July 23, 2021 (intelligent-aerospace.com)
• Jeff Bezos’ successful crewed Blue Origin mission on July 20th demonstrated that more and more companies are starting to realize the significance of ‘reusable rockets’ in the burgeoning space industry. New York startup iRocket is banking on its cost-effective resusable launch vehicles
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
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)
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Article by William Harwood July 12, 2021 (spaceflightnow.com)
• On Sunday July 11th at 8:40 a.m. local time at the Virgin Galactic’s ‘Spaceport America’ launch site near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson and five crewmates rocketed into space on a sub-orbital test flight intended to demonstrate his company’s air-launched spaceplane is ready for paying customers at $250,000 or more per seat, in early 2022.
• Virgin’s twin-fuselage carrier jet lifted away with the ‘VSS Unity’ rocket-powered spaceplane bolted under its wing. At about 45,000 feet the Virgin mothership, VMS Eve, disengaged the spaceplane. The Unity spaceplane then soared to an altitude just above 50 miles, giving Branson and crew about three minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere in a spiraling descent to touchdown again back at the New Mexico launch site.
• “I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid but honestly, nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space,” Branson, 70, said after landing. “It was just magical. … I’m just taking it all in, it’s unreal.”
• The flight upstaged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who plans a sub-orbital spaceflight of his own aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 2th as the two companies compete for passengers in the emerging commercial space marketplace. Bezos complimented Branson and his team, posting a note on Instagram saying “congratulations on the flight. Can’t wait to join the club!”
• Joining Branson aboard Unity were pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci, along with Virgin astronaut trainer Beth Moses, flight engineer Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla, the company’s vice president of government relations. Mackay and Masucci, both veterans of earlier test flights to space, ignited Unity’s hybrid rocket motor and piloted the spaceplane pitched up onto a near-vertical trajectory. Burning rubberized solid propellant with liquid nitrous oxide, Unity’s hybrid motor fired for about one minute, accelerating the craft to about three times the speed of sound before shutting down.
• As the spaceplane rose upward, Branson and company had a chance to briefly unstrap, float about the cabin and marvel at the spectacular view as Unity reached its maximum altitude of 53.5 miles — three-and-a-half miles above what NASA and the FAA consider the “boundary” of space where the atmosphere is so thin that wings, rudders and other aerodynamic surfaces no longer have any effect. Live video from inside the spacecraft showed Branson and his crewmates floating free of their seats and enjoying the sensation of weightlessness and the out-of-this-world view. (see 3:12 minute video below)
• “To all you kids down there, I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars,” Branson said while his crewmates floated weighlessly in the background. “Now I’m an adult, in a spaceship with lots of other wonderful adults, looking down to our beautiful, beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: If we can do this, just imagine what you can do!”
• A few moments later, the spacecraft then began the long plunge back to Earth. The pilots guided the spaceplane through a spiraling descent, lined up on Spaceport America’s 12,000-foot-long runway and settled to a picture-perfect landing, closing out a flight that lasted 59 minutes from takeoff to touchdown.
• Sunday’s launch marked Unity’s 22nd test flight, its fourth trip to space, Virgin’s first with a six-person crew on board and the first for Branson, who beat Bezos into space by nine days. Branson effectively blindsided Bezos, scheduling Sunday’s flight just ahead of the Amazon founder’s, which had already been announced. But Branson insisted again Sunday that he doesn’t view the competition as a “race” for space. “I’ve said this so many times, it really wasn’t a race,” Branson said. “We’re just delighted that everything went so fantastically well. We wish Jeff the absolute best and the people who are going up with him during his flight.”
Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson rocketed into space Sunday, an edge-of-the-
seat sub-orbital test flight intended to demonstrate his company’s air-launched spaceplane is ready for passengers who can afford the ultimate thrill ride.
And it appeared to do just that, zooming to an altitude just above 50 miles and giving Branson and his five crewmates about three minutes of weightlessness and spectacular views of Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere for a spiraling descent to touchdown at Virgin’s New Mexico launch site.
