Even though I am generally interested in science and technology, I have found it impossible to get excited about Artemis II.
I'm not quite sure. Maybe it's because America isn't exactly my favourite country these days because ... well, you know why. Or maybe it's because, contrary to what I'd always assumed, these things are a lot more jingoistic than I thought. It's not "Mankind is going to the moon", it's "America is beating China to the moon".
Yup.
Related:
I never see any of the "I'm just excited about space progress and science!" crowd celebrating any of the Chinese space flight accomplishments.
They were silent when China landed a robot on the moon a few years ago. Silent when China landed a rover on Mars. Silent about the Chinese space station that's orbiting the planet. Silent about China's crewed mission to Mars that is on schedule to depart on 2033.
When they talk about space and science and exploration being "humanity's accomplishments," it's pretty clear who they're viewing as humanity. There's an era of cold war nationalism that feels yucky.
The reality behind the scenes is far, far more complex than this.
Please say more?
Attached: 2 images Looking at the recent NASA photos, I'm reminded of this quote from Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell. "You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it." #NASA #ArtemisII
@RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
You've either completely missed, or completely ignored, the point of my post.
I'll say it much more bluntly, to let you react to it:
It's not "cheering for humanity" if you only cheer when Europeans or Americans do it. Instead it's a weird kind of nationalism or eurocentrism that is the opposite of what Star Trek is supposedly selling.
And it's super obvious to non-white observers how we "cheer for humanity" when Elon or NASA does something spacey, but to not even talk about it when China or India do something.
India has also landed a probe on the moon, and India has sent a probe to Mars orbit. India is the first nation to successfully enter Mars orbit on the first try. And their mission control and science and engineering teams are a lot more gender balanced than most places.
I'm saying that we should "celebrate humanity's space achievements" when they do stuff too, but I don't see that happening.
This isn't "Don't cheer for NASA." I cheer for NASA!👍🏿
This is "Don't try to sell me that US space race fever, is a win for humanity, because it's not."
It's "We can have a Federation of Planets, just as long as Earth is the head of that Federation, and the US is the head of Earth, and Starfleet headquarters is in San Francisco. Anything else is Romulans! 🤡"
@Reinald @mekkaokereke @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 exactly! I don't cheer for Artemis, but I more interested in ESA missions.
China is a totalitarian regime abusing human rights in many different forms. Sadly the USA is now like that too. So I don't cheer for undemocratic countries, whether they may be China, Russia, North Korea or the USA.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @cyberlyra @[email protected] @[email protected] I fear you might still be thinking about this in the wrong way, if you're still thinking in terms of "cheer for China" or "cheer for the EU." Don't cheer for governments. Cheer for scientists. And as someone born in Africa 🙋🏿♂️, the EU was, is, and is likely to still be a much greater and more abusive military threat than China. Like, it's not close.
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
And again, from the perspective of an African born person, the EU governments are most definitely a dictatorship, and have never not been since colonization.
@mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and Italy have a colonialist past and are guilty of horrible crimes in the African continent. Each one to a different extent, I might say.
That's 7 countries out of 27, though 4 of them are the most populous.
Analysing the current situation, China is influencing African economies little by little. And the USA are making deals to run eugenics experiments on black people
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
"China is influencing African economies little by little."
I didn't say influencing economies. I said colonizing.
European people genuinely think that China doing trade and paying for things, is the same as how Europeans treat Africans. It is absolutely not the same. Not even close.
In Belgium today I can still buy chocolate hands. Because King Leopold murdered 10 million people, and maimed countless more. If you did not collect enough rubber, his men would take your children and cut their hands off. (Belgians, don't try to talk about Druon Antigoon or Hand Werpen. That's not when the chocolates hands became popular).
And Europeans abusing and exploiting Africans hasn't stopped. Margaret Thatcher's son was caught trying to overthrow a democratically elected African government in 2004.
Europeans talk about nuclear power as clean green energy, but don't like to talk about the fact that most European countries have no uranium, so where do they get the uranium from, and how? Because then you have to talk about Patrick Lumumba's tooth,.and how many Africans have died in the Congo and then Niger, and why can't Africa seem to have a stable, elected government, and why are these countries poor if their minerals are so valuable?
