Daily Archives: May 23, 2017

East Ascension hires Keowen, Scotlandville’s Clark moves to administration – The Advocate

Posted: May 23, 2017 at 11:05 pm

As a baseball player at Central High, Kade Keowen followed the progress of other schools, including East Ascension.

Now Keowen, an assistant coach at LSU-Eunice the last four years, has been hired as the Spartans new coach.

When I was in school, East Ascension was one of the good programs, Keowen said. They won a state title when I was in school. Theres so much tradition there. Theres a sense of community. Alumni and the community are loyal and follow their school, which is so important. I can't wait to get started.

It is the second head coaching job on the high school level for Keowen, a former LSUE player who spent one season as the head coach at False River Academy and was an assistant coach at Denham Springs High for one season.

Keowen is one of two former local baseball standouts changing jobs.

Darren Clark, who led Scotlandville to a 21-13 record and a playoff victory this spring, is moving into administration at Scotlandville after spending six years as the schools baseball coach. He is a former Baker High and Southern University standout who was also director of baseball operations and hitting coach Alcorn State before coming to Scotlandville.

In other coaching news, former Nicholls State and Dunham/Chapel Trafton basketball coach J.P. Piper is the new boys basketball coach at Lutcher High.

Denton Mallas is the new head football coach at Louisiana School for the Deaf.

Clark said he's proud of what the baseball program accomplished on his watch.

The thing Im proudest of is changing the culture of baseball here, Clark said. We have guys who are dedicated to baseball and not just playing it until its time to start another sport. Its a big step for an urban baseball program and a journey I think will continue.

Im not totally closing the door on coaching, but Im dedicated to helping our principal, Tiffany Quiett, get every phase of this school to the highest level. I think I can learn a lot from her and this process.

The 31-year-old Keowen starred at Central from 2001-04 and spent two years at LSU before playing one season at LSUE. He was drafted by the Boston Red Sox and played in their minor-league season system through 2010.

PIPER TO LUTCHER: Piper was head coach at Dunham/Chapel Trafton from 1993-2002, a stint that included a Class 1A title and a 1A runner-up finish. He was the head coach at Nicholls from 2004-16 and was the Southland Conference Coach of the Year in 2008-09 and also had a win over LSU in 2010.

Piper spent last season as head coach at Morgan City High, leading the Tigers to the regional playoff round. He succeeds Chase Delrie, who resigned last month to become boys basketball coach at French Settlement.

MALLAS SUCCEEDS GREMILLION: Mallas is a former player at Wisconsin School for the Deaf and graduated from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. He was a volunteer coach at LSD in 2015 and became a full-time assistant last fall.

Mallas is LSDs first deaf head football coach since the late Glen Deville, who coached through 1992. He succeeds Susan Gremillion, who was 14-5 in two seasons and led the War Eagles to a deaf national championship last fall.

Follow Robin Fambrough on Twitter, @FambroughAdv

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East Ascension hires Keowen, Scotlandville's Clark moves to administration - The Advocate

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SON: Ascension over American exceptionalism – North State Journal (subscription)

Posted: at 11:05 pm

Whether you go to church or not, everyone knows Christmas and Easter and its Christian roots: Christmas remembers Jesus birth and Resurrection is self-explanatory. You dont have to believe the stories to be part of the festivity. Daniel Dennet, an atheist philosopher, has little tolerance for religion but sings O Come All Ye Faithful by heart in Latin on Christmas Eve. But there is another important holy day in the Christian calendar which has not made the same leap into the secular world. Ascension day. Actually, Thursday (5/25) is Ascension day and the fact that most are clueless about it, including Christians, is evidence of its cultural irrelevance. Which is ironic because in the Apostles Creed, a basic statement of faith for Christianity, talks about ascension right smack in the middle with the Christmas and Easter story. In fact, the ascension story gives Christianity its unique texture, its missional energy and amazing adaptability, because it became an antidote to exceptionalism, the inward pressure of all institutions, and it might be the antidote for our day.

The basic story of ascension is that Jesus, after resurrection and spending 40 days with his closest friends, said farewell and disappeared. It sounds fishy to secularists, as it did to me when I was working through the Christian story for myself. It seems so convenient for the first followers to reply, Well Jesus disappeared, when seekers asked to seethe resurrected Jesus with their own eyes. But here is a historical anomaly: It was only after this story that the first followers became missionaries, going out sharing the story of Jesus as a story that mattered to everyone they met. This is because the story of ascensionrapidly scatteredthis new movement, for it neither had a tomb or a body to point to and say this is ground zero. With Jesus disappearing, Jerusalem could not claim for itself an exceptional status. Whether you believe or not. Youve got to appreciate this brilliant move.