“I have dreamt of this moment since I was a kid but honestly, nothing could prepare you for the view of Earth from space,” Branson, 70, said after landing, at a rare loss
for words. “It was just magical. … I’m just taking it all in, it’s unreal.”
The flight effectively upstaged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who plans a sub-orbital spaceflight of his own aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft on July 20 as the two companies compete for passengers in the emerging commercial space marketplace.
Bezos complimented Branson and his team after landing, posting a note to Instagram saying “congratulations on the flight. Can’t wait to join the club!”
Branson’s trip began in dramatic fashion as Virgin’s twin-fuselage carrier jet — with the VSS Unity rocket-powered spaceplane bolted under its wing — lifted away from the company’s Spaceport America launch site near Truth or Consequences, New
Mexico, at 8:40 a.m. local time (10:40 a.m. EDT).
Joining the globe-trotting billionaire aboard Unity were pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci, along with Virgin astronaut trainer Beth Moses, flight engineer Colin Bennett and Sirisha Bandla, the company’s vice president of government relations.
With a throng of reporters and a global audience following along on YouTube and across Virgin’s social media channels, the Virgin mothership VMS Eve slowly climbed to an altitude of about 45,000 feet and then, after a final round of safety checks, released Unity high above the New Mexico desert.
3:12 minute video of Richard Branson and crews’ excursion into space (‘Virgin Galactic’ YouTube)
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Article from CBS News April 14, 2021 (wsgw.com)
• On April 14th, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin took another step toward sending passengers into space with the launch of the fifteenth unpiloted New Shepard rocket in six years carrying an unmanned capsule on a suborbital test flight. Using live ‘astronaut stand-ins’ before takeoff and after landing to rehearse boarding and egress procedures, launch commentator Ariane Cornell said, “We’re getting very close to sending people up to space and back.” The stand-ins tested their communications gear and reviewed launch procedures before exiting to clear the pad for flight.
• Wednesday’s flight began at 12:51 p.m. ET when the New Shepard rocket’s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine launched from the pad at Blue Origin’s remote Van Horn, Texas, flight test facility. The stubby rocket quickly climbed away from Launch Site One, steadily accelerating to reach a maximum velocity of 2,247 mph before releasing the empty crew capsule about two minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff. The capsule then soared to an altitude of 66 miles, well above the 50-mile-high lower “boundary” of space, before beginning the long plunge back to Earth.
• The New Shepard booster homed in on its landing pad, restarting its engine and deploying four short landing legs before settling to an on-target touchdown. Inside the separated capsule, an instrumented test dummy dubbed ‘Mannequin Skywalker’ experienced three to five minutes of microgravity before atmospheric deceleration forces set in. The capsule floated to a relatively gentle landing a short distance away, slowed by three large parachutes.
• The New Shepard system is designed to carry space tourists, government and civilian researchers and a variety of payloads to altitudes just above the discernible atmosphere. Blue Origin has not yet announced when it plans its first launch with passengers on board or how much tickets might cost. But the New Shepard capsule will afford six passengers at a time several minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this-world view through six large windows.
• NASA, the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration consider 50 miles to be the dividing line between space and the discernible atmosphere, while the international Fédération Aéronautique Internationale puts the threshold at 100 kilometers, or 62 miles. The New Shepard capsule routinely exceeds both of those standards.
• New Shepard is a strictly suborbital rocket and spacecraft that is not capable of achieving the velocities required to reach orbit. It will compete with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceplane for commercial passengers and payloads. However, Blue Origin is developing orbit-class New Glenn rockets that will use a powerful new company-designed engine to help boost large satellites into orbit. The company has built a huge rocket factory just outside the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to manufacture the rockets and is developing a launch complex at the nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
• The company also is leading a team, one of three, designing a moon lander to carry astronauts to and from the lunar surface in NASA’s Artemis program. NASA is expected to award contracts to one or possibly two teams over the next few weeks.