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
And the countries that you listed are ~70% of the EU's GDP, and ~65% of the EU's population.
So the whole "At least EU is not a brutal dictatorship!🤡" only holds if you don't see Africans as whole, actualized, human beings, but rather as cattle to be milked, mutilated, and eaten by real human beings.
@mekkaokereke @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 Neither China nor Russia nor US nor Europe is dealing with African countries on eye level. And, as shameful as the History is for Europe, we are not doing that much better now. Still.
Nevertheless I am not that sure, if the deals with China are a beneficial deal in the long run, or will create a different dependency and exploitation?
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
You're a European, who has never lived in Africa, telling an African whose family members were killed in pointless wars started by Europeans, and whose family members now live peacefully in a country that trades with China, what you think is best for Africa.
You're talking about "will these deals be good for Africa in the long run?" And I'm talking about many times more people killed than in the Jewish Holocaust, with 10 million Africans killed in just one country.
The level of arrogance and not listening is stunning.
China is dealing with African countries more fairly than any superpower to set foot on the continent. You just don't want to accept that because it breaks your worldview of US, Russia, and China bad, EU good.
You can't accept that for an African country, China is the best, then a gap, then Russia, then after a huge gap, the US and EU are tied for the worst, most violent, most evil.
You're not willing to genuinely consider the evidence that the EU was and is more brutal and inhumane to Africans than China.
@mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 if you want to put words in my mouth I didn't say, please go on.
Is labeling me as a white supremacist making you feel better?
Haven't I recognised that the countries I listed are responsible of horrible crimes?
And aren't your views a little unfair to Polish, Swedish, Greeks and all the other EU countries who had nothing to do with African colonization?
If I haven't set foot in Africa, you don't know what my family
/1
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
I didn't call you a white supremacist, I called you arrogant and said that you didn't listen.
And no I'm not being unfair to member countries of the European union who didn't have colonies but did benefit financially from the violence of those colonies by being in a literal economic union that was mostly paid for by illegitimate profits from those colonies.
And I didn't say you never set foot in Africa. I said you'd never lived in Africa. I'm happy to retract that if it's wrong, but I suspect I am not wrong. Have you ever lived in Africa? (Edit: I was wrong, Richard has lived in East Africa! I retract, but leaving it up so that people can see that I was wrong).
(Second edit: wait... Two different people are getting confused in the replies... Previous reply was to Richard, not Simon.)
@mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 experienced during fascism, why my views on dictators and totalitarian countries are what they are.
Contrary to popular narrative not all white are privileged. And believe it or not I had to emigrate too for a university degree.
Our views on China differs but I do agree on the fact that the African people aren't dying under the Chinese influence.
/2
@s1m0n4 @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
This is close enough to common ground for me! 👍🏿
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
Also for Richard as Simon: this is close enough to agreement for me too!
You can see how from the lived experience of an African, the EU is much worse, much less trustworthy, much more exploitative, and much more barbarically violent, than China.
The EU could change this at any time! But they haven't yet.
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
If there were an African Economic Union, the comparison would make more sense.
There is a European Union. Without it, the "innocent countries" you talk of would see their fortunes collapse. Even the mighty and proud United Kingdom, is now feeling the effects of being outside of that union. They Brexited themselves in the face, and have not recovered economically since.
This is like the drug cartel leader's wife saying "Well *I* never sold any drugs, and *I* never killed anyone!" Girl, you knew. You walked around in couture and diamonds and drove Bentley, and you knew how he paid for it all.
@Reinald @s1m0n4 @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
Anyway, getting us all the way back on topic...
When I see that Artemis splashed down, I cheer. Even though Trump is the US president, and the US bombs everyone all the time.
When I see the European Space Agency do some cool science with icy moons around Jupiter, I cheer. Even though the far-right is still rising in Europe, and the EU lets Black children drown in the Mediterranean for no good reason.
And when I see Americans and Europeans not want to cheer when Chinese astronauts grow little plants on the moon? I think that's silly, and nationalistic, and hypocritical, and unfair to Chinese scientists. And I say so.
@Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
I fear you might still be thinking about this in the wrong way, if you're still thinking in terms of "cheer for China" or "cheer for the EU."