Lamin Sanneh, a professor of world Christianity at Yale Divinity School and anexpert on Christian and Muslim history, credits this quality of non-exceptionalism that allowed Christianity to grow, adapt, and express itself within an ever-changing array of cultural and historical contexts. This non-exceptionalism is appreciated when contrasted to Islam, which remains a faith rooted in specific geographical places, Mecca and Medina, and to a single language, Arabic. Translations of the Quran into other languages are not considered genuine.

The danger of exceptionalism is that it leads to exceptions from criticism. Preservation becomes petrification.

Every institution gravitates towards exceptionalism because institutions think survival relies on special status. The danger of exceptionalism is that it leads to exceptions from criticism. Preservation becomes petrification.

James Comey, the recently fired FBI director, wrote his senior thesis contrasting the Christian political philosophy between Reinhold Niebuhr and Jerry Falwell. Falwell, creator of the Moral Majority in 1979, believed in American exceptionalism, the City on a Hill with Manifest Destiny to spread Democracy as its divine prerogative. John L. O'Sullivan coined it in his column in the New York Morning News on Dec. 27, 1845, to argue for the right for America to take Oregon saying Americas claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us. Exceptionalism is uncritical.

Comey sides with Niebuhr who says Christians have the obligation to love their country but always with a critical eyes because a society left to itself is immoral. There is no exceptionalism to Niebuhrs thinking of America or any society. Only that critical perspective can save an organization from crumbling on itself.

Comey, when he was the director, kept a document from the bureaus archives on his desk, an application by his predecessor, J. Edgar Hoover, to the Justice Department to wiretap Martin Luther King, Jr. Why? The entire application is five sentences long, it is without fact or substance, and it is predicated on the naked assertion that there is Communist influence in the racial situation, he explained in a speech at Georgetown University in February 2015. He required FBI agents to study this history with King then visit the King Memorial in Washington. The reason I do those things, he said, is to insure that we remember our mistakes and that we learn from them.

Samuel Son is a teaching pastor in Raleigh.

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SON: Ascension over American exceptionalism - North State Journal (subscription)

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Royalton church, St. Francis and Epiphany Lutheran to host ascension services Thursday – The Southern

Posted: at 11:05 pm

ROYALTON Area churches whose traditions closely follows some Biblical teachings will celebrate Jesus' ascension and invite the community to join them at services that begin at 6 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 25.

The teaching is that 40 days after he is believed to have risen from the dead, Jesus Christ then "ascended," into the heavens, to be with his father, God.

The Holy Ascension of Our Lord will be celebrated at The Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary Church, at 112 N Fairdale St. in Royalton. A potluck will follow the divine liturgy; those who attend are asked to bring a dish to share.

In Carbondale, St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and Epiphany Lutheran Church will co-host Ascension services, with the annual Lutheran and Catholic Ascension of the Lord Evening Prayer Service beginning at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, with refreshments; that will be followed by the worship service from 8 to 8:45 p.m. at Epiphany Lutheran Church, 1501 W Chautauqua St. in Carbondale.

Father Bob Flannery of Church of St. Francis Xavier.

Epiphany's pastor, Paul Waterman, will preside at the service, and Father Bob Flannery will preach the homily. This years observance will help commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and will show the great progress that has been made for Catholics and Lutherans in coming together more closely as members of the body of Christ, Father Flannery said.

Royalton's Archpriest Frederick Janeek, rector for The Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary Church, will lead the services at the church in Royalton.

V. Rev. Frederick Joseph Janecek is shown in 2015 in the Protection of the Holy Virgin Mary Church in Royalton.

He said Thursday night's service is like the liturgy presented each Sunday at the church, but that those who are not familiar with the tradition might want to see what a service looks like. He said is is like the Eastern Orthodox services, older and more elaborate than services from other Christian religions.

"Many of the people here have never seen that worship service," he said. "All the Orthodox churches around the world have done that for 1,600 years."

He joined the church in January 2015 and recently celebrated his third Easter at the church. About 30 people attend the Sunday services; the church will celebrate its 103rd anniversary in October.

