Monthly Archives: January 2021

Trump, the American Dream and the Frontier – CounterPunch.org – CounterPunch

Posted: January 9, 2021 at 2:48 pm

David Graeber once postulated that the reason conservatives hate Hollywood is not just because of the film industrys sanctimonious liberalism but because this liberalism is disseminated by an industry that is profoundly nepotistic. From the Coppolas to the Barrymores to the Fondas to the Gyllenhaals to Gwyneth Paltrow, Matthew Broderick, Daniel Radcliffe, and Jaden Smith, Hollywood has notoriously and shamelessly granted opportunity, irrespective of merit, to those with the right connections at the expense of everyone else. Conservatives, Graeber argues, reject Hollywood because, in contrast to supposedly meritocratic (at least in the conservative imagination) industries such as business, Hollywood isunfair. That Hollywood is also bent on socially engineering the masses with the liberal fads of the day, while simultaneously trading in unending sex and violence, merely adds insult to injury.

Graebers recognition of conservatives overriding concern with fairness helps explain conservatives steadfast support for Donald Trump. Trump of course began his presidential run as an ostensibly unbeholden political outsider who took down the Bush and Clinton dynasties by asserting that he would halt all manner of global cheating and put America first. Promising to drain the swamp, the incoming Trump administration was characterized by an unusual and sometimes surreal openness as celebrities, eccentrics, and hangers-on dropped by to share their views with the president-elect.1A 21st-century version of Andrew Jacksons inaugural ball, this spectacle conveyed an administration freed from technocratic elites, micromanagers, and other unaccountable insiders (which is one reason why Trumps incompetence rarely concerns his supporters, since it is merely more evidence of his overarching authenticity). Indeed, it would be interesting to examine the publics letters to the president during those first months to determine whether there was an unusually high number of offers of assistance and auditions for employment given the perception, at least among his supporters, that the Trump White House was uncharacteristicallyaccessibleto those on the margins of the establishment.

Fundamentally, the notion that the Trump presidency is bent on establishing, or restoring, fairness mistakes appearance for reality. This critical distinction is obscured in Arlie Russell HochschildsStrangers in Their Own Land(2016), in which the Berkeley sociologist travels to Louisiana to explore the thinking of Trump-supporting conservatives.2Spending time with conservatives on their own turf and observing their interactions with their churches, workplaces, and neighbors, Hochschild pursues adeep understanding of conservatives from the inside. What she arrives at is a conservative deep story that is based on an extended metaphor of waiting in line. In sum, resentful, Trump-supporting, white people feel as if they have played by the rules by waiting in line in order to earn their rightful portion of the American Dream, but women, African Americans, immigrants, government workers, and even endangered birds are, with the aid of liberal government officials, increasingly cutting in front of them. When conservatives criticize the unfairness of this situation, they are shouted down for being racist ogres whose devotion to the Christian God, family, and country is the source of endless ridicule in mainstream culture.

Because much of Hochschilds examination relies on her acceptance of the aptness of the line metaphor, it is important to note that such a notion is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of contemporary life. Capitalism has never been based on a line in which the good life is a reasonable outcome for those who dutifully work and wait for it. This idea is incapable of explaining, for instance, the fixed poverty of fast-food workers or among migrant farmworkers whose political vulnerabilitywhich the state and business respectively produce and exploitindicates that they are less willing, as Hochschild and her interviewees would have it, than forced to work for sub-minimum wages. On the contrary, the image of a linein which people face the same direction in a single filemystifies the nature of a class society in which the power of a small elite is generated through exploitativeinteractionwith the majority. Unable to transcend the contradiction inherent in wages, which are simultaneously a negative cost of business and the primary means of workers survival, the system reproduces poverty, even as the number and identity of its victims can vary under different historical circumstances.