Don't cheer for governments. Cheer for scientists.
And as someone born in Africa 🙋🏿♂️, the EU was, is, and is likely to still be a much greater and more abusive military threat than China. Like, it's not close.
@mekkaokereke Historically, this is unfortunately true.
I would *hope* that this is not the outcome going forward. That said, there is an increasing acceptance that the future belongs to the Global South, not Europe, and that we as Europeans have a duty to engage in good faith (for once, some might add!) with said Global South.
In closing, I would add that awful regimes often arise because there is nothing to temper their awfulness.
@ermo @mekkaokereke @Reinald @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00
There is still a lot of arrogance in Europe about the "Global South", though. We are fed a steady stream of disaster stories, but little about their successes.
@mekkaokereke @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 @CelloMomOnCars
What StarTrek is apparently selling to me seems like a load of bitcoin. An economy where we all work under the illusion of endless supply without knowing what our allowance actually is.
Much of the dark side of today’s world is built on the bright optimism of a SF childhood that obscured cost, or balance.
@mekkaokereke @RunRichRun @cyberlyra @davidnjoku @piquant00 happy to see India getting some love in the space thread here!
Space exploration is a very celebrated thing in most places here, across the board from students(since they still have that childlike glint in their eyes) all the way to engineers who get into various fields to better themselves to contribute to both mankind and the country.
There is a sense of nationalism where a lot of people lean towards the defense angle but I think that's a good thing too as it keeps a country's engineering muscle active.
Oh man. Where to start.
Most conspicuous ITAR, the International Traffic in Armaments Regulations, which covers defense tech as well as all space related technologies and their export. That includes ALL non-Americans. I wasn't allowed to be in many rooms at NASA during my fieldwork because as a Canadian citizen, that would be an export violation. The German team that built an instrument on a Mars Rover wasn't allowed to troubleshoot it when it broke because after delivery it became a NASA asset, so it was off limits. So was the lab printer.
On the scientific side, however, a majority of NASA-funded scientists do believe in a more Star Trek like vision of the future, in which national identities and creeds are put aside for a more egalitarian future for all humanity, even though that sounds corny. They also maintain major international collaboraitons. JPL teams were embedded with the Indian Space Research Agency for a recent massive joint mission, NISAR, and absolutely celebrated Indian achievements in space, as well as Japanese achievements.
Even during the height of the Cold War, NASA scientists maintained collaborations with those behind the Iron Curtain, including joint work with Russian scientists and even a (failed) joint mission to Mars in the early 1990's. The two main crew modules of ISS are built by the Russians and Americans respectively: one has the steering wheel and the other has the gas pedal, effectively, so they must collaborate.
All international collaborations must maintain assiduous dedication to those rules associated with exchange of technical information because the fines are multi-million dollars, and enormous. When NASA collabs with ESA (who built the propulsion unit for the Artemis II capsule) or JAXA or the ISRA, all of which they do continually and successfully (AND cheer for) they have to articulate very clear hand offs between one side and another.
There are thousands of Chinese students (and other internationals of course) at the American research institutes as graduate, postdoctoral, and undergraduate research assistants. This is also the case on NASA missions I have observed. They are considered part of the team. Like all other international groups, they can't see technical details.
At the same time, there are other issues afoot which trouble ITAR regulations. Ten years ago a major Mars researcher from China living in the US working on the Mars Rover projects disappeared from his post at a US university. A few years later and the Zhurong Rover China landed on Mars looks -- extremely suspiciously very much like the robots this researcher worked on. No country is allowed tech transfer of this kind. Even the ESA rover (under perpetual development) isn't an exact copy.
See: https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/crime/2015/09/08/fbi-investigates-china-ties-ohio/23633350007/
So on the one hand, you have these cases of close scientific collaboration. On the other hand, you have protection on the engineering side against cases of what look like industrial espionage in a highly regulated environment.
