Ethiopia’s satellite orbiting the earth. (courtesy of africanexponent.com)
December 22, 2019
Space exploration is an essential driver of economic growth. Mankind’s discovery of new physical principles of the universe leads to the creation of new technologies, which transform economies to higher levels of production of physical wealth. It is science and assimilating new technologies like fission and fusion energy that are the engines of real economic growth; not money or stock values. Exploration of space stimulates the mind and breeds optimism.
“Ethiopia’s first satellite was sent into space on Friday, a landmark achievement for the ambitious country that also caps a banner year for Africa’s involvement in space.
“A Chinese Long March 4B rocket hoisted the first Ethiopian Remote Sensing Satellite (ETRSS-1) aloft from the Taiyuan space base in northern China.
“Scores of Ethiopian and Chinese officials and scientists gathered at the Entoto Observatory and Research Centre outside the capital, Addis Ababa, early Friday to watch a live broadcast.
“The 70-kilogramme (154-pound) satellite was developed by the Chinese Academy of Space Technology with the help of 21 Ethiopian scientists, according to the specialist website africanews.space…
“For us as a society, we are valuing this launch as something which lifts our national pride,” Paulos said.
“You know, this is a very poor country. Many in the younger generation don’t have big hopes of reaching space. But today we are giving this generation hope, helping this generation to think big and have self-esteem.”
Russia’s Rosatom already is building a $29 billion nuclear plant complex for Egypt, and the company is also helping Nigeria, Uganda, the Republic of Congo, and Rwanda establish nuclear facilities. The El Dabaa Nuclear Power Plant in Egypt will have four VVER-1200 reactors, or water-water energetic reactors, which are Russian-designed Generation III+ reactors. Russia is financing 85% of the project with a loan of about $25 billion to Egypt, and Egypt is paying the remaining 15% over a period of 13 years, wrote Darrell Proctor in Power on Dec. 2.
Africa’s only current operating nuclear power plant is the 1.8 GW Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, north of Cape Town, which is owned and operated by Eskom, South Africa’s power utility. The plant recently had its operational period extended for another 20 years from 2024 when it was originally supposed to be decommissioned.
African nations are trying to increase their power generation capacity on a continent that has long struggled to sustain reliable power. The International Energy Agency recently reported that 57% of Africa’s population still does not have easy access to electricity, and those with access to power deal with frequent power outages.
African nations desperately need nuclear power for their survival. Without access to plentiful energy, people will die and nations will not develop.
Mankind looking at the beautifully, well ordered spiral formation of the galaxy. (courtesy of dreamstime.com)
Below is an article whose central polemic I concur with. Today’s culture-society is being bombarded with propaganda that all stems from the Malthusian mantra, that the world has limited resources and therefore we must reduce the number of people living on this planet. Malthus’ ideological driven, anti-scientific ideas were wrong when he presented them over 200 years ago, they are wrong today, and they will always be wrong. The most powerful force that the human species possesses is; the mind. More explicitly, the power of the creative imagination to hypothesize previously unknown principles of the universe. There are no fixed resources. Human beings, the only creative species, is the source of all new discoveries that create new resources, as the history of our species demonstrate over millions of years on this planet earth. Do not succumb to “group think” and do not submit to so called authorities. The pathetic level of discussion in our society today, reflected in the 2020 US election for example, indicates how much the dialogue of profound ideas has deteriorated over the last half century. The most effective way to inspire humans beings and excite their imagination is to explore our solar system, and the universe with all its galaxies. By looking up to the stars in the sky to discover the laws of our universe, we can eliminate human suffering on earth.
The Age of Reason Is in the Stars!
There is really good news: Man is capable of reason and therefore of limitless intellectual and moral perfectibility! We can do something that neither the donkeys nor the monkeys can do: We can discover new scientific principles of the universe in which we live, without limits! And these qualitative discoveries mean that, unlike donkeys and monkeys, we are constantly able to redefine even what we consider to be resources, therefore making resources unlimited. We can continue to improve the livelihoods of humanity!
