Tag: Mars

Was Mars Moon Phobos Just Liberated from Hostile Extraterrestrial Control?

According to Elena Danaan, a former professional French archeologist, the latest real-time intelligence data received from the Galactic Federation of Worlds is that Mars’ largest moon, Phobos, has just been liberated from a hostile extraterrestrial group she identifies as small Gray aliens from Zeta Reticuli. Her startling information is supported by scientific data and historical evidence indicating that an aggressive extraterrestrial species was indeed based somewhere in the interior of Phobos and was opposed to humans gaining any detailed knowledge of what was happening there.

On Saturday, July 24, I received Elena’s latest update from her primary contact with the Galactic Federation, Thor Han Eredyan, who regularly communicates with her via a physical implant she received at the age of nine. This is what she sent me via email:

Contact today. It seems to be a repeating pattern that Thor Han contacts me in the early morning, as he is usually back to the Station after completing a mission. His energy was soft and peaceful today, as he gave me the news. Phobos, one of Mars’ satellites, had been liberated by the forces of the Galactic Federation. It was a very big operation, highly sensitive due to the presence, inside of this hollowed out orbital facility, of a large number of human prisoners.

The idea that Phobos is a hollowed out orbital facility is supported by scientific data. Speculation about Phobos being hollow initially emerged in the 1950s and 1960s due to its unusual orbit. The European Space Agency launched its Mars Express mission in 2003 and eventually released a report on what was discovered about Phobos. The report was published in Geophysical Research Letters in May 2010 and stated:

We report independent results from two subgroups of the Mars Express Radio Science (MaRS) team who independently analyzed Mars Express (MEX) radio tracking data for the purpose of determining consistently the gravitational attraction of the moon Phobos on the MEX spacecraft, and hence the mass of Phobos… We conclude that the interior of Phobos likely contains large voids. When applied to various hypotheses bearing on the origin of Phobos, these results are inconsistent with the proposition that Phobos is a captured asteroid.

As the European Space Agency report clearly confirms, Phobos has large caverns, substantiating key elements of the hollow moon hypothesis. Furthermore, the report adds that Phobos is not a captured moon, thereby supporting the claim that Phobos was artificially placed in Mars’ orbit and is used as a base by one or more extraterrestrial groups.

Elena’s July 24 communication continues as follows:

Phobos, truly named by the Galactic Federation “Tyr 2”, has been a possession of the Xrog-Shambtbahali from Zeta Reticuli, small greys working for the Nebu [extraterrestrials from the Orion Constellation]. This place was a central facility for treating human abductees brought from Earth, chipping them with trackers and preparing them for the different programs they would be used in. The reason why these operations were a delicate matter was the presence of all these unfortunate people, which needed to be freed before any military operation could be conducted. This is the difficult part in all of this. There are hostages and slaves in mostly all the enemy outposts, and these lives are to be spared. So it raises the complexity of any action to a high level.

What evidence is there that Phobos has been used as a slave outpost of captured humans by an aggressive group of extraterrestrials? There is significant insider and circumstantial evidence that does corroborate Elena’s claim here.

In July 1988, the Phobos 1 and 2 missions were launched by the Soviet Union. The performance of the Phobos 2 spacecraft was flawless as it entered Mars orbit, took 38 photos, and then proceeded on towards Phobos. As Phobos 2 approached the moon Phobos in March 1989, a 20 kilometers-long ellipse-shaped object was photographed heading towards Phobos 2, and all communications were then lost.

Final photograph taken by Phobos 2 showing a 20 km long elliptical object between it and the moon Phobos

Soviet scientists said that Phobos 2 was next spinning out of control, as though it had been impacted by an object. The scientific data about Phobos 2 and its sudden demise led to much speculation that there was something happening inside the moon Phobos, which its occupants did not want humanity learning about. If Phobos was an extraterrestrial base with captured humans being treated as slaves, as Elena claims, then this would be a good reason for why the Phobos 2 spacecraft was targeted and incapacitated.

Furthermore, the idea that there exists a slave trade involving captured humans is something I have discussed previously in relation to the Siemens company secretly building several billion RFID tracking chips in the 1980s and subsequently destroying all evidence of their construction. In a September 8, 2015 article, I cited compelling insider testimony and gave reasons for why it can be concluded that a galactic slave trade is in existence.

Elena’s report continued:

The next target of the Federation’s forces is “Tyr 1”, alias Mars’ other main satellite Deimos, which is held by the Maytra [a taller type of Gray extraterrestrial]. It is a slave sorting place where freshly abducted humans are brought to be dispatched to diverse destinations. Similar facilities existed on the hidden side of Earth’s moon, before it was recently liberated and given back to the Terrans.

Elena’s claim here about the Moon being recently liberated is supported by the influx of private companies and nations that are planning to send missions to the Moon with the intent of building bases there beginning in 2024. The colonization of Mars using commercial space companies is planned to begin shortly afterward by companies such as SpaceX.

Furthermore, the Artemis Accords have created a multinational space coalition, with the US at its core, that makes space colonization and commercial activities on the Moon, Mars, and in space possible. All these groundbreaking space developments suggest that there has been a dramatic change of management when it comes to the Moon and celestial bodies elsewhere in our solar system, as I have discussed in an earlier article.

So far, the evidence supporting Elena Danaan’s startling information is primarily circumstantial, but it is nevertheless consistent with what a number of insiders have been revealing over the last few years. Ever since I began working with Elena in investigating the death of one of her sources, the supersoldier, Steven Chua, and unfolding events in Antarctica, I have been impressed with the accuracy of her intel and how it matches with recent real-time data concerning Antarctica and outer space.

There appears to have been a significant shift in exopolitical affairs that has allowed human space exploration in the public arena to move forward, after having been stifled ever since the 1970s Apollo Moon landings. While secret space programs established bases on the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere in our solar system, all this was kept out of the public arena, thereby preventing the emergence of large-scale public space programs.

The proliferation of private companies and national space agencies venturing boldly into space is not accidental in my view. These private and public programs clearly point to recent exopolitical events that have changed the situation for humanity in a significant way with regard to our solar system.

Elena Danaan is among the very few credible extraterrestrial contactees with accurate intelligence on real-time space events involving the Galactic Federation of Worlds. The full truth about extraterrestrial affairs in space will certainly not be revealed by official channels through their limited hangouts and embedded operatives in the full disclosure community. Nor will it emerge through Freedom of Information Act requests, regardless of the sincerity, competency, and determination of those making such requests. It is through sincere individuals like Elena Danaan with an understanding of the scientific evidentiary process—gained through her 20-year career as a professional archeologist—that we can hope to learn the full truth, without any compromised agenda.

Her latest intel update from Thor Han suggests that the Galactic Federation is genuinely acting against hostile extraterrestrial civilizations on Mars, the Moon, the Earth, and elsewhere in our solar system. The clearing out of both of Mars’ moons of hostile extraterrestrial civilizations that have previously impacted scientific missions there, is a crucial development.

Elena’s intel suggests that the solar system is indeed in the process of being handed over to humanity and that a set of meetings on Jupiter did recently occur making this official. In the meantime, human groups such as the Deep State, the Dark Fleet, and an interplanetary corporate space program, which previously worked with the negative extraterrestrial groups, are losing power to an Earth Alliance of White Hats, the US Navy’s Solar Warden space program, Dark Fleet defectors, etc., that are working with the Galactic Federation.

© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice

[Note: Elena Danaan’s YouTube Channel is here & her website is here] [Video version of this article is available on YouTube or Rumble]

Further Reading

Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield on UFOs and Exploring Mars

Article by Jason Vermes                                                        May 24, 2021                                                                (cbc.ca)

• Chris Hadfield (pictured above), the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station, was a guest on the Canadian-based ‘Cross Country Checkup’ radio show as part of the program’s regular ‘Ask Me Anything’ series, and answered questions from listeners about Mars, UFOs and our responsibility as humans in space.

• One caller asked: “Why are we trying to land on Mars?” Hadfield responded, “Well, I think the fundamental question is that Mars was a lot like Earth four billion years ago when life first formed on Earth. So if it happened here, did [life] happen there? [I]t will be evident somewhere in the geologic record.” Rovers are currently traversing Mars, conducting research and taking samples from the ground. If a rover finds one fossil, “we will know we’re not alone in the universe.” China’s space agency is the latest to land a rover on Mars. On May 19th, the Zhurong rover took its first drive on the planet’s surface.

• Ed Camelot in Edmonton asked, “what’s in it” for the Red Planet? If there is life on Mars, whether fossilized or primitive, Hadfield said it’s important to consider what it would mean for us on Earth, and what responsibilities we have. The 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty offers “fundamental building blocks of the legal system” for space-faring nations. That treaty is a basic framework on international space law, according to the UN, and outlines key principles, including that space exploration should be in the interest of all countries, and that states should avoid harmful contamination of outer space and celestial bodies.

• “We’re very careful with everything we’ve sent so far to Mars to make it — to the absolute best of our ability — to make it sterile so that it won’t inadvertently bring life to Mars or react if there is some sort of primitive life on Mars,” Hadfield said. “If there was intelligent life or advanced life, we would treat it even more thoughtfully and more differently.”

• Hadfield was then asked whether he would ever consider a “one-way trip” to Mars. He said he would happily help with development of technology to enable Earthlings to live somewhere like Mars or the Moon. “[B]ut my question would be: what ship and who with and what is the purpose?” Hadfield said. “We’re going to get there eventually, and I’d love to be part of the team that makes that happen.”

• Byron McDonald from Kamloops, B.C. asked Hadfield about UFOs. “Obviously, I’ve seen countless things in the sky that I don’t understand,” said Hadfield, a former pilot for the Royal Canadian Air Force and the US Navy. “But to see something in the sky that you don’t understand and then to immediately conclude that it’s intelligent life from another solar system is the height of foolishness and lack of logic.” But Hadfield acknowledged the existence of extraterrestrial life is worth thinking about, and that it’s likely that there is life in other parts of the universe. “But definitively up to this point, we have found no evidence of life anywhere except Earth, and we’re looking,” he said. “[I]t’s all really fun to think about.”

• [Editor’s Note]   So the first Canadian to command the International Space Station says: “definitively…we have found no evidence of life anywhere except Earth”. Hadfield says presuming that a UFO is of extraterrestrial origin is “the height of foolishness”. Of course, someone in his position has to know the truth about the widespread extraterrestrial presence on our planet and throughout our solar system. What will these astronauts and officials, whom the public has looked to for answers, do when they are revealed to be deep state toadies, lying at every opportunity?

After disclosure, when these liars try to walk back these types of remarks, will the people who have been duped for decades offer them any solace at all? Or will they be thrown onto the garbage heap of history along with all of the other politicians, military officers, scientists, professors and media “news” personalities who have made a career out of lying to the public in order to facilitate the deep state’s cover-up of the extraterrestrial origin of so many UFOs?

I hope these traitors are ALL individually identified and held up to public ridicule and derision, just as they have done to so many honest people who only told the truth about that they had seen and experienced, and had their lives ruined for it.

 I will give Hadfield props, however, for his rendition of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ on the International Space Station in 2013. (see video below)

 

                         Chris Hadfield

Landing a rover on Mars is “almost indescribably difficult,” according to retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Despite that reality, scientists have landed a handful of them on the Red Planet.

China’s space agency is the latest to do so, dropping the Zhurong rover on Mars earlier this month. On Saturday, it took its first drive on the planet’s surface.

