Article by Chris Ciaccia June 22, 2020 (nypost.com)
• NASA researchers have published a study in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific saying that more than a quarter of the 53 exoplanets outside our solar system may be “ocean worlds” having significant amounts of water.
• “Plumes of water erupt from Europa and Enceladus, so we can tell that these bodies have subsurface oceans beneath their ice shells and they have energy that drives the plumes, which are two requirements for life as we know it,” said the study’s lead author Lynnae Quick, a NASA planetary scientist. “So if we’re thinking about these places as being possibly habitable, maybe bigger versions of them in other planetary systems are habitable too.” As such, Europa and Enceladus, moons that orbit Jupiter and Saturn, respectively, are icy celestial bodies that could harbor extraterrestrial life.
• Quick and the other researchers looked at exoplanets similar in size to Earth, along with exoplanets’ density, orbit, temperature, mass and distance from their star to reach their conclusions. These “ocean worlds” could release more energy than even Enceladus and Europa.
• Although studies tend to focus on exoplanets like ours that have a global biosphere so abundant it’s changing the chemistry of the whole atmosphere, NASA Goddard astrophysicist and study co-author Aki Roberge says, “(Within our) solar system, icy moons with oceans, which are far from the heat of the Sun, still have shown that they have the features we think are required for life.”
• Future missions searching for exterritorial life within our solar system include the Europa Clipper mission set to launch as soon as 2023, which will explore the surface of Europa. “If we find chemical signatures of life, we can try to look for similar signs at interstellar distances,” Quick added.
• As of June 2020. More then 4,000 exoplanets have been identified, approximately 50 of which were believed to be potentially habitable. A study published earlier this month suggested that there could be 36 alien civilizations in the Milky Way (see ExoArticle here). Another study this month suggested there could be as many as 6 billion “Earth-like” planets in the galaxy (see ExoArticle here).
Aki Roberge
A newly published study from NASA researchers suggests that there may be planets in the Milky Way galaxy other than Earth that have an ocean.
The research, published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, notes more than a quarter of the 53 exoplanets — planets outside the Solar System — that were studied could potentially be “ocean worlds,” planets that have significant amounts of water.
Lynnae Quick
“Plumes of water erupt from Europa and Enceladus, so we can tell that these bodies have subsurface oceans beneath their ice shells and they have energy that drives the plumes, which are two requirements for life as we know it,” Lynnae Quick, NASA planetary scientist and the study’s lead author, said in a statement. “So if we’re thinking about these places as being possibly habitable, maybe bigger versions of them in other planetary systems are habitable too.”
Europa and Enceladus, moons that orbit Jupiter and Saturn, respectively, are icy celestial bodies that could potentially be home to extraterrestrial life.
Quick, who specializes in volcanism and ocean worlds and the other researchers looked at exoplanets similar in size to Earth, including a group of seven in the TRAPPIST-1 system, 39 light-years from Earth. A light-year, which represents distance in space, is the equivalent of about 6 trillion miles.
In addition to size, they looked at density, orbit, temperature, mass and how far the planets are from their star to come up with their conclusions.
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Article by Jamie Carter June 19, 2020 (forbes.com)
• In the first NASA non-radio technosignatures grant ever awarded, and the first NASA grant in over three decades connected with SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), NASA has awarded the University of Rochester (NY), Harvard University and the Smithsonian funding for a study entitled: Characterizing Atmospheric Technosignatures, to find ‘technosignatures’ that would indicate the presence of life on exoplanets within another star system.
• Technosignatures are scientific evidence of past or present technology similar to the type that we produce here on Earth. “Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures, or swarms of satellites,” said Harvard’s Avi Loeb. The study will focus first on finding evidence of solar panels and chemical pollution. The presence of chlorofluorocarbons in exoplanetary atmospheres could indicate the presence of industrial activity.
• “There are only so many forms of energy in the Universe,” said Adam Frank at the University of Rochester. Any alien civilization is bound to have thought of solar power generation. “The nearest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, hosts a habitable planet, Proxima b. The planet is thought to be tidally locked with permanent day and night sides,” said Loeb. “If a civilization wants to illuminate or warm up the night side, they would place photovoltaic cells on the day-side and transfer the electric power gained to the night side.”
• Some astronomers believe that technosignatures may be simpler to find than evidence of microbial life—known as ‘biosignatures’ – which detect chemicals such as oxygen and methane. Says Loeb, “If another civilization had been doing it for much longer than we have, then their planet’s atmosphere might show detectable signs of artificially produced molecules that nature is very unlikely to produce spontaneously.”
• In the past five years, many thousands of exoplanets have been discovered, some of which are in their star systems’ habitable zones and could have water vapor in their atmospheres. “Now we know where to look. We have thousands of exoplanets including planets in the habitable zone where life can form,” says Frank. “The game has changed.” Loeb’s hope is that “[by] using this grant, we will quantify new ways to probe signs of alien technological civilizations that are similar to or much more advanced than our own.” The scientists eventually want to begin an online library of technosignatures that astrophysicists can use when gathering data.
• [Editor’s Note] This is just more time and money wasted by deep state-controlled institutions such as Harvard and the Smithsonian (and now add the University of Rochester to the list) who only want to hide the fact that since at least WWII, the US government and the cabal elite have known of the presence of intelligent extraterrestrial beings and civilizations permeating our galaxy and universe, and have been secretly studying and working with these beings to their own ends, which has nothing to do with elevating human development here on Earth. They have no intention of “discovering” and revealing to the public any extraterrestrial civilizations.
Space agency NASA has awarded a grant to a group of astronomers to search the Universe for signs of alien civilizations via “technosignatures”—and it will focus first on finding evidence of solar panels and chemical pollution.
Adam Frank
Technosignatures are scientific evidence of past or present technology, which of course would indicate the presence of life in another star system. Some think that these technosignatures may be simpler to find than direct evidence of microbial life—known as biosignatures.
Avi Loeb
“Technosignatures relate to signatures of advanced alien technologies similar to, or perhaps more sophisticated than, what we possess,” said Avi Loeb, Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard. “Such signatures might include industrial pollution of atmospheres, city lights, photovoltaic cells (solar panels), megastructures, or swarms of satellites.”
Put simply, the scientists at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard and Smithsonian, and the University of Rochester, will look for exactly the same technosignatures that we produce.
It’s believed that other civilizations would probably use solar panels to produce energy, and also probably pollute their planet’s atmosphere with artificial chemicals and gases.
How and why to find solar panels around distant planets
How does an astronomer look for sunlight reflected off solar panels around a distant exoplanet? As long as they know the wavelength band to search in—which is what this study will try to establish—astronomers training their telescopes on exoplanets may be able to spot these technosignatures.
Any alien civilisation is bound to have thought of solar power generation, think the scientists. “There are only so many forms of energy in the Universe,” said Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, and the primary recipient of the grant. “Aliens are not magic.”
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Article by Dave Huber June 20, 2020 (thecollegefix.com)
• On June 1st, Sarah Parcak, an archaeology professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has worked with NASA and the US State Department, tweeted 13 posts instructing Black Lives Matter rioters how to topple “racist” statues and obelisks, in order to “protect the world’s shared cultural heritage”. (see here for article)
• Then, in a series of tweets on June 19th, Parcak took aim at the popular History Channel show “Ancient Aliens” demanding that it be taken off the air, calling the show “one of the most racist shows on TV”. Parcak proclaims that the show’s suggestion that monuments such as the Egyptian pyramids and Easter Island statutes were constructed either by, or with the guidance of, extraterrestrial beings – is racist.
• According to Parcak’s tweet, “It’s an entire show that exists to discredit the extraordinary artistic and architectural accomplishments of past and current peoples.” In other words, Parcak takes exception because the extraterrestrial theory fails to give ‘people of color’ credit for engineering and building these monuments. “I’ll be using my platform to get them deplatformed. I should have pushed harder before, no excuses. Time to buckle up and cancel racist trash infecting the minds of millions. — Sarah Parcak (@indyfromspace)
• [Editor’s Note] The underlying strategy of ‘academia’ in our deep-state-riddled colleges and universities is to steer the public away from the true reality of an extraterrestrial influence on human development throughout Earth’s history. In the past, the deep state has relied on ridicule and media disinformation to cover-up the extraterrestrial presence and history. In this instance, Alabama professor Sarah Parcak draws upon the current public zeitgeist to accuse the show “Ancient Aliens” of racial discrimination as a motive. Parcak is so brainwashed by deep state indoctrination that she advocates the removal of any part of history which she finds objectionable. Apparently, a brain the size of a pea is not an impediment to becoming a professor of archaeology in Alabama.
The professor who recently showed protesters how to pull down obelisks during this current statue-toppling craze is now demanding the show “Ancient Aliens” be taken off the air.
University of Alabama at Birmingham archaeology professor Sarah Parcak
The popular History Channel offering, according to its website, “explores the controversial theory that extraterrestrials have visited Earth for millions of years.”
“From the age of the dinosaurs to ancient Egypt, from early cave drawings to continued mass sightings in the US,” the description continues, “each episode […] gives historic depth to the questions, speculations, provocative controversies, first-hand accounts and grounded theories surrounding this age old debate. Did intelligent beings from outer space visit Earth thousands of years ago?”
No doubt it’s the part about Egypt that ticks off University of Alabama at Birmingham archaeology Professor Sarah Parcak.
In a series of tweets on Friday, Parcak called the program “one of the most racist shows on TV” and said it needs to be “cancelled permanently.”
“It’s an entire show that exists to discredit the extraordinary artistic and architectural accomplishments of past and current peoples,” Parcak tweeted.
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Article by Sean Martin June 17, 2020 (express.co.uk)
• Searching through data from NASA’s planet hunting telescope Kepler, scientists from the University of British Columbia published a study in The Astronomical Journal estimating the likelihood of rocky Earth-like worlds which could contain water, within the Milky Way galaxy. A planet must also orbit a G-type star, like our Sun, and be positioned within the ‘Goldilocks Zone’ – the region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold – for life to exist.
• Astronomer Jaymie Matthews says, “Our Milky Way has as many as 400 billion stars, with seven per cent of them being G-type. So approximately six billion stars may have Earth-like planets in our Galaxy.” Researcher and co-author Michelle Kunimoto uses a technique known as ‘forward modelling’. “I started by simulating the full population of exoplanets around the stars Kepler searched. I marked each planet as ‘detected’ or ‘missed’ depending on how likely it was my planet search algorithm would have found them. Then, I compared the detected planets to my actual catalog of planets. If the simulation produced a close match, then the initial population was likely a good representation of the actual population of planets orbiting those stars.”
• Kunimoto also limits the possible number of habitable exoplanets where there exists a “radius gap”, “[I]t is uncommon for planets with orbital periods [of] less than 100 days to have a size between 1.5 and two times that of Earth,” says Kunimoto. “My calculations place an upper limit of 0.18 Earth-like planets per G-type star.” Previous estimates have suggested that there could be as few as 0.02 Earth-like planets per Sun-like star.