We are experiencing unprecedented, fascinating scientific revolutions: the Chinese are exploring the far side of the Moon with their Chang’e Moon missions, planning to mine helium-3 as fuel for the coming fusion economy on Earth, and next year a Mars mission will investigate the conditions for terraforming the red planet. With their Chandrayaan 2 mission to the south pole of the Moon, Indians will explore the ice in the craters there, which are always in the shade—water is one of the essential prerequisites for life on the Moon. The European Space Agency is working on concrete plans for international cooperation on a permanent Moon village! The U.S. is building upon the Kennedy Apollo program with its Artemis program, and Russia, the U.S., and China all see nuclear-powered spaceships as the right choice for future flights to Mars and deep into space!
The great thing about space travel is that it proves that we are not living in a closed system in which raw materials are limited and the murderous views of Thomas Malthus, Julian Huxley, Bertrand Russell, and Prince Philip would be correct, but on the contrary, we live in an anti-entropic universe. Space travel is the irrefutable proof that the universe “obeys” an adequate hypothesis of the human mind, and that there is therefore absolute coherence between the immaterial ideas produced by reason, and the physical laws of this universe, and that these ideas are the spearhead of the anti-entropic dynamics of the universe.
There have been groundbreaking proofs recently: about 100 years after Einstein’s theses on the existence of gravitational waves and black holes, the change in space-time has now been proven, and shortly thereafter, with the help of eight radio telescopes distributed all over the world, images were made of the area around a black hole whose mass is 6.5 billion times larger than that of the Sun, 53.5 million light years away at the center of the M87 galaxy. There is still so much to discover in our universe, where, according to the Hubble Space Telescope, there are at least two trillion galaxies! Space exploration opens up a deeper insight into how the laws of our universe work, and what role we humans play in it!
This is the life-affirming cultural optimism that comes with the idea of humanity as a space-faring species, in complete contrast to the contrived doomsday atmosphere which is spread by the apostles of a coming apocalypse—such as Prince Charles and the hedge-fund cover girl Greta Thunberg. Behind the Greta hype are quite vile interests: the trans-Atlantic financial system is facing a more serious crash than in 2008, and the financial sharks and locusts of the City of London and Wall Street are trying one final big deal, to steer as much investment into “green” technology as possible, before the systemic crisis hits.
A closer look at the various sponsors of Greta’s extremely ambitious and well-funded agenda; of the Extinction Rebellion (XR); and of FridaysforFuture (F4F), reveals that this movement is funded by some of the richest people on Earth, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Ted Turner. The fact is that the beneficiaries of the climate hype and the Green New Deal are the banks and hedge funds.
A ‘Rebellion’ Funded by the Most Privileged
The target of this unprecedented manipulation is you, the young adults, the children and teenagers of this world! Shouldn’t it make you stop and think, when your alleged “rebellion” is supported by the whole spectrum of mainstream media and the entire liberal establishment? Yet the vile idea that manipulating the paradigm-shift of an entire society must begin with the indoctrination of children is nothing new. As early as 1951, Lord Bertrand Russell wrote in his book, The Impact of Science on Society:
“I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology. . . . Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. . . . It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. . . . not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten.”
The goal of the apocalyptic scaremongering by people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“We have only 12 years left!”) or the head of the British Commonwealth, Prince Charles (“We only have 18 months left!”), is an induced radical change in the way of life of mankind. Everything that we have understood as progress during the last 250 years should be abandoned, and we should return to the technological level that existed before the Industrial Revolution. But this also means that then the number of people who can be sustained at that level will drop to about a billion or less.
It would mean that developing countries would have no prospects for ever escaping poverty, hunger, epidemics and a shortened lifespan; it would be a genocide of an unimaginably large number of people! If “climate scientist” Mojib Latif thinks that the Western lifestyle can not be transmitted to all people in the world, and if Barack Obama is outraged that many young people in Africa want a car, air conditioning and a big house, then behind that lurks the inhuman arrogance of members of the totally privileged upper class. It is precisely this view by the colonial rulers that is responsible for the fact that Africa and much of Latin America are still underdeveloped, and many hundreds of millions of people have died early unnecessarily.