Taking another step toward sending passengers into space, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin
launched an unpiloted New Shepard capsule on a suborbital test flight Wednesday, using astronaut stand-ins before takeoff and after landing to rehearse boarding and egress procedures.
The company has not yet announced when it plans its first launch with passengers on board or how much tickets might cost. But after 15 unpiloted test flights, the system appears to be on the verge of commercial operations, giving six passengers at a time a few minutes of weightlessness and an out-of-this-world view.
“We’re getting very close to sending people up to space and back,” said launch
commentator Ariane Cornell.
To help pave the way, company personnel walked up the launch gantry before liftoff and strapped in aboard the New Shepard capsule just as paying customers will do for an actual flight. The stand-ins tested their communications gear and reviewed launch procedures before exiting to clear the pad for flight.
Wednesday’s flight began at 12:51 p.m. ET when the New Shepard rocket’s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine ignited with a rush of flaming exhaust at Blue Origin’s remote Van Horn, Texas, flight test facility.
The stubby rocket quickly climbed away from Launch Site One, steadily accelerating as it consumed propellants and lost weight, reaching a maximum velocity of 2,247 mph before releasing the crew capsule about two minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff.
The capsule then soared to an altitude of 66 miles (348,753 feet), well above the 50-mile-high lower “boundary” of space, before beginning the long plunge back to Earth. Inside, an instrumented test dummy — Mannequin Skywalker — experienced three to five minutes of microgravity before atmospheric deceleration forces set in.
The New Shepard booster, meanwhile, homed in on its landing pad, restarting its engine and deploying four short landing legs before settling to an on-target touchdown. The capsule floated to a relatively gentle landing a short distance away, slowed as usual by three large parachutes.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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
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Article by Leigh Giangreco February 25, 2020 (gen.medium.com)
• Last year, President Trump created the new branch of the Air Force: the Space Force. Trump declared, “American superiority in space is absolutely vital and we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough.” So we asked second-in-command Lt. General David Thompson (pictured above) what the hell will Space Force do?
• What is the Space Force actually going to do? Three examples of what Space Force does and has been doing as part of the Air Force for years are: 1) keeping track of the more than 26,000 orbiting objects in space including operational satellites, expired satellites, and space debris; 2) tracking missile launches and providing warning to Americans and our allies, as we did several weeks ago when the Iranians launched a missile attack at the al-Asad base which resulted in no casualties; and 3) supporting GPS navigation for everything from smart phones to ships at sea.
• What do you do as Space Force’s second-in-command? I assist General Raymond, our commander and chief of space operations, in making sure that all forces are trained and equipped to conduct satellite tracking operations and ground sensors across 134 locations worldwide. We operate with a $12 billion annual budget and 26,000 personnel.
• Are you coordinating with NASA as well? Cape Canaveral is an Air Force/Space Force station that launches military, commercial, and NASA rockets. NASA has its own space center next door that launches the moon missions. But every interplanetary probe that NASA has launched, except one, flew on an Air Force or Space Force rocket.
• Will you be working with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos on the commercial side? We already work pretty closely with Elon Musk (SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos [Blue Origin aerospace], as well as a lot of the large [satellite] constellations that are in development to see their capability and technologies.
• What would a typical deployment look like? What are the major threats? Why is Space Force relevant when it seems like the U.S. military is constantly being pulled into counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East? Any of our joint forces needs navigation, position, and timing services provided by GPS. Our satellites support that need. But one of the biggest reasons for the creation of the Space Force is to protect us from potential adversaries like Russia and China who are flexing their muscles, and have made it clear they intend to remove our ability to utilize space if it comes to conflict.
• It seems a lot of people think Space Force was created to go up against Russia and China in some sort of intergalactic battle. How much truth is there in that? Half of that is correct. Space Force will monitor threats from Russia or China in space. But if it doesn’t matter to soldiers on the ground, sailors at sea, and airmen in the air, then it doesn’t matter to us. We will remain focused on our commanders in the field (on earth). We’re not battling for control of the moon or Mars.