Needless to say, Hochschilds white conservative interlocutors do not blame their economic and other struggles on capitalism. On the contrary, Hochschilds interviewees, some of whom express faith in impending rapture, complain about illegitimate outsiders and societys supposed replacement of an honorable and rooted existence with cosmopolitan selves [that are] directed to the task of cracking into the global elite [who make] do with living farther away from their roots[and take] pride in liberal causes. Such concepts, Werner Bonefeld reminds us, have long been used to express a violently reactionary and anti-Semitic worldview that positions itself against an enemy that is viewed as abstract, fluid, universal, mobile, intangible, rootless, landless, and represented by money and society, all of which are attempting to destroy rooted communities that are connected to the land through farming and industry, blood and soil.3

Such language has an undoubtedly dangerous pedigree, but Hochschild intends for us to listen to it so that we might cultivate a mutual understanding that will enable the national community to repair itself, which begs the question of not only what a national community entails but also whether Hochschild is reversing cause and effect. Conservatives and liberals are in conflict not merely because they fail to understand one another but because they understand all too well that they are separated by increasingly unbridgeable interests. Conservatives, Hochschild notes, reject government regulation of their weapons and investments, i.e., their own self-interested pursuits. When it comes to restricting womens access to abortion or policing people of color, however, conservatives, whose political, social, and economic power is predicated on the domination of others, become ardent proponents of the regulatory state. Seeking to overcome such antagonistic interests through mutual understanding thereby constitutes a wrong answer to a wrong question. Conservatives do not conceive of themselves as merely one of many interest groups competing for influence over the government. On the contrary, they, not unreasonably, see themselves as occupying a fundamental and inviolable position within society precisely because of their historically aligned relationship to the state. Hochschild suggests this inheritance when she joins her interlocutors in describing US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as our troops, and in the very fact that she accepts on faith that it is conservatives own land in the first place and that conservatives estrangement from it constitutes an unambiguously legitimate source of grievance. Reporting on her subjects as she finds them, Hochschild evades US militarism and the genocidal settlement of the land (i.e., US societys material preconditions) and, as a result, divorces her interviewees ideas from the imperial context that helped shape them. In so doing, she obfuscates what she seeks to explain.

Greg GrandinsTheEnd of the Mythcontextualizes todays crises through the metaphor of not a line of atomized individuals waiting for their turn but a frontiera border that evolved into a cultural zone or a civilizational struggle through the settlement of the West and beyond.4Unlike the line, the frontier produces aninsidethat is defined through antagonistic exchange with thoseoutsidewhether of shifting geographic boundaries or the domestic body politic. Whereas historians often debate whether the Constitution expanded or reversed the revolutionary spirit of the Declaration of Independence, Grandin highlights the racist expansionismwithinthe Declarations enlightened universalism. Beyond taxes and billeting, Jeffersons litany of King Georges crimes included the complaint that Britain was preventing the colonists from conquering the land of the merciless Indian Savages. That is, America may have been born free, but it was a freedomfroma government that sought to constrain its subjects violent oppression of others.

We see this conception of negative freedom again and again, as in a story Grandin recounts of a young Andrew Jackson, who when transporting slaves through federally protected Indian land, became outraged after a government official requested to see his passport. Writing My God, is it come to this Are wefreemen or are we slaves? Is this real or is it a dream?, Jackson threatened to murder the agent and devoted himself to getting him fired. Jackson, of course, would have the last laugh as, once president, he would expel (ethnically cleanse in todays language) the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and other Indigenous peoples from the southeast, where expanded chattel slavery and accelerated national expansion would take their place.

Such freedom not only drove early Western expansionmost dramatically via the Mexican land grabbut, once the continental frontier was closed, continued overseas through the Spanish-American War, the World Wars, and the seemingly unending US wars since. To be sure, the understanding of expansion itself evolved from the merely territorial (as with the taking of Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and other territories) to the economic (outlined in the Fourteen Points and at Bretton Woods Conference) to the political and the cultural. Along the way, the problems produced by expansion were resolvedor at least displacedby ever more expansion, an approach to national development that, Grandin argues, has left the US disoriented and destabilized now that its ability to expand has finally come to an end. US racist violence and other pathologies, provided no effective outlet in a contracting and crisis-ridden world system, have come home to roost under Trump, who can only offer the frontiers antithesis: the wall (one nevertheless wonders about the intensification of domestic racism attending, and surely lingering after, moments of US expansion, e.g., the virulent anti-Chinese racism during the settlement of the West and the anti-Japanese racism of WWII).