Hadfield, who was the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station, said conducting research on Mars is crucial to finding out whether we’re alone in the universe.

  “For shame Chris Hadfield, for shame”

“Why are we trying to land on Mars? Well, I think the fundamental question is that Mars was a lot like Earth four billion years ago when life first formed on Earth,” he told Cross Country Checkup guest host Jason D’Souza on Sunday.

          Chinese Zhurong rover on Mars

“So if it happened here, did it happen there? And it will be evident somewhere in the geologic record.”

The rovers currently traversing Mars are conducting research and taking samples from the ground. If a rover finds one fossil, Hadfield said, “we will know we’re not alone in the universe.”

Hadfield joined Checkup as part of the program’s regular Ask Me Anything series, and answered questions from listeners about Mars, unidentified flying objects and our responsibility as humans in space.

 

5:30 minute clip of Commander Chris Hadfield singing “Space Oddity” (‘Rare Earth’ YouTube)

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Is There Microbial Life Under the Martian Surface?

Article by Lilia Dergacheva                                            April 25, 2021                                              (sputniknews.com)

• Scientists diligently searching for signs of microbial life on Mars, or to be more precise – beneath the surface of Mars, studied the chemical composition of Martian meteorites that chipped off from the Red Planet and wound up falling to Earth. They found the Mars rock fragments to be similar to Earth’s rocks in composition. In Earth’s depths, scientists have discovered a vast population of sub-world creatures. Postdoctoral researcher Jesse Tarnas, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says that wherever there is groundwater on Mars, chances are that there may be sufficient chemical energy to support subsurface microbial life.

• Due to a severe lack of sunlight, microbial species survive in the sub-surface due to a chemical process known as radiolysis. Radiolysis occurs when radioactive elements within rock come into contact with water in rock pores. This creates the chemical reactions that forms living microbes. The elements required for this process can be found in Martian meteorites. Meteorites formed from crustal rocks more than 3.6 billion years old, known as ‘regolith breccias’, have a high potential to support life.

• Previous research has already revealed an active groundwater system on Mars that could still exist today. A recent study even indicates that there is a hidden underground lake the southern ice cap. This sub-terrain water would provide ample energy to sustain life. Brown University Professor Jack Mustard noted that only a relatively small drill could access the Martian depths to investigate their theory.

• “We don’t know whether life ever got started beneath the surface of Mars,” says Tarnas. “[B]ut if it did, we think there would be ample energy there to sustain it right up to today.”

• [Editor’s Note]  What will these heavily-controlled scientists say when they learn the truth, that indigenous life does indeed live underneath the barren surface of Mars? Underground Martian colonies contain fully developed populations insectoid races, reptilian races (not associated with the malevolent Draco reptilians), and ancient humanoid races. In fact, in Dr. Michael Salla’s recent series of videos and articles with French ET-contactee Elena Danaan, Danaan has revealed that the Galactic Federation of Worlds (a human extraterrestrial governing body that oversees this sector of the galaxy) is actively arming these indigenous Mars insectoids and reptilians to fight off the encroaching deep state elite from Earth that is operating over a dozen factory bases on Mars using slave labor, known as the ‘Interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate’ (according to Corey Goode), and the mercenary forces including former Nazi ‘Dark Fleet’ forces stationed on Mars to protect the corporate conglomerate bases.

For more on this, see Dr. Salla’s recent article, “Is Mars in the midst of a Planetary Liberation War?”, and his three previous Danaan articles, “Extraterrestrial Contact & the Galactic Federation”; “Update on Galactic Federation Attacks on Corporate Satellites & Mars Exodus”; and “Overview of Human-looking extraterrestrials & their agendas”.

 

                        water on Mars?

Scientists suggest that in the search of life on Mars they should go no further than

                Jesse Tarnas

the Martian subsurface, currently being drilled by NASA’s Perseverance Rover, with the help of its helicopter Ingenuity.

Their latest study on the subject has been published in the journal Astrobiology.

It looked at the chemical composition of Martian meteorites that chipped off from the Red Planet’s surface eventually ending up on Earth, finding the fragments to be similar to Earth’s rocks in composition.

            Jack Mustard

“We don’t know whether life ever got started beneath the surface of Mars but, if it did, we think there would be ample energy there to sustain it right up to today”, said postdoctoral researcher Jesse Tarnas, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

He stressed that wherever there is groundwater on the Red Planet, chances are that there may be sufficient chemical energy to support subsurface microbial life.

              drilling for water on Mars

As for Earth’s depths, scientists have in recent years discovered that they are home to a vast population of unique, sub-world creatures.

Due to a severe lack of sunlight, the species survive thanks to a chemical process known as radiolysis, which occurs when chemical reactions yield by-products of radioactive elements within rock while contacting with water in rock pores. Likewise on Mars: the Martian meteorites were found to have the same collection of elements needed for radiolysis, while they are also easily permeable to water.

This was particularly typical of regolith breccias, meteorites formed from crustal rocks more than 3.6 billion years old, which appeared to have the highest potential to support life.

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NASA’s ‘MOXIE’ Extracts Oxygen from Mars

April 22, 2021                                      (dw.com)

• When NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars on February 18th, it brought along various high-tech devices such as the Ingenuity mini-helicopter and the ‘Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment’ or ‘MOXIE’. As the atmosphere on Mars reportedly has only trace amounts of oxygen, securing an abundant supply of oxygen is crucial to supporting human exploration of the planet, both as a sustainable source of breathable air for astronauts and as an ingredient for rocket fuel that would fly them home. This is where MOXIE comes in.

• In another extraterrestrial first, the toaster-sized MOXIE produced about 5 grams of breathable oxygen, converted from the carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere. This marks the first time that a resource was extracted from another planet for use by humans. “This is a critical first step,” said Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “MOXIE has more work to do, but the results from this technology demonstration are full of promise as we move toward our goal of one day seeing humans on Mars.”

• In the future, the MOXIE device will be able to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour, which equals about 20 minutes of breathable oxygen. The NASA scientists plan to run the machine at least another nine times over the next two years under different conditions and speeds. Astronauts living and working on Mars could require one metric ton of oxygen between them to last an entire year.

• MOXIE works through electrolysis, using extreme heat to separate oxygen atoms from carbon dioxide molecules, which account for about 95% of the atmosphere on Mars. The remaining 5% of Mars’ atmosphere consists primarily of molecular nitrogen and argon.

• “MOXIE isn’t just the first instrument to produce oxygen on another world,” said Trudy Kortes, director of technology demonstrations within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. It is the first such technology to help future missions “live off the land” of another planet.

 

                          MOXIE device

NASA converted carbon dioxide from Mars’ atmosphere into pure, breathable

                          Jim Reuter

oxygen, marking another extraterrestrial first for the space agency, NASA officials said.

The Perseverance rover extracted the oxygen using a toaster-sized device called MOXIE, marking the first time that a resource was extracted from another planet for use by humans.

“This is a critical first step,” Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, said in a statement. “MOXIE has more work to do, but the results from this technology demonstration are full of promise as we move toward our goal of one day seeing humans on Mars.”

              Trudy Kortes

The six-wheeled NASA rover landed on Mars on Feb. 18 after a seven-month journey from Earth,

                     Perseverance rover

bringing the MOXIE converter, the Ingenuity mini-helicopter, and various other high-tech devices to the red planet. In its first use, MOXIE, short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment, produced about 5 grams of oxygen. This is enough for one astronaut to breathe for about 10 minutes, NASA said.

In the future, the device will be able to generate up to 10 grams of oxygen per hour, and scientists plan to run the machine at least another nine times over the next two years under different conditions and speeds, according to the agency.

Opening the door to human exploration

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Is Mars in the midst of a Planetary Liberation War?

On April 30, Elena Danaan, a former professional archeologist whose claims of contact with extraterrestrials from the Galactic Federation of Worlds have gained widespread attention, delivered a bombshell report about an ongoing series of military raids on Mars that aim to destroy the bases of a rival extraterrestrial alliance: the Draconian Empire and the Orion Collective. These extraterrestrial bases were created to suppress the indigenous Mars population; manage the operations of human colonists associated with a German breakaway group called the Dark Fleet (aka Nacht Waffen); and oversee major Earth corporations that have relocated to Mars.

According to Elena, the Galactic Federation has begun helping liberate Mars from the influence of the Draconians and Orions by supporting indigenous Martians with supplies, weapons, and tactical information. The Federation has also been assisting a local resistance movement that exists in the human colonies that have been established on Mars.

While providing logistical and tactical support to local resistance forces, the Galactic Federation has been using its advanced technologies to incapacitate Reptilian and Orion extraterrestrials, thereby enabling the Martian resistance to strike against their extraterrestrial overlords and human minions.

https://youtu.be/E4liNicY50I

In order to better understand Elena’s report, I thought it would be helpful to provide a brief background on Mars and its recent history in terms of covert human colonization and historic resistance by an indigenous Martian population.

The colonization of Mars began in the 1950s when the Draconian and Orion Alliance helped the breakaway German colony that had established bases in Antarctica and the Moon establish the first German bases on Mars, using advanced Haunebu flying saucer craft that initially made up the Dark Fleet.

As a result of agreements between the Eisenhower admiexnistration and the German Antarctica Colony (aka Fourth Reich), the Dark Fleet’s bases on Mars were significantly expanded. Most importantly, the US military provided the Dark Fleet with nuclear weapons that were used against the indigenous Martian population comprising local Reptilians, Insectoids, and other less evolved species that resisted the German colonial expansion and the Draconian and Orion incursions.

With the famous brain drain of the 1960s and 1970s, launched under the cover of the US Apollo Program, the Dark Fleet presence on Mars grew substantially. Millions of people–many of whom were taken from Earth under false pretenses—expanded the German colonies and created new ones in conjunction with major Earth corporations.

These new corporate-run colonies have been called the Interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate and they are run by a ‘superboard’ comprising retired or serving CEOs from major corporations. The relocation program to Mars has apparently been greatly accelerated over the last few months as the Deep State is on the verge of a major collapse on Earth. This has led to a major exodus by compromised officials, as discussed in my previous article commenting on Elena’s information.

With the help of the Draconian and Orion Alliance, the Mars colonies became so technologically advanced that they eventually were trading with up to 900 extraterrestrial civilizations.

The Mars colonies were equipping mercenary forces recruited from all major countries on Earth to join the Dark Fleet for distinct periods of service. The infusion of personnel, equipment, and resources enabled the Dark Fleet to expand its operations significantly.

Soon the Dark Fleet had powerful fleets of spacecraft with well-armed troops that could fight alongside, or on behalf of, Reptilian and Orion extraterrestrials in interstellar wars of conquest. This meant that the bulk of the Dark Fleet’s operational forces, at any one time, would be located outside of our solar system. This brief background provides the necessary context to better understand Elena’s stunning report.

What follows is my transcript of her report which was delivered verbally and is available on YouTube. Elena’s report begins:

April 30, 2021, the date of the situation [report] on Mars given by Commander Thor Han Eredyon from the Galactic Federation of Worlds. Raids from the Galactic Federation are continuing by a series of Mars raids on the Reptilian facilities. The Martian resistance has been armed and enforced and helped by the Federation and they are fighting the Reptilian occupants and all their allies, and in their allies, there is also an outpost for the Dark Fleet in Mars as well, but not only, there are earth militaries there belonging to other corporations. There is a lot of corporations on Mars that sought refuge there and that had moved, relocated recently because it was starting to smell bad on earth. The alliance was starting to win over them by all their work in the DUMBs (the military’s underground). So now what’s happening on Mars, still attacks from the Galactic Federation. The Ciakahrrs are totally pissed off.