For the developing world, the pseudo-religion of anthropogenic climate change means genocide. For the souls of the young people of the world, the cultural pessimism it induces is a poison that destroys confidence in human creativity. When every activity becomes a problem and is suddenly laden with guilt—eating meat, or eating at all, driving a car, flying, home heating, clothing, and indeed life itself—it destroys any enthusiasm for discovery, any enthusiasm for that which is beautiful, and all hope for the future. And if every human being is just another parasite that destroys the environment, then quite a few come to the misanthropic conclusions of the mass shooters of Christchurch and El Paso who, in their “manifestos,” cited environmental reasons for their actions.
Conversely, the scientific and technological advances associated with space travel are the key to overcoming all apparent limitations of our present existence on Earth. “Terraforming”—the creation of human conditions—then becomes possible not only on the Moon and Mars, but also here on Earth, and in the future on many heavenly bodies in our Solar system and perhaps beyond.
In his “Anthropology of Astronautics,” the German-American space pioneer Krafft Ehricke writes:
“The concept of space travel carries with it enormous impact, because it challenges man on practically all fronts of his physical and spiritual existence. The idea of traveling to other celestial bodies reflects to the highest degree the independence and agility of the human mind. It lends ultimate dignity to man’s technical and scientific endeavors. Above all, it touches on the philosophy of his very existence. As a result, the concept of space travel disregards national borders, refuses to recognize differences of historical or ethnological origin, and penetrates the fiber of one sociological or political creed as fast as that of the next.”
Today, we need this culturally optimistic image of mankind, and the passionate love for humanity associated with it as the only creative species known to date! The fact that we can venture into space means that we can overcome the narrow, earth-bound mindset. “There, in the stars, lies mankind’s entry into the long-awaited Age of Reason, when our species sheds at last the cultural residue of the beast,” as Lyndon LaRouche put it.
It is an incredible privilege to be young now, to reach for the stars and help shape an epoch of humanity that, for the first time in history, can unleash the unlimited potential of our species!
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder and President of the Schiller Institute
Space exploration is in mankind’s nature. Human beings-homo sapiens-sapiens- have been looking up to the stars and discovering new qualities of the physical universe from our earliest existence. A new Moon-Mars program is essential for two reasons. One, it excites our creative imagination, and instills optimism in us. Secondly, all new discoveries of physical principles lead to economic progress. These type of scientific endeavors will provide the knowledge to help us green the vast Sahara Desert, which has plagued Africa since it dried up several thousands of years ago. For these reasons and more, I am an enthusiastic advocate of going back to the Moon and onward to Mars.
(Courtesy of SpaceNews)
NASA Video: Moon Source and `Checkpoint for All that Lies Beyond’
A new video produced by NASA shows the far greater challenge and potential of the “Moon by 2024” mission in comparison to the United States’ manned landings on the Moon a half-century ago. Presenting an array of new rocketry and manned capsules in action and under development, the NASA astronauts and engineers promise, “We’re going to the Moon this time to stay.”
But more, the Moon is the launch pad, the new space coast, and the source of both fuel and supplies for missions to Mars and beyond; mankind will explore the Solar System from the Moon.
“In 2009 we learned that the Moon contains millions of tons of water ice,” the technicians say. “This ice can [make] water, oxygen for breathing, or hydrogen for rocket fuel. The Moon is uniquely suited to prepare us, and propel us to Mars and beyond…. This we can replicate throughout the Solar System.”
No suggestion is made of competition or conflict in space; rather “We go to seek knowledge and understanding, and to share it with all.”
“We return to the Moon now as preparation…as a checkpoint toward all that lies beyond.”