Jaymie Matthews
There are as many as 400 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy alone, meaning there could be trillions of planets. As is evident from our solar system, the majority of these planets would be lifeless and barren, but billions could still be hospitable for life, according to new research. Scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC) have searched through data from NASA’s planet hunting telescope Kepler to determine the likelihood of Earth-like planets – rocky worlds which could contain water.
Michelle Kunimoto
To be considered Earth-like, the planet must also orbit a star like our Sun, known as a G-type star, according to the research published in The Astronomical Journal.
It also has to orbit the star in what is known as the Goldilocks Zone – the region around a star where it is neither too hot nor too cold for life to exist.
UBC researcher Michelle Kunimoto, co-author of the new study, said: “My calculations place an upper limit of 0.18 Earth-like planets per G-type star
“Estimating how common different kinds of planets are around different stars can provide important constraints on planet formation and evolution theories, and help optimise future missions dedicated to finding exoplanets”.
UBC astronomer Jaymie Matthews: “Our Milky Way has as many as 400 billion stars, with seven per cent of them being G-type.
“That means less than six billion stars may have Earth-like planets in our Galaxy.”
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Article by Katy Forrester and Emma Parry June 17, 2020 (thesun.co.uk)
• Bob Oechsler, 71, who worked as a mission specialist for NASA in the 1970s and used his expertise in robotics to study the UFO phenomena, died on June 6th. Oechsler worked on the docking collar of the Apollo-Soyuz project, the first international space mission between Russian and the US, plus several other deep space projects.
• Oechsler claimed to have been invited to be a consultant for NASA’s ill-fated ‘Cosmic Journey Project’, intended to be a traveling exhibition featuring a full-scale mock-up of a space shuttle. The exhibition was to include a ‘UFOs and extraterrestrials’ exhibit. He claimed to have had meetings with top Pentagon brass about the exhibit. One enthusiastic general suggested “showing an alien/ET corpse in a cryogenic tank.”
• “The general described the tank as a space-age looking coffin with blue tube lighting inside the clear lexan cover, propped up at an angle so it wouldn’t look so much like a casket,” Oechsler said. “It seems (the general) was concerned about using the real thing versus a mock-up…” The general asked Oechsler how it might be presented to show the public that it was a real ET corpse. Oechsler suggested that “it could be authenticated with official plaques of some sort… a companion autopsy report with color photographs” to help the credibility aspect. “As a matter of fact,” said Oechsler, “I got the impression they had a lot of (alien) bodies to choose from.” The project was shelved in the early 1990s for budget reasons.
• Oechsler said that in 1989, he spoke with former Director of Naval Intelligence and Deputy Director of the CIA, Admiral Bobby Ray Inman who informed him that the US Government had possession of technology of non-human origin. In a recorded telephone conversation, Oechsler asked the Admiral: “Do you anticipate that any of the recovered (UFO) vehicles would ever become available for technological research? Outside of the military circles?” Admiral Inman replied, “I honestly don’t know. Ten years ago the answer would have been no. Whether as time has evolved they are beginning to become more open about it, there’s a possibility.”
• Oechsler was assigned to analyze video footage of a lantern-shaped UFO. Working from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, Oechsler concluded the UFO was not a radio-controlled model. Oechsler also investigated a Canadian UFO sighting when a family watched a UFO land in their field.
• In an interview with BBC Radio 1 in 2007, he described a UFO he’d been shown as “… about a 30 foot diameter disk shaped craft. It had a small dome around the center portion. There were protruding flanges equidistant around the outer edge.”
• Directors of the shelved NASA project later denied that Oechsler ever worked for the project, and that the proposed exhibition was always planned to feature only mock-ups of aliens and flying saucers. In fact, NASA denied almost everything about Oechsler.
• Oechsler’s work in the field of UFOlogy in the 1980s and 1990s shot him to worldwide fame as he investigated a series of high-profile cases. British crop circle investigator, Colin Andrews, told The Sun, “I presented with him on several occasions in a number of countries. Bob’s research was greatly respected.”
Bob Oechsler
Ex-mission specialist Bob Oechsler, who worked for the US space programme in the 1970s, used his expertise in
Adm. Bobby R. Inman
robotics to study the UFO phenomena and made some startling discoveries.
Oechsler, 71, died on June 6 after a two and a half year battle against lung cancer.
According to an online obituary, he “passed away peacefully surrounded by family” in Edgewater, Maryland.
He leaves behind wife Kristen and children Dan, Tracey and Skylar, along with two grandsons and siblings.
Colin Andrews, a well-known British crop circle investigator, told The Sun: “My sincere condolences to the family and friends of well known UFO researcher Bob Oechsler.
“I presented with him on several occasions in a number of countries. Bob’s research was greatly respected.”
Bob worked on the docking collar of the Apollo-Soyuz project, the first international space mission between Russian and the US, plus several other deep space projects.
But his work in the field of UFOlogy in the 1980s and 1990s shot him to worldwide fame as he investigated a series of high-profile cases.
Bob was allegedly invited to be a consultant for the Nasa-backed ‘Cosmic Journey Project’, a travelling exhibition featuring a full scale mock-up of a space shuttle and space camp.
One third of the exhibition was to feature UFOs and extraterrestrials, including a 600-seat auditorium that became a Bio-Tech spaceship and a UFO pre-show area with interactive kiosks.
Bob claimed he had meetings with top brass from the Pentagon who backed the project. Recalling an alleged discussion he had with a general in Washington, Bob claimed their talk involved an “exhibit showing an alien/ET corpse in a cryogenic tank”.
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Article by Abdulla Abu Wasel June 8, 2020 (entrepreneur.com)
• Fifty years ago, outer space was reserved for the most powerful of nations and the most dominant of governments. Today, it is private commercial industry that is inching us closer to the cosmos. There is a growing interdependence between what is happening in space and what is happening down below on Earth. The commercial space industry, with its multi-million-dollar rockets and satellites, is now worth about $400 billion. Space commerce is increasingly playing a part in our everyday lives.
• The International Civil Aviation Organization governs ‘air’ altitudes. So where does ‘space’ begin? The international community has not been able to agree on a common definition. Australia is the only country in the world that defines space as anything beyond 100 kilometers above the ground. While nations may own the ‘air’ over them, ‘space’ is for everybody. No nation can own property in space, and no nation can make any territorial claim in space. You need consent to fly over another country’s airspace. But if you are in ‘outer space’, you can fly over any country without consent, and even legally engage in espionage.
• With the establishment of the United States’ Space Force, we will likely see the rules of war extended into outer space. The language in the Outer Space Treaty about the use of outer space for exclusively peaceful purposes needs interpretation. ‘Peaceful purposes’ only prohibits the aggressive use of military force. So non-aggressive military force is okay? Has the establishment of the U.S. Space Force made the militarization of space perfectly legal?
• At the end of the day, the Space Force is about building political constituency for orbit, while investing in spacecraft that can defend and attack, if necessary. This represents a great deal of money for private companies, with almost half-a-dozen government defense agencies already pumping millions of dollars into space startups to build everything from radar networks to high-tech materials.
• The majority of the money to be made in space lies in satellite-provided services, and these services are likely to surge the space economy. The significant increase in satellites, far beyond the 2,300 operational satellites in space now, will bring a multitude of costs and benefits. We have seen venture capitalists directing millions of dollars towards small satellite companies with big aspirations, such as Spire, Capella Space, Hawkeye360, and Swarm.
• These space economy companies vary in their business models, from communicating with internet devices to tracking radio signals in order to gather radar data, and imaging every angle of the Earth. This all depends on the cost of building and operating the spacecraft needed to accomplish the work that they desire. SpaceX and Boeing are in the final phase of their private space transportation service in cooperation with NASA. Soon, both companies will have permission to start flying wealthy space tourists and corporate point men into space.
• On June 3rd, NASA launched astronauts into space from U.S. soil for the first time since 2011, and took them to the International Space Station via Falcon 9, a vehicle that was purchased from SpaceX. For $250,000, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will take tourists to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere in space. But NASA’s aim is the Moon. Since ice water was discovered on the Moon, starry-eyed space seekers would like to see NASA establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon rather than hiring private companies to build rovers, landers, and spacecraft to carry scientific instruments to the Moon.
• But, as we have seen, the commercial economy benefits greatly from scientific advancements gleaned from space exploration, such as transistors, solar panels, and batteries. It has brought forth the smartphone revolution, the evolution of broadcast media, telecommunications, commerce, and the internet as a whole. The new era of space exploration may be one small step for man, but it is one giant leap for the private sector economy.
The commercial space industry is heating up– 50 years ago, outer space was reserved for the most powerful of nations and the most dominant governments, but today, there is a democratization of space. Commercial industry is inching us closer to the cosmos, and in the process, there is a growing interdependence between what is happening hundreds of miles up into space and down below on Earth. Currently, the space market is worth approximately US$400 billion, and the commercial space industry, using multi-million-dollar rockets and satellites, is increasingly playing a part in our everyday lives. Although you may have been hearing about this phenomenon in recent years, this launch into the new world has been ongoing for decades.
This brings about the question of property rights. Where does space begin, and if there is a dispute in space, who decides it? Australia is the only country in the world that defines where space begins; defining it as 100 kilometers up. However, where the air ends (and the air law regime, which is governed by the International Civil Aviation Organization), and where space begins is a matter that the international community have not been able to agree on. People either want to set limits- set a height based on kilometers like Australia has done, or they take the approach of the United States who look at it as a use, i.e. what did you use, are you launching a rocket that is intended to go into orbit, or are you just launching a plane that is going to go high into the air. This is important, because nations own the air over them. Right now, space is for everybody. No nation can own property in space, and no nation can make any territorial claim in space.
You need consent to fly over another country if you are in the airspace, but on the flip side of that, if you believe that you are in outer space, you can fly over any country without consent, and even engage in espionage legally. Espionage is one part of the political military contest, but how else is space dealt with from a military perspective? With the recent establishment of the United State’s Space Force, we will likely see the same rules of war extended into outer space. The language in the Outer Space Treaty about the use of outer space for exclusively peaceful purposes is beautifully aspirational language, but the devil is in the interpretation: what does it mean to use space for peaceful purposes? The way that this has been virtually explained is that peaceful purposes only prohibit the aggressive use of military force, and as long as you are not engaged in naked aggression, then you are peaceful in your use of outer space.
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Article by Sandra Erwin June 4, 2020 (spacenews.com)
• The launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on May 30th that took NASA astronauts to the International Space Station was the “culmination of perhaps the most successful private-public partnership of all times,” said Colonel Eric Felt, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Space Vehicles Directorate. In a SpaceNews online event June 4th, Felt noted that Space Force will be far smaller than the other U.S. military services, so it plans to follow the NASA playbook and team up with the private sector. “The Space Force is going to be the most high tech of all of the services,” said Felt.