Elena is here pointing out that the Galactic Federation is helping the Martian resistance, comprising humans, local Reptilians, and other indigenous groups, against the Draco Reptilians (led by the Ciakahrrs) their Orion partners, and the Dark Fleet. It’s important to keep in mind here that there are two Reptilian groups involved in the fighting—on both sides of the conflict, just as humans are fighting on both sides.

Her report continues:

The thing is that the Federation is working at isolating and then treading piece by piece [in battle strategy]. They are not, the Galaxy Federation is not able to face in full combat, complete, all their fleet face-to-face with the Ciakahrr Empire and Orion group. They’re not powerful enough. So what they do is use strategy.

Importantly, Elena is here pointing out that as far as the overall number of space battle groups and personnel are concerned, the Draconian and Orion Alliance are vastly superior, thereby forcing the Galactic Federation to use stealth and covert operations to achieve their goals. This is well illustrated by the Federation’s strategy of assisting local Mars resistance groups and incapacitating Draconian and Orion personnel through various means.

Startling corroboration for Elena’s information about the respective sizes of the Federation and their Draconian/Orion opponents comes from a recent remote viewing session by the Farsight Institute. In the sessions, the remote viewers observed that the Galactic Federation of Worlds is no match, numerically speaking, with their Draco Reptilian and Orion opponents. Stealth and covert operations are thereby the mainstays of how the Federation deals with a hostile planetary situation such as that on Earth and Mars.

Elena went on to say:

I am not always authorized to tell you what I know from Thor Han, but this I can tell. They have forced all the elites and the heads of the Terran bad military to leave the planet, not to declare war on the planet, you know, and damage a lot of things and kill civilians. They didn’t want that, so the plan was going well, and all the dark elites were just coming at the surface, you know, and then most of them have relocated on Mars. The heads of corporations and also the corporations that own the satellites in orbit of Earth, the harmful satellites, it was to be activated to work with the [micro]chipping of the population, even goes beyond that but not talking about that here.

Here Elena is reporting on the exodus to Mars due to the Galactic Federation neutralizing all attempts at fostering a US civil war, major false flag events, and a Third World War. This means that the Deep State agenda on Earth is collapsing, and elites don’t want to remain here to face justice for their many crimes.

Elena continues her report:

What’s happening on Mars is that the Reptilians are panicking. They are asking assistance from the Dark Fleet. Everyone is cut from each other. The Dark Fleet has been hammered by the Federation, hammered, they’re still there but very, very damaged. There has been a lot of attacks and fights on the outposts of the Dark Fleet in this solar system. So, they’re not anymore able to help the Reptilians in combat against the Federation. They’ve withdrawn, they say no, we can’t do that at the moment.

So, the deal in the past with the Reptilians with mutual assistance, well, it’s not working anymore. So, the Reptilians are turning their attention away, and they are turning their attention away trying to contact the Dark Fleet that is out of the solar system and notably the Aldebaran branch.

There have been previous reports about defections from the Dark Fleet in our Solar System due to a system-wide quarantine, the creation of a Secret Space Program Alliance, and an Earth Alliance, as first reported by Corey Goode. The Draconians, Orions, and Dark Fleet, were cut off from their main assets. Apparently, the Dark Fleet has insufficient resources to assist their Draco Reptilian overlords at this time.

Elena next reveals some important information about how the Galactic Federation strategy of generating high frequencies is neutralizing opposition:

What the Galactic Federation is doing as well is broadcasting very high frequencies on Mars as they do on Earth to raise the frequency. And what happens when you raise the frequency and bombard with high frequency? They use also the Sun, they use everything they can to bombard the solar system with high, high frequency. What it does, it awakens the people who need to be awakened. So, it disables the enemy, disables, although strife on the lower frequencies, and they are doing that on Earth, and they’re doing that on Mars, as they have done in many other places. So, the Reptilians are being numbed, and they lose a bit of their aggressivity, and it pisses them off even more.

She is here revealing that by transmitting or amplifying high-frequency energies sweeping into our solar system, the Deep State has been unsuccessfully attempting to block on Earth through chemtrails, genetic modification vaccines and inflammatory media broadcasts—the Draco and Orion personnel on Mars are becoming more passive and awakened. This has led to the Mars resistance becoming more successful, thereby replicating recent events on Earth. The result is that Ciakahrr and Orion leaders are becoming desperate and frustrated.

Elena next explains the connection to the Andromeda Council:

But you know they are pissed off against the Federation, but who they’re pissed off more than anything is the Andromeda Council because the Andromeda Council had foreseen this happening a long time ago. And it’s because of the Andromeda Council that we are fighting back with the help of the Federation, and it’s absolutely wonderful and we’re winning.

Here Elena is repeating what was told to Alex Collier back in the early 1990s, that the Andromeda Council had foreseen that the Earth, Moon and Mars would be the seed of galactic tyranny that would emerge 350 years in the future. The Andromeda Council brought this to the attention of the Galactic Federation, which then began intervening in Earth affairs.

This means that what we are witnessing at the moment on Mars, Moon, and the Earth is part of a “Temporal War” that pits the Galactic Federation and the Andromeda Council against the Draconian Empire and their Orion partners. While the Draco and Orion alliance has superior firepower and personnel, the Federation and the Andromedans have superior intelligence and covert operations.

This is crucial to know since it traces much of what is currently happening to the establishment of the German breakaway colony in Antarctica as the seed point of this Temporal War. I will discuss this Temporal War in more detail in my May 22 webinar: “Antarctica, Dark Fleet, and Humanity’s Liberation.”

Elena next explains what is happening to the human colonists on Mars trapped in the current fighting:

You know the Galactic Federation couldn’t attack before because they were waiting for all the elites to be on Mars. So, Mars is being raided, it’s unfortunately horrible fights on the surface. I feel a bit for the earth people, the colony there. They think they are cut from earth, but the Federation in this operation is doing their best to rescue these people, and you know that they don’t have this policy of killing. They first ask if they want to surrender or if they want to be evacuated. If they refuse, there is a fight.

It’s important to emphasize that the fighting is being led by local Mars resistance forces, not the Galactic Federation. In an email exchange, I asked whether the recent uptick in marsquakes that are being monitored by NASA are related to the raids on Mars. The two largest marsquakes happened at the end of March 2021, in the region called Cerberus Fossae. Here is what Elena said Thor Han told her about the connection between the raids and marsquakes:

I just caught him, he [Thor Han] quickly replied that all underground activities are performed by the Martian local resistance and not by the Galactic Federation. He said there are beings endemic to Mars, who are able to burrow in the ground and are quite powerful. These beings are not very evolved in consciousness, a bit like big animals, but they are employed by the local reptilian resistance to attack enemy underground facilities. He said this has been happening for the last four years, with an increase in activity for two years, quite regularly and often on the same spots.

The Galactic Federation has been providing them with weaponry to enforce them. They are working conjointly, although the Martian resistance sometimes likes to make decisions for themselves. The actions of the Galactic Federation are not on the ground but above. They are also broadcasting high frequencies to numb the enemy. So yes, he confirmed these marsquakes are the product of regular and repeated attacks from the local underground resistance.

This is very revealing since it confirms that the Galactic Federation strategy of assisting planets awaken and resist oppression by the Draconian/Orion alliance is permissible under universal rules of engagement. A key part of this liberation strategy is to help a planet’s population raise their frequency levels, as Elena explains in her report:

So that’s what is happening at the moment. I think it’s going to get even worse in combat, but we need, you know, we need to hear the ground crew on earth we need to do our job, which is to raise our frequencies. The Galactic Federation, Council of Five, the Andromeda Council they are bombarding the whole system with high frequency. So, we need to do our job as well as raise our frequency. That’s the only way that we can be immune to mind control and Reptilians and Greys, and also to be stronger than them. Because I’m going to tell you something, OK, we’re way more powerful than we think we are. That’s a fact. I always tell you that, but also we are, we have such a potential that all the ETs that are working around us they know that, and they know that one day we will be even able to teach them because the potential we have is absolutely amazing. We are like royalty, you know, something like this, so don’t lose hope.

Elena is here stating something that had earlier been revealed by Alex Collier, who the Andromeda Council told that humanity was made up from the genetics of 22 extraterrestrial civilizations. Two decades later, Corey Goode would independently confirm that there were 22 genetic experiments conducted by between 40-60 alien groups over the last 500,000 years.

Elena finishes her report by explaining that the events transpiring on Earth have great galactic significance:

It’s going to get confusing more and more, but we all know the work of our allies the Galactic Federation of Worlds, and it is a privilege to be alive in these times. We have chosen to be here now and from our actions depends the fate of not only all species but of this entire Galaxy because the seeds of darkness are being destroyed at the moment now.

So, this is it, and Thor Han asked me to say that for those who know him, do not worry for him, he’s been leading the first raids with his co-workers, officers, but now is staying on the station and doing the job he is best at, after being a pilot, organizing missions. This is his new job and looking after me because I’m important, I give you updates, and I help you, and he needs to be available and look after me also, and give me information.

So we love you all and we are very proud of you, you are not alone. Raise your frequency, refusing fear, refusing manipulation, refusing conclusion and you will see if you trust everything will be alright. Fight with the truth, fight with love, fight with Peace.

Elena’s final point about the role she is playing in transmitting information from Thor Han is vitally important. Through Thor Han and her other Galactic Federation contacts, she is a conduit for real-time intelligence reports from the Galactic Federation of Worlds.

It cannot be underestimated how important it is for the full disclosure  community to receive real-time intelligence reports from the Galactic Federation since we will not be told the truth by governments, the mainstream media, nor the Deep State. Nor will White Hats within the military intelligence community ever reveal the whole truth of what is happening in exopolitical affairs since they have their own agendas.

At best, knowledgeable insiders such as Professor Haim Eshed, the founder of Israel’s space program, will confirm in an informal manner the existence of the Galactic Federation and its cooperation with different governments, and the existence of joint US extraterrestrials bases on Mars. These revelations are done in a casual way that maintains plausible deniability and without revealing too many details.

As far as I have been able to assess from my own exøpolitical investigations and research of Elena’s information, it is coherent and consistent with the revelations of many other insiders that I have discussed in my Secret Space Programs book series.

More recently, the Farsight Institute has released its own findings about multiple remote viewing targets, which I have discussed (here and here), the results of which independently corroborate many of Elena’s revelations.

Another independent means of corroborating Elena’s data is matching the locations of marsquakes with the places where local Mars resistance forces have raided the bases of the Ciakharr-Orion-Corporate-Dark Fleet alliance on Mars. As more scientific data on marsquakes becomes publicly available, it will become possible to confirm Elena’s information, and I will release the results of my own investigations.

In conclusion, I am very confident about the reliability and accuracy of Elena Danaan’s information, and so far have found it to be a powerful revelation of a planetary liberation war currently happening on Mars that is supported, to varying degrees, by multiple independent sources.

© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice

Interviews with Elena Danaan

Related Articles

Update on Galactic Federation Attacks on Corporate Satellites & Mars Exodus

According to the latest intelligence received from a representative of the Galactic Federation of Worlds, attacks have moved into high gear to remove corporate-run facilities that have recently relocated to Mars. On Sunday, April 25, Elena Danaan sent me an update on the ongoing campaign to free Mars of negative extraterrestrial and corporate influences after the Galactic Federation had previously freed the Moon as she explained in our fourth interview.