Finally, the USA is planning on returning to space in a big way. If President Trump implements his just announced space program he will be reigniting America’s space legacy, initially led by President John Kennedy. Returning to the Moon, which President Obama foolishly dismissed by saying, “been there-done that,” is vital to our culture and economy. Exploration of our solar system and galaxy will stimulate the imagination of mankind, and return hefty economic benefits through discovering new scientific principles. Not having returned to the Moon for almost half a century was a gigantic error in American policy. Establishing a base on the Moon is an essential stepping stone to landing on Mars, the Earth’s closet neighboring planet. Over recent years, China has taken the lead in space exploration, and now, if the US is wise, we can collaborate with China in discovering new wonders about our living Universe.
August 1,. 1971) — Astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, gives a military salute while standing beside the deployed United States flag during the Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) at the Hadley-Apennine landing site. (courtesy of nbcnews.com)
President Donald Trump: “This time, we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint, we will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars, and perhaps someday, to many worlds beyond.”
Highlights of President Trump’s Moon initiative:
*”The United States will seek to land on the Moon’s South Pole by 2024, establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon by 2028 (less than a decade from now0], and chart a future path for Mars exploration.
*”NASA’s lunar presence will focus on science, resource management, and risk reduction for future missions to Mars.”
*”NASA will create a Moon-to-Mars Mission Directorate and make all necessary efforts to achieve Exploration Mission-1, a mission around the Moon without a crew.
*”Exploration Mission-1 will take place no later than 2020 (next year) and a crewed mission around the Moon, Exploration Mission-2, will take place no later than 2022 (3 years from now).
*”NASA will unleash American industry, including through public-private partnerships, to enhance innovation and the sustainability of its space activities.
*”The United States will engage with international partners to enable a sustainable lunar exploration and development program.
*”An American has not walked on the Moon in 47 years [no human being, for that matter], but President Trump is working to change that.
*”To achieve this goal, President Trump is taking action to ensure that American astronauts get to their destination quickly and sustainably.”
*”These recommendations follow President Trump’s bold call for America to go back to the Moon and establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars.
*”The President’s Space Policy calls for NASA to lead an innovative space program with commercial and international partners.
*”Americans will return to the Moon for long-term exploration, followed by missions to Mars and beyond.”
Exploring outer space is a natural driver of economic growth. Discovering the universe beyond earth stimulates the mind, excites the imagination, and challenges our human understanding of the physical laws-principles that govern our planet. Discovering new scientific principles leads to new technologies that transform our economic mode of production. Knowledge, understood in this way, changes i.e. improves our relationship to nature-the physical universe. There is no so-called environmental limit to continued economic growth for the human noetic-creative species. The last great burst of productivity in America was a result of President John K Kennedy’s vision for man to land on the Moon. All the new discoveries that were required to accomplish that feat created new technologies here at home, on planet earth. Kennedy’s space program resulted in a 14:1 return on investment. This will happen again as mankind continues to probes further into space. China has taken the lead. However, if the US, instead of demonizing China and Russia were to collaborate with space fairing nations, in searching out new scientific principles of the universe, we would cause a revolution in science. In possession of this scientific knowledge we could end hunger, poverty, and conflict throughout the world. Africa has much to gain by supporting new endeavors into outer space.
“Get Rid of Poverty, But Also Aim Deeper into the Sky”
In the context of the press conference today by China National Space Administration (CNSA), CGTN conducted an interview with lunar mission chief designer, Wu Weiren, with its “face-to-face” reporter. The title of the interview is: “face to face Wu Weiren: a big step for mankind.” He was asked more than once about cooperation with the U.S. Wu responded that there is, in fact, some cooperation with the U.S. on this mission. The Chang’e-4 relay satellite “will extend its service life, and they can use it at that time, after the Chang’e-4 mission… The U.S. made a request to know the landing time and location in advance, so that their satellite can be adjusted to [pass over] the landing site, and record the precise location of the landing site.” This would be of benefit to China.
