Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Space Lunacy: $ Trillion Space Games and False Prophecies by Billionaires While Rome Burns

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Space Lunacy: $ Trillion Space Games and False Prophecies by Billionaires While Rome Burns

Click here to access article by Dr. Andrew Glikson from Global Research.

This article has provoked many thoughts as I've watched the space exploration programs--I've watched most of them--televised by PBS. I always watch programs created by major media corporations with an eye toward class bias (which I have an almost natural instinct for), and these programs have elicited many such thoughts. Among these were an increase in skepticism about the moon landing in 1969. Previously I thought such speculation was bizarre, but I began to increase my natural skepticism after a series of gross mishaps in NASA's attempts (including the deaths of three astronauts), but then suddenly everything went perfectly! (I still believe that NASA succeeded.)

Last night I watched "A Year in Space & Beyond a Year in Space". I started watching this film about 15 minutes after it began, so I missed the introduction which I believe introduced the subject as an international effort. The Russians invited Britain, Japan, USA, and others to participate in this experience in which a Russian rocket propelled them to a space station. While there the astronauts performed many experiments over nearly a year.

Anyway, the point I wish to make that the show was designed around US astronaut Scott Kelly, his twin brother, and family, but not that it was an international effort promoted by the Russian government, using a Russian rocket, and launched by the Russians from Kazakhstan. No doubt the huge space station was launched by the Russians using their more powerful rockets. The film provided very little of the scientific findings that the mission was devoted to. Because of the focus of attention was on the heroics of Scott Kelly, I inferred that it was an effort to "sell" further space exploration to the American public, particularly to gain their support for a rocket exploration to Mars. It was easy to imagine that the billionaires wanted the US government to do this costly research to facilitate their quest to colonize other planets after they destroy this one and toss into the cosmic dumpster along with 99.9% of humans.