In my third interview with Elena on April 10, she explained that the Galactic Federation of Worlds was attacking negative extraterrestrial and deep state facilities on the Earth, Moon, and Mars. This was due to these three locations having been earlier revealed to be the epicenters of a future galactic tyranny that was initially reported by the Andromeda Council during the 1990s to their contactee, Alex Collier.

In Defending Sacred Ground, he said:

Apparently what they [Andromeda Council] have done, through time travel, is that they have been able to figure out where the significant shift in energy occurred that causes the tyranny 357 years in our future. They have traced it back to our solar system, and they have been able to further track it down to Earth, Earth’s Moon and Mars. Those three places. (Defending Sacred Ground, p. 10)

This is the email update I received from Elena on Sunday about current events as they pertain to the Galactic Federation eliminating all possibility of a Galactic Tyranny evolving from the Earth, Moon and Mars:

I finally know, from Thor Han, why the Galactic Federation says that now that they are attacking Mars, they also can destroy certain groups of satellites in orbit of Earth (which they were reluctant to do before). I didn’t quite understand why, what was the link between the raids on Mars and some types of satellites in orbit of Earth. Well, he gave me the answer:

The Galactic Federation was waiting that some specific big corporations finally relocated their headquarters on Mars, chased from Earth. These specific corporations own these satellite programs, which are tools in the agenda of enslaving the whole of humanity helped by the nanotechnologies and all that we know about the vax. To destroy these satellites, they needed to simultaneously neutralize these corporations. While the headquarters of these corporations were still on Earth, (mainly in underground fortresses) it was impossible to conduct armed offensives, which would have been disastrous for Earth and its civilians.

The Galactic Federation has been working at getting the moles out of the tunnels to be able to eradicate them. On Mars, the raids are touching targets way more easily. They trapped them. A lot of elites had seek [sought] refuge also on Mars, so that is going to be quite interesting in the coming times.

It has been known for some time that major corporations set up large industrial facilities on Mars. According to intel received from Corey Goode, these corporate facilities on Mars were trading with up to 900 different extraterrestrial civilizations. These corporations were part of what he described as an Interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate that featured a superboard comprising CEOs from major companies that had built a powerful secret space program.

It therefore comes as no great surprise that major corporations would decide to relocate personnel and resources to Mars as the Deep State agenda is on the verge of collapse on Earth.

The collapse is due to an accelerated “Global Awakening” as more and more medical personnel expose the Covid-19 pandemic and worldwide government responses as a scam, and there is impending exposure of the truth that the 2020 US Presidential election was indeed stolen from President Trump as the forensic audit of Maricopa County electoral ballots ordered by the Arizona State Senate is expected to confirm.

In many aspects, we are in a very similar situation to August 10, 1944, when top industrialists from Nazi Germany met in Strasbourg and were ordered to relocate resources, personnel and finances to safe locations in South America, neutral countries and Antarctica to escape the impending military defeat. The same process is now repeating itself on Earth as top Deep State officials seek to escape capture and punishment by covertly relocating to Mars using spacecraft from a corporate-run secret space program.

As Elena points out, according to her source, Thor Han, the relocation of top corporate executives makes it easier for the Galactic Federation to militarily take out the satellite systems that were put in place to repress humanity. While Thor Han did not mention any systems, in particular, my guess would be that the failed Irridium Satellite system set up by Motorola and Thales Alenia Space is the most likely contender for the collapsing Deep State agenda.

What makes Elena’s remarkable claims plausible is that in December 2020, Professor Haim Eshed, the father Israel’s space program revealed in an interview, that a Galactic Federation was indeed playing a very active role in Earth affairs, and that a joint US extraterrestrial base had been established on Mars. This supports her claims that an exodus of top corporate executives to Mars is currently underway.

I will provide more updates and information as they become available, and will seek independent confirmation of these remarkable events as they develop.

© Michael E. Salla, Ph.D. Copyright Notice

Interviews with Elena Danaan

Related Articles

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

                     SpaceX’s Starship

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

              previous Starship test flight

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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To Quarantine the Moon and Mars

March 7, 2021                                    (rtd.rt.com)

• In July 1964, representatives from several institutions including NASA held a conference to discuss the topic of preventing ‘back contamination’ – bringing contaminants from extraterrestrial bodies back to Earth. They feared that such contamination of the Earth could multiply and lead to unpredictable consequences, up to and including the extinction of our civilization. The attendees at the ‘Conference on Potential Hazards of Back Contamination from the Planets’ concluded there was no way to protect a spacecraft returning from the Moon from any possible extraterrestrial life forms. The best solution to prevent a disease from spreading among people would be isolation until a vaccine could be produced.

• In July 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned to their Apollo 11 lunar module after walking on the Moon and took off their helmets, they could smell the acrid stench of Moon dust on their suits. They brushed it off as best they could, but it was impossible to get rid of it all. If there were traces of microorganisms in it, astronauts would inevitably become infected. When their space module touched down in the ocean, the first thing that the retrieval team did was to treat the module door with disinfectant.

• Upon reaching the aircraft carrier, the Apollo 11 crew changed into biological protection suits, traveled in an isolated quarantine van aboard the aircraft carrier, then through special tunnels from the aircraft carrier to land and then onward to a special laboratory. The three astronauts along with six other technicians who were exposed to a film cassette that had fallen on the lunar surface, and any lunar rock samples, objects and equipment that the astronauts had handled on the Moon, were isolated and quarantined for three weeks while scientists examined how the people and objects exposed to the Moon’s surface now interacted with terrestrial plants, animals and living tissue.

• In June 2020, NASA unveiled its new policies regarding bio-protection during manned or robotic flights to the Moon or Mars and back to Earth. The latest NASA guide looked at preventing ‘back contamination’ of moon microbes from invading Earth but also ‘forward contamination’ to protect other celestial bodies from Earth/human contamination. Now that the world is preparing for Mars missions, the planet where life forms are more likely to be found than on the Moon, planet protection policies have become a widely discussed issue.

• There is currently a debate whether the responsibilities and liabilities imposed under the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and signed by world governments including the US also pertain to private commercial space flights. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk claims the treaty does not apply to the private sector, and that the planet Mars is free from “Earth-based government… authority or sovereignty over Martian activities”.

• With the probability of humans landing on Mars, scientists are proposing that a Martian “exploration zone” be established on the planet’s surface where visiting humans can isolate themselves for a period to prevent their contaminating Mars. It has now been demonstrated that people and objects exposed to the Moon’s surface do not pose any risk of ‘back contamination’ on Earth. But there is a concern whether Moon tourists would faithfully follow NASA recommendations regarding the protection of other moons and planets from ‘forward contamination’ of Earth-born bio-contamination.

• The CEO of fashion retailer Zozo, Yusaku Maezawa, plans to take more than a dozen civilians to the Moon under the ‘dearMoon project’. Foreseeing the rise of such space tourism, last summer (2020) NASA released updated biosafety guidance for such civilian space missions. The risk of catching an ‘alien plague’ on the Moon, or the contamination of other celestial bodies with Earth bacterias is no joke to space experts.

 

Apollo 11 astronauts in the quarantine module

With space tourism on the rise, the risk of space contamination may undermine the

       NASA Mobile Quarantine Facility

endeavour. The CEO of fashion retailer Zozo, Yusaku Maezawa, who started a project to launch the first civilian flight to the moon in 2023, has recently announced he’ll pay for five randomly chosen candidates as well. But it is still unclear whether the dearMoon project offers the required biosafety level while taking more than a dozen civilians to the moon. Even though no-one has been infected, the risk of catching an ‘alien plague’ on the moon is not a joke to space experts. In the summer of 2020, NASA released updated guidance for civilian missions, foreseeing the rise of space tourism. The advice added new rules concerning contamination of other celestial bodies with Earth bacterias.

   Nixon greeting the Apollo astronauts

Throughout the 70s, NASA scientists were testing space systems for biosafety during

       Yusaku Maezawa and Elon Musk

the Apollo programme. After years of research, they only concluded that biosafety is impossible in space. NASA developed a guide for preventing bio-emergencies half a century ago. However, until now, social isolation and containment remain the most reliable ways of avoiding space viruses and bacterias from invading Earth.

Interplanetary contamination

Following the first flight into space, the United States set a goal to send a manned mission to the moon earlier than the USSR. But a closer look into the prospects of the mission led to safety concerns over the biological threat. The US spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s dollars researching whether it’s true. Scientists from NASA were seriously considering the worst outcome of what they named ‘back contamination’.

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NASA’s Perseverance Rover’s Test Drive on Mars

Article by Jesse O’Neill                                            March 5, 2021                                            (nypost.com)

• On March 4th, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover (pictured above) took its first test drive of about 21 feet on Mars. For thirty-three minutes, the rover negotiated turns and backed up into a new parking space at a snail’s pace, officials said. The mobility test is one of many milestones to check off Perseverance’s do-to list, as team members calibrate every system and instrument on the rover. When scientists decide all systems are ‘go’, the rover will begin regularly driving the length of several football fields at a time.

• “When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that measure up in significance to that of the first drive,” said Anais Zarifian, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mobility test bed engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The rover’s six-wheel drive responded superbly. We are now confident our drive system is good to go, capable of taking us wherever the science leads us over the next two years.”

• Since the February 18th Mars landing, mission controllers have also completed software updates, deployed Perseverance’s wind sensors and tested the rover’s 7-foot-long robotic arm. The rover is now poised to begin more complicated missions, including finding a launch site for its mini helicopter next month.

• Scientists hope its multi-year mission gathering Mars samples and data will provide insight into the region’s geology and climate history, and determine if life once existed on the planet. Perseverance will ultimately prepare astronauts for human exploration on Mars.

 

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover took its first test drive on Mars Thursday,

                           Anais Zarifian

covering about 21 feet of the extraterrestrial landscape, the space agency said.

The mobility test is one of many milestones to check off Perseverance’s do-to list, as team members calibrate every system and instrument on the rover.

When scientists decide all systems are go, it will begin regularly driving the length of several football fields at a time.

“When it comes to wheeled vehicles on other planets, there are few first-time events that measure up in significance to that of the first drive,” said Anais Zarifian, Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mobility test bed engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“This was our first chance to ‘kick the tires’ and take Perseverance out for a spin. The rover’s six-wheel drive responded superbly. We are now confident our drive system is good to go, capable of taking us wherever the science leads us over the next two years.”

The drive lasted about 33 minutes, as the rover negotiated turns and backed up into a new parking space at a snail’s pace, officials said.

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Incredible Perseverance Rover Mars Landing

Article by Ashley Strickland                                            February 19, 2021                                             (cnn.com)

UPDATED

• On Thursday February 18th, NASA’s Perseverance rover reached Mars’ thin atmosphere. The rover’s ‘jetpack’ lowered the rover on tethers near to the planet’s surface where the rover disengaged from the jetpack and descended by parachute to the ground. Meanwhile, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (which has been orbiting Mars since 2006) flew overhead taking pictures of the descent and landing. The orbiter will relay data from the rover on the ground to the science team back on Earth. The rover and its jetpack were also snapping images along the way.

• While the first images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera on Thursday evening were black and white glimpses showing the rover safely landing on Mars, by Friday color images of the ‘Red Planet’ were being transmitted from the rover itself.