He continued: “This is a golden opportunity for the United States. It always wants to measure the meteorites hitting the Moon, which can raise the state of the moon dust. This is very difficult. The probability [of observing a meteorite hit] is too small; it is difficult to achieve. But this time we have such an opportunity, so Americans want to seize it, and we are willing to provide them the opportunity.” Asked numerous times about cooperation, Wu said, that “the scientists of the two countries still hope to cooperate together,” providing examples of areas of complimentary science investigations.
When asked by a reporter, “Our country has spent so much money and used so many scientists to do this. Why do we have to help people [do this]?” Wu Weiren responded: “China has fallen behind in the past few hundred years. From the perspective of modern science and technology, we still benefit from the Western countries. We have bathed in the rain of world science and technology development, and we enjoy the benefits. Now that we have the ability, our economy has developed, and our science and technology are gradually catching up with the pace of world development. As General Secretary Xi said, big countries must take on big tasks. I think we should contribute to the world’s science and technology now. We can do this in an era of contribution.”
Wu added: “A nation needs to look up at the stars, and China’s deep space exploration will fly further and further. [We have had] the successful landing of the Chang’e-4, the relay link connection, payload start-up, two-unit separation [of the rover from the lander], rover moon-day dormancy and wake-up, and two-way mutual [photograph] shootings were completed. Every move and every step attracts the attention of the world.”
“Of course, we must do our own things well,” advised. For example, the tens of millions of people in our country have not yet gotten rid of poverty. This should be solved. However, we should also aim deeper into the sky. One philosopher has said that if a nation does not look up at the starry sky and only buries its head and feet, this nation has no hope and no future.
We have 1.3 billion people and we are a big country. I hope that in our generation or the next generation, we can turn our big space power into a strong space power. Now we say that we can catch up with the world’s advanced level. Next we can lead the world. That is the dream of our generation.”
‘A Nation Needs to Look Up at the Stars’
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) held a press conference this morning on the on-going Chang’e-4 mission, and future lunar exploration missions. Giving the briefing was Wu Yunhua, deputy chief commander of the agency, and Wu Weiren, general designer of the lunar program. Wu Weiren
said that CNSA is organizing Chinese experts to work on the follow-on lunar missions, and that three future missions are being planned:
* Chang’e-5, which will launch at the end of this year, will return a sample from the near side of the Moon * Chang’e-6 will conduct a south pole sample return. Whether it will be conducted on the near side or the far side of the Moon depending on the results from the sampling mission of Chang’e-5.
* Chang’e-7 will conduct comprehensive exploration of the south pole, including its land forms, material composition, and environment
* Chang’e-8 will test key advanced technologies on the far side, and companies will be invited to industrialize the technologies. {China Science and Technology Daily} reports that Wu Yunhua added, “On Change-8 we are planning even more crucial experiments for our lunar exploration, including to determine the
possibility of establishing a lunar base for scientific research, if we can do 3D printing on the Moon, and whether it is possible to use the lunar soil for the construction of buildings, in order to jointly construct a lunar base for further exploration of the Moon.”
Previously it has been stated by CNSA that the first Chinese lunar base will be robotic, with periodic visits by astronauts. China has said that its first manned lunar mission will take place around 2030.
At the press conference, the importance of international cooperation was stressed by a number of speakers. All countries are welcome to participate in China’s follow-up lunar exploration and deep space exploration projects, he said.
Ouyang Ziyuan Gives His Views on Chang’e-4 and Future Exploration
Geologist and Academician Ouyang Ziyuan, in an undated, but recent, interview on CCTV, commented on the Chang’e-4 mission. The program was titled “Why We Want To Go to Far Side of the Moon?” Ouyang said that it had been the dream of scientists immemorial to find out about that side of the Moon that we never see. In addition, the far side, which is open to the universe — and all its effects — would no doubt contain ancient rocks that would reveal the secret of the origin of our Solar System. Scientists have chosen a level area of the Moon in the Aiken Basin and have concentrated on an ancient crater, the Von Karman Crater, Ouyang said, which could be one of the oldest parts of the Moon.