• Public-private partnerships, like deals with SpaceX and Boeing, have saved NASA billions of dollars. There are many commercial capabilities that can be used to meet military needs, with “hybrid architecture”. For example, commercial companies already have powerful sensors and data analytics systems to track and investigate space objects. The Space Force’s AFRL is looking into public-private deals to use these commercial satellites to enhance its “space domain awareness”, allowing Space Force to monitor every object in outer space. (see video below)
• Another application using private satellites in low Earth orbit is for the deployment of sensors for the Air Force’s ‘Advanced Battle Management System’, allowing the military to integrate and analyze data from space rather than from the more vulnerable command-and-control airplanes flying over enemy territory.
• Next year, AFRL plans to launch an experimental ‘cubesat’ satellite equipped with a ‘Link 16’ encrypted radio frequency data link, widely used on U.S. military and NATO aircraft and ground vehicles to share information, as a communications network relay in space. With “one of these Link 16 transponders (attached to) each of these low Earth orbit satellites, you would basically have Link 16 capability everywhere all the time,” said Felt.
• Private companies deploying broadband satellite constellations in low Earth orbit would be candidates for partnerships where these commercial satellites would also host government communications. The Defense Innovation Unit of the AFRL and the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center have been talking about setting up a ‘space commodities exchange’ where space services could be traded like commodities. “The space domain awareness data might be a great example of the kinds of things that the Space Force could purchase through a space commodities exchange,” said Felt.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force will be far smaller than the other military services but way more dependent on technology to do its job. While the Space Force will develop satellites and other technologies in-house, it also plans to follow the NASA playbook and team up with the private sector, said Col. Eric Felt, head of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate.
Colonel Eric Felt
Speaking at a SpaceNews online event June 4, Felt said NASA’s commercial crew program is “super exciting” and one that the Space Force can learn from.
The launch of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on May 30 that took NASA astronauts to the International Space Station was the “culmination of perhaps the most successful private-public partnership of all times,” said Felt.
The Space Vehicles Directorate, located at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, is one of the organizations that Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett agreed to transfer to the Space Force. Felt said his office will remain at its current location but approximately 700 people will be reassigned to the Space Force.
“The Space Force is going to be the most high tech of all of the services,” said Felt.
Public-private partnerships like NASA’s commercial crew deals with SpaceX and Boeing have saved NASA billions of dollars and serve as a “powerful model” that the Defense Department could adopt, said Felt.
1:02:30 video on military/corporate partnerships for Space Force (‘SpaceNewsInc’ YouTube)
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• NASA plans to launch a Mars rover mission on July 17, 2020 to arrive on Mars’ surface on February 18, 2021. The space agency has provided new insights about the sensors that will be used on its 2020 Perseverance Rover while it traverses the Martian surface in search of evidence of alien life. A cutting-edge camera and a unique ultraviolet laser will work in tandem to analyze the chemical and mineral makeup of the Red Planet’s soil. Experts hope this can track down potential signs of past alien life.
• The main instrument, called ‘SHERLOC’ (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals) will be mounted on the end of one of the Mars rover’s robotic arms. SHERLOC will emit a quarter-sized ultraviolet laser at the ground to enable scientists to measure the way the light scatters, in order to identify a spectral “fingerprint” revealing certain organic material and to determine what kind of minerals and chemical compounds the soil is made from. “If we see organics clumping together on one part of a rock, it might be a sign that microbes thrived there in the past,” said NASA’s Luther Beegle.
• SHERLOC will work with ‘WATSON’ (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and Engineering), another instrument that will help with the light-scattering spectroscopy and allow the Mars rover’s remote pilots to identify promising areas of the ground from which to collect samples. WATSON can also be rotated to take selfies of the Perseverance and to keep track of the rover’s condition. The Perseverance 2020 Rover will also monitor the effects of radiation on samples of human space suit fabric and helmet material to determine whether it is safe to use. The rover’s robotic arm will place the samples in half-inch wide metal tubes that will be left on Mars’ surface for a subsequent Mars mission crew to retrieve and return to Earth for detailed analysis.
US-based space agency NASA has offered new insights about the sensors used on its 2020 Perseverance rover while it traverses the Martian surface in
NASA’s Luther Beegle
search of evidence of basic forms of alien life. A cutting-edge powered camera and a unique ultraviolet laser will work in tandem to monitor the Red Planet’s soil to analyse its chemical and mineral makeup.
The main instrument, the Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals (SHERLOC), will be mounted on the end of one of the Mars rover’s robotic arms.
SHERLOC will emit a quarter-sized ultraviolet laser at the ground.
Space scientists will then measure the way the light scatters when it hits the ground to work out what kind of minerals and chemical compounds it is made from.
The technique will also identify the unique spectral “fingerprint” certain alien organic material might give off.
Extraterrestrial life experts hope this can track down potential signs of past alien life.
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Article by Yash Tripathi June 1, 2020 (republicworld.com)
• On May 30th, American astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, created history by blasting off into space via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Millions of people from across the world were glued to the live stream of the ‘spectacular’ launch of US astronauts from American soil for the first time in nine years. It was a proud moment for Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, which is now the first private company to send a craft to space.
• While the world was watching, a mouse was seen walking on the carrier. One internet user posted a short clip showing the small animal walking around the fuselage. (see 41-second video below)
• The person posting the clip on Twitter said, “Looks like a mouse hitchhiked a ride on Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket launch today!” “The mouse showed a truly amazing ability to withstand heat!” Many people who saw the ‘mouse’ walking on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket find it unbelievable. Some have said it is frozen oxygen dripping from an engine. Others say it is a flat-out fake. Neither NASA nor SpaceX have commented. The mouse appears to be walking around freely despite the heat and the laws of gravity.
• [Editor’s Note] If you look closely at the original footage of the image, you can see several more of these “mice” coming from the bag-like component and falling away before the mouse appears walking back and forth.
SpaceX has become the first private organisation to send a spacecraft to space. Two US astronauts, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, created history by blasting off into space with the NASA-SpaceX Crew Dragon launch on May 30, but they are not alone in the vast space. According to reports, a mighty mouse was seen on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule’s fuselage. A video has surfaced on the internet and has everyone shocked.
Is there a mouse on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket?
Millions of people across the world were glued to the live stream of the ‘spectacular’ launch of US astronauts from American soil for the first time in nine years. It was a proud moment for Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, which is now the first private company to send a craft to space. While the world was watching America create history, the mouse was seen walking on the carrier. One of the internet users posted the short clip showing the small animal running and walking around the fuselage.
41 second video of ‘mouse-like’ movements on the Falcon 9 launch booster (‘Salman’ YouTube)
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Article by John Varge May 16, 2020 (express.co.uk)
• The ‘Artemis Program’ is NASA’s project – supported by other international space programs and private companies – to establish a permanent human settlement on the Moon by 2028, beginning by landing two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024. On May 15th, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords (see here). NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted: “Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon. We go, together.”
• NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.” This vision is in accordance with the “peaceful purposes only” principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, the founding document of international space law, which has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the US.
• The Accords seek to ensure no “harmful interference” by one nation in the off-Earth affairs of another, and to publicly disclose their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data. Artemis partners pledge to protect historic sites and artefacts on the Moon and other cosmic locales, as well as to help minimize space-junk.
• Private Moon landers will begin to ferry NASA science and technology experiments to the lunar surface next year. The Accords also cover the space mining of resources on the Moon, Mars and asteroids conducted under the auspices of the Outer Space Treaty. Moon landers will be built by commercial companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. SpaceX is currently developing its huge ‘Starship’ vehicle to help colonize Mars. Starship will launch atop a huge rocket called ‘Super Heavy’, but will land on, and launch off of, the Moon and Mars on its own. Other companies awarded contracts, worth a total of $967 million for 10 months of work, are Blue Origin and Dynetics.
• NASA’s Jim Bridenstine said, “This is the first time since the Apollo era that NASA has direct funding for a human landing system, and now we have companies on contract to do the work for the Artemis program.” “America is moving forward with the final step needed to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024,” including the first woman set foot on the lunar surface.
The US Space Agency has always recognised that international cooperation will be vital if its Artemis programme is to succeed. Artemis is the ambitious project to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024, as a precursor to establishing a permanent human lunar settlement by 2028. On Friday, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords, which stress the peaceful nature of its exploration.
In a tweet, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine wrote: “It’s a new dawn for space exploration!
NASA’s Jim Bridenstine and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, doing his famous ‘Zoolander’ impression
“Today I’m honored to announce the #Artemis Accords agreements — establishing a shared vision and set of principles for all international partners that join in humanity’s return to the Moon.
“We go, together.”
In accordance with principles enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, NASA said its over-riding vision was to “create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.”
The outer Space Treaty (OST) is the founding document of international space law.
It has been ratified by more than 100 countries, including the United States and other leading space powers.
The OTS stipulates that space exploration should be carried out for peaceful purposes only.
Artemis partners will also be required to be completely transparent about their activities, which means publicly disclosing their exploration plans and policies as well as sharing their scientific data.
The Accords also cover space mining, which NASA sees as key to humanity’s exploration efforts over the long haul.
NASA officials said the ability to extract and use resources on the moon, Mars and even asteroids would be critical “to support safe and sustainable space exploration and development”.
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• Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has done more than any other lawmaker to support the search for UFOs. “The sad part about it is no one else has done anything,” Reid told Motherboard. “[S]o saying I’ve done more than anybody else is no big deal. There’s no one doing anything, and that’s too bad.”
• Reid was the architect of two Pentagon programs designed to look for and study UFOs and advanced propulsion technologies – called the ‘Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program’ (“AATIP”) and the ‘Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Applications Program’. Between 2007 and 2012, the DoD programs received $22 million in Congressional “black budget” funding and were run through a partner company, ‘Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies’.
• Since the Pentagon programs became public in 2017 with a New York Times investigation, Reid has given several interviews saying he wants to focus on “science,” not “little green men.” But Reid told Motherboard that he does believe in extraterrestrial life. “The world as we know it today is extremely large,” Reid said. “I think that we as human beings have to be a little short sighted if we think we’re the only species in the entire universe. In the entire universe there is for sure more than one [intelligent species].”
• Reid also said he believes it is impossible to separate studying UFOs from searching for aliens. “We learned with the work that we did that the sightings of aerial phenomenon has not been seen by a couple dozen people, not a couple hundred people. Thousands of people. Thousands of people.”
• “We know that unusual things have happened over decades on a regular basis,” said Reid. [W]e know that in the Dakotas, a missile launching facility had been shut down because of something [hovering] over one of them [and] basically shutting off the power to them. We know the accounts off the coast of San Diego where ships have found these unusual things in the water and it shut down the communications on the ships.”
• Reid continued, “I repeat, now for the second or third time, that people should not be afraid. I think that too many of my legislative friends are afraid to go into this because someone will think that they’re some kind of a nutcase. But I went into it, and I don’t think it hurt me politically.”
• Recently the DoD said that the program had nothing to do with UFOs. Reid has said from the earliest days, this was a UFO program and was always designed to be a UFO program. Reid tweeted that the Pentagon’s release of the three Navy UFO/UAP videos “only scratches the surface of research and materials available.”