• Perseverance landed about 1.2 miles away from the Jezero Crater river delta, which hosted a lake 3.9 billion years ago. The rover switched over to the software it will use while driving on the Martian surface where it will spend the next two years investigating the crater and delta in search for evidence of ancient life that may have existed when Mars was a more habitable place.

• These first images shared during a NASA press conference were “exhilarating” for the team. A camera on the descent stage of the rover spacecraft captured a unique perspective. “This shot from a camera on my jetpack captures me in midair, just before my wheels touched down,” related the Perseverance rover on its Perseverance Twitter account. “The moment that my team dreamed of for years, now a reality.” “An open horizon, with so much to explore. Can’t wait to get going,” the Perseverance account tweeted. ”Dare mighty things.”

• “The team is overwhelmed with excitement and joy to have successfully landed another rover on the surface of Mars,” said Adam Steltzner, the Perseverance rover’s chief engineer. “When we do such investments, we do them for humanity, and we do them as a gesture of our humanity.” “We can only hope, in our efforts to engineer spacecraft and explore our solar system, that we might be able contribute yet another iconic image to this collection, and I’m happy to say that I’m hopeful that today we can with this.”

• Aaron Stehura, deputy phase lead for entry, descent and landing also reflected on the moment the science team saw the image of the rover from the perspective of the ‘jetpack’ descent stage. “This is something that we’ve never seen before. It was stunning and the team was awestruck. And, you know, there’s just a feeling of victory that we’re able to capture these and share them with the world.” After the successful landing, members of the team celebrated with virtual parties, ice cream and the best night’s sleep they’ve have in a long time.

• “The rover is doing great and is healthy on the surface of Mars and continues to be highly functional and awesome,” said Pauline Hwang, strategic mission manager for the rover. This weekend, the rover will go through some hardware checkouts to make sure everything is working properly, Hwang said. The head, or mast, will unfold and cameras on the mast will capture more images of the rover’s surroundings to provide a panorama, as well as a “selfie” panorama of the rover.

• ‘Ingenuity’, the little helicopter tucked up under the rover, will also go through a checkup before embarking upon a series of test flights over a 30-day period, said Hwang. The Perseverance rover will drive to a predetermined helipad location, lower the helicopter to the ground, roll back away from the helicopter. and record images and video of these historic flights. Ingenuity also carries two cameras and will be able to share its aerial views.

• Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist for the rover has been helping to lead a team of 450 scientists around the world as they prepare to explore the Jezero Crater. Now, they’re ready to study these images and plot out a path for the rover to use as it navigates the intriguing features of the crater. The rover will explore nearby rocks on the crater floor to determine if they are volcanic basalt or sedimentary rocks and investigate the presence of a mineral called olivine that could be an explosive ash deposit, Morgan said.

• Holes present in some the rocks visible in images taken by the rover could suggest either gas that escaped the rocks if they were formed from lava, or fluids that dissolved part of the rock if they’re sedimentary. “Between us and the delta, we have a lot of interesting science to do,” said Morgan. “As soon as we got that color image from the surface of Mars, our chats lit up with the science team saying ‘look over here’ and’ look over here.’ And that’s exactly what we were hoping for… [W]e can’t believe that we’re really doing science now on the surface of Mars.”

 

           Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

After safely landing on the surface of Mars Thursday, NASA’s Perseverance rover has sent back a never-before-seen view: what it

                    Perseverance rover

looks like to land on Mars.

The rover also returned some beautiful postcards of its landing site.

The first image shared during a NASA press conference Friday was “exhilarating” for the team when they received it. It shows the rover nearing the Martian surface during entry, descent and landing. A camera on the descent stage of the spacecraft captured the perspective, something that wasn’t possible on previous missions.

            celebration in control room

“This shot from a camera on my ‘jetpack’ captures me in midair, just before my wheels touched down,” according to a tweet from the Perseverance Twitter account. “The moment that my team dreamed of for years, now a reality. Dare mighty things.”

                    Ingenuity helicopter

Little dust plumes can be seen kicking up from the Martian surface, stirred by the engines landing the rover when it was just 6.5 feet above the surface.

“The team is overwhelmed with excitement and joy to have successfully landed another rover on the surface of Mars,” said Adam Steltzner, the rover’s chief engineer. “When we do such investments, we do them for humanity, and we do them as a gesture of our humanity.”

                Adam Steltzner

Steltzner cited iconic space images from the Apollo mission, like Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon, Voyager’s first image of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope’s awe-inspiring “Pillars of Creation” photo.

                        Aaron Stehura

“We can only hope, in our efforts to engineer spacecraft and explore our solar system, that we might be able contribute yet another iconic image to this collection, and I’m happy to say that I’m hopeful that today we can with this.”

While the first images returned by the rover Thursday evening were black and white glimpses showing it safely landed on Mars, color images made available Friday show the characteristic red color of the Martian surface.

              Jezero Crater river delta

“An open horizon, with so much to explore. Can’t wait to get going,” the Perseverance account tweeted.

      Katie Stack Morgan

Rocks are also seen scattered across the flat surface of the landing site in Jezero Crater, but they’re small when compared to the large rover wheels.

Rocks spotted by the rover have holes in them — which has the scientists curious to see what would cause them.

Another tweet with the image read, “I love rocks. Look at these right next to my wheel. Are they volcanic or sedimentary? What story do they tell? Can’t wait to find out.”

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera, which flew over the landing site as Perseverance was coming in for a landing, captured an incredible view as the spacecraft’s parachutes opened.

“The Beauty of Flight! HiRISE captured this image of @NASAPersevere on its way to the landing site from over 700 km (435 mi) away!” the HiRISE account tweeted.

4:15 minute summary of the NASA Perseverance Mars landing (‘TODAY’ YouTube)

2:43 minute depiction of the Ingenuity helicopter (‘WKMG News 6 Orlando’ YouTube)

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Mars 2020 Mission to Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Article by Joey Reams and Brian Day                                          January 20, 2021                                      (pasadenanow.com)

• At this moment, the Perseverance Mars rover (pictured above) is hurtling toward Mars, planning to touch down on the Red Planet on February 18th. The landing – part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission – will signify the first planetary mission since Viking with an explicit objective to seek signs of life on another world.

• Ken Williford, the Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s ‘Astrobiogeochemistry Laboratory’ in Pasadena, California, and the deputy project scientist for the Mars mission, said, “Unlike Viking, which was concerned with seeking evidence of living or recently dead organisms, Mars 2020 will explore rocks deposited more than three billion years ago when Mars was broadly habitable and the earliest records of life on Earth were forming.”

• A primary goal of the Perseverance rover will be to drill and store Martian rock samples, which will be retrieved and brought back to Earth in a future mission for study on Earth. If successful, it would be the first time samples from another planet were returned to Earth. “By analyzing those samples, we’re interested in: How did Mars evolve as a planetary system? How do terrestrial planets — that is the ‘rocky’ planet like Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury — like ours form?” Williford said. “We only are able to study rocks from Earth that we carefully select, but we want to expand that field to Mars.”

• Williford says he believes it isn’t a matter of if life will be discovered in space, but when. “I would say that it’s extremely likely in my view…that life is widespread in the universe,” he said. When it comes to the ability to detect the presence of ancient extraterrestrial life, ”I think Mars Sample Return is our best near-term opportunity to potentially make that discovery.”

• “[T]he conditions required to support life are almost certainly very broadly distributed in the universe,” says Williford. “We don’t know how many times life has emerged. I expect it’s many times. Then the question is: Has that ever happened independently in our solar system? [Have]…other locations in our solar system exchanged living organisms and sort of seeded one another?”

 

As the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Perseverance Mars rover (pictured above) hurdles toward the Red Planet ahead of touching

           Ken Williford

down next month as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, the mission’s deputy project scientist will be sharing his thoughts about the project and what it could mean for the search for life on another world.

Ken Williford, who also serves as Director of the JPL Astrobiogeochemistry Laboratory, is scheduled to host a free online lecture Thursday through the Pasadena Public Library.
The landing of Perseverance at Jezero crater on Feb. 18 will signify “the first planetary mission since Viking with an explicit objective to seek signs of life,” the library said in a written statement. “Unlike Viking, which was concerned with seeking evidence of living or recently dead organisms, Mars 2020 will explore rocks deposited more than three billion years ago when Mars was broadly habitable and the earliest records of life on Earth were forming.”

Among a host of scientific duties, a key goal of the Perseverance rover will be to drill, store and store samples of Martian rock, which will be retrieved and brought back to Earth in a future mission for study on Earth, Williford explained. If successful, it would be the first time samples from another planet were returned to Earth.

“By analyzing those samples, we’re interested in: How did Mars evolve as a planetary system? How do terrestrial planets — that is the Rocky planet like Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury — like ours form?” he said. “We only are able to study rocks from Earth that we carefully select, but we want to expand that field to Mars.”

The larger-scale endeavor, including the return trip, is known as Mars Sample Return, or MSR.

In the decades since astronauts first returned rocks from the Moon for analysis, “They’ve really revolutionized the way we understand the moon, obviously, but also our own planet,” according to Williford.

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Cigar-Shaped Vessels in California Skies Spark Alien Debate

Article by Nirmal Narayanan                                      December 27, 2020                                      (ibtimes.co.in)

• California seems to be a hotbed of UFO activities. Many UFO sightings have been reported in the state. On December 23rd, two illuminated cigar-shaped flying objects were spotted in the night skies over Orange County, California (see image above).

• To believers, the video on the LUFOS YouTube channel (see below) is more proof of alien existence on Earth. Skeptics contend that the luminous flying objects are a reflection of objects on a window inside a house.

• A few weeks back, Haim Eshed, the former head of Israel’s space security program, revealed that aliens are in direct contact with the United States and Israel. Eshed said that United States is a member of the Galactic Federation, which comprises a multitude of alien representatives. He also said that there is a secret underground base on Mars with advanced facilities where both both human and alien representatives live.

 

Unlike people from other countries, citizens of the United States are known for having an obsession with sky watching, and as a result, the country has

                            Haim Eshed

reported a record number of UFO sightings over years. And now, a new UFO video, apparently captured from Orange County has surfaced online. The mysterious video shows two cigar-shaped flying objects hovering in the night skies in an eerie manner.

Mysterious UFO sightings continue

Conspiracy theorists strongly believe that California is a hotbed of UFO activities, and over the years, several UFO sightings have been reported in the state. The recent UFO video was shot on December 23, and the flying objects spotted in the skies had illuminating lights on the body.

The video uploaded on YouTube by the channel named LUFOS has apparently convinced conspiracy theorists, and they claim that events like these are authentic proof of alien existence on earth.
However, skeptics dismissed the alien rumors, and they made it clear that the flying objects that appeared in the skies could be most probably a reflection of objects placed in the interior of the house. These skeptics also claim that the photographer who captured the event was behind window glass, and the reflection of light or objects from the room’s interior has resulted in the UFO debate.

Is the United States working with aliens?

1:05 minute video of cigar craft over California (‘LUFOS’ YouTube)

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Alien Life on Mars Could Help Humans in Space Exploration

Article by Kirill Kurevlev                                 December 27, 2020                                       (sputniknews.com)

• NASA plans to land the Perseverance rover on Mars in February 2021. The agency plans to return US astronauts to the surface of the Moon by the end of 2024, and a manned mission to Mars by the early 2030s. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is determined to land humans on Mars and start a colony by 2026.