The End of the Mythperforms a vital service in tracing the intrinsic violence of US historical development, showing that this violence does not constitute a one-time original sin but is instead recursive as it is enmeshed within the assumptions of American freedom itself. Yet, notwithstanding Grandins attempts to juxtapose US development with seemingly more peaceful national paths (he favorably looks upon the South American republics, notwithstanding their own eventual warfare), US history and its current crises reflect not only the peculiarities of US development, but also the demands and contradictions of a fundamentally violent global system.

Indeed, neither Trump nor his racist immigration policieswhich include antecedents such as Operation Wetback, Pat Buchanan, and Californias Proposition 187are new to US history, as Grandin writes. But neither are they unique to contemporary global politics. As harrowing as the border patrols on the Mexican border are, one can find comparable brutality in the Mediterranean, which, as Nicholas De Genova writes, the EUs immigration policies have actively converted into a mass grave.5Similarly, the USs rightward shift may have been articulated by Ronald Reagan, but it was born in the crises of the global economy of the 1970s, which incapacitated the Left while emboldening the Right, not only in the US but also in countries including Germany, France, and the UK. Clinton was Reagans greatest achievement, but Reagan was the achievement of both a reemergent US South and an oversaturated global economy.

Lest we reduce striking similarities between the US and other countries to mere coincidence, we ought to look at not only the ideas animating and justifying US development but also the structure of the global system itself. The United States has, since at least WWII, been the most powerful country in the world, so it is easy to forget that in some ways it is also the quintessential nation-state, the first to have based its legitimacy on what is now the reigning system of government today: republican pluralism. Madison developed this concept in his discussion in Federalist No. 10 of the threat posed by factions, which he defines as a number of citizens, whether amounting to amajorityor a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.6Notably for Madison, the most common and durable source of factions, has been the various and unequal distribution of property.

Madisons solution to the problem of factions is brilliant, but he leaves us with a paradox: what is the difference between a majority faction of 99 percent of the population (which Madison would oppose) and the aggregate interests of the community or common good (which he supports)? What exactly does the common good consist of if not what the majority wants? Grandin suggests that Madison saw the common good as virtue and virtue as diversity itself, yet the contradictory interests contained within this diversitye.g., the mutually exclusive antagonisms between boss and worker or landlord and tenantcannot constitute the aggregate interests of the community, since it is not possible to aggregate contradictions without destroying one or the other, something Madison steadfastly opposes. When we talk, for instance, about hegemonic ideologies that claim to aggregate disparate interests, we are in reality speaking about the subordination of some ideologies (e.g., identities based on fidelity to family, city, or religion) to a dominant one (e.g., nationalism). Indeed, Madison recommends extend[ing] the sphere of government, not because he valued diversity as such, but in order to multiply factions so that they can offset one another, a specifically counter-majoritarian maneuver designed to make it more difficult for all who feel a common interest to discover their own strength. But what precisely is it that Madison is trying to protect?

Madisons purpose is made explicit when he defends his plan precisely because under it a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it. Writing amid Shays Rebellion, Madison was profoundly concerned with protecting natural property rights, not from the perspective of the framers narrow self-interest, a view frequently attributed to Charles A. Beard, but in general. Yet, even in general terms, private property, which is premised on the exclusion of the unpropertied, could not by definition constitute the common good. Madisons common good, then, could only be the wellbeing of a modern and decidedly unneutralstate that derives its power from asystemof private property that secures both the interests of property holders and the concomitant dependency of everyone else.

And this modern state, consolidated with the American and French Revolutions, was born into asystemof states in which the territory and power of each were inherently relational to the other. The US was founded through breaking away from Britain, and its earliest tasks, as Grandin notes, were to strengthen itself through acquiring land not only from stateless Indigenous peoples but also from its Spanish, British, and French rivals. It was within this geopolitical and national context that settlers, whom Grandin casts in a leading role in the story, helped spearhead Western expansion. Although these settlers often resented and exceeded the given policies of the federal government, their material wellbeing and political support were nevertheless contingent upon the state, which both protected them and capitalized on their efforts. Indeed, this good cop/bad cop dynamic of government/settler expansion is not unique to the US but reflects a pattern of development that can be found in numerous states including, perhaps most prominently today, Israel. That is, the determinative factor in US historical development was less, as Grandin suggests, an endogenous ideology or the settlers and other agents who articulated it, than a global system that provided the structure into which the US states material exigencies and ambitions were born.