• Much of the UFO research was carried out by Bigelow on the infamous Skinwalker Ranch, a paranormal hotspot in Utah. Reid said he has never visited Skinwalker Ranch but that he followed the program while he was a Senator. “I …followed it very closely and talked to people that worked [at Skinwalker Ranch], but …because I was a …member of the Senate… I didn’t feel that it was appropriate for the government to [cover the travel cost]. [S]o I thought well, I’ll just listen to others. But you know there are all kinds of interesting reports about …weird stuff going on up there.”
• Reid says that the Pentagon or NSA should be [investigating UFOs] because he wasn’t sure whether a civilian agency such as NASA could do it. But he does believe to this day that studying UFOs is important government work that should continue to be funded. “Even some of my staff told me to stay away from all this. But… it was something I was interested in, …something that government should be involved in. [O]ther countries are doing it.”
Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has done more than any other lawmaker to support the search for UFOs, which he says doesn’t mean a whole lot.
“The sad part about it is no one else has done anything, so saying I’ve done more than anybody else is no big deal,” Reid told Motherboard on the CYBER podcast. “There’s no one doing anything and that’s too bad.”
Reid was the architect of two Pentagon programs designed to look for and study UFOs, unidentified aerial phenomena, and advanced propulsion technologies. These two programs, called the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program and the Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Applications Program, had $22 million in funding between 2007 and 2012 through a Congressional “black budget,” and were run through a company called Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies, which worked on it along with the Pentagon.
Since the programs became public in 2017 thanks to a New York Times investigation and the man who ran the program, Luis Elizondo, Reid has given a few interviews where he’s said he wants to focus on “science,” not “little green men.” But Reid, in an interview with Motherboard this week, said that he does believe in extraterrestrial life.
“I look at it this way,” Reid said. “The world as we know it today is extremely large. It’s so big I can’t comprehend it. And I think that we as human beings have to be a little short sighted if we think we’re the only species in the entire universe. In the entire universe there is for sure more than one [species].”
Though that statement should not be terribly controversial and reflects a viewpoint held by many scientists, it’s not one that has been taken by many politicians, and certainly not by someone who had as much power as Reid did. Reid also said he believes it is impossible to separate studying UFOs from searching for aliens.
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Article by Nirmal Narayanan May 9, 2020 (ibtimes.sg)
• NASA and private space companies like SpaceX are gearing up for human Mars colonization missions in the near future. NASA and top space scientists are concerned about viruses from other planets, and that strict protocols should be followed as astronauts return back to Earth.
• Stanford professor of aeronautics and astronautics Scott Hubbard thinks that astronauts returning from the space should live on quarantine for a specific period of time. “In my opinion, and that of the science community, the chance that rocks from Mars that are millions of years old will contain an active life form that could infect Earth is extremely low,” said Hubbard. “But, the Mars samples returned by NASA will be quarantined and treated as though they are the Ebola virus until proven safe.”
• Detailing the standard protocol that should be followed while quarantining astronauts coming back from Mars, Hubbard offered, “As for humans, the Apollo astronauts from the first few Moon missions were quarantined to ensure they showed no signs of illness. Once it was found that the Moon did not pose a risk, the quarantine was eliminated. Such a procedure will undoubtedly be followed for humans returning from Mars.”
As the coronavirus continues its killing spree on earth, a section of space experts believe that humans have to think seriously about alien viruses that could reach the earth during space missions.
Even though this concept may seem like a plot directly coming out from a Hollywood sci-fi film, space agencies like NASA and top space scientists are really bothered about viruses from other planets contaminating the earth.
The Mars mission dilemma
It should be noted that NASA and private space companies like SpaceX are gearing up for human Mars missions in the near future. As the Mars colonization mission progresses in full swing, experts warn that strict protocols should be followed to extraterrestrial pollutants attacking earth, as astronauts return back to the ground.
Scott Hubbard, a Stanford professor of aeronautics and astronautics revealed that astronauts returning from the space should live on quarantine for a specific period of time to prevent a possible virus attack from space.
“In my opinion, and that of the science community, the chance that rocks from Mars that are millions of years old will contain an active life form that could infect Earth is extremely low. But, the Mars samples returned by NASA will be quarantined and treated as though they are the Ebola virus until proven safe,” Hubbard told Stanford News.
Hubbard also detailed about the standard protocol that should be followed while quarantining astronauts coming back from Mars. “As for humans, the Apollo astronauts from the first few moon missions were quarantined to ensure they showed no signs of illness. Once it was found that the moon did not pose a risk, the quarantine was eliminated. Such a procedure will undoubtedly be followed for humans returning from Mars,” added Hubbard.
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Article by Nirmal Narayanan May 7, 2020 (ibtimes.sg)
• A study-report published in the journal Astrobiology and Space Science states that mushroom-like objects oriented towards the sky can be seen on the surface of Mars. Researchers say objects show typical behaviors of mushrooms that grow on Earth. The researchers claim that the ‘puffball-shaped’ objects could be the result of a biological process and that non-biological presence could not explain the presence of the objects on Mars.
• According to the study-report: “There are no abiogenic processes that can explain the mushroom-morphology, size, colors, and orientation and growth of, and there are no terrestrial geological formations which resemble these mushroom-lichen-shaped specimens. Although the authors have not proven these are living organisms, the evidence supports the hypothesis that mushrooms, algae, lichens, fungi, and related organisms may have colonized the Red Planet and may be engaged in photosynthetic activity and oxygen production on Mars,” read the study’s abstract which is published in Research Gate.
• Initially published in 2019, study-report has been revised to make it clear that these findings are not conclusive proof of alien life, but can be considered as a stepping stone for future research.
• Chief scientist at NASA Jim Green strongly believes that alien life forms, at least in its microbial form, will be discovered on Mars by 2021. But Green says that the world is not prepared to accept the reality of extraterrestrial existence. The discovery of alien life could be revolutionary and it will open a whole new line of thinking.
• Green is one of the key personalities behind the NASA mission that will see the Mars Rover start drilling and collecting samples on the Martian surface in 2020. Green predicts that the testing of the samples will provide vital clues behind the existence of alien life on Mars.
A study report published in the journal Astrobiology and Space Science has claimed to have discovered alien life on Mars. The study report states that mushroom-like objects can be seen oriented towards the sky, and researchers believe that the alleged living beings are showing typical behaviors of mushrooms that grow on earth.
Jim Green
Biological causes behind these alien mushrooms
In the study report, the researchers revealed that non-biological presence could not explain the presence of the structures on Mars. They also claimed that the ‘puffball-shaped’ objects could be the result of a biological process.
Even though the study report was initially published in 2019, researchers have now revised their claims, and made it clear that their findings are not conclusive proof of alien life, but can be considered as a stepping stone for future research as humans are vigorously searching for extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet.
“There are no abiogenic processes that can explain the mushroom-morphology, size, colors, and orientation and growth of, and there are no terrestrial geological formations which resemble these mushroom-lichen-shaped specimens. Although the authors have not proven these are living organisms, the evidence supports the hypothesis that mushrooms, algae, lichens, fungi, and related organisms may have colonized the Red Planet and may be engaged in photosynthetic activity and oxygen production on Mars,” read the study’s abstract which is published in Research Gate.
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Article by Sput Nick April 26, 2020 (sputniknews.com)
• Researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute conducted simulations of Venus’ atmospheric conditions and discovered that microscopic fungi can survive and thrive in high levels of ionizing radiation and sharp jumps in temperature. Scientists believe that microorganisms may be present in the upper layers of Venus’s atmosphere.
• The researchers also studied microorganisms in temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit) in the Arctic to simulate conditions on the surface of Mars. Here too, the bacteria proved quite adaptable to survival.
• The Russian scientists then studied soil bacteria present in the Mojave Desert, which is considered analogous to the kinds of microbial communities that may be found on Mars. The micororganisms were highly resistant to temperature, pH levels, and the presence of salts and strong oxidizing agents.
• The researchers also tested whether microorganisms could survive in conditions found on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, known to have a water-ice crust. Recreating bacteria embedded in ice at -130 degrees Celsius (minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit), scientists found that the bacteria could still theoretically survive at depths of 10-100 cm over a period of 1,000-10,000 years in the moon’s subglacial oceans.
• The prestigious Space Research Institute is a complement to Russia’s manned space program, taking part in multiple ongoing Roscosmos, European Space Agency and NASA missions on the study of the solar system, and goes back to Soviet-era probes of Venus and Mars.
Theories about the possible habitability of Earth’s closest neighbours go back to the dawn of the space age, with scientists creating increasingly complex instruments to try to confirm beyond a doubt whether such life exists in the years since.
Researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Space Research Institute have completed simulations of the Venetian atmosphere’s conduciveness to sustaining life, discovering that micromycetes (a type of microscopic fungi) can survive and thrive in Venus-like atmospheric conditions, where high levels of radiation and sharp jumps in temperature are the norm. Specifically, laboratory testing found that high doses of ionizing radiation do not lead to the fungi’s demise.
Scientists conducted their experiments on the basis of long-held scientific theories that microorganisms associated with mineral particles may be present in the upper layers of Venus’s atmosphere.
The researchers also performed research involving microorganisms found in the Arctic to simulate conditions on the surface of Mars – subjecting them to radiation and temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius. Here too, scientists found that the bacteria proved quite adaptable to survival.
Additionally, the Russian scientists studied soil bacteria present in the Mojave Desert, considered by many academics to be a terrestrial analogue to the kinds of microbial communities that may be found on Mars. The research showed that these micororganisms are highly resistant to a range of stress factors, such as cultivation temperature, pH levels, and the presence of salts and strong oxidizing agents.
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• NASA astronaut Story Musgrave has been to space six times. On one occasion, he helped to fix the Hubble Telescope. And he’s the only astronaut to have flown aboard all five Space Shuttles. But what does he think about UFOs and extraterrestrial life?
• Musgrave points out that, statistically speaking, there are billions and billions of planets that must have biological life. These biological entities have had millions of years to evolve. If so, they’ve certainly developed technology that would lead to star travel by now. They’re very likely to have been outside of their solar systems, and maybe outside of their galaxy. While here on Earth, humans have only begun to technologically develop over the past few hundred years.
• As far as UFOs and extraterrestrials visiting the Earth, “I want that to happen,” says Musgrave. “I send prayers out there for them to come and get me.” “First, you have to acknowledge that they’re there. If you turn your back, they’re not going to come.”
• For 30 years, Musgrave says, he’s been “listening to everyone’s tales.” But he feels that “there’s just not enough evidence” of extraterrestrial beings visiting our planet. Also, why would extraterrestrials want to come to Earth, he asks? “If you look at the number of wars going on, the history of humanity and its relationship to itself… there’s nothing to learn here, not yet.” “There are more promising places.”
• [Editor’s Note] Apparently, Story Musgrave is still collecting his government pension and doesn’t want to say anything to jeopardize it.