• “[M]icrobial life is [what] we’re most likely to find within our solar system,” states NASA’s chief scientist, Dr. James Green. “Intelligent life we may find outside of our solar system…” Dr. Green, believes that the discovery of even microbial life on planets like Mars may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments. Dr. Green says that the discovery of life in the Solar System – any life – would completely change the worldview of mankind.

• Studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it. Says Dr. Green, “[I]f we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”

 

                     Dr. James Green

For many years of manned missions, scientists have been searching for other planets and moons that could be suitable for human life. However, most of them present very harsh conditions for us. The problem may be solved with a little help from Martians.

American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) chief scientist, Dr. James Green, believes that the discovery of life on other Solar System planets, like Mars, may allow future astronauts to be genetically engineered into being able to live in the same environments, Green said in a podcast of “Gravity Assist”.

According to the scientist, studying life that has evolved in an environment completely different from Earth would provide an example of how they’ve developed mechanisms to survive in it.

“[…] if we’re able to crack that, if we’re able to crack the concept of being able to live and grow using, using new changes in our DNA structure that maybe other life forms have really done, then we can go anywhere in the galaxy we want to, I mean, it just opens up everything!”, the physicist stated.

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How Elon Musk and the US Could Establish a Martian Government

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

                            Elon Musk

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.

                        Randy Segal

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.”

                       Scot Anderson

“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.”

        David Anderman

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.

              Frans von der Dunk

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.

                             Jeff Bezos

“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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The Black Knight Satellite Conspiracy Theory

Article by Caroline Delbert                          December 16, 2020                           (popularmechanics.com)

• In 1899, Nikola Tesla claimed to have heard an extraterrestrial signal, and exclaimed. “I have a deep conviction that highly intelligent beings exist on Mars.” In 1923, Tesla told a reporter from the Albany Telegram: “I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1–2–3–4. I believe the Martians used numbers for communication because numbers are universal.” At the turn of the 20th century, before airplanes, canals were important for worldwide commerce. There was a theory that Mars had canals made by some kind of intelligent species. According to NASA, it follows that Tesla would have assumed that the mystery signals that he was detecting were from a intelligent beings on Mars.

• The late Gordon Cooper, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts in the early 1960s, claimed to have seen a UFO in space. Although NASA would not support him on it, they admitted to spotting something in the sky, and after ruling out the small number of satellites at the time, decided it must be something else. People in the 1960s were paranoid with the Cold War space race and keen to identify anything in the sky. Time magazine mentioned the space object in 1960, This, together with Tesla’s claim, gave rise to the existence of an alien satellite in a polar orbit perpendicular to ordinary equatorial satellite orbits, dubbed the ‘Black Knight’ satellite (pictured above). And a 1970 paper added the “13,000-year-old alien” origin twist.

• According to Vice, declassified documents have revealed that the mystery object was part of the US military’s Cold War ‘CORONA Project’, the world’s first successful space photo-reconnaissance flights to monitor Soviet missile facilities. In 1998, NASA astronauts on the International Space Station saw and photographed the “amorphous black object” in space, noting its dark and curious shape. NASA dismissed it as an errant thermal blanket.

• NASA is satisfied that the object, glimpsed very occasionally, is probably a piece of lost space junk. Believers cite signals dating back to Nikola Tesla of observations of a polar satellite many millennia older than human technology. Scientists have now determined these signals to be naturally occurring by pulsating space objects known as ‘pulsars’.

 

The Conspiracy

The Black Knight is a space object that, believers insist, is both artificially made and approximately 13,000 years old. That’s supposedly it in the NASA photo above. The agency says the object, glimpsed very occasionally and “detected” sometimes over the decades, is probably a piece of space junk lost from a mission. But believers cite history dating back to Nikola Tesla of observations of a polar satellite many millennia older than human technology. Could it come from ancient aliens?

The Origins

Vice reported on the Black Knight in 2015: “In 1899, Nikola Tesla heard from aliens. ‘I have a deep conviction that highly intelligent beings exist on Mars,’ Tesla told a reporter from the Albany Telegram in 1923. ‘I caught signals which I interpreted as meaning 1–2–3–4. I believe the Martians used

                     Gordon Cooper

numbers for communication because numbers are universal.’”

  The ‘CORONA Project’ “bucket satellite”

At the time, there was an influential theory that Mars had canals made by some kind of intelligent species. “The importance of canals for worldwide commerce at that time without a doubt influenced the popular interest in ‘canals’ on Mars,” NASA explains. The zeitgeist coil surely have affected Tesla—a genius by any measure, but still a human being trying to understand the confusing things he might have encountered.

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Singer Robbie Williams Thrilled as Former Space Chief Confirms Galactic Federation

Article by Ashleigh Rainbird                                   December 15, 2020                                    (irishmirror.ie)

• British pop singer Robbie Williams (pictured above) is thrilled that his alien theories have been backed up, after Israel’s former space security chief, Professor Haim Eshed, said a “Galactic Federation” exists. Williams welcomed the “big news” that a few select Earthlings from Israel and the US are part of a top-secret organization with aliens. He describes Eshed as “a very learned gentleman who is respected very highly”.

• Eshed reportedly said Israeli and American representatives meet up with aliens at the Federation’s secret underground bunker on Mars. “I know when muggins says all these things about UFOs you go, ‘Oh yeah?’” says Williams. “But he’s top brass in the Israeli military. What about them cosmic apples?”  (see 58 second clip of Williams discussing his UFO encounter below)

• Eshed claimed US President Donald Trump was “on the verge” of revealing their existence, but did not want to cause “hysteria” among us humans. Robbie, of course, has been expecting them.

 

          Professor Haim Eshed

Robbie Williams is over the moon that his alien theories have been backed up, after Israel’s former space

            US President Donald Trump

security chief said a “Galactic Federation” exists.

The singer welcomed the “big news” from Professor Haim Eshed – who headed up Israel’s space program for almost 30 years – that a few select Earthlings from Israel and the US are part of a top-secret organisation with aliens.

Rob describes Professor Eshed as “a very learned gentleman who is respected very highly”.

“I know when muggins says all these things about UFOs you go, ‘Oh yeah?’” admits Robbie, who previously made a Radio 4 documentary about a UFO conference in Nevada.

“But he’s top brass in the Israeli military. What about them cosmic apples?”

58 second clip of Robbie Williams relating a UFO encounter (’60 Minutes Australia’ YouTube)

 

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US General Describes ‘China Threat’ in Space, Heating Up Rivalry

Article by Kristin Huang                                      November 26, 2020                                    (scmp.com)

• With the launch of China’s Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft and Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring Moon rock samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond remarked that China was a threat that could block American access to space, and that the US had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.

• Meanwhile, a successful mission would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. Xu Hongliang, secretary general of China’s National Space Administration, told a space aviation forum on Wednesday that there were more Chang’e missions to come and China was planning to build an international research station on the Moon. Xu also said China would explore small celestial bodies, retrieve samples from Mars and pass by Jupiter and back again. Said Xu, “[W]e welcome international space agencies to participate in China’s future lunar and deep-space exploration cooperation.”

• The space rivalry between the world’s largest two economies is heating up. Beijing has been planning to build its own space station for decades as an alternative to the International Space Station, from which China has been excluded by the US because of security concerns.

• US officials say that China and Russia show threatening behavior regarding space. Raymond referred to an incident in 2007 when China hit and destroyed a disused Chinese weather satellite, testing its own missile capabilities. Until then, space had been considered a “benign domain,” but it was now it is contested. “China and Russia caused this shift in the strategic environment,” said Raymond. China and Russia’s capabilities include jamming of GPS and communication satellites, and directed energy and kinetic destruction of US assets via missiles on the ground.

• Raymond noted that “space really underpins … all of our instruments of national power. [I]t provides huge economic opportunity, scientific opportunity and military opportunity”, and that the US is eager to enhance ties with its allies… in space.” “We have to have different space architectures and we have to have partnerships,” Raymond said. “We’ve got to make sure that we stay ahead of this growing threat.”

• In the first nine months of 2020, China has sent 29 satellites into space – two more than the US. But observers say that China is still lagging behind the US, as private companies such as SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have taken the industry lead.

• China has grappled with launch failures. An optical remote-sensing satellite failed to enter its preset orbit in September, following another failed launch two months earlier, the Kuaizhou-11 commercial solid rocket, with two satellites on board. China also had satellite launch failures in March and April.

 

Rivalry between China and the United States in space exploration has reached new heights, with a US general saying China was a threat that could

      Space Force General John Raymond

block American access to space.

Just days after the launch of Beijing’s first lunar mission to bring samples back to Earth, US Space Force General John Raymond said the United States had to strengthen ties with its allies to handle the “threat” from China and Russia over space.

      China’s Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft

Raymond’s comments came as the head of the Chinese space administration said the nation would launch more lunar probes and invite other countries to join China on its missions.

The China-US space rivalry intensified after a Long March-5 rocket carrying the Chang’e-5 lunar spacecraft blasted off from Wenchang, Hainan province, on Tuesday morning.

In the first mission of its kind by any country in more than 40 years, the 8-tonne spacecraft comprises four components designed to bring samples back to Earth.

If the mission is successful, it would make China just the third country to have retrieved lunar samples, after the US and the former Soviet Union. But China’s space ambitions do not stop there.

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Search for Aliens Should Begin on Venus

Article by Joel Day                                    November 14, 2020                                  (express.co.uk)

• The search for microbial life has largely been focused Mars and Jupiter’s moons, for example, Europa, which is thought to have stores of frozen lakes and freshwater. Venus had rarely crossed the minds of scientists. Then a few months ago, Researchers at Cardiff University announced that they’d found traces of phosphine – a key biological signature of life – in Venus’ atmosphere.

• The discovery was a paradox. Venus’ surface is extremely inhospitable: hot enough to melt lead. Sulphuric acid makes up most of the planet’s atmosphere. W such high temperatures and lack of oxygen, the phosphine gas should technically disappear within minutes of popping into existence.

• It is widely accepted that billions of years ago Venus, Earth and Mars had similar genetic makeup, formed from the same rocks and metals. However, it is presumed that ‘climate catastrophes’ devastated Venus and Mars. Today, Venus appears to be the antithesis to everything that sustains life. The atmospheric ground pressure in Venus is as if you were beneath 900m of water on Earth. The atmosphere acts more like a fluid than a gas. It is so dense that winds can move small rocks with ease.

• “Venus is an extremely cloudy world: only 20 percent of incident sunlight percolates down to the surface,” notes British astronomer Dr. Mark A. Garlick. The presence of dark patches or bands, so-called ‘unknown absorbers’, discovered more than a century ago, block most ultraviolet light and a portion of visible light, rendering these regions comparatively dark.

• Despite its soaring temperatures, Venus is only a heat trap on its surface. At an altitude of 50km, the atmospheric pressure drops to a temperature comparable to a temperate day on Earth. This is Venus’ habitable zone.

• Dr. Garlick is calling for endeavors into the search for alien life to change tack and focus on Venus, as it “is the easiest to reach”. “At an altitude of 50km, floating habitats would be the ideal launch pad from which to search for signs of life in the clouds,” said Dr. Garlick. “Perhaps our search for extraterrestrial cousins among the planets should begin there.”