For more information on the Royalton service, call 608-628-6910 or email janecekwi@sbcglobal.net; for information on the service at the Epiphany Lutheran Church, call 618-303-7412.

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After hearing stand-your-ground defense, Ascension jury acquits Donaldsonville man in 2014 shooting – The Advocate

Posted: at 11:05 pm

GONZALESInvoking Louisiana's stand-your-ground law, a Donaldsonville man and Vietnam War veteran accused in a nearly three-year-old shooting was acquitted of a felony aggravated assault with a firearm charge after a one-day trial.

John Winfrey, 66, who has used crutches since 1995, told a six-person Ascension Parish jury that he fired his gun once at two men who were backing a car toward him and would not stop after he warned them, his attorney said.

Defense attorney Blaine Hebertadded that Winfrey had been walking to his Nolan Avenue home June 9, 2014, along the sidewalk from his attorney's office when two men in a car backed up toward him. Hebert said Winfrey testified one of the men, a passenger, had previously threatened Winfrey about his complaints to sheriff's deputies about suspected drug activity across the street from his home, leading Winfrey to fear for his life.

Hebert said he raisedthe stand-your-ground defensein jury selection and at the close of the trial before Judge Jessie LeBlanc of the 23rd Judicial District Court. Under the state law, people do not have a duty to retreat from a perceived threat if the person is in a place for which he or she has a legal right to be.

"He could not retreat if he wanted to. He is walking on crutches," Hebert said.

He said a retired Ascension Parish sheriff's captain testified that Winfrey had previously complained to deputies and City Hall about suspected drug activity at the house. The captain testified deputies added extra patrols in the area, Hebert said.

After the threats, Winfrey, who did not have a car and walked to get around town, armed himself and got a German shepherd dog. Winfrey kept the gun, along with his driver's license and other important papers, in a bag he held over his shoulder, Hebert said.

In March 2015, prosecutors raised questions about whether Winfrey had the mental capacity to stand trial and whether he was sane at the time of the shooting due to his behavior in court, the shooting allegations and his admission he was under the care of mental health professionals at the time.

Winfrey also existed on the fringes of society in a tough part of Donaldsonville. Hebert said Winfrey lived in a house without running water or electricity and slept on a makeshift cot.

Prosecutors asked for a sanity commission, but, by November 2016, mental health professionals had determined he was sane and could assist in his own defense.

Deputies never found that passenger who had supposedly threatened Winfrey, prosecutors said.

"Deputies did not see this subject on scene and he was not available to be interviewed," said Tyler Cavalier, spokesman for District Attorney Ricky Babin.

During the trial Wednesday, the driver, who has no prior convictions, testified he was just backing out of his driveway when Winfrey yelled at him to stop or he would shoot at the car, Cavalier said. The driver kept backing out of his driveway and Winfrey shot once, though no one was hurt, Cavalier said.

When a deputy arrived, Winfrey admitted to getting in an argument but had denied owning a gun, Cavalier said. Deputies searched his home and found a gun that investigators later determined was the one that had been fired, Cavalier said. He added that Winfrey never raised his concerns about the passenger at that time.

Deputies arrested Winfrey on counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, illegal carrying of weapons, marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia counts. The driver was not arrested. At trial, prosecutors only brought the aggravated assault with a firearm charge.

Hebert said his client refused to accept a misdemeanor plea offer from prosecutors and chose trial on the felony to assert his innocence.

Follow David J. Mitchell on Twitter, @NewsieDave.

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After hearing stand-your-ground defense, Ascension jury acquits Donaldsonville man in 2014 shooting - The Advocate

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Asian-led space exploration? It’s about time for this in film – The Straits Times

Posted: at 11:04 pm

Ah, space. The final frontier. The place of infinite possibilities and endless adventure.

Unless you are not a white American male. Then you might assist the handsome captain, as a button-pushing member of the crew. Or you might contribute your body to the cause, by dying in the first act, provoking the captain into heroic action.

This is why I'm looking forward to the release of the film version of the acclaimed Hugo Award-winning novel The Three-Body Problem by Chinese writer Liu Cixin, which was published in English in 2014.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the made-in-China movie, due to be released later this year, will stay true to the book genre of "hard" science fiction, which imagines far-out scenarios, but with the laws of physics as we know them today driving the plot.

If so, this will be a breakthrough in Chinese cinema, which makes plenty of comedies, romances and action-thrillers, but no science fiction.

