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Thread: The Scramble for Space?

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    Moderator (on Sabbatical) Cara's Avatar
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    Default Re: The Scramble for Space?

    More money in Europe for space:

    Quote European space windfall will fast-track science missions
    Europe’s space agency is set to receive 45% more money than in the previous three-year budget.

    29 November 2019
    NEWS
    Elizabeth Gibney


    The Copernicus Sentinel-6 satellite undergoing tests near Munich, Germany. Credit: S. Corvaja/ESA

    The European Space Agency has secured a massive boost to its budget. At a pow-wow of European ministers in Seville, Spain, on 27–28 November, the agency’s member states pledged €12.5 billion (US$13.8 billion) for 2020–22, compared with the €8.6 billion approved at the last meeting in 2016.

    The hike means that the European Space Agency (ESA) can accelerate the schedule of its flagship gravitational-wave mission LISA, and boost the capabilities of its next-generation array of climate-observing Copernicus satellites.

    “For me it’s a surprise. It is even more than I proposed,” ESA director-general Jan Wörner told journalists at a press briefing after the event. Although ministers have not yet provided a detailed breakdown of the upcoming budget, Wörner said that they had pledged a 10% hike for ESA’s basic-science projects — smaller than the overall increase, but still the biggest rise in 25 years. Science funding at the agency had stagnated and failed to keep pace with inflation. “After a long period, we got this increase, and I am very grateful,” said Wörner.

    Huge dividend

    The boost to the science budget will allow the agency to bring forward its space-based gravitational-wave mission, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), by two years, from 2034 to 2032. This could bring a huge dividend for scientists: it would allow them to observe merging supermassive black holes both through the ripples such mergers generate in space-time, and through the X-ray radiation caused by falling matter, which will be picked up by ESA’s Athena X-ray telescope, set to launch in 2031. In addition, the uptick in science funding will allow ESA to fund new ‘fast-class’ missions that will go from selection to launch in around eight years, compared with a typical ten years or more.

    As part of a new €432-million ‘space safety’ budget stream, European nations also backed a science and planetary-defence mission known as HERA that scientists have been working towards for 15 years. The mission will observe the aftereffects of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which is due to crash into the moon of the binary asteroid system Didymos in 2022.

    Studying such impacts is crucial to understanding how planets form and how to protect Earth from asteroid strikes, says Patrick Michel, a planetary scientist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Nice and principal investigator for HERA. A previous proposal failed to secure funding at the last ministerial meeting, in 2016. “I’m so happy the ESA delegations were convinced this time,” he says. “This is a great moment for asteroid missions, planetary defence, and also science as a bonus.”

    For human and robotic exploration, ministers agreed to a budget of nearly €2 billion. This includes around €300 million to make transportation and habitation modules for NASA’s moon-orbiting Gateway, as well as €150 million for robotic lunar missions.

    The projects funded “will enable lunar science that would not otherwise be practical," says Ian Crawford, a planetary scientist at Birkbeck College London. In particular, he adds, it will enable access to the lunar geological record, which can shed light on the origin of the Moon itself and of the Earth-Moon system.

    Big winner

    Meanwhile, Europe’s flagship Earth-observation programme, Copernicus, received a surprise windfall: €400 million more than the agency had asked for. In partnership with the European Union, ESA will now develop six environmental-monitoring satellite systems under the programme. The extra cash will allow ESA to increase the resolution of instruments on a carbon dioxide-monitoring mission known as CO2M and allow a hyperspectral camera, known as CHIME, to fly on a craft of its own, rather than wait for a ride on a later mission in the 2030s.

    Other projects that can now press ahead include the design of Europe’s first quantum satellite, SAGA — which will form part of a wider European quantum-communication network — and a project designed to demonstrate ways to remove space debris from orbit.

    Not every mission got the funding it wanted. Lagrange, a proposed European space-weather satellite that would give early warnings of catastrophic solar storms heading for Earth, will not be able to develop “at full speed”, because it failed to get the full amount it needed, said Wörner. Member states also deferred a decision on whether to fund a robotic science mission to Neptune or Uranus until their next meeting in 2022, by which time it should be clearer whether US collaborators can raise the cash for a joint mission.

    doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-03707-w
    From: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03707-w
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: The Scramble for Space?

    Also relevant here:

    Quote Posted by Star Tsar (here)
    University Of Colorado

    Professor Bruce Jakosky | Can We Terraform Mars?

    Published 4th December 2019

    People have been talking recently about “terraforming” Mars—making the environment more Earth-like by raising the atmospheric pressure so that people wouldn’t need spacesuits, and raising the temperature to allow liquid water to be stable at the surface. If this could be done at all, it would require using carbon dioxide (CO2), which is an effective and naturally occurring greenhouse gas. We would need to find sinks where the CO2 on Mars has gone and figure out how to put the CO2 back into the atmosphere. Is there enough CO2 on Mars to allow this? How easy would it be to mobilize the CO2 and put it back into the atmosphere?

    In this Nov. 6 2019 presentation, LASP’s associate director for science and principal investigator for NASA’s MAVEN Mars orbiter, Bruce Jakosky, discussed how much CO2 was ever present on Mars, where it went, and whether it’s possible to put it back into the atmosphere to terraform the planet. He also spoke about future exploration plans for Mars, using both robotic and human missions, and the potential for colonizing Mars.

    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: The Scramble for Space?