US leaders were, to be sure, free to ignore the rules of the international system and not pursue state-building (as Grandin suggests in his comparison between the relatively humane John Quincy Adams and the genocidally-racist Andrew Jackson), but such dereliction was bound to come at a cost, paid for by either the individual (John Quincy Adams never received a majority vote and lost reelection) or the state itself. Justifying the USs annexation of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War, William McKinley, who originally opposed annexation as a criminal aggression,7was cognizant of these systemic pressuresnot least the urgent need to relieve an economy depressed by overproduced goodswhen he warned that if the US did not act it would be bad business and discreditable since its similarly glutted imperial rivals assuredly would.

None of this is to suggest that the development of a given state is a purely mechanistic affair, as there are of course contingencies as well as unique national cultures that influence all countries. Just the same, the cultural and the structural shape each other, and historically the former more often than not evolves upon material terrain shaped by the imperatives of the latter. Perhaps no event more than the Civil War, which Grandin only briefly discusses, demonstrates the confluence between the distinctively American version of freedom and the world system into which the US was integrating.

Although the existence of the federally intrusive Fugitive Slave Act gives lie to the Souths insistence that it was fighting for states rights as such, the South was just as assuredly fighting for its freedomtooppress Black people who provided the basis of its material and cultural way of life. To be sure, as Richard Hofstadter has shown, Southerners such as John Calhoun insisted that the Southern system protected slaves from the perverse freedomsfreedom to starve or lose limbs to industrial machineryof the North.8While the Souths brutally racist violence belied its professed paternalism and revealed Calhouns accusation against the North as atu quoque, both sides did fight over whose interests Black people would be forced to advance: the sectional and parochial aggrandizement of plantation owners or the expansion of an increasingly industrial national economy that was in competition with other states through the apparatus of wage-labor based capitalism. For it is too infrequently noted that the slaves were emancipated in the same decade as the liberation of both the Russian and Japanese serfs, indicating that even disparate nation-states were pursuing the same goal, and with the same techniques, of 19th-century modernization.

The Civil War showed that the US wouldunder the systemic pressures of growth or declineadapt itself to successfully compete in the global system, even as the war and its aftermath shaped a unique political culture. Although Reconstruction ended with the 1877 Hayes Compromise, it was not until the Spanish-American War that the South, Klan and all, was reincorporated into the nation on its own terms, as that war, as Grandin puts it, both re-legitimated the Confederacy and allowed resurgent racists to drape themselves in the high ideals of a now-reconciled national history. Taking redemptive pride in their contributions to US expansion, Southerners were now able to atone for their sedition against the nation, even as they carried the banner of that sedition to the farthest corners of the earth. With Woodrow Wilson segregating the federal government and Nixon adopting the Southern Strategy, the South won a peace that was predicated on the relegation of African Americans to a permanent underclass subsidizing postbellum capitalist society.

To speak, then, of Trumps fairness presupposes a historically specific understanding of that term. On one hand, Trump is likely the most flagrantly nepotistic and corrupt president in US history. Yet such conduct little matters to his supporters; insofar as his dealings are self-serving, they are necessarily a challenge to the far largersystemof corruption that he combats every day. Why criticize Ivanka for enriching herself through sweetheart deals abroad since this only means that the Trump family will now be further empowered to do battle against the Swamp?

On the other hand, Trumpian fairness, in its ideal form, is contingent upon foundational violence that naturalizes ongoing exclusion and oppression as timeless and apolitical. Accordingly, advocates of such fairness ferociously oppose any semblance of social or economic corrective as fundamentally artificial, exogenous, and unfair. It is furthermore a fairness based on conceptions of a masochistic self-sacrifice whose only assurance is not an acceptable standard of living but the freedom to destroy oneself in attempting to achieve it. For ordinary conservatives do not see that theywhether as Grandins settlers or Hochschilds workerswere never in charge of a state that, its flattery notwithstanding, has increasingly little use for them. Projecting their sense of a lost and exaggerated agency onto their enemies, they dangerously believe that those who have been historically trampled are somehow now in charge. For in the final analysis, the fairness of conservatives is built upon the vain attempt to recapture a freedom that is not only based on the oppression of others but was never designed to transcend its subordination to the state.

Notes.