For the first time, we might see space-faring people speaking Mandarin and watch scientists based not in Houston or Cape Canaveral, but in Beijing.

It will be interesting to see how the literary, character-driven tone of the book will be made more commercial. But more interestingly, how will the film be received in Asia? Will audiences in Singapore, Seoul or Kuala Lumpur buy the idea of a science-fiction world rooted in Chinese characters and Chinese locales on Earth? The book does feature American characters and casting notes show that this notion has been carried through to the movie.

After all, in Singapore we have been weaned on American science fiction, from hard stuff, such as Gravity (2013), to soft fantasy, such as Star Wars, and the in-betweens, such as Star Trek.

It would be - pun intended - an alien experience to see an Asian nation at the forefront of space exploration.

But why isn't The Three-Body Problem a Hollywood property?

There is a distinct possibility that the reason the film rights do not belong to a Los Angeles studio, as has happened to other Asian science-fiction works, is that despite its critical acclaim, its appeal is too niche.

The Three-Body Problem might have been saved by its obscurity.

Hollywood, for example, de-Japanised Hiroshi Sakurazaka's popular novel All You Need Is Kill, turning it into the movie Edge Of Tomorrow (2014), starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. That was a well-constructed movie and a commercial hit.

Another Hollywood adaptation of a Japanese property, this year's Ghost In The Shell, based on the manga by Masamune Shirow, was neither good nor a commercial success. It would be awful if the lacklustre makeover given to Shirow's creation were given to Liu's book.

We have grown up with movie science fiction that depicts a future in which American men rule the known universe, even if on paper, it is supposed to be a universe run by a pan-planetary union comprised of human and non-human citizens.

I guess that's show business.

There were a few moments when I glimpsed an alternate timeline of Things That Could Have Been, such as when Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi appeared in the monster epic Pacific Rim (2013), or when Michelle Yeoh, Benedict Wong and Hiroyuki Sanada were in space disaster movie Sunshine (2007).

The latter three (spoiler warning) were rapidly disposed of, leaving the stage clear for the standard heroes to take the spotlight.

Kikuchi had a larger role, but it was a sprawling, ensemble movie, with much screen time devoted to male lead Becket (Charlie Hunnam).

I am not a Star Trek fan, but the release of the trailer for upcoming American television series Star Trek: Discovery a few days ago raised the hope that once more, science fiction might represent the make-up of Earth properly.

Chinese Malaysian actress Yeoh has a recurring role as a starship captain, as does African-American Sonequa Martin-Green, playing the protagonist Michael Burnham, the first officer of the ship.

Space is vast, and it is about time there was room for other kinds of heroes.

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Trump’s Vision of NASA: Space Exploration in, Earth Science Out – Inverse

Posted: at 11:04 pm

Invoking President Donald Trump several times during his first-ever State of NASA address on Tuesday, acting director Robert Lightfoot announced which science programs hes suggesting be cut for the space agencys 2018 fiscal budget.

Here the five Earth science missions being terminated:

1. Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3): This one hasnt launched.

2. Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE): Hasnt launched.

3. Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory Pathfinder (CLARREO PF): Hasnt launched.

4. The Radiation Budget Instrument (RBI): A troubled project.

5. DSCOVR Earth-viewing instruments: The Deep Space Climate Observatory program will be shut down.

Theres still 18 good space missions going and several airborne missions going to support the science side of the house, so Im excited about that, said Lightfoot, whos been at the agency since 1989 but became acting director after its previous chief, Charles Bolden, resigned on inauguration day.

The cuts to science missions were expected, as was the elimination of NASAs office of education, but Lightfoot attempted to put a positive spin on the news thatll be hard to take for many at the agency.

[The budget] also no longer supports a formal office of education, but I think well continue to inspire that next generation; its what we do, Lightfoot said from the podium at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He continued, Let me tell you, were committed as we always have been to inspiring that next generation with what we do.

Lightfoot said that NASA will now look for new ways to engage with the public absent a formal office to do that.

And were going to engage the public in the compelling stories of what were trying to do in the missions were trying to create and making those things that are impossible, possible, he said, adding later, were actually gonna take a good, hard look; use this opportunity for NASA to revisit how we do public outreach and public engagement.

Lightfoot brought up the president on two separate occasions:

Over the last couple months weve had the president really recognize the work were doing, he said. It was pretty amazing to be there [when Trump did an uplink to the ISS]. That was pretty neat. This was the same event where Trump made his Mars 2024 comment.