Story Musgrave has led a storied life. He is the only astronaut to have flown aboard all five of the Space Shuttles – Endeavor, Discovery, Atlantis,
Story Musgrave saying that extraterrestrial beings have not visited the Earth, and trying not to laugh
Challenger and Columbia, the last two of which had mishaps that destroyed the spacecraft after he had flown in them. Musgrave has also been to space six separate times, just under the record of seven held by Franklin Chang-Diaz and Jerry Ross. In addition to Musgrave’s career as an astronaut,
he has worked as a trauma surgeon and currently owns a palm tree farm. Thirty years ago, he made history by helping fix the fragile Hubble Telescope. I thought it would be interesting to talk with Musgrave now, given the important Hubble anniversary later this week. In a one-hour phone interview, he discussed many things space, including the topic of UFOs. Following are edited excerpts from a spirited chat.
Jim Clash: What is your view on the topic of extraterrestrial life in the universe?
Story Musgrave: There are millions if not billions of them out there. We think we are the center of the universe, that the whole universe revolves around Earth. But they are coming up with so many new planets now. There are like 10 to the 29th stars, a number I can hardly wrap my fingers around, and most of them have planets. A planet can be at a place that’s friendly to biological life. Statistics have it that there are billions and billions of planets that have biological life. If they’ve behaved themselves and gotten their acts together, looked after themselves, there are millions of years for these people to have evolved, to have developed a technology that would lead to star travel. They’re outside of their own solar systems, maybe outside of their own galaxies, too. But here on Earth, technology only began probably 300 or 400 years ago, with the Industrial Revolution.
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Article by Dave Basner April 20, 2020 (whoradio.iheart.com)
• While socially distancing at home, Blake Cousins who runs the YouTube channel ‘ThirdPhaseOfMoon’ sits at a computer all day watching NASA’s live stream from the International Space Station. On April 19th, Cousins noticed a large object floating through space near the ISS, and that the NASA feed quickly cut away.
• The footage was filmed as the space station passed over South America. Some commenters were convinced this was something extraterrestrial. Others felt that it was just some space junk. NASA hasn’t commented.
Staying at home has its downsides, but there are also some folks who take full advantage of the opportunity to sit at a computer all day without a boss looking over their shoulder. Some of them play games, others watch movies and some choose to view NASA’s live streams from the International Space Station all day long.
Blake Cousins is one of those people and while watching the footage from the ISS yesterday, he saw something very strange – a UFO. Cousins, who runs the ThirdPhaseOfMoon YouTube channel, shared the clip of a large object floating through space and noted how NASA allegedly cut away from the shot after they noticed the odd scene unfolding in front of them.
10:15 minute NASA video of something moving past the ISS (‘thirdphaseofmoon’ YouTube)
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Article By Jerome H. Barkow March 29, 2020 (scientificamerican.com)
• The collaboration between SETI’s Breakthrough Listen project and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite provides thousands and thousands of ‘Goldilocks Zone’ targets for the ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Yet so far, neither SETI nor NASA have announced contact with far off extraterrestrial civilizations or aliens visiting our planet. Ask Fermi would ask, ‘if they exist, where are they?’
• Perhaps these ET civilizations have not reached a technological level of development. Perhaps the chances of two technologically advanced civilizations are too great. Perhaps advanced civilizations have a habit of self-destructing. Perhaps they simply do not find Earth interesting.
• Is the human species on a trajectory of “species maturity”? Or is our development random? Will we as a species ever see the wisdom in less murder and self-destruction? … in increased kindness and compassion? A necessary step to our species’ maturing is to recognize the right of other animal species on Earth to exist in their own way, and to extend this to the recognition of other sovereign extraterrestrial species in the universe.
• We are rapidly becoming a spacefaring species. In the future, we will mine asteroids and create manufacturing bases on the moon. Even today, we are looking for life – albeit microscopic life – in our own solar system. Seeking life on other planets and moons is characteristic of a maturing species, understanding that our community doesn’t end at the outskirts of our solar system.
• We humans possess a natural desire to expand and meet new people outside of our world. Awareness that we are not alone could make us a morally better species. This is why SETI’s cousin METI – messaging extraterrestrial intelligence – ought to go ahead and actively call out to the galaxy. Some fear that we will expose our planet to hostile aliens. But we’ve been sending tell-tale radio waves into space for decades. Should we live in fear? In hiding? The greater likelihood is that contact with other species will help us to mature and lessen our own internecine conflict.
• Imagining galactic neighbors and what we would want to say to them is in itself a step towards species maturity. In ancient times, we looked to the stars for guidance. Today we look to them for neighbors and witnesses to our species’ trajectory.
• [Editor’s Note] I hope that people like this writer remember their casual ‘hypothetical’ position on meeting intelligent extraterrestrials. Because the thoughtful, educated people who have clung relentlessly to the deep state propaganda from places like SETI – that extraterrestrials can’t be found and probably don’t exist – are in for a rude awakening. We are witnessing the first dominoes to fall that will ultimately expose the existence of numerous intelligent ET species that have been here a long time, and have been working directly with our deep state government since World War II. The pandemic/ economic collapse/ global financial reset will begin a series of amazing public revelations, thereby revealing the deep state that has kept it all secret. We as a planet will learn about existing technologies that have been hidden from us, including: medical scans that will not only detect but cure disease; free energy devices, 3-D printers and replicators that can print anything from clothing and tools to food; warp drive propulsion and portal travel. We will learn about the evil agenda of the deep state and the depravity of its leaders and members. We will discover how these wealthy elite and a military industrial complex have actually achieved far-reaching secret space programs and breakaway civilizations. We’ll find that there already exist numerous human and extraterrestrial bases and colonies all across our solar system. We will realize that all of our history as a species has been heavily corrupted, and we will re-learn our true history, and our true reality. We are at the beginning of a new era of Earth humanity’s development.
In a press release dated Wednesday, October 23, 2019, Breakthrough Listen announced its collaboration with NASA and the space agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). TESS is expected to add thousands more to the thousands of exoplanets already discovered. The collaboration means that Breakthrough Listen will now have specific directions in which to listen and look both for extraterrestrial signals, signs of intelligent life and technosignatures—signs of advanced technology.
Some exoplanets are in the “Goldilocks zone,” meaning that their distance from their sun likely permits the existence of liquid water, essential for life as we know it. Listening for the radio sounds of extraterrestrial life and for other technosignatures, SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, has become an industry. True, so far we have found no extraterrestrials and no one (as far as we can ascertain) has visited us; this is Fermi’s Paradox, the “if they exist where are they?” issue—but there could be many reasons why we have yet to detect other intelligent species.
For one thing, most of them, like most intelligent species on our own planet, are probably not technological. Then, too, the span during which a high technology species both can and might wish to make contact with a relatively low-technology species such as our own may be limited. Technological species may even regularly destroy their capacity for interstellar contact, something that not inconceivably could be our own fate. Perhaps other intelligent species are simply not interested in us, their evolved curiosity driving them in other directions. Most likely (in my opinion), we aren’t very interesting to them, at least not yet.
How relatively easy it is to study child development, with billions of children growing up all the time, each with a brief and comparable trajectory. How hard it is to study the development of a high-technology species, with an n of 1 so far and a developmental trajectory of tens of thousands of years.
Worse, that one intelligent species we do know about has not (I hope) finished growing up. Worse still, perhaps the very idea of “species maturity” is a misguided analogy, and all we will ever have is history’s rather random walk.
If we are to mature it will require us to become less self-destructive; we must increase kindness and compassion and decrease murder and mutilation. It must include an end to environmental destruction. In practical terms, our growing up is likely to be associated with continuing technological development and change, making greater achievements possible while creating dangerous challenges. In a sense, we must move to a new neighborhood.
One aspect of the U-Haul rental that could take us there is our increasing recognition of other species as having their own kinds of intelligence and their own rights. Even as biodiversity shrinks and extinction rates soar, many of us are learning to think of the entire planet as our community.
Species maturity also means that we are learning that “home” is broader than our planet. We are rapidly becoming a spacefaring species with the necessary technology and investment being generated by competition among nations, billionaires and immense corporations. In the future, we will mine asteroids and create manufacturing bases on the moon. Even more exciting, today’s space exploration emphasizes the search for microbial life elsewhere in our solar system, or at least for the possible building blocks of life.
No one today anticipates finding intelligent, high-technology organisms anywhere in our own planetary system, but seeking life on other planets and their moons makes it easier to accept that the community in which we live does not end at the outskirts of the solar system. If it did, what a pity, as a mature species may need neighbors.
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Article by Douglas Charles March 23, 2020 (brobible.com)
• In a YouTube video (see below), astrophysicist Scott Manley discusses the US Air Force’s use of a secret craft known as the X-37B. The USAF has deployed the small, reusable robotic space plane over the past ten years in classified payload missions in low Earth orbit.
• Manley, who holds a Masters in computation physics, recounted the X-37B’s history as a NASA project that saw its first flight in 2005. A ‘White Knight’ carrier aircraft would carry the X-37B to its launch altitude and release it. After several tests, it made a successful drop and flight in 2006 where “the thing flew beautifully”. Under autonomous control, the craft landed perfectly in the center of the runway, but ran off the end sustaining minor damage. But NASA repaired it and conducted further flawless test flights.
• It was then that the US Air Force took notice and built an X-37B of it own under a classified DoD project. Being an autonomous craft, “There is no cockpit, or windows, or anything like that for people inside, but there is a payload bay door that is a couple of meters long,” says Manley.
• Manley says that “there have been five flights with this vehicle” so far. There are actually two separate X-37B vehicles having “subtle differences in their hardware.” The X-37B has a large engine in the rear with control thrusters at the front and rear, neatly integrated onto the surface of the craft. The original NASA design called for a pair of engines using hydrogen peroxide and a kerosene-based jet propellant. The Air Force version uses more volatile propellants.
• Manley believes that the US Air Force “…is testing hardware for future satellites.” “They can test the electronics, sensors, propulsion, thermal control systems…[to] assess how it performs in space and how it [degrades] over time.” Manley says that while NASA uses its X-37B with the International Space Station, the Air Force would prefer to keep its upgraded classified version away from prying eyes.
Scott Manley
According to details recently reported by the Daily Express, “The U.S. Air Force has a top-secret mission in
space that uses an old NASA project to ‘test hardware’ in the cosmos before officially launching it.”
That information was shared by astrophysicist Scott Manley with his 1.03 million subscribers on his popular YouTube channel. (Manley notes in his bio that he is not a professional YouTuber, he has a day job, and doesn’t take sponsored content for his videos.)
In his video titled “Everything We Know About The U.S. Air Force’s Secret Space Plane – The X-37B,” Manley discusses the classified missions that the Air Force has been carrying out for the past 10 years in low Earth orbit using a small reusable robotic space plane designated X-37B.
Manley, who holds a Masters in computation physics, states in the video while discussing the history of the plane, “NASA’s X-37 would see its first flight in 2005, carried under the White Knight, the carrier aircraft that would take the spaceship one vehicle to its launch altitude, where it would perform its prize-winning flights.
“So it did several captive carry tests and in 2006 they finally got to drop it and test it and the thing flew beautifully under a fully autonomous control, it aimed for the runway, it put itself down gently in the center of the runway and ran off the end where it sustained some minor damage.