• When did the idea of Space Force first come into being? Does this trace back to the Gulf War? The space age dawned in the 1950s and has grown up over the decades. In the early years it was used for strategic intelligence gathering and some other things. But by the time of the first Gulf War in 1990 and then Desert Storm in 1991, our space systems began to be able to provide tactical capabilities to troops on the ground. After 9/11, this need continued to increase, related to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places.
• Is it fair to say that Space Force is a Trump initiative? It was actually an initiative of all national leadership. The conversations about the need to address threats in space began in 2014 in the previous administration. The discussion increased in 2017 and 2018. But it was [Trump’s] announcement in June 2018 that really started to form the vision. So yes, President Trump had that vision, and he had a lot of participation from Congress in both political parties.
• Is this ‘on-the-ground’ satellite coordination? Or will Space Force involve astronauts in space? That opportunity to be an astronaut inside the Space Force today is almost zero. The best thing to do if you want to be an astronaut is to talk to NASA. But the rest of the world is going in the direction of the Space Force, with remotely piloted aircraft, drones, artificial intelligence, and vehicles that operate by remote control or autonomous control.
• Several other reporters have asked about the uniforms and the official song. Do you have any ideas about what the culture of Space Force will look like? Space Force needs its own culture and identity. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are all different. I’m in my 35th year in space-related activities. We already have a little bit of a culture and an identity, which will be refreshed with things like uniforms, mottos, and songs. We want to take a little bit of time to do them carefully. We want to ask the young, career enlisted members what they want the uniform to look like. The uniforms that are under design now look like military uniforms.
• Can you give us some clues? No clues, sorry! It will be cool.
• In ‘The Incredibles’ they say “no capes.” Are there any absolute nos for Space Force uniforms? We’re not talking spandex and capes. It needs to be the classic, sharp-looking uniform that reflects who we are as members of the American military.
• Okay, so the Marines have Chesty the bulldog, the Air Force has a falcon — what are you thinking for a mascot? The Marines didn’t have Chesty when they were formed. We’re going to let that develop naturally, so it has some meaning and tradition behind it.
• Do you have a favorite sci-fi movie that inspired you? I’ve always loved Star Trek and I really loved the most recent reboot. I think they’ve captured the essence of those old characters in a new and fresh way. I was always a Star Trek fan, but I didn’t join the Air Force to go into space.
Unless you’ve been living in a galaxy far, far away, you’ve probably heard of the newest branch of the U.S. military: the Space Force. President Trump created the new branch of the Air Force last year, declaring, “American superiority in space is absolutely vital and we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough.”
The Space Force will be the smallest branch of the U.S. military — the Marine Corps is still more than 10 times its projected size — and will draw its personnel from current Air Force staff. The new branch will also absorb many of the Air Force’s existing responsibilities, including satellite operations and support for missile warning systems. Its first chief, General John Raymond, was sworn in last month.
So does signing up for the Space Force mean preparing to wage intergalactic battle? Not exactly. Instead, the Space Force is keeping its eyes on the stars but its feet on the ground, getting GPS information from satellites that helps the U.S. military operate in the field. We talked to Lt. Gen. David Thompson, the Space Force’s second-in-command, about the satellites his people will coordinate, avoiding space junk, and whether those new uniforms will include capes.
GEN: What is the Space Force actually going to do?
David Thompson: It’s clear that a lot of the American public doesn’t understand what we already created.
Three quick examples of what Space Force has been doing as part of the Air Force for years. A couple weeks back you heard about the satellite colliding over Pittsburgh, PA. U.S. Space Force is the force that keeps track of all of those objects — 26,000-plus objects, some of them pieces of debris, old satellites — where they are, where they’re going, whether they pose a danger to anybody. That’s one of the things that we do today in the Space Force, and have been doing for years.
Second, in the missile attacks at [Ain] al-Asad base several weeks back, you’ll recall the Iranians fired several missiles, but our crew at Buckley Air Force Base outside of Denver, Colorado, detected missiles that launched and provided warning to those Americans and our friends and allies at al-Asad, which put them all in protective shelters. Had that not happened, we might be talking about folks that died in that attack as opposed to injury. That’s Space Force.