Later, the NASA director recalled Trumps speech when he championed American exploration of space. The president said, American footprints on distant worlds are not too big of a dream. And were executing programs step-by-step to make this dream a reality, Lightfoot said.

Lightfoots official remarks (not the speech) offered this projection for exploration:

Working with commercial partners, NASA will fly astronauts from American soil on the first new crew transportation systems in a generation in the next couple of years. We are continuing the development of solar electric propulsion for use on future human and robotic missions. NASA is fabricating and assembling the systems to launch humans into lunar orbit by 2023. Our budget request supports progress toward these and many other major milestones as part of the diverse portfolio of work we execute as we explore, discover, and develop on behalf of the American people.

The presidents vision for NASA is to turn up the exploration, and turn down the planetary, climate-studying science. NASA estimates the budget 2018 budget to be $19.1 billion, less than the $19.6 billion in 2017, and the $19.2 billion in 2016. Dig into the budget for yourself at nasa.gov/budget.

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Could Space Exploration Mark a New Beginning for Trump’s … – AlterNet

Posted: at 11:04 pm

Juno spacecraft in front of the planet Jupiter lit by the Sun (3d illustration, elements of this image are furnished by NASA). Photo Credit: Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock/NASA

The verdant lawn of Washingtons National Mall was trampled to sod on two successive weekends, as tens of thousands marched for science and to call for action on climate change. Protest attire ranged from nerd chic lab coats to Leonardo DiCaprios dont-look-at-me-Im-just-an-ordinary-citizennewsboy cap. Outrage at the decimation of science agency funds in Trumps first proposed budget was a unifying theme, stoked by concern that his administration discounts rigorous scientific inquiry in favor ofalternative facts.

The proposed cuts touch on a broad range of initiatives, from critical medical research at the National Institutes of Health to standards for applying forensic evidence in criminal trials. Perhaps, most pressing for many protest participants is a fear that climate deniers are so embedded in the Trump Administration that they will force US rejection ofthe Paris accord on climate change. Though a 2 May bipartisan Congressional budget deal funded most science agencies at a much higher level than Trumps initial requests, the new president will have another chance at significant cuts when he releases his detailed budget in September.

Amid such well-founded alarm, it has gone largely under-reported that one prominent science agency escaped massive cuts in Trumps proposed budget: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The overall allocation for the agency in the fiscal year 2018 is $19.1 billion, a slight increase overcurrent funding. But within the agency, planetary science stands to gain a whopping 20 per cent a remarkable contrast to the budget austerity Trump hopes to impose on most federal programs.

If Trump has his way, NASAs earth science programs will be one such casualty, slated to receive a cut of nearly 13 per cent from current funding levels. The work of these programs has been used to provide a foundation for evidence of climate change and has become a favorite target of Congressional Republicans and fossil fuel lobbyists.

At an October 2016 campaign rally, Trumppledgedthat he would free NASA from the restriction of serving primarily as a logistics agency for low-Earth orbit activity big deal. Instead, we will refocus its mission on space exploration. Under a Trump Administration, America will lead the way into the stars. Trump has thrown support behind the notion of public-private partnerships for expanding deep space exploration. The Congressional authorization bill attached to the agencys funding mandates that NASA cannot utilize space flight services from a foreign entity unless no NASA flights or domestic commercial providers are available. This could help launch US commercial flights to the International Space Station (ISS), rather than hitching rides on Russian or French rockets.

Although Musk has said the cost of the trip is confidential, thrill-seeking high fliers have paid$20 millionfor a Russian-piloted trip to the ISS. A lunar excursion could be the ultimate joyride for the billionaire boys club. Yet, while other commercial space efforts have carried legitimate research goals, space tourism flights have little value beyond the cachet of an interplanetary passport stamp, making the public underwriting of these projects questionable at best.

Trump has repeatedly called putting a man on the moon one of the US greatest victories, and has invoked images of Neil Armstrongs historic walk on the moon in his rhetorical quest to make America great again. Whenever I hear the name of the Apollo astronaut, I am reminded of a decades-old urban legend about Armstrong that I first heard from a Somali traveller I met in Yogyakarta many years ago. According to the tale, when Armstrong was visiting Saudi Arabia several years before, he heard the call of the muezzin, urging people to come to prayer, and asked what it was. Upon being told its source, the astronaut said he had heard the very same sound on the moon, and converted to Islam on the spot.