1. Among others, Kanye West, Ted Nugent, and Kid Rock visited the new president. Trumps later decision to commute the sentences of Alice Marie Johnson and other prisoners was influenced by reality TV star Kim Kardashian, and Trump has helped create new celebrities such as his fans Diamond and Silk.

2. Arlie Hochschild,Strangers in Their Own Land, New Press: New York, 2016.

3. Werner Bonefeld, Notes on Anti-Semitism,Common Sense, Issue 21, 1997, pp. 60-76.

4. Greg Grandin,The End of The Myth, Metropolitan Books: New York, 2019.

5. Nicholas De Genova,The Borders of Europe, Duke University Press: Durham, 2017.

6. James Madison, Federalist No. 10, in James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John JayThe Federalist Papers, Penguin Classics: New York, 1987.

7. William McKinley, Decision on the Philippines,Digital History, accessed August 17, 2020,https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1257.

8. Richard Hofstadter,The American Political Tradition, Vintage Books Edition: New York, 1989.

This essay originally appeared in the Brooklyn Rail.

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Cosmic Exploration in 2021: From Mars to Asteroids, List of Most-Awaited Space Missions This Year | The Weather Channel – Articles from The Weather…

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Artists' representation of astronauts on Moon.

The year 2020 witnessed a lot of exciting space endeavours! From launching multiple Mars missions to collecting samples from the Moon and a space rock2020 was an exceptional year for space exploration, despite unprecedented lockdowns due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Now, with the arrival of the New Year, begins a new space race as countries are gearing up to prove their prowess in cosmic exploration yet again with multiple novel mission launches. As space agencies across the globe fire up the hopes of millions of space enthusiasts, The Weather Channel India has compiled a list of highly anticipated missions of 2021.

File photo: Chandrayaan 2 launch.

Chandrayaan-3: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is once again eyeing to land on the Moon in 2021. Though no date has been fixed yet, Indias Moon mission successorChandrayaan-3may be launched sometime in the first half of 2021. The third lunar mission was earlier scheduled for 2020, but the ongoing pandemic and the lockdown imposed to contain the spread of coronavirus stalled its launch. In its second attempt, the Indian space agency is aiming to achieve a soft landing on the south pole of the lunar surface, which is least explored to date. Unlike its predecessor, Chandrayaan 3 will not carry an orbiterbut will include a lander and a rover to study the lunar surface.

Artemis 1: The US space agency NASA is gearing up to return astronauts to the Moon by 2024 and towards this, the first uncrewed test flight is slated for launch in November 2021 under the Artemis program. The mission spacecraft is named Orion, which will be onboard a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. The mission will carry 13 small satellites to conduct science and technology investigations. As per NASA: the primary operation goal of the mission is to assure a safe crew module entry, descent, splashdown, and recovery.

Luna-25: The Russian space agency, Roscosmos is also gearing to launch a lander mission named Luna-25 to the Moon by October this year. The mission is said to have nine instruments on board with the main objective of exploring the natural resources present on the Moon. The spacecraft is expected to land on the Boguslavsky craternear the South Pole.

Apart from Chandrayaan-3, ISRO is also aiming to launch its first crewless flight as part of its ambitious human spaceflight mission Gaganyaan by the end of 2021. However, no date has been confirmed by the space agency so far. The mission, which was scheduled for the first half of 2021, witnessed repeated delays due to COVID-19-induced lockdowns. The second crewless flight has also been pushed to 2022.

The two crewless flights are scheduled before the maiden human spaceflight launch by ISRO under the Gaganyaan mission. In one of the crewless flights, ISRO has planned to send a humanoid robot named Vyommitra to the low-earth orbit. The robot will mimic the space crew activities set for the human mission to assess the technology prior to the final mission.

In this illustration, NASA's Mars rover uses its drill to core a rock sample on Mars.

In the 21st century, Mars has been the poster planet in space exploration. The planet is a top contender to being a possible host for future human colonies. Several exploratory missions and scientific studies have pointed to a possibility of ancient microbial life on the red planet. Thus, space scientists dont want to leave any stone unturned in finding clues of life and establishing future human colonies. Exploration missions are the key to achieving this!

In July last yearbetween 20 to 30three distinct Mars missions were launched. All three missionsfrom UAE, the US and Chinaare set to arrive at the Martian vicinity by February 2021. The space agencies have set several scientific goals for the missions. Among many, the main aim of the UAE mission is to study the planets thin atmosphere, while both Perseverance and Tianwen-1 will fetch samples of Martian rocks and soil for further analysis.

