Academy of Sciences, Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology and played many roles in global organizations, (he is currently a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) was highly appreciative of this discussion and expressed the wish that more such intellectual debates could be held. His positive general response to the exopolitical theme is to be noted. He also happens to be an uncle of the powerful National Security Adviser (NSA) of India, Dr. SS Menon.

In the question and answer session that concluded the evening no one questioned or doubted the exopolitical thesis and the underlying evidence for it. All in all, it was a very successful and well received introduction of the exopolitical theme to a sophisticated but generally uninformed audience.

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