Due to the storys spread, Armstrong was inundated by requests to appear at Islamic religious observances around the world. He was so deluged that he worked with the State Department in 1983 to send a respectful, but firm, rejection of the claim to embassies and consulates throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

But, the myth lived on through word of mouth. A few other individuals I have met in my travels over the years, generally in the Middle East, have asked about the tales validity.

It is interesting to speculate about the storys genesis. It may be that Armstrong unwittingly gave rise to the rumor when he was asked by a reporter in Egypt how he found his first visit to the country. He supposedly remarked that he found the sound of the adhan (the muezzins call) spacey. Lacking a vernacular Arabic term, the reporter translated the comment as meaning something Armstrong had heard in outer space.

I have always been enchanted by the legend, not because I believed the conversion story, but because it underscores the essence of space exploration in our collective imaginations a sense of awe and wonder at the beauty and mystery of the universe, coupled with a belief in the power of science to help unlock those mysteries.

This perspective an understanding of the vastness of the universe, offset by our own precarious position in it recently helped inform the first known political protest in space. The Autonomous Space Agency Network (ASAN) attacheda tweetdirected at Trump (Look at that, you son of a bitch) to a weather balloon sent into near space orbit.

The quote comes from Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who said, From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, Look at that, you son of a bitch.

Similar thoughts have been voiced by others who have had an interstellar vantage point, including Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Schweickart, who said, When you go around the Earth in an hour- and- a- half, you begin to recognise that your identity is with that whole thing. That makes a change. You look down there and you cant imagine how many borders and boundaries you cross, again and again and again, and you dont even see them.

Psychologists have a name for this enhanced sense of perspective the overview effect.Researchersat the University of Pennsylvania are studying the effect in space travelers, and are hypothesizing ways to reproduce it in the Earth-bound, with the goal of helping individuals become more adaptive, and feel more connected to others.

Although I have never been to the moon, I think that international travel has helped me develop a small-scale form of overview effect. At 48 countries and counting, travel has underscored for me the essential interconnectivity of the human experience, though vastly different depending on where it unfolds and has reinforced my own infinitesimalplace in life on Earth.

Perhaps, those will be some of the notions discussed at the Asian Space Technology Summit 2017, sponsored by Space Exploration Asia, taking place 11 & 12 May in Kuala Lumpur. In addition to promoting space technology curricula and exploiting the untapped business opportunities afforded by space exploration, thegroups stated goalis to build the kind of infrastructure on which all of humankinds impossible achievements have been built: the infrastructure of desire and the infrastructure of vision.

Since most of us will never travel through space, photos of our planet taken from deep space have helped affirm for many the notion that we on Earth play a role in the Big Picture, but are not the entire Big Picture.

Unfortunately, one of the line items slated to be zeroed-out in Trumps proposed budget is for the instruments on the DSCOVR spacecraft. They transmit daily images of Earth, suspended like a blue marble in the boundless universe, which have highlighted the planets fragility for many viewers. Some have even been inspired by these images to call for a greater commitment to joining with other nations to find solutions to shared challenges, such as food insecurity or income inequality.

This is evidently not a perspective afforded by the view from Mar-a-Lago, so one can only hope that Trump rethinks his space policy emphasis, allowing what goes on beyond Earths boundaries to inform work here. It should be a policy goal to forge ahead in space exploration, without ignoring what is in the rear-view mirror. Humankind will be the better for it.

This article was originally published by Policy Forum. Read the original.

Sally Tyler is an attorney and policy analyst based in Washington, D.C.

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Space exploration must continue – Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Posted: at 11:04 pm

I am a student at Garrison. We Americans often fantasize over our glorious future of space colonies and asteroid mining.

However, with the state of our space programs, accomplishing this is hardly possible. NASA has turned from a revolutionary space program that gave children dreams of being astronaut heroes to a mediocre waste of government funds and a tourist attraction.

When you think of astronauts you think of the 1960s, not anything that has happened recently. Our space program would be a humiliation to astronauts such as John Glenn, Neil Armstrong or Sally Ride.

They were astronauts who risked, and some who lost, their lives to explore and now after several generations of invention and innovation we have come to a standstill. It seems as though our generation is an awful case of writers block in the story of the human beings explorations and inventions.

We havent sent a human to space since July of 2011, which was over five years ago. We havent even been able to put a human on a different planet. The closest weve done to this is land a man on the moon, and that wasnt our generation, that was back when they needed large warehouses to hold a computer with the power of one of our servers.