• Bacteria swept up in water particles into the Earth’s atmosphere can survive at altitudes as high as 4km. Thus, the proposition that bacteria could survive the higher reaches of Venus’ atmosphere isn’t as ludicrous as it might first seem. The phosphine on Venus could be produced by a process that humans have not yet discovered. This gap in knowledge is the most “exciting” element of the discovery, says Dr. Garlick. “Phosphine, and the unknown substances absorbing ultraviolet light, taken together make a good case for studying (Venus) more closely.”

• Life in these conditions would be “undoubtedly very hardy”, says Dr. Garlick. “But, vitally, not impossible.”

 

Venus’ surface is extremely inhospitable: hot enough to melt lead, sulphuric acid lingers and makes up the best part of the planet’s atmosphere. Yet, only a few months ago, scientists for the first time found evidence for life on Earth’s scorching neighbour. Researchers at Cardiff University shocked the astronomical community after they identified traces of phosphine – a key biological signature of life – in Venus’ atmosphere.

       Dr. Mark A. Garlick

The discovery was nothing short of a paradox: with soaring temperatures and lack of oxygen the gas should technically disappear within minutes if it ever pops into existence.

Thus, the search for life on Venus had rarely crossed the minds of scientists.

Efforts had largely been focused on Mars and Jupiter’s moons, for example, Europa, which is thought to have stores of frozen lakes and freshwater.

Now, researchers are calling for endeavours into alien life to change tack, and begin closer to home.

Dr Mark A Garlick noted that there are several other places in the Solar System touted as potential abodes of life, but are as of yet undiscovered.

He reasoned: “But among these worlds, it’s Venus that is the easiest to reach.

“At an altitude of 50km, floating habitats would be the ideal launch pad from which to search for signs of life in the clouds.

“Perhaps our search for extraterrestrial cousins among the planets should begin there.”

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Mars Had Water Before Life on Earth

Article by Chris Ciaccia                                      November 11, 2020                                        (foxnews.com)
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• It was previously estimated that water existed on Mars 3.7 billion years ago. Now, a new study published in Science Advances shows that there actually was water on Mars 4.4 billion years ago (before life appeared on Earth).

• Scientists made the determination by examining a meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2012 called NWA(NorthWest Africa) 7533, which they believe originated on Mars. Levels of oxidation inside the space rock that suggests there was water on Mars long before there was life on Earth.

• “This oxidation could have occurred if there was water present on or in the Martian crust 4.4 billion years ago during an impact that melted part of the crust,” said the study’s co-author and University of Tokyo planetary scientist Takashi Mikouchi. “Our analysis also suggests such an impact would have released a lot of hydrogen, which would have contributed to planetary warming at a time when Mars already had a thick insulating atmosphere of carbon dioxide.”

• In the last few years, scientists have discovered large underground lakes – 6 miles across and a mile deep – at the South Pole of Mars. Researchers in 2020 suggested that the water on Mars once contained the right ingredients to support life.

• NASA’s Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars where it will perform a variety of functions, including looking for evidence of ancient life.

 

                  meteorite NWA 7533

NASA is on its way to figuring out whether Mars contains fossilized evidence of extraterrestrial life, but a new study suggests the Red Planet had water billions of years earlier than previously believed.

The research, published in Science Advances, notes there was water on Mars’ surface 4.4 billion years ago.

        Takashi Mikouchi

The experts looked at meteorite NWA 7533, believed to have originated on Mars, and found levels of oxidation inside the space rock that suggests there was water on Mars long before there was life on Earth.

“This oxidation could have occurred if there was water present on or in the Martian crust 4.4 billion years ago during an impact that melted part of the crust,” study co-author and University of Tokyo planetary scientist Takashi Mikouchi said in a statement. “Our analysis also suggests such an impact would have released a lot of hydrogen, which would have contributed to planetary warming at a time when Mars already had a thick insulating atmosphere of carbon dioxide.”

Previous estimates put the presence of water on Mars at approximately 3.7 billion years ago, roughly 700 million years later than the new study suggests.

Mikouchi, who said this is the first time he has studied NWA 7533 (discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2012), noted that the team’s analysis of it “led … to some exciting conclusions.”

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What a Joe Biden Presidency May Mean in Orbit and Beyond

Article by Ian Whittaker and Gareth Dorrian                                 November 11, 2020                                       (theconversation.com)

• Donald Trump set bold goals for space exploration during his time in office – from crewed missions to the Moon and Mars to a Space Force. Joe Biden has pledged to sign Executive Orders that will undo most of the Trump administration’s work – in the same way that Trump undid most of Obama’s work. But Biden has been relatively quiet on space policy. So how is space exploration likely to change going forward?

• During the Trump administration, NASA committed to the return of astronauts to the Moon in 2024 under the Artemis program. This builds on the Constellation program which was implemented by Republican president George W Bush in 2005 but was subsequently cancelled by Democratic president Barack Obama due to its high cost and difficulty.

• In a document released by the Democratic Party entitled “Building a Stronger, Fairer Economy”, the Democrats “support NASA’s work to return Americans to the Moon and go beyond to Mars, taking the next step in exploring our solar system.” Canada, the European Space Agency and Japan are all formal partners in the construction of the Lunar Gateway – a lunar orbiting outpost designed to support multiple expeditions to the Moon’s surface. It would be difficult for a Biden administration to unilaterally withdraw from the project.

• The Trump administration also pushed for a first crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s. An independent report by the Science and Technology Policy Institute in 2019 stated that a crewed Mars mission in the 2030s is currently unfeasible. It is unlikely Biden will try to resurrect this any time soon, especially since confronting the COVID-19 pandemic will likely drain discretionary funding.

• Viewing space as a potential war zone, the Trump administration formed Space Force. With a public approval rating of only 31%, Americans aren’t too impressed with the Space Force. But there are doubtlessly many difficulties of reintegrating Space Force back into the US Air Force. It is therefore likely that Space Force will remain in a Biden administration, possibly with reduced focus.

• US human spaceflight policy rarely survives a change in a Presidential administration. NASA’s chief, Jim Bridenstine, appointed by Trump, has already announced he is stepping down, saying that he wanted to let somebody with a “close relationship with the president” take over. Still, the success of the crewed SpaceX launch to the International Space Station means the commercial crew program is likely to keep running – taking the burden off NASA.

• Biden has made it clear that tackling climate emergency is a priority. While this is likely to be focused on industrial pollution limits and renewable energy sources, it does suggest that space policy could be more focused on Earth environmental observation satellite missions such as oil spills, deforestation and carbon emissions.

• Changes notwithstanding, many scientists will breath a sigh of relief at the prospect of not having to fight the kind of anti-science position that we have seen from Trump during his time in office.

 

Donald Trump set bold goals for space exploration during his time in office – from crewed missions to the Moon and Mars to a Space Force. By contrast, his successor Joe Biden has been relatively quiet on space policy. So how is space exploration likely to change going forward?

It is clear is that there will be change. NASA’s current chief, Jim Bridenstine, has already announced he is stepping down. And we know that US human spaceflight policy rarely survives a change in presidency.

That said, the amazing success of the crewed SpaceX launch to the International Space Station (ISS), however, means the commercial crew programme is likely to keep running – taking the burden off NASA. Indeed, the first operational flight of the Crew Dragon by commercial company SpaceX is due for launch on November 15, with four astronauts bound for the ISS.

During the Trump administration, NASA also committed to the return of astronauts to the Moon in 2024 under the Artemis program. This is due for its first test launch (uncrewed) next year with Artemis-1. This builds on the Constellation program which was implemented by Republican president George W Bush in 2005 but was subsequently cancelled by Democratic president Barack Obama due to its high cost and difficulty.

The only substantial clue as to the direction of a Biden presidency with regard to astronaut flights to the Moon can be found in a document by the Democratic Party entitled “Building a Stronger, Fairer Economy”. In one paragraph, the Democrats state that they “support NASA’s work to return Americans to the Moon and go beyond to Mars, taking the next step in exploring our solar system.”

No detail is offered on possible timelines. But, with international cooperation now a major feature of the Artemis program, it would be difficult for a fledgling Biden administration to unilaterally withdraw from the project. For example, Canada, the European Space Agency and Japan are all formal partners in the construction of the Lunar Gateway – a lunar orbiting outpost designed to support multiple expeditions to the surface.

The programme is also rapidly advancing research, particularly in terms of building materials, power supplies and food production. Just this week, the European Space Agency awarded a contract to the British company Metalysis to develop techniques to simultaneously extract oxygen and metals from lunar soil.

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NASA Craft Lands on Asteroid 200 Million Miles Away

Article by Liz George                                 October 28, 2020                                  (americanmilitarynews.com)

• On October 27th, a NASA probe craft landed on the asteroid ‘Bennu’, located beyond Mars 200 million miles from Earth. A video of the event (see below) shows an arm of the craft making contact with the asteroid to suck up a sample of the extraterrestrial rock to bring back to Earth – a planned part of the ‘Osiris-Rex’ mission.

• Bennu was rockier than researchers anticipated, adding complications to the already precarious landing. Large boulders and rock fields made it difficult to land and the safest spot was still fairly rugged. Still, the Osiris-Rex probe (pictured above) successfully completed its 4-hour descent. “I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,” the NASA mission’s principal investigator Dante Lauretta said. “The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do.”

• With the camera focused on the spacecraft’s extended sample-collecting arm, viewers could see the arm make contact with the asteroids surface, sending a flurry of dust and particles into the space surrounding it. (see videos below) The asteroid’s surface is a type of sandy dust known as ‘regolith’. During the landing, the arm of the spacecraft shot nitrogen gas at the asteroid, stirring up the rubble in the surrounding space before collecting the regolith sample.

• When Osiris-Rex landed, it crushed the rock beneath it. Lauretta said this could make the collection of a good sample more likely, as the sampling instrument is more likely to collect swirling, crushed rock. “These rocks might be very weak compared to what we’re used to on Earth,” Lauretta said. Meteorites that do land on Earth’s surface must be durable enough to make it through the Earth’s atmosphere. Bennu’s rock may very well be different from the extraterrestrial rock samples NASA has already collected.

• The probe needs at least 2.1 ounces of the regolith before it returns to Earth. If NASA/Lockheed Martin determines that it did not collect enough regolith from Bennu, the spacecraft will give it another try on a backup site from a different part of the asteroid early next year. The rock collected from Bennu could assist scientists in designing a plan to redirect it if its future path includes a potential impact with Earth.

 

                      Dante Lauretta

A NASA spacecraft landed on an asteroid flying through a stretch of space 200 million miles from Earth last Tuesday.

In a video of the maneuver, the spacecraft is seen making six seconds of contact with the asteroid, called

                     asteroid ‘Bennu’

Bennu, in order to suck up a sample of the extraterrestrial rock. NASA released footage on Wednesday that showcased the precarious operation.

Dubbed Osiris-Rex, the mission sought to return the sample of the asteroid back to earth, Business Insider reported. Bennu was rockier than researchers initially thought, however, adding complications to the already precarious landing. Large boulders and rock fields made it difficult to land and the safest spot was still fairly rugged.

image of probe arm gathering rock

Despite the uneven surface on Bennu, the Osiris-Rex probe successfully completed its 4-hour descent.

“Transcendental. I can’t believe we actually pulled this off,” the mission’s principal investigator Dante Lauretta said during NASA’s live broadcast expedition. “The spacecraft did everything it was supposed to do.”

With the camera focused on the spacecraft’s extended sample-collecting arm, viewers could see the arm make contact with the asteroids surface, sending a flurry of dust and particles into the space surrounding it.