And then we don’t just do it for the military, but we do it for the civilian population as well. How many times have you followed the blue dot on your smartphone? Have you paid for gas at the pump or in a convenience store? Have you checked the internet via your cellphone? All of those positioning things, timing synchronization activities, occur through GPS which is a U.S. Space Force [satellite] constellation. We do that not just for the general public but for ships in the ocean, airplanes, forces in the desert. All navigate by GPS. And those are just a couple things that we do today and will continue as part of the Space Force.
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Move over Robert Bigelow, Richard Branson, Elon Musk and all you other billionaire space jockeys: Jeff Bezos is taking the high ground on the New Frontier (part 2) space race by promoting the vision of his mentor, Gerard O’Neill.
It remains to be seen whether he is coordinating his efforts with those of President Trump whose plans for a Space Force along with a return to the Moon by 2024 coincide nicely with those of Bezos.
The Amazon/Whole Foods/Washington Post (CIA?) tycoon may be reflecting the theme of the film, Interstellar, as suggested in the article below.
For those noticing the bleak state of Planet Earth these days, the movie Elysium may be a more accurate expression of what is going on with the Secret Space Program (SSP) and the missing trillions from the US budget.
The marriage of private finance with advanced space technology projects has long been a key feature of the SSP as described by many researchers including Catherine Austin Fitts, Joseph Farrell and Jim Marrs.
That’s why I believe the presence of James Comey and Robert Mueller as heads of the FBI is likely important to understanding that RussiaGate is a cover for the SSP. With their links to the Deep State and Military-Industrial Complex, these men have been well-positioned to divert attention from black projects and the corruption associated with them.
I believe the true importance of the ATTF revelations and the TTSA project is to let the public know in small doses the extent of the vast research being done to support programs such as those by Bezos, Musk and Bigelow which are carefully kept from widespread exposure.
Once again, it is the unique role of Donald Trump that is playing such an important part in these developments. His ties to Nikola Tesla via his Uncle John’s role in reviewing the dead inventor’s files in 1943 may explain more than many might imagine about this president.
Other unusual aspects of his background including links to the murky world of Roy Cohn with all that might entail about the SSP provides the context for at least some of what is going on behind the scenes as well as public declarations such as the new Artemis Moon project.
With the 2020 election only 18 months away, we will learn soon enough whether this issue will be part of the campaign or remain largely hidden within the realm of secrecy provided by the National Security State.
Rich Scheck
Corvallis, Oregon
May 14, 2019
References
Antarctica’s Hidden History: Corporate Foundations of Secret Space Programs was simultaneously released in the United States and Europe through Amazon.com on March 25, 2018. The cover illustrated a handshake between a U.S. military official, and a civilian wearing a Nazi ring and an Iron Cross cuff link. The respective flags of the United States and Nazi Germany appeared behind them. The book quickly attained No.1 best seller status in several Amazon book categories and has gained positive reviews.
On May 29, I received an email from Amazon stating: “During our review process, we found that your book’s cover image contains content (i.e. Swastika) that is in violation of our content guidelines for Germany and may infringe German law.” This led to the Kindle edition being immediately withdrawn from Amazon’s German website.
A few hours later, I received a similar email from Createspace, an Amazon subsidiary, informing me that it was also withdrawing the paperback edition from the entire European market. This meant, for example, that potential readers in the United Kingdom could not purchase the paperback edition since the cover MAY violate German law.
I received legal assistance from Duke Brickhouse, J.D., an attorney in Virginia Beach, who worked for several years as a media attorney in Berlin, Germany. He pointed out the following in replies to Amazon and its subsidiary:
The German Code prohibits a swastika’s use where it is used for propaganda. The code section (1)(3) delineates an exception to this prohibition if it “serves to further civil enlightenment”, “promotes… research or teaching”, “reporting on… historical events”, or “similar purposes”. The book and the use of the swastika on the book’s cover is in fact created for the purpose of civil and historical enlightenment, and not for the promotion of underlying Nazi propaganda intended to further the aims of the Nazi regime.