We have computers that the early mission controls would have died for, and the best we could do with them is play video games. During the first launches technology was extremely limited, and they were still able to do things that were unimaginably complicated.

With our technology we should be able to achieve more than they ever would have been able to, yet we have done practically nothing.

In my opinion the solution is to encourage competition in the space industry and support private space companies. The most well known private company in this field is SpaceX, which is a perfect example of a type of company we need more of.

If there are more private space companies there will be a greater chance of a one of them doing something amazing, like landing a craft with humans on mars or something similar.

It is up to our generation to continue the legacy of those before us, and the way to do this is through private space companies.

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WW3 fears as Russia reactivates satellites that could be adapted to … – Express.co.uk

Posted: at 11:04 pm

GETTY

As political tensions across the globe continues to rise, the western powerhouses have been keeping an eye on Russian activity and were surprised to see the reactivated three satellites in space.

The satellites, Kosmos-2491, Kosmos-2499 and Kosmos-2504, have been inactive for a few years, but they are now thought to be back online.

Suspicions were raised when last month, Kosmos-2504, which had gone offline in October 2015, travelled completely off its orbit to come within 1,200 metres of a Chinese weather satellite that China destroyed as part of an anti-satellite rocket test in 2007.

Kosmos-2499 has also been manoeuvring in an odd fashion in recent months.

GETTY

Anatoly Zak, a Russian-born journalist and space historian, told the publication there is a chance Russia is preparing to use the satellites as weapons.

He said: Looking at the history of space technology, it often starts with a small and cheap satellite that's easy to launch, then the same technology gets incorporated into something larger.

You can probably equip them with lasers, maybe put some explosives on them.

If [one] comes very close to some military satellite, it probably can do some harm.

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Dr Laura Grego, a space expert with the Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said Russia may have been keeping the satellites purposefully offline as to not raise suspicions.

She told the Daily Beast: I do find it very interesting the satellite would go dormant for two years and then come back to life to manoeuvre.

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New Zealand, however secluded, has a stable democracy and is not involved in any major world conflicts

One strategy to keep satellites stealthy is to pretend they are debris, i.e. not to have them manoeuvre at all at first, and then come to life later.

To be confident this works, you might want to be able to test if your equipment works after being idle for months or years.

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North Korea fires medium range ballistic missile brushing past Japan as WW3 tensions mount – Express.co.uk

Posted: at 11:03 pm

South Korea's Office of Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the projectile took off on Sunday afternoon, (07.59GMT) from a location near Pukchang.

The office did not give further details, but Japan later confirmed it as a medium range ballistic missile test.

The White House said that it is aware of this latest North Korea missile launch and notes that this system has a shorter range than the missiles launched in North Koreas three most recent tests.

Japan has said that the country strongly protests North Korea and calls the missile launch intolerable and a clear violation of UN resolution.

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The Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that the missile was launched around 7:59 GMT from North Koreas west coast towards the Sea of Japan and it probably landed outside Japans exclusive economic zone, without causing damages to ships and aeroplanes.

A week ago,North Koreatested another missile, which it said was capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead.

Pukchang is an area where Pyongyang attempted to test-launch another missile last month, but failed.

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Eric Lafforgue/Exclusivepix Medi

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Taking pictures in the DMZ is easy, but if you come too close to the soldiers, they stop you

North Korea has defied any calls to decrease its nuclear and missile programmes, even from its only ally, China.

Yesterday analysts revealed that Pyongyang has launched a ballistic missile, which has re-entered the Earths atmosphere.

North Korea see this as a significant breakthrough for the state.

Donald Trump has pledged to place stronger economic and diplomatic sanctions on the hermit kingdom as it scrambles to build nuclear weapons.

North Korea has announced that the US is within strike range.

On Saturday, North Koreas state KCNA news agency said: Today the U.S. mainland and the Pacific operational theatre are within the strike range of the DPRK and the DPRK has all kinds of powerful means for annihilating retaliatory strike.

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The country regularly tests its short-range missiles and wants to develop ones that can reach the United States.

Last week, the UN Security Council again demanded that Pyongyang conduct no further such tests.

However all of North Koreas nuclear tests are in defiance of UN sanctions.

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North Korea fires medium range ballistic missile brushing past Japan as WW3 tensions mount - Express.co.uk

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