That isn't to say the US doesn't tip the scales in their favor. Space Law developed in the 1950s-1970s precluded equatorial countries from claiming the orbital space above their regions, for instance. That allows the US to say "space is for everyone" because it cannot be claimed by any country -- but it also allows for a current wave of commercial claimants who see open territory. I've written about this at https://www.techpolicy.press/in-the-twenty-first-century-space-is-the-new-railroad-for-billionaire-ambitions/
All that is to say, space is very, very complicated as an international domain of both collaboration and competition, and there are a lot of feelings and national regulations on all sides. NASA is not a singular culture or agency, and even as American scientists remain committed to a vision of internationalism in science, they also operate within a legal regime that imposes restrictions.
@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku I guess one more thing to note is that NASA is both a not-for-profit organization and (still) a civilian space agency. Although it deals in space and is therefore subject to defense regulations, it is not a defense agency or related to military aims, nor can it gain economically from going to space. That means NASA cannot go into space for anything other than peaceful or scientific reasons--unlike thousands of launches per year you never hear about that put up defense related technologies or private communications satellites.
NASA's goals include doing science, expanding space capabilities, and stimulating the American scientific and technical workforce and the US economy through outreach and contracting. Eve contractors don't make much money with NASA partnerships as they usually built one-offs, but see it as a pro-bono opportunity to push the boundaries and limits, think outside the profit-driven model, and have other metrics for success than return-on-investment.
All national space agencies also construct the political orientation of the nation through their scientific and technical goals and means, of course, and NASA is no exception. Going back to the original writings of James Webb as administrator in the 1960's, the challenge of doing civilian spaceflight in the USA is that a centralized authoritarian structure (he was thinking of the USSR at the time) would be more efficient, but less democratic. The challenge at NASA was to build capacity in a decentralized way that stimulated a national economy at the same time. That made "space age management" a challenge with political import, not just a question of getting into space (and back).
Much of this is at threat with the cuts to science at the agency and the massive reorientation toward "new space" entrants that allow for venture investment. The "space economy" is actually on earth - not in space - because of what they hope to stimulate through ROI.
So when they say "for all humanity" they are speaking to this core tension. Must be for science, for a greater mission, not military, not merely industrial, but for inspiration, while accepting that the reality is a complex set of tensions in which they must achieve the impossible
@mojala I only watched the first few episodes, sorry. I did find it a fun counterfactual although there were many things they got wrong about how NASA works or how the science works.
The big collaborations between the US/USSR were in the late 1970's and 1980's, though -- the 60's were still the thick of the Cold War.
Also missing in that account was how the Americans had all those German engineers they poached from Europe working for them at the NASA propulsion centers. That's often ignored as part of the story, which gets glossed as America versus Russia.
One scientist who was a Jewish refugee I researched during this time (60's-70's) was dedicated to international work and collaborated with Russia and Japan in this period, finding it easier to build that international base of science than to work with Von Braun and many of the rocket scientists at NASA facilities.
@cyberlyra @davidnjoku I was wondering along similar lines in response to @mekkaokereke's posting on this topic: Does NASA maybe do a better job of publicizing their accomplishments than other space agencies?
Because NASA is always in queue for budget cuts they really have to make their benefit clear, so have incredible public relations that has been built and polished over decades. Their PR strengths both give politicians cover for voting for the budgeting, while also making voters more likely to support NASA's efforts.
I absolutely recognize that I heard less buzz about China's or India's space accomplishments because I mostly consume US-based media, but I imagine there must be an outreach component to it as well
@edgeworth @davidnjoku @mekkaokereke
NASA *has to* publicize because their funding is allocated annually by Congressional Committee. Public relations are everything for ensuring that their activities are talked about and the word is out about what they are doing and why they need continued funding.
The NASA logo is open source, any one can use it. It's one of the few brand icons in the world that anyone can put on anything to sell.
Another huge part of NASA's portfolio is education - so there has historically been a lot of public outreach in the K-12 and K-8 space in particular.
And because they have a lot of spin-off projects through NASA funding it's important to remind congressional representatives that the money to NASA is being distributed widely and is going into inventing things like velcro that people use every day.
There are also independent organizations like the Planetary Society that help get NASA's achievements out there, lobbying for support for civil spaceflight and science funding from Congress.
Unfortunately the budget cuts in the current administration are eviscerating Education and Public Outreach, a process that has been ongoing for a long time but is really accelerating now. We will see what this means for the future of NASA funding. The less money they have, the less they can tell you about what they are doing with US tax dollars -- which fuels a downward spiral in which we assume the only innovation is happening in places like SpaceX.