12:37 minutes – Scott Manley describing the NASA/USAF X-37B (‘Scott Manley’ YouTube)
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Article by Sean Martin March 14, 2020 (express.co.uk)
• NASA astrophysicist Jeremy Schnittman saw the 2014 movie ‘Interstellar’ in which it’s star, Matthew McConaughey, goes in search of a habitable planet for humans to live on as Earth is dying. The film’s scientists discover planets orbiting a black hole which could sustain life. Schnittman wanted to test the real-life feasibility of whether energy given off by a black hole could be enough to support life.
• Schnittman wrote a paper on it, and it was published in the journal arXiv. In it he says that “the Sun provides almost all the energy necessary for life on Earth to survive. Without it’s constant heat flux, the oceans would likely freeze over in a matter of days.” Likewise, black holes can provide their own energy source, in the form of radiation from hot, accreting gasses. The friction generated by ‘accretion discs’, ie: materials or objects orbiting a black hole that are constantly pushed and shoved by the extreme gravitational force, could produce a tremendous amount of energy. This could replace the star (Sun) allowing life to exist. (see 37 second video below of flaring black hole)
• Schnittman notes that the radiation energy coming from a black hole would be potentially “lethal” to any life. “All known life forms require an energy gradient in order to survive, so an all-pervasive black-body radiation background would probably not be very conducive to complex life.”
• In reality, there are factors that would prevent the Earth from turning to a radiant black hole for its survival if our Sun was dying. First, the Sun is too small to become a black hole. It would need to be about 20 times larger. It is predicted that the Sun will use up its supply of hydrogen in about 5 billion years, when it will condense into a white dwarf. Second, as the nearest black hole is located 6,523 light-years away, or 6,523 x 5.88 trillion miles, even if we could find a habitable planet nearby, this is too far for humans to reach (with our current technology that is).
Jeremy Schnittman
The amount of energy given off by a black hole could be enough to support life, expanding the possibilities of where humans should search for extraterrestrials. NASA astrophysicist Jeremy Schnittman based his research on the hit Hollywood movie Interstellar, in which the main character, played by Matthew McConaughey, goes in search of a habitable planet for humans to live on as Earth is dying. In the 2014 movie, the scientists discovered planets orbiting a black hole which could sustain life. Mr Schnittman wanted to test the real-life feasibility of this.
The scientist said accretion discs, made up of materials and objects orbiting a black hole, could allow life to exist.
The friction generated by these discs as they are pushed and shoved by the extreme gravitational force is so large that it can produce a tremendous amount of energy, depending on the size of the black hole.
While the Sun gives Earth energy through light and heat, the radiation and energy from the accretion discs might prove just as valuable.
Mr Schnittman wrote in the paper published in the journal arXiv: “On the down side, the Sun provides almost all the energy necessary for life on Earth to survive. Without it’s constant heat flux, the oceans would likely freeze over in a matter of days.
“But we also know that many astrophysical black holes can provide their own energy source, in the form of radiation from hot, accreting gas.
“In fact, for most observable black holes, this accretion power outweighs anything attainable from nuclear fusion by many orders of magnitude.
37 second video depicting black hole flaring (UoS News Desk YouTube)
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Article by Leigh Giangreco February 25, 2020 (gen.medium.com)
• Last year, President Trump created the new branch of the Air Force: the Space Force. Trump declared, “American superiority in space is absolutely vital and we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough.” So we asked second-in-command Lt. General David Thompson (pictured above) what the hell will Space Force do?
• What is the Space Force actually going to do? Three examples of what Space Force does and has been doing as part of the Air Force for years are: 1) keeping track of the more than 26,000 orbiting objects in space including operational satellites, expired satellites, and space debris; 2) tracking missile launches and providing warning to Americans and our allies, as we did several weeks ago when the Iranians launched a missile attack at the al-Asad base which resulted in no casualties; and 3) supporting GPS navigation for everything from smart phones to ships at sea.
• What do you do as Space Force’s second-in-command? I assist General Raymond, our commander and chief of space operations, in making sure that all forces are trained and equipped to conduct satellite tracking operations and ground sensors across 134 locations worldwide. We operate with a $12 billion annual budget and 26,000 personnel.
• Are you coordinating with NASA as well? Cape Canaveral is an Air Force/Space Force station that launches military, commercial, and NASA rockets. NASA has its own space center next door that launches the moon missions. But every interplanetary probe that NASA has launched, except one, flew on an Air Force or Space Force rocket.
• Will you be working with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos on the commercial side? We already work pretty closely with Elon Musk (SpaceX) and Jeff Bezos [Blue Origin aerospace], as well as a lot of the large [satellite] constellations that are in development to see their capability and technologies.
• What would a typical deployment look like? What are the major threats? Why is Space Force relevant when it seems like the U.S. military is constantly being pulled into counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East? Any of our joint forces needs navigation, position, and timing services provided by GPS. Our satellites support that need. But one of the biggest reasons for the creation of the Space Force is to protect us from potential adversaries like Russia and China who are flexing their muscles, and have made it clear they intend to remove our ability to utilize space if it comes to conflict.
• It seems a lot of people think Space Force was created to go up against Russia and China in some sort of intergalactic battle. How much truth is there in that? Half of that is correct. Space Force will monitor threats from Russia or China in space. But if it doesn’t matter to soldiers on the ground, sailors at sea, and airmen in the air, then it doesn’t matter to us. We will remain focused on our commanders in the field (on earth). We’re not battling for control of the moon or Mars.
• When did the idea of Space Force first come into being? Does this trace back to the Gulf War? The space age dawned in the 1950s and has grown up over the decades. In the early years it was used for strategic intelligence gathering and some other things. But by the time of the first Gulf War in 1990 and then Desert Storm in 1991, our space systems began to be able to provide tactical capabilities to troops on the ground. After 9/11, this need continued to increase, related to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places.
• Is it fair to say that Space Force is a Trump initiative? It was actually an initiative of all national leadership. The conversations about the need to address threats in space began in 2014 in the previous administration. The discussion increased in 2017 and 2018. But it was [Trump’s] announcement in June 2018 that really started to form the vision. So yes, President Trump had that vision, and he had a lot of participation from Congress in both political parties.
• Is this ‘on-the-ground’ satellite coordination? Or will Space Force involve astronauts in space? That opportunity to be an astronaut inside the Space Force today is almost zero. The best thing to do if you want to be an astronaut is to talk to NASA. But the rest of the world is going in the direction of the Space Force, with remotely piloted aircraft, drones, artificial intelligence, and vehicles that operate by remote control or autonomous control.
• Several other reporters have asked about the uniforms and the official song. Do you have any ideas about what the culture of Space Force will look like? Space Force needs its own culture and identity. Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are all different. I’m in my 35th year in space-related activities. We already have a little bit of a culture and an identity, which will be refreshed with things like uniforms, mottos, and songs. We want to take a little bit of time to do them carefully. We want to ask the young, career enlisted members what they want the uniform to look like. The uniforms that are under design now look like military uniforms.
• Can you give us some clues? No clues, sorry! It will be cool.
• In ‘The Incredibles’ they say “no capes.” Are there any absolute nos for Space Force uniforms? We’re not talking spandex and capes. It needs to be the classic, sharp-looking uniform that reflects who we are as members of the American military.
• Okay, so the Marines have Chesty the bulldog, the Air Force has a falcon — what are you thinking for a mascot? The Marines didn’t have Chesty when they were formed. We’re going to let that develop naturally, so it has some meaning and tradition behind it.
• Do you have a favorite sci-fi movie that inspired you? I’ve always loved Star Trek and I really loved the most recent reboot. I think they’ve captured the essence of those old characters in a new and fresh way. I was always a Star Trek fan, but I didn’t join the Air Force to go into space.
Unless you’ve been living in a galaxy far, far away, you’ve probably heard of the newest branch of the U.S. military: the Space Force. President Trump created the new branch of the Air Force last year, declaring, “American superiority in space is absolutely vital and we’re leading, but we’re not leading by enough.”
The Space Force will be the smallest branch of the U.S. military — the Marine Corps is still more than 10 times its projected size — and will draw its personnel from current Air Force staff. The new branch will also absorb many of the Air Force’s existing responsibilities, including satellite operations and support for missile warning systems. Its first chief, General John Raymond, was sworn in last month.
So does signing up for the Space Force mean preparing to wage intergalactic battle? Not exactly. Instead, the Space Force is keeping its eyes on the stars but its feet on the ground, getting GPS information from satellites that helps the U.S. military operate in the field. We talked to Lt. Gen. David Thompson, the Space Force’s second-in-command, about the satellites his people will coordinate, avoiding space junk, and whether those new uniforms will include capes.
GEN: What is the Space Force actually going to do?
David Thompson: It’s clear that a lot of the American public doesn’t understand what we already created.
Three quick examples of what Space Force has been doing as part of the Air Force for years. A couple weeks back you heard about the satellite colliding over Pittsburgh, PA. U.S. Space Force is the force that keeps track of all of those objects — 26,000-plus objects, some of them pieces of debris, old satellites — where they are, where they’re going, whether they pose a danger to anybody. That’s one of the things that we do today in the Space Force, and have been doing for years.
Second, in the missile attacks at [Ain] al-Asad base several weeks back, you’ll recall the Iranians fired several missiles, but our crew at Buckley Air Force Base outside of Denver, Colorado, detected missiles that launched and provided warning to those Americans and our friends and allies at al-Asad, which put them all in protective shelters. Had that not happened, we might be talking about folks that died in that attack as opposed to injury. That’s Space Force.
And then we don’t just do it for the military, but we do it for the civilian population as well. How many times have you followed the blue dot on your smartphone? Have you paid for gas at the pump or in a convenience store? Have you checked the internet via your cellphone? All of those positioning things, timing synchronization activities, occur through GPS which is a U.S. Space Force [satellite] constellation. We do that not just for the general public but for ships in the ocean, airplanes, forces in the desert. All navigate by GPS. And those are just a couple things that we do today and will continue as part of the Space Force.
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• Astrobiologists use telescopes to seek biochemical evidence of microbes on other planets. SETI scientists use telescopes to look for intelligent beings’ technological signatures. Then there are those who believe that intelligent extraterrestrials are here, now, buzzing the skies of planet Earth. The respective members of these three groups of ‘alien hunters’ do not necessarily get along with one another. Their interactions demonstrate a concept that sociologists call “boundary-work”, e.g.: building fences and enforcing ideas about who counts as a scientist, and who doesn’t. This ‘boundary’, however, is subjectively based on social mores, social fears, and politics.
• People who find themselves on the outside of mainstream science often foster a sense of antagonism. But the line of demarcation as to what is ‘outside’ of mainstream science shifts with time. Science’s ideas about which ET-seeking methods are valid and which are ‘fringey’ have changed over the past few decades.
• In the early years, astrobiologists and SETI – the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, worked together. ‘Perhaps those microbes on a far-off planet evolved and built radio transmitters.’ But then their respective disciplines parted ways. In order to study the conditions of life on other planets, astrobiologists tend to study conditions on this planet – drilling into frozen lakes, doing lab experiments, studying geological evolution, researching our genetics. They use this data to determine which exoplanets have the best chance for evolving life forms. SETI, on the other hand, search for electromagnetic transmissions and signatures of technologies that are not yet understood.