Construction of James Webb Telescope.

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescopes is on the cards for this year, after decades of hard work in design and construction of the most powerful space telescope till date. After several delays, it is now expected to be launched this year with a tentative date set for October 31 from French Guyana onboard the European Space Agencys Ariane 5 rocket.

The infrared telescope will not be placed around the Earth orbitlike Hubblebut will be positioned at an L2 Lagrangian point in the Sun-Earth orbit about 1.5 million kilometres away from the planet.

The development of the space telescope is a collaborative work of the US space agency NASA, ESA and Canada. It is designed to study various comic objects present in our solar system, investigate the early galaxies, snap through the dust clouds and aid other cosmic observations. It is regarded to be the largest, powerful and complex space telescope, which will carry forward the legacy of the historic Hubble Space Telescope.

Schematic of the DART mission shows the impact on the moonlet of asteroid (65803) Didymos. Post-impact observations from Earth-based optical telescopes and planetary radar would, in turn, measure the change in the moonlets orbit about the parent body.

Apart from the ambitious Artemis 1 and Mars mission, NASA is also gearing to launch a planetary defence spacecraft called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART. The mission is slated for launch in July this year to test the ability to change the direction of an asteroid, to protect Earth from future collisions. In particular, it will use a kinetic impactor technique to change asteroid motion in space and is expected to experiment on a double asteroid named Didymos. As per NASA, the Didymos primary body is about 780 meters wide, while its secondary body (or moonlet) is about 160-meters in sizesignificant enough to cause large scale impact upon collision with the Earth.

In October, NASA is planning to launch another asteroid mission named Lucy. The mission spanning 12 years will explore 8 different asteroidswith one located in the asteroid belt, and the rest 7 Trojans-asteroids, which share Jupiters orbit. Experts believe that these asteroids are orbiting in these locations since the formation of the solar system and therefore, will help to shed some light on the early history of our solar system.

In 2021, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) will begin the construction of its permanent Space Station complex. The agency is planning to launch the core cabinet module of the space station in the spring of this year. The station is expected to be constructed over 11 missions, which will include manned flights, as well as cargo spaceship flights. It is expected to be operational by 2022. The space station will be placed in low orbit and is estimated to be one-fifth the mass of the International Space Station. Moreover, the Chinese agency has planned over 40 space launches for 2021.

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To Infinity and Beyond, or at Least to Mars – The Wall Street Journal

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Jan. 8, 2021 1:24 pm ET

David W. Browns Mars or Bust (Review, Dec. 19) is spot on: Mars is the next true destination for humans in space exploration. Over the past 20 years NASAs Mars Exploration Program has changed our understanding of the planets extensive rivers and oceans, ability to support past or present life, and ability to support human explorers. Human-scale entry and landing systems are the only real remaining technology hurdle, yet Mars Science Laboratorys Curiosity and Perseverance landing systems have significantly moved us forward, and with pinpoint landing they can become the explorers resupply lines. The first round-trip mission to another planet, to collect and return soil samples from Mars, is under way.

Past agency and administration commitment to sending humans to Mars has been fickle, ranging from extensive study teams producing viable roadmaps, to posters and slogans with little substance. Lunar programs to enable Mars are largely a distraction. No technologies for Mars require demonstration at the moon; landing on an airless moon has no bearing on systems needed for planetary atmospheres. The moon may be an exciting commercial destination, but not for the next generation of explorers. Mars is the next major step in human exploration, exciting the public, spurring new global partnerships, creating unimaginable technological spin-offs, and uniting us by pushing ever closer to answering Are we alone? in this vast universe of planets. NASA needs to make the financial and leadership commitments to land humans by 2040, and avoid distractions. The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs prove we can do this, so lets get on with it!

J. Douglas McCuistion

Lothian, Md.

Mr. McCuistion was director, NASA Mars Exploration Program, 2004-12.

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NASA spacecraft reveals travels of China’s Yutu 2 rover on far side of the moon – Space.com

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China's Yutu 2 rover just turned two years old, and NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has kept a sharp eye on its movements during its mission on the far side of the moon.