Amazon stood by its decision despite repeated attempts to have them reconsider on the basis that the book clearly fit the exemptions specified in the German legal code in the use of Nazi era insignia. Put simply, the book is legitimate historical research delineating the respective roles of Nazi and German nationalist groups in setting up a secret colony in Antarctica, and their respective post-World War II activities.
What makes Amazon’s refusal to reconsider its position even more puzzling is that it does include books on its German site which prominently figure Swastikas. Here’s four examples of books which are all currently available on the Amazon Germany website.
All this raises the question of whether Antarctica’s Hidden History was being unfairly targeted; and if so, for what reason?
On February 11, 2018, I wrote an article that Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos traveled to Patagonia, Argentina on February 3, and along with the then U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, allegedly negotiated with the Antarctic based Germans. The talks were held at the Patagonian city of San Carlos de Bariloche, with the purpose of reaching an agreement on future official disclosure of their secret space program.
In a future disclosure scenario, the Antarctic Germans would share their advanced space and healing technologies that would help revolutionize the planet. This would naturally require them revealing their historical evolution and cooperation with Hitler’s Nazi party.
I analyze all of this in Antarctica’s Hidden History, but the core idea is that the German breakaway colony in Antarctica was dominated by the German Navy, secret societies and nationalists, rather than Nazi Party ideologues.
As Nazi Germany’s defenses crumbled before the allied military onslaught, Hitler demanded access to the superweapons that his regime had been promised by the Antarctic colony, which the Nazis had funded and materially supported since its inception.
The Antarctic German colony refused to hand over this advanced technology. Instead they chose a long-term strategy of secret negotiations with the U.S. and its allies from a position of strength, after their fleets of weaponized flying saucers were completed and ready for battle if necessary.
If there is a plan to officially disclose what remains of the German Antarctic Space Program, it would make sense that it would be very eager on disassociating itself historically from Hitler’s Nazi Party, and the atrocities committed in Europe. I believe that Bezos has played a role in forging such a secret agreement, and perhaps this is a factor in Amazon’s problem with the cover of Antarctica’s Hidden History.
Consequently, a new cover was designed for the European edition of the book which is now markedly different to the U.S. edition. The swastikas are gone, and the old German Imperial Flag is included to highlight the Navy and nationalist elements, along with a skull and bones ring depicting the German secret societies, all of which were critical in the evolution of the Antarctic colony.
Despite the different covers, the content in the U.S. and European editions of Antarctica’s Hidden History are identical. In it, the reader will learn about the history of Antarctica, and the role played by German nationalists who collaborated with the Nazi regime in establishing a breakaway colony there with advanced aerospace technologies.
Together with massive industrial capital being secretly dispersed around the globe prior to the collapse of Nazi Germany, the foundations were laid for creating a Fourth Reich. This shadowy entity has played an enormous role in secretly influencing global affairs ever since agreements were reached with the U.S. Presidential administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower.
After reviewing the historical evidence, documents and testimonies presented in Antarctica’s Hidden History, the reader can judge for him/herself the historical connection between Hitler’s Nazi Party and the German breakaway Antarctic colony. One thing is clear though, the “Fourth Reich” used Antarctica as a launching pad to establish a nefarious influence over European, U.S. and global institutions, which continues to the present day.
Michael E. Salla, Ph.D.
[Note: Antartica’s Hidden History is available in the following formats and Amazon locations for English speaking countries: Kindle USA/Paperback USA/Paperback United Kingdom/Paperback Canada. Autographed copies are available at Exopolitics.org]
Further Reading
Pope Francis has also shown some zeal in embracing Communist China as the model for achieving the social doctrine of the Church. (Maybe the Red Chinese are really aliens who are preparing to be baptized into the Church.)
Rich Scheck,