• In the early 1970s, NASA and the National Academy of Sciences considered SETI an important component of the search for extraterrestrial lifeforms. Then politicians such as Senator Richard Proxmire denounced SETI as a wasteful, useless, and futile endeavor. Congressional funding of SETI’s ‘High-Resolution Microwave Survey’ in the early 1990s was cut-off in 1993. The National Science Foundation banned SETI projects from its funding portfolio. Grant opportunities dried up. NASA and mainstream astrobiologists began to distance themselves from SETI.
• In the 2000s, SETI turned to private investors like Paul Allen and Yuri Milner and became associated with searching for ‘little green men’ and UFOs. The mainstream considered SETI ‘laughable pseudo-research’ outside the bounds of proper science. At the same time, astrobiology became a “legitimate” science. Astrobiologist Sara Seager told Congress in 2013, “We’re not looking for aliens or searching for UFOs. We’re using standard astronomy.”
• But SETI scientists have been clawing their way back to legitimacy. In April 2018, Congress directed NASA to start including searches for “technosignatures” in its broader search for life beyond Earth. The House Appropriations Committee is deciding whether SETI’s work will be sanctioned in the 2020s.
• One thing that both “legitimate” astrobiologists and SETI have in common is that they both consider ufology silly. They keep their distance from anyone who believes in UFOs or an extraterrestrial presence. But for someone at SETI who imagines light-years-away microbes growing into sentient beings that broadcast radio waves and beam lasers, is it that much harder to imagine these beings traveling here to Earth?
• Mainstream academic researchers claim that virtually no hard UFO data exists beyond personal accounts. Ufology doesn’t explain how or why alien spaceships could or would come all the way here. Then there are the standard variety of banal explanations for bogus UFO sightings. Ufology is not science in the way SETI researchers do science.
• Greg Eghigian, a Penn State researcher, points out that “From the early-1950s through the 1970s, a number of academics took the study of UFOs seriously and regularly engaged with ufologists.” Back then the military had official UFO research programs, even though their conclusions usually amounted to “nothing to see here.” Those programs ended. The Air Force-sponsored 1968 ‘Condon Report’ concluded that studying UFOs was a waste of time, and UFO research was consigned to the fringes.
• In 1983, Thomas F. Gieryn published his paper: “Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science.” When researchers do ‘boundary-work’, they create and maintain lines around who qualifies as a scientist and who doesn’t, and what is and what is not science. In so doing, they bestow legitimacy onto themselves and deny it to others. But this can backfire on them. When the public perceives scientists arbitrarily establishing exclusive scientific authority, people themselves feel alienated, fostering conspiracy theories about the mainstream scientists’ true motives.
• Similar to anti-vaccination activists, GMO no-goers, and people who say climate change has nothing to do with people, many ufologists have decided that scholars and politicians are at best, narrow-minded or, at worst, engaged in a deliberate attempt to hide information.
• Psychologist Stuart Appelle wrote that ufology “is not simply rejected as a legitimate discipline, it is categorically dismissed.” Rejection suggests a conclusion based on close examination and careful reflection. But dismissal is a judgment that close examination is not warranted at all, which is not very scientific. This silencing is a form of ‘social stigmatization’.
• Adam Dodd, a communications instructor at the University of Queensland (in Australia) sees mainstream scientists’ dismissal of the UFO phenomenon as ‘saving face’ in order to maintain their reputation among their own peers. An example of this is when Stephen Hawking concluded that the absence of any evidence of aliens essentially equates with evidence of the absence of aliens. And therefore, for a ‘true scientist’, UFOs and aliens are not worthy of consideration.
• This ‘boundary-work’ by mainstream scientists is both frustrating and patronizing to UFO researchers who find themselves outside of the mainstream fence. They suspect a mainstream agenda is being formed against them. Ufologists become mistrustful of so-called ‘experts’, while the mainstream regards UFO followers as ‘cranks’. So they each band together to create an ‘us versus them’ scenario, and keep their distance from each other. Scientists cannot afford the professional consequences of being associated with fringe ufologists. As a consequence, science probably loses out on the ‘kernels of truth’ in the nut bin.
• The thing that both sides generally have in common is the desire to get to the truth. But with the elitist scientists’ blanket denial of all that is lumped together as ‘fringe conspiracy theories’, these ‘hard science’ practitioners also tend to ignore cultural knowledge, emotional knowledge, spiritual knowledge, and personal knowledge. Their plodding and myopic focus on hard science may slow the rate of scientific achievement.
• Today, mainstream science seems to be more willing to embrace SETI. In 2014, SETI astronomer Jill Tarter received radio astronomy’s highest honor, the Janksy Lectureship award. And this is slowly expanding into the field of ufology. The chair of the Harvard astronomy department has publically suggested that the ‘asteroid’ Oumuamua could be a visiting spaceship.
• A NASA scientist notes that both SETI and ufology are about ‘finding the signal in the noise’. There may be ‘signals’, however small, that indicate a phenomena associated with UFOs that cannot be explained or denied that should be taken into consideration. Rather than dismissing the research of a particular ‘fringe’ group outright, scientists might listen. If so, the reaction by the fringe might be to consider mainstream ‘expert’ analysis more. There can be important truths revealed from both sides of the spectrum.
Aliens—hypothetical beings from outer space—fall into roughly three categories. They could be far-away microbes or other creatures that don’t use technology humans can detect; they could be far-away creatures that use technology earthlings can identify; or they could be creatures that have used technology to come to Earth.
Senator Richard Proxmire Sara Seager
Each of these categories has a different branch of research dedicated to it, and each one is probably less likely than the last to actually find something: Astrobiologists use telescopes to seek biochemical evidence of microbes on other planets. SETI scientists, on the other hand, use telescopes to look for hints of intelligent beings’ technological signatures as they beam through the cosmos. Investigating the idea that aliens have traveled here and have skimmed the air with spaceships, meanwhile, is the province of pseudoscientists. Or so the narrative goes.
Although these three groups have a common goal—answering the question “Are we alone?”—they don’t always get along. Their interactions demonstrate a concept that sociologists call “boundary-work”: designing and building fences around Legitimate Science, and enforcing ideas about who counts as a scientist, who doesn’t, and why. Those fences are supposed to defend science’s honor, demonstrate scientists’ objectivity, and uphold the profession’s standards. That’s good! We want that! But the fence posts also demarcate a boundary that isn’t objective but is, in fact, a function of time, location, culture, social mores, social fears, and politics. The enforcement of this sometimes-shifting boundary can send people who find
Greg Eghigian
themselves on the outside further away from mainstream science, fostering a sense of antagonism and slighted outsiderism. The history of hunting aliens is a good way to understand those unintended consequences of boundary-work in other disciplines. Because even though none of the groups actually knows, or has gained access to, whatever ET truth is out there, science’s ideas about which ET-seeking methods are valid and which are fringey have changed over the past few decades.
Astrobiology v. SETI
Thomas F. Gieryn
In the early years of astrobiology and SETI, the two groups worked more side by side than they later would. After all, they just existed at different locations on a spectrum: Maybe microbes arose on a far-off planet, and maybe those microbes evolved and built radio transmitters. Astrobiology technically just means the study of life in the universe. But that encompasses a lot: Astrobiologists look into questions like how life started, how it evolved, and what environments can support it. To study these questions, scientists can gather data on this planet, drilling into frozen lakes, doing lab experiments involving the chemistry of early Earth, studying geological evolution on Mars, or gaining a better understanding of genetics to get a better sense of what alternatives might exist to our own DNA. They also investigate what life might look like on another world, whether it has existed on other solar-system planets, and how to pick out a habitable or perhaps inhabited exoplanet from astronomical data.
Stuart Appelle
SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, falls logically within the scope of astrobiology. But this search, usually for electromagnetic transmissions, is more speculative, since it deals less explicitly with the kinds of chemistry, geology, physics, and biology we can observe in the solar system—and so perhaps beyond—and instead seeks signatures of technology whose nature we don’t yet, and may never, know.
Adam Dodd
Still, NASA initially supported both sorts of searches (although it called astrobiology “exobiology”). The venerable National Academy of Sciences, in its 1972 recommendations for the search for life beyond the solar system, listed SETI as an important component of exobiology, stating that “SETI investigations are among the most far-reaching efforts underway in exobiology today.” Trouble bubbled up between the groups, though, after SETI became the object of political ire. The search for smart aliens had already proven to be a favorite football for politicians, a frequent contender for cancelation—because of the low probability of success, the speculation required, and the money that they said could be better spent on Earth. For instance, in 1978, Senator Richard Proxmire awarded the nascent project his infamous Golden Fleece Award, for wasting government funds on what he considered a useless, futile endeavor. In the early 1990s, NASA finally began its first SETI observations, part of the project that had been on the drawing board when Proxmire mocked it: then called the High-Resolution Microwave Survey. But the year after the survey began, in 1993, Congress shut down the program.
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Article from Liverpool Hope University February 6, 2020 (phys.org)
• Recently installed Chancellor at Liverpool Hope University and Professor of Planetary and Space Science, Monica Grady told a university audience recently that the notion of undiscovered life in our galaxy isn’t nearly as far-fetched as we might expect. It’s ‘almost a racing certainty’, says Grady.
• “[I]f there’s going to be life on Mars, ‘it’s likely to be very small bacteria’ and it’s going to be under the surface of the planet,” said Grady. Under the surface of Mars “you’re protected from solar radiation. And that means there’s the possibility of ice remaining in the pores of the rocks, which could act as a source of water.”
• “I think we’ve got a better chance of having slightly higher forms of life on Europa, perhaps similar to the intelligence of an octopus.” Jupiter’s moon Europa is covered by a layer of ice up to 15 miles deep, and there’s likely liquid water beneath where life could dwell. The ice acts as a protective barrier against both solar radiation and asteroid impact. The prospect of hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor – as well sodium chloride in Europa’s salty water – also boost the prospects of life.
• As for what lies beyond the Milky Way galaxy, Professor Grady says that it is ‘highly likely’ that the environmental conditions that led to life on Earth could be replicated elsewhere. “Our solar system is not a particularly special planetary system, as far as we know, and we still haven’t explored all the stars in the galaxy,” says Grady, who has worked with the European Space Agency. “I think it’s highly likely there will be life elsewhere …made of the same elements.”
• Grady notes that based purely on a statistical argument, dinosaurs killed by an asteroid impact making way for furry mammals from which humans evolved is theoretically possible to replicate in this vast universe. “Whether we will ever be able to contact extraterrestrial life is anyone’s guess, purely because the distances are just too huge.” “As for so-called alien ‘signals’ received from space, there’s been nothing real or credible.”
• At least three separate missions will be launched to Mars this year. The ExoMars 2020 mission, a joint project of the European Space Agency and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, launches in July and is planned to reach the red planet in February 2021. The space exploration probe, the Hope Mars Mission funded by the United Arab Emirates, is set to launch in the summer.