    Space Command

    Um, I'm not joking; this is literal

    Jeff Taylor makes this sound boring (no offence meant), but this news is alarming.

    In today's dry news: UK military spending will to go towards setting up the UK's first "Space Command"

    Interesting bit at 2:03

    https://youtu.be/U-EmrYXBcjE?t=122


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    Default Re: The Scramble for Space?

    SENATE PREPARING $10 BILLION BAILOUT FUND FOR JEFF BEZOS SPACE FIRM
    Sara Sirota, Ryan Grim
    May 25 2021
    https://theintercept.com/2021/05/25/...J-MvTq4kviCst0

    "Bezos’s Blue Origin lost its bid for a major NASA contract to Elon Musk, but the Senate is ordering the agency to give a second one now.

    NOW THAT Jeff Bezos’s space flight company Blue Origin has lost a multibillion contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Congress is prepping the ground for Bezos to win a contract anyway, ordering NASA to make not one but two awards.

    The order would come through the Endless Frontier Act, a bill to beef up resources for science and technology research that’s being debated on the Senate floor this week. An amendment was added to that legislation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to hand over $10 billion to NASA — money that most likely would go to Blue Origin, a company that’s headquartered in Cantwell’s home state.

    Cantwell’s amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. “It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America,” Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday.

    The Bezos space company had been competing against SpaceX for a contract to put astronauts on the moon, the first such trips since 1972, but lost the bidding process with a price tag twice that of SpaceX. NASA announced the award to the Elon Musk-owned company last month.Cantwell’s measure wouldn’t rescind the grant to SpaceX but would create an additional contract that Bezos’s company would be in line to win. A third company, Dynetics, had also bid for the moonshot, but the author of the new amendment offers a strong suggestion of which company it’s likely to benefit.

    Cantwell told NASA’s incoming administrator, former Sen. Bill Nelson, that she was surprised at the way the award unfolded, before introducing the legislation to add a new one.

    “I think there needs to be redundancy,” or multiple contractors in case one fails, she told Nelson at his confirmation hearing. “And it has to be clear this process can’t be redundancy later. It has to be redundancy now.”

    The measure has been attached to the Endless Frontier Act as part of a manager’s amendment and authorizes $10.032 billion through the year 2026 for the moon program. Authorization alone does not fund the program, and Congress would still need to appropriate the money, or the executive would need to find other appropriated funds.

    The bill is currently on the Senate floor and has broad bipartisan support. A procedural vote last week passed by a 71-27 margin, and Senate Democratic leaders are eyeing a Thursday vote for final passage, after which it would need to move through the House of Representatives.

    “It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America.”
    Blue Origin spent $625,000 lobbying the Senate in the first three months of 2021, according to lobbying disclosure records. Among that spending was $50,000 to a team of lobbyists at a firm called Clark Hill that would specifically focus on the moon landing program. The team includes John Culberson, a former member of the House from Texas and onetime chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that covers science policy. The White House also appointed Culberson last year to the National Space Council Users’ Advisory Group that makes policy recommendations to NASA.

    Last month’s award to SpaceX did come as a surprise. According to a report by the Washington Post, which is owned by Bezos, NASA awarded the deal to SpaceX, owned by one of the richest men in the world, “to preserve a competitive environment.”

    After the loss, Blue Origin and Dynetics filed protests with the Government Accountability Office, which currently remain open, but Congress seems to want to bypass the watchdog with a multibillion dollar handout to NASA to award more contracts.

    Asked by The Intercept if the agency views Cantwell’s amendment as a means to override its down-select decision, NASA spokesperson Monica Witt declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.

    Meanwhile, the fight over the NASA contract is the latest development in the growing contest between two of the world’s richest men for government contracts. In May 2019, for example, SpaceX filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims against the Air Force’s decision to exclude it from $2.3 billion in funding for space launch services. The funding instead went to United Launch Alliance, Northrop Grumman, and Blue Origin."
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    Default Re: The Scramble for Space?

    Scramble for Space? ....

    This is just a distraction put out for the sheeple , those unaware of the truth .... The sector is dominated by Cabal front men Musk and Branson , still presenting space craft with flames coming out the back as cutting edge ....

    The truth is the SSP has had bases on the moon , mars , asteroids and elsewhere for over 50 years .... Fleets of advanced craft , around a million humans pressganged from Earth , many as children , and subject to torture and mind control .... Mind controlled into believeing they are working for humanity , protecting Earth from outside invasion . The truth is they are puppets of the evil ET alliance .. Just the same as politicians on Earth ... The evil alliance of Annunaki , Arcturians , Reptilians and Greys , control things in the SSP , just as they do on Earth , all covertly ....

    So this vast force is used at the moment mostly to create anomalous weather to destroy crops , create the vast number of forest fires globally , trigger volcanoes and earthquakes , spread covid , and abduct thousands of people daily ... many thousands of cloaked craft , buzzing around each day , all unseen and creating mischief ... One of these craft dustified the towers on 9/11 , so you can imagine what a dozen can do to a large city ...



    We are reliably informed ,that at the very end , the SSP will be directed to fire on populated areas . After this a human clone army will be released from the vast network of DUMB's to mop up any hold outs in remote areas ...

    These are just plans of the Evil alliance , they can be brought to a halt if enough people Pray for Divine Intervention .
    Last edited by oz93666; 9th June 2021 at 06:58.

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