The asteroid’s surface rubble is a type of sandy dust known as regolith. During the landing, the arm of the spacecraft shot nitrogen gas at the asteroid, stirring up the rubble in the surrounding space before hopefully collecting a sample of the regolith.

 

59 second video of OSIRIS-REx touching the Bennu asteroid (‘NASA Goddard’ YouTube)

 

2:19 minute ‘OSIRIS-REx’ orbiting a few hundred meters from Bennu asteroid (‘NASA Goddard’ YouTube)

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Texas Company Aims to 3D-Print Buildings on the Moon

Article by Mike Wall                                      October 2, 2020                                   (space.com)

• The Austin-based company ICON, known for 3D-printing houses here on Earth, just launched Project Olympus to develop a space-based construction system to help get a foothold on the Moon and Mars. “From the very founding of ICON, we’ve been thinking about off-world construction,” said ICON CEO Jason Ballard. “I am confident that learning to build on other worlds will also provide the necessary breakthroughs to solve housing challenges we face on this world.”

• Project Olympus recently signed a four-year, $14.55M Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) deal with the U.S. Air Force to expand the capabilities of its 3D-printing tech. NASA is contributing 15% of the SBIR funding.

• NASA’s interest in ICON’s 3D-printing construction tech is tied to the Artemis program for manned lunar exploration and permanent base on the Moon by 2030. Making this happen will require extensive use of lunar resources, including water ice (for life support and rocket fuel) and moon dirt (for building materials). A similar devotion to “living off the land” will likely be necessary for sustained human exploration of Mars.

• ICON will partner with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to test a variety of processing and printing technologies using simulated lunar soil. “We want to increase the technology readiness level and test systems to prove it would be feasible to develop a large-scale 3D printer that could build infrastructure on the Moon or Mars,” said Corky Clinton, associate director of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office. “The team will use what we learn from the tests with the lunar simulant to design, develop and demonstrate prototype elements for a full-scale additive construction system.”

• ICON is also teaming with two architecture firms on the program – SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) and Denmark-based BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. “To explain the power of architecture, ‘formgiving’ is the Danish word for design, which literally means to give form to that which has not yet been given form,” said Bjarke Ingels, creative director at the BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group. “This becomes fundamentally clear when we venture beyond Earth and begin to imagine how we are going to build and live on entirely new worlds.”

• “With ICON, we are pioneering new frontiers – both materially, technologically and environmentally,” Ingels said. “The answers to our challenges on Earth very well might be found on the Moon.”

 

                         Jason Ballard

A Texas company aims to take its innovative homebuilding approach into the final frontier.

Austin-based startup ICON, known for 3D-printing houses here on Earth, just launched Project Olympus,

                 Corky Clinton

an ambitious effort to develop a space-based construction system. The program will eventually help humanity get a foothold on the moon and Mars, if all goes according to plan.

“From the very founding of ICON, we’ve been thinking about off-world construction. It’s a surprisingly natural progression if you are asking about the ways additive construction and 3D printing can create a better future for humanity,” ICON co-founder and CEO Jason Ballard said in a company statement.

“I am confident that learning to build on other worlds will also provide the necessary breakthroughs to solve housing challenges we face on this world,” Ballard said. “These are mutually reinforcing endeavors.”

Project Olympus will get a boost from a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract that ICON recently signed with the U.S. Air Force to expand the capabilities of its 3D-printing tech.

The four-year deal is worth $14.55 million, according to the Austin Business Journal. (You can find the outlet’s story

           Bjarke Ingels

here, but it’s behind a paywall.) NASA is contributing 15% of the SBIR sum, ICON representatives told Space.com.

NASA’s interest in ICON’s tech makes sense. The space agency is working, via its Artemis program of crewed lunar exploration, to establish a long-term human presence on and around the moon by the end of the 2020s. Making this happen will require extensive use of lunar resources, including water ice (for life support and rocket fuel) and moon dirt (for building materials), NASA officials have stressed.

A similar devotion to “living off the land” will likely be necessary for sustained human exploration of Mars, an ambitious goal that Artemis will inform and advance, NASA officials have said.

As part of the newly announced SBIR deal, ICON will partner with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama to test a variety of processing and printing technologies using simulated lunar soil. The research will build upon tech that ICON demonstrated in 2018 during NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, company representatives said.

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Scientists Find Moon’s Radiation Levels 200 Times Higher Than on Earth

Article by Sabastian Kettely                                       September 25, 2020                                     (express.co.uk)

• Knowing how radiation on the Moon affects the body is critical for long-term missions. The next generation of US astronauts is expected to return to the Moon by 2024 with NASA’s Artemis program. By 2028, the NASA hopes to establish a “sustained presence” on the Moon. But the further we travel into the solar system, the more that space radiation becomes a major threat. A journey to Mars, for instance, would last between six and eight months and expose astronauts to unprecedented levels of radiation.

• In January 2019, the Chinese Chang’e 4 probe, which landed on the far side of the Moon, took the first measurements of radiation levels on the lunar surface. The Moon might also be more hazardous than previously thought. According to the data received from German-built Lunar Lander Neutron and Dosimetry (LND) instrument attached to the Chinese probe, the Moon’s radiation levels are 60 microsieverts per hours, or more than 200 times higher than the radiation measurements on Earth.

• In space, most radiation is high-energy protons streaming from the Sun, traveling 93 million miles in less than an hour. On Earth, the planet’s magnetic bubble, or the ‘magnetosphere’, protects us from most of this radiation. But in space, spacecraft and spacesuits are much more vulnerable.

• Astronauts flying to the Moon would be exposed to the radiation for many days, which represents an additional risk. Ruthan Lewis, an engineer for NASA’s human spaceflight program, said, “The danger of radiation is always present, whether you’re in orbit, in transit, or on a planetary surface.” Christine Hellweg from the German Aerospace Center noted that by studying and preventing an astronaut’s exposure to radiation, their risk of getting cancer and other diseases could thus be reduced during long-term stays on the Moon. Dr Wimmer-Schweingruber of Kiel University added, “[I]f a manned mission departs to Mars, the new findings enable us to reliably estimate the anticipated radiation exposure in advance.”

• These findings will be critical for future missions to the Moon and Mars. Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber says, “We humans are not really made to withstand space radiation. “[A]stronauts can and should shield themselves as far as possible during longer stays on the Moon, for example, by covering their habitat with a thick layer of lunar soil.”

 

              Chinese Chang’e 4 probe

The Moon is the farthest humans have ever travelled beyond Earth, starting and ending with NASA’s Apollo programme in the 1960s and 1970s.

Dr Robert Wimmer-  Schweingruber

Further travel into the solar system is fraught by many perils, technological and natural alike, with space radiation being a major threat. A journey to Mars, for instance, would last between six and eight months and expose astronauts to unprecedented levels of radiation.

But the first measurements of radiation levels on the lunar surface show the Moon might also be more hazardous than previously thought.

          Ruthan Lewis

The measurements were carried out in January 2019 by the Chinese Chang’e 4 probe that landed on the far side of the Moon.

In a new study published in Science Advances, Chinese and German scientists have reported the data the probe has collected.
And the results are stark – the Moon’s radiation levels are more than 200 times higher than on Earth.

The measurements were made by the German-built Lunar Lander Neutron and Dosimetry (LND) instrument attached to

      Christine Hellweg

the Chinese probe.

The data was then used to calculate the so-called equivalent dose, which is the measure of the biological effect of radiation.

In space, most of this radiation is high-energy particles streaming from the Sun – protons that can travel 93 million miles in less than an hour.
On Earth, the planet’s magnetic bubble, the magnetosphere, protects us from most of this radiation.

But in space, spacecraft and spacesuits are much more vulnerable.

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Russian Cosmonauts On How to Greet Extraterrestrials

September 24, 2020                                (sputniknews.com)

• On September 24th, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov spoke at a press conference organized by the government news agency, Rossiya Segodnya. Flight engineer Kud-Sverchkov will join mission commander Sergei Ryzhikov and NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins in the ‘Expedition 64’ (all pictured above) to the International Space Station in October. This will be Kud-Sverchkov’s first flight to space.

• Russian scientists join with those from other countries in the search for extraterrestrial life, making plans to launch multiple new scientific missions to the Moon, Mars and Venus, and, earlier this year, announcing the construction of a high-powered telescope that can be used to search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations transmitted in the optical spectrum.

• In 2012, veteran cosmonaut Gennady Padalka told Chinese media that “detailed instructions” had been created at the United Nations “in case of first contact” with extraterrestrial beings. He added at the time that “sooner or later we will meet our like-minded brothers” from another planet.

• However, Kud-Sverchkov sats that Russian cosmonauts have not been given any special instructions when it comes to greeting aliens, but would try to do so in a diplomatic matter. “I think that when meeting intelligence extraterrestrial life, we will exhibit friendliness, goodwill and consideration, just as we do when meeting intelligent and unintelligent life on Earth,” the cosmonaut said.

• The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft will blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 14th upon a Soyuz-2.1 ‘carrier rocket’. The spacecraft expected to reach the ISS in a record 3 hours, 20 minutes. The mission will last until April 2021, during which the team will activate the Bartolomeo scientific platform outside the European Space Agency’s Columbus lab module. Ryzhikov, Kud-Sverchkov and Rubins will be joined by three more NASA astronauts and a Japanese astronaut, who will make their way to the ISS in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule shortly after the Soyuz craft’s arrival.

• A cosmonaut doll knitted by Kud-Sverchkov’s wife will become the expedition’s mascot, named Yuri after Yuri Gagarin, the first human being in space. Mission commander Ryzhikov told reporters that he would take with him a miniaturized set of Gospels, as well as a handful of Russian soil and stones from Mount Tabor, which Christians believe was the site of the transfiguration of Jesus following his resurrection.

• NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins said she plans to collect thousands of microbial samples inside the space station, and revealed that she plans to vote in the US presidential election from aboard the ISS.

 

    Sergei Kud-Sverchkov

As one of the world’s major space powers, Russia has done its part helping humanity search for extraterrestrial life,

                      Kathleen Rubins

recently beginning the construction of a powerful telescope capable of searching for signals coming from distant alien civilisations.

Russian cosmonauts have not been given any special instructions when it comes to greeting aliens, but would try to do so in a diplomatic matter, cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov has said.

“I think that when meeting intelligence extraterrestrial life, we will exhibit friendliness, goodwill and consideration, just as we do when meeting intelligent and unintelligent life on Earth,” the cosmonaut said, speaking at a press conference organized by Rossiya Segodnya, on Thursday.

Kud-Sverchkov will join mission commander Sergei Ryzhikov in Expedition 64 to the International Space Station in

              Sergei Ryzhikov

October as a flight engineer. This will be his first flight to space.
The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft will carry the two Russian cosmonauts and NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins to the ISS aboard a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 14,

        Yuri Gagarin

with the spacecraft expected to reach its destination in a record 3 hours, 20 minutes.

Kud-Sverchkov says a knitted cosmonaut doll named Yuri will become the mascot for Expedition 64, with the doll knitted by his wife, and named after Yuri Gagarin, the first human being in space.

Mission commander Ryzhikov told reporters that he would take with him a miniaturized Gospels, as well as a handful of Russian soil and stones from Mount Tabor, which Christians believe was the site of the transfiguration of Jesus following his resurrection.

For her part, NASA astronaut Kathleen Rubins said her plans include work collecting thousands of microbial samples inside the space station, and revealed that she plans to vote in the US presidential election from aboard the ISS.

 

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