• Grady has been studying a single grain of rock that was brought back to Earth in 2010 from the asteroid ‘25143 Itokawa’ by the Japanese Hayabusa mission. “When we look at this grain, we can see that most of it is made up of silicates, but it’s also got little patches of carbon in it,” says Grady. “[W]e can see that it’s been hit by other bits of meteorite, asteroid, and interstellar dust. “It’s giving us an idea of how complex the record of extra-terrestrial material really is.”
• In order to avoid contaminating the Earth with a Mars virus, Professor Grady described how a NASA mission will collect soil samples in tubes and leave them on Mars. Then in 2026, an ESA mission will collect those samples and put them in orbit around Mars. Then, a third mission will come and collect that orbiting capsule. Says Grady, “It’s about breaking the chain of contact between Mars and the Earth, just in case we bring back some horrendous new virus.” “[W]e don’t want to contaminate Mars with our own terrestrial bugs.”
• Professor Grady points out that space mission sterilization protocols will also prevent other planets from being contaminated by Earth viruses. Current protocol requires boiling equipment in acid or heating it to high temperatures.”We could be all there is in the galaxy. And if there’s only us, then we have a duty to protect the planet.”
• [Editor’s Note] As usual, the universities dependent on deep state funding intend to maintain the status quo, giving the public the impression that they are open to the possibility of extraterrestrial life in the universe, but limiting it to bacterial life in underground crevasses or primitive sea life hidden underneath miles of ice. They will note that there is no “real or credible” evidence of any other type of extraterrestrial life. University chancellors and professors must remain in denial of the vast amount of evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life, the presence of ET beings here on Earth, and the existence of several secret space programs in order to keep their well-paid jobs and comfortable life styles.
It’s ‘almost a racing certainty’ there’s alien life on Jupiter’s moon Europa—and Mars could be hiding primitive microorganisms, too.
That’s the view of leading British space scientist Professor Monica Grady, who says the notion of undiscovered life in our galaxy isn’t nearly as far-fetched as we might expect.
Professor Monica Grady
Professor Grady, a Professor of Planetary and Space Science, says the frigid seas beneath Europa’s ice sheets could harbor ‘octopus’ like creatures.
Meanwhile the deep caverns and caves found on Mars may also hide subterranean life-forms—as they offer shelter from intense solar radiation while also potentially boasting remnants of ice.
Professor Grady was speaking at Liverpool Hope University, where she’s just been installed as Chancellor, and revealed: “When it comes to the prospects of life beyond Earth, it’s almost a racing certainty that there’s life beneath the ice on Europa.
“Elsewhere, if there’s going to be life on Mars, it’s going to be under the surface of the planet.
“There you’re protected from solar radiation. And that means there’s the possibility of ice remaining in the pores of the rocks, which could act as a source of water.
“If there is something on Mars, it’s likely to be very small—bacteria.
“But I think we’ve got a better chance of having slightly higher forms of life on Europa, perhaps similar to the intelligence of an octopus.”
Professor Grady isn’t the first to pinpoint Europa as a potential source of extraterrestrial life.
And the moon—located more than 390 million miles from Earth—has long been the subject of science fiction, too.
Europa, one of Jupiter’s 79 known moons, is covered by a layer of ice up to 15 miles deep—and there’s likely liquid water beneath where life could dwell.
The ice acts as a protective barrier against both solar radiation and asteroid impact.
Meanwhile, the prospect of hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor—as well sodium chloride in Europa’s salty water—also boost the prospects of life.
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Article by Zero Hedge February 6, 2020 (safehaven.com)
• One year ago, China’s Chang’e 4 probe and the Yutu-2 rover it carried onboard have been busy photographing and scanning minerals, growing yeast, hatching fruit-fly eggs, and cultivating cotton, potato, and rapeseeds on the dark side of the moon. Last summer, NBC News reported that the Yutu-2 rover had come across a strange “gel-like” substance which the Chinese began to study. (see article here)
• China’s National Space Administration has continued to work on its Tiangong 3 space station and is planning on testing a new manned spacecraft for deep-space missions. That permanent station will reach orbit aboard China’s new Long March 5B rocket in the first half of 2020. The Chinese space agency plans to launch the Chang’e 5 probe into space as early as this year. Wu Yanhua, deputy chief commander of China’s Lunar Exploration Program said, “China, the United States, Russia and Europe are all discussing whether to build a research base or a research station on the moon”.
• But not so fast. Back in 2017, China and Europe made plans to build a moon base together in a move of “international collaboration”. Now, Europe and Russia plan to send a probe to the dark side of the moon and are ‘eyeing’ plans to build a joint moon base on the far side of the lunar surface. Even NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities announced plans in 2017 for a joint moon base as part of NASA’s “deep-space gateway” concept . In 2019, it was leaked that NASA had plans of its own to develop the “Artemis” lunar surface base, which is now being threatened by a U.S. House panel. (see article here)
• These types of discussions have been going on since the 1950’s with a US government project called ‘Horizon’ which sought to establish a moon base by 1966. The idea never materialized. In 1963 at the height of the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union formed a joint project to study and develop a ‘Manned Orbiting Laboratory’. More of a US spy mission than a scientific one, the ‘MOL’ project was canceled in 1969. But now Russia and the US may revive that plan with a base that will orbit the moon similar to how the International Space Station orbits the Earth.
• The status of any plans between Russia, the U.S., China and Europe could be suddenly canceled for political reasons or something else before they ever see the light of day. But it is all good so long as it is done in the spirit of joint exploration, and not weaponization. The last thing we need is another resource-draining arms race in space or a space war.
• [Editor’s Note] How long will this charade go on? All of this is nothing more than a stall – a song and dance played out by puppet space agencies to continue the cover up of scores if not hundreds of bases throughout our solar system, mostly on Mars and the ‘dark side’ of the moon, built and occupied by a variety of secret space programs. Except these bases generally are not “surface bases” but elaborate underground facilities. In fact, the moon itself is a carved out super-base brought here by a race of refugees from the planet Maldek at the time of its explosion (now known as the asteroid belt). These space agencies must know all of this and are now positioning themselves for the inevitable disclosure of the true extent of the vast secret space programs that have been constructed since World War II, and the dawn of a new Era of Space.
One year ago in January, a Chinese robot landed on the dark side of the moon. Since then, the Chang’e 4 probe and the Yutu-2 rover it carried onboard have been busy photographing and scanning minerals, growing yeast, hatching fruit-fly eggs, and cultivating cotton, potato, and rapeseeds in the moon’s low gravity, according to the Daily Beast.
Now, China’s National Space Administration is quietly planning to launch yet another probe into space. Chang’e 5 could blast off as early as this year.
Last year, TMU reported that the Yutu-2 rover came across a strange “gel-like” substance which the Chinese began to study extensively.
The Chinese space agency has continued to work on its Tiangong 3 space station and is planning on testing a new manned spacecraft for deep-space missions. That permanent station will reach orbit aboard the country’s new Long March 5B rocket in the first half of 2020, AFP reported. The mission will not be associated with the International Space Station.
It is worth noting that China and Europe both planned on building a moon base together in a move of “international collaboration” back in 2017. Europe and Russia are also eyeing plans to send a probe to the dark side of the moon to determine if they should build a moon base on the far side of the lunar surface.
And the U.S. hasn’t been quiet when it comes to the space race either with the introduction of Space Force and plans of its own for a joint base with Russia.
For the U.S., this space race to build a moon base is nothing new. A project known as Horizon was supposedly a plan drawn up in the 1950s that seemingly depicts the blueprints for a base on the moon. Project Horizon sought to establish a stationary Army control base on the moon by 1966 but the operation was allegedly shut down and canceled and the idea never materialized further.
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Article by Chris Ciaccia January 24, 2020 (nypost.com)
• Researchers with the Southwest Research Institute, using data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, have found an “abundance” of carbon dioxide on Saturn’s moon Enceladus reacting with the moon’s core and subsurface oceans that could potentially create energy sources that might support life. Researcher Hunter Waite reported, “While we have not found evidence of the presence of microbial life in the ocean of Enceladus, the growing evidence for chemical disequilibrium offers a tantalizing hint that habitable conditions could exist beneath the moon’s icy crust.”
• “We came up with a new technique for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved CO2 in the ocean,” said researcher Christopher Glein. “This enabled modeling to probe deeper interior processes.” The new technique identifies reactions between the water and the core of the celestial satellite as the source of the complexity. Their findings are published in Geophysical Research Letters.
• Enceladus was first discovered in 1789. Voyagers 1 and 2 conducted “fly-bys” in the 1980s, but not much was known about the “ocean world” moon until NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was launched in 1997 and spent 13 years in Saturn’s orbit studying the planet and its moon satellites. In September 2017, the Cassini plunged itself into Saturn’s atmosphere and found the presence of hydrogen in Enceladus’ atmosphere. In 2018, scientists announced the discovery of complex organic molecules, the “building blocks” for life, on the moon.
• In June, NASA announced the “Dragonfly mission” to explore Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which also could potentially host extraterrestrial life.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus has an even better chance of supporting extraterrestrial life than previously thought: Researchers have discovered its oceans are more complex than first believed.
The moon’s oceans shoot plumes of carbon dioxide into space, researchers have found, using data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. The findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, point to reactions between the water and the core of the celestial satellite as the source of the complexity, discovered thanks to a new technique the researchers used.
“By understanding the composition of the plume, we can learn about what the ocean is like, how it got to be this way and whether it provides environments where life as we know it could survive,” said Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) researcher Christopher Glein in a statement. “We came up with a new technique for analyzing the plume composition to estimate the concentration of dissolved CO2 in the ocean. This enabled modeling to probe deeper interior processes.”
The Cassini spacecraft intentionally plunged itself into Saturn’s atmosphere in September 2017 after it was launched in 1997 at a total cost of $3.9 billion ($2.5 billion in pre-launch costs and $1.4 billion in post-launch). It spent 13 years circling, studying and taking data of Saturn and its moons.
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blasting off into space with the NASA-SpaceX Crew Dragon launch on May 30, but they are not alone in the vast space. According to reports, a mighty mouse was seen on the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule’s fuselage. A video has surfaced on the internet and has everyone shocked.
The US Space Agency has always recognised that international cooperation will be vital if its Artemis programme is to succeed. Artemis is the ambitious project to land two astronauts near the lunar south pole in 2024, as a precursor to establishing a permanent human lunar settlement by 2028. On Friday, NASA officials revealed the core values underpinning its mission in a document called the Artemis Accords, which stress the peaceful nature of its exploration.
In the study report, the researchers revealed that non-biological presence could not explain the presence of the structures on Mars. They also claimed that the ‘puffball-shaped’ objects could be the result of a biological process.
where humans should search for extraterrestrials. NASA astrophysicist Jeremy Schnittman based his research on the hit Hollywood movie Interstellar, in which the main character, played by Matthew McConaughey, goes in search of a habitable planet for humans to live on as Earth is dying. In the 2014 movie, the scientists discovered planets orbiting a black hole which could sustain life. Mr Schnittman wanted to test the real-life feasibility of this.