Yup:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lqXHd-KaRhk
And the Chinese space station has working Hall effect ionic impulse engines, similar to how the impulse engines in Star Trek work. So it doesn't just burn rocket fuel and oxygen for propulsion. It also uses a stream of ions.
@mekkaokereke
Looks a little staged. Sure different from “Two instance of Microsoft Outlook are not responding”. 
Maybe it’s the tour design (which was still pretty interesting) or maybe I’m just not used to TV anymore... Pretty cool though, glad space science is continuing somewhere!
@flowerpot @davidnjoku
Here I would draw a distinction between those of us working on planetary & space science and the contingent you describe.
Since the professional communities worldwide all work with one another - even across the firewall (as my teachers worked with their Soviet counterparts across the curtain).
And I assume you meant to write "China's crewed mission to the Moon" there, which is what is planned for that time subject to the heavy Long March tests working.
No, I meant Mars. As recently as 2021, China said that 2033 is the planned date for the crewed Mars mission.
Unless that has changed since then?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/24/china-plans-for-first-manned-mission-to-mars-in-2033
And unlike Elon, China has hit most of their planned space exploration dates.
But yes, I agree that "scientists working on things" tend to have a better and more well rounded view than the "I just like the idea of space travel!" crowd. ♥️👍🏿
Current CMSA human spaceflight plans beyond Earth orbit are only for lunar missions in 2030-2035; with the timing depending on the outcomes of tests of the Long March 10 launch vehicle, the Mengzhou crew module, and the Lanyue lunar lander.
The next test in the series is the first orbital Long March 10 and Mengzhou launch, scheduled for late this year: https://spacenews.com/china-targets-2026-for-first-long-march-10-launch-new-lunar-crew-spacecraft-flight/
China targets 2026 for first Long March 10 launch, new lunar crew spacecraft flight China aims to conduct the first launch of its Long March 10 rocket and a lunar-capable crew spacecraft next year, according to a top official.
CNSA robotic Mars mission plans currently include only Tianwen-3, which plans to do a simpler but easier version of Mars sample return than NASA has attempted.
Launch of Tianwen-3 is 2030 *, which would have sample return to Earth no earlier than 2033: https://spacenews.com/china-targets-2030-for-mars-sample-return-mission-potential-landing-areas-revealed/
(Thanks go to @AndrewJonesSpace for his reporting, because I cannot read mission announcements in Chinese myself.)
* Addendum: Tianwen-2 may still make the 2028 launch window.
China targets 2030 for Mars sample return mission, potential landing areas revealed China is making progress towards a 2030 launch for its Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission and has narrowed down potential landing areas.
@michael_w_busch @davidnjoku @AndrewJonesSpace
@AndrewJonesSpace Did China de-commit from Mars in 2033? I see that they stated the planned Mars mission, then also announced lunar missions, but I didn't see where they de-committed or delayed the 2033 crewed Mars mission.
@mekkaokereke @michael_w_busch @davidnjoku China never committed to 2033 for humans to Mars. There was a presentation at a conference in which a CALT official updated space transportation plans, including distant notion of a mars base. He also assessed the best Mars launch windows, indicating that 2033 would be favourable in terms of efficiently launching payload mass. Reuters interpreted this as "China to send humans to Mars in 2033" when it was never, ever the case.
Tianwen-3, the Mars sample return mission, is currently scheduled for late 2028. Astronauts on the Moon before 2030, plans for a robotic moon base in the 2030s. Anything else is speculative.
@mekkaokereke @davidnjoku @AndrewJonesSpace
This is more a matter of an aspirational statement from one program manager not being an actual mission commitment in the first place.
A human Mars mission would require an extended period of building & testing crew and landing spacecraft that no one now knows how to make.
The PRC space program is not doing that yet and was not in 2021 (it was then some years into developing Mengzhou and Lanyue for lunar missions).
@mekkaokereke @michael_w_busch @davidnjoku
I believe a crewed mission to mars would make it harder for us to figure out if theres life on mars as humans are giant bags filled with microbes which would run a big chance of contaminating the experiment.
Robots are the best path.
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