While China's Chang'e 5 sample-return mission has been basking in the lunar limelight, the Chang'e 4 mission was also back in action. Chang'e 4 launched to the moon in May 2018 and deployed the Yutu 2 rover to the lunar surface on Jan. 3, 2019. The sun rose over Von Krmn crater on Dec. 7, meaning the solar-powered lander and Yutu 2 rover were active on Dec. 9.

The China Lunar Exploration Program stated the spacecraft had completed their lunar day's work on Dec. 22. Yutu 2 covered 35.9 feet. (10.95 meters) during lunar day 25, meaning a total drive distance of 1,970 feet (600.55 m) during its time on the far side of the moon.

Related: China unveils ambitious moon mission plans for 2024 and beyond

Meanwhile the team behind the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) at the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, have combined a number of images to show the two-year-old rover's journey.

The set of images taken by the LROC start from just before the historic January 2019 Chang'e 4 landing and lead up to recent lunar days.

The images from orbit show Yutu 2's progress across the crater-pocked floor of Von Krmn crater.

Related: Yutu 2 snaps stunning new panoramas from the moon's far side

Yutu 2 has been heading to the northwest of its lander companion but faces a landscape strewn with craters which could trap the roughly 309-lb. (140 kilograms) Yutu 2.

LRO also spotted the Chang'e 5 lander just a day after its historic touchdown in Oceanus Procellarum.

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Space object likely came from alien world, Harvard professor says – WTOP

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A Harvard University professor is making the case that we're probably not alone in the universe. Astronomer Avi Loeb's new book "Extraterrestrial" examines the 2017 flyby of a space object that he believes was truly out of this world.

Watch Video: NASA attempts first ever mission to retrieve sample from asteroid

Cambridge, Massachusetts A Harvard University professor is making the case that were probably not alone in the universe. Astronomer Avi Loebs new book Extraterrestrial examines the 2017 flyby of a space object that he believes was truly out of this world.

At first people thought, Well it must be a rock, just like the asteroids or comets that we have seen before within the solar system,' Loeb told CBSN Bostons Paula Ebben. But as they got more data on it, it looks very weird.

The cigar-shaped object seen by telescopes was dubbed Oumuamua meaning a messenger that reaches out from the distant past in Hawaiian.

It was 10 times as long as it is wide and was traveling at speeds of 196,000 mph, researchers said at the time.

It didnt look like a comet, yet it behaved some like something that has an extra push, Loeb said.

NASA confirmed that its the first object ever seen in our solar system that is known to have originated elsewhere, but said its origins are unknown.

Loeb argues in his book that the object was probably debris from advanced alien technology space junk from many light years away. It may have been a type of light sail propelled by sunlight, a technology that humans are currently developing for space exploration.

Its possible that there is a lot of space junk out there or it is a probe, he said. We dont know because we didnt collect enough data, enough evidence and Im just alerting everyone to look for objects like that so that next time there is one coming by we will examine it more carefully.

Loeb said its time for researchers to look for potential messages in a bottle like Oumuamua instead of just searching for radio signals as evidence of other civilizations.

He said his ideas arent popular in the scientific community right now talking about potential extraterrestrial intelligence is out of the mainstream, and it should not be.

We should be open minded and search for evidence rather than assume that everything we see in the sky must be rocks, he said.

For those who doubt the existence of aliens, Loeb says to consider the odds.

We know that half of the sun-like stars have a planet the size of the Earth roughly the same distance from the star, so they can have liquid water on the surface thats the chemistry of life, he said.

That means that if you roll the dice billions of times in the Milky Way galaxy, were probably not alone, and moreover, were probably not the sharpest cookie in the jar, the smartest kid on the block.

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An insane amount of cool space things happening in 2021 – Boing Boing

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While we look forward to things calming down here on Earth, there's going to be plenty of activity in the heavens. Ars Technica put together an overview of plans that include everything from innovative rockets to private flights to the construction of a new space station. And three different nations have spacecraft scheduled to land on Mars in February!

The United Arab Emirates' first mission to the Red Planet, Mars Hope, is due to arrive on February 9. At this time, the spacecraft will make a challenging maneuver to slow down and enter orbit around Mars with an altitude above the planet as low as 1,000km. If all goes well, the spacecraft will spend a Martian year687 Earth daysstudying the planet's atmosphere and better understanding its weather.