Eventually, he said, one task would be bringing ancient rocks back from the crater for examination on Earth. In addition, the Moon could serve as a base for future exploration.
“Our task in the final analysis is twofold. One is the low-frequency radiation. The other is the record contained in the ancient rocks. Our next phase on the Moon must be scientific research, and we have to plan a base for scientific research and gradually improve that base for our work. I am convinced that in
this way we will look forward to new knowledge and to new breakthroughs,” he said.
Senegalese President Macky Sall congratulated China for the success of its Chang’e-4 mission to deploy a lunar rover on the far side of the Moon, when he met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Jan. 6. Senegal, which is currently co-chair of the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC). This was the last stop in Wang’s four-nation tour of Africa that began in Ethiopia.
According to Xinhua, Sall said that “this major technological breakthrough has shown that China is taking the lead in the field of technological innovation…. China’s African friends are proud of its achievement.” He added that they hope to strengthen their cooperation with China in scientific and technological innovation.
African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat had said much the same thing, when he met with Wang on Jan. 4 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the AU has its headquarters. Expressing his congratulations on the successful landing of the Chang’e-4 lunar probe, Faki told Wang, “for humans, the Moon is out of reach, but with its super-scientific capabilities, China has successfully achieved this landing event, making history.” He, too, said that Africa, as a friend of China, is happy about its success, and hopes that African countries will strengthen cooperation with China in science and technological innovation.
Xinhua reported that Wang, in responding to Sall, said that China’s achievements are also achievements of developing countries, “stressing that developing countries have the right and ability to achieve rapid development in the field of scientific and technological innovation.”
Between those two stops, Wang visited The Gambia and Burkina Faso, two countries which had only established relations with China in 2016 and 2018. Cooperation through the Belt and Road Initiative was on the agenda in each stop, as was China’s commitment to helping bring peace to Africa, which is fighting off terrorism. Wang told AU Commission Chair Faki, and Burkina Faso’s President Roch Marc Christian Kaboré and Foreign Minister Alpha Barry, in particular, that China will “soon” provide its $45 million commitment for the anti-terror force of the Group of 5 Sahel countries (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger), plus additional support for equipment as well as equipment for the fight against terrorism. One Burkina Faso newspaper called Wang’s pledge “a breath of fresh air,” because while the G5 Sahel counter-force is backed by the United Nations Security Council, international funding has been way below commitments.
Traditionally China’s foreign minister makes the first overseas trip of each year to Africa.
{China Daily} Reflects on Chang’e-4 Mission
In an article headlined “Exploring Outer Space for Benefit of Mankind,” the semi-official {China Daily} takes stock of the significance of the ongoing Chang’e-4 mission.
“The successful landing of China’s Chang’e 4 probe on the far side of the Moon on Jan. 3 marks a significant step forward in the exploration of outer space and paves the way for future space missions…. Both the country and its people have a good reason to take pride in this pioneering achievement, which contributes to the efforts to learn our homes planet’s satellite, the Solar System and the universe beyond…. Following the Chang’e 4 mission, China is expected to quicken its steps in exploring outer space.
“In recent years, each significant achievement made by China’s space industry has drawn global attention. Although its space industry is comparatively young, China’s commitment to the exploration of outer space has always been crystal clear and consistent. It is committed to the principle of using outer space for peaceful purposes, and opposes the militarization of or an arms race in outer space. Its door is open to international cooperation in space exploration….
China’s commitment to international cooperation demonstrates its unwavering belief that outer space is a common home for all humanity and that its space
dream is part of the dream of all humankind.”
African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat had said much the same thing, when he met with Wang on Jan. 4 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where the AU has its headquarters. Expressing his congratulations on the successful landing of the Chang’e-4 lunar probe, Faki told Wang, “for humans, the Moon is out of reach, but with its super-scientific capabilities, China has successfully achieved this landing event, making history.” He, too, said that Africa, as a friend of China, is happy about its success, and hopes that African countries will strengthen cooperation with China in science and technological innovation.