China has not said when, exactly, that its ambitious Tianwen-1 mission will arrive at Mars, but it's expected in mid-February. After the spacecraft enters orbit, it will spend a couple of months preparing to descend to the surface, assessing the planned landing site in the Utopia Planitia region. Then, China will attempt to become only the second country to soft-land a spacecraft on Mars that survives for more than a handful of seconds. It will be a huge moment for the country's space program.

NASA's Mars Perseverance will likely be the last of three missions to arrive at Mars, reaching the Red Planet in mid-February and attempting a landing in Jezero Crater on February 18. This entry, descent, and landing phasemuch like with the Curiosity lander in 2012will be must-see TV.

Read what else 2021 has in store for space exploration at Ars Technica.

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An insane amount of cool space things happening in 2021 - Boing Boing

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New Space Telescope Will Reveal Unseen, Dynamic Lives of Galaxies – UANews

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By Daniel Stolte, University of Arizona

Thursday

NASA has selected the University of Arizona to lead one of its four inaugural Astrophysics Pioneers missions. With a $20 million cost cap, the Aspera mission will study galaxy evolution with a space telescope barely larger than a mini fridge. The telescope will allow researchers to observe galaxy processes that have remained hidden from view until now.

Led by principal investigator Carlos Vargas, a postdoctoral researcher in UArizona's Steward Observatory, the Aspera mission seeks to solve a longstanding mystery about the way galaxies form, evolve and interact with each other. Intended for launch in late 2024, the space telescope is being specifically designed to see in ultraviolet light, which is invisible to the human eye.

NASAchose Aspera and three other missionsfor further concept development in the agency's new Pioneers Program for small-scale astrophysics missions.

The Aspera mission's goal is to provide the first-ever direct observations of a certain portion of the circumgalactic medium vast "oceans" of low-density gas that permeate and surround individual galaxies and in some cases even connect them, bridging large distances across the universe.

The familiar pictures of galaxies as luminous archipelagos floating in space, filled with millions or billions of stars, tell only a small part of their story, Vargas said.

"As telescopes have become more sensitive and have allowed us to discover more exotic types of gases, we now realize there is tons of stuff in between galaxies that connects them," he said. "Galaxies are undergoing this beautiful dance in which inflowing and outflowing gases balance each other."

Processes such as supernova explosions blow gas out of the galaxy, and sometimes it rains back down onto the galactic disc, Vargas said.

Previous observations of the circumgalactic medium, or CGM, revealed that it contains several different populations of gas in a wide range of densities and temperatures astronomers refer to as phases. But one of these gas phases has eluded previous attempts at studying it, and Vargas said it's important because it is believed to host most of a galaxy's mass.

"There is this intermediate form we refer to as warm-hot, and that is particularly interesting because it provides the fuel for star formation," he said. "No one has been able to successfully map its distribution and really determine what it looks like."

The Aspera mission is designed to home in on that missing chunk of the CGM that astronomers know must be there but haven't been able to observe.

"Aspera is an exciting mission because it will lead us to discover the nature of mysterious warm-hot gas around galaxies," said Haeun Chung, a postdoctoral research associate at Steward Observatory.

As the mission's project scientist, Chung leads the instrument team charged with building the new space telescope.

"Though small, Aspera is designed to detect and map faint warm-hot gas, thanks to recent technological advancements and the increased opportunity that small-sized space missions provide," Chung said.

Because the portion of the CGM that researchers refer to as warm-hot is thought to host the lion's share of the mass that makes up a galaxy, it is a crucial piece of the puzzle for understanding how galaxies form and evolve, Vargas said.

"If you care about how life evolved, you care about how galaxies evolve, because you can't have a planet without a star, and you can't have a star without galaxy," he said. "These all are very interconnected."

The Aspera telescope will be the only instrument in space capable of observing in the ultraviolet spectrum, with the exception of the Hubble Space Telescope, which has surpassed its expected mission lifespan by many years.

Vargas said his team chose the mission's name, Latin for "hardship," to highlight the extraordinary difficulties that have needed to be overcome to observe and study the CGM.

"People have been going for this 'missing' gas phase for decades," he said. "We aptly named our telescope to honor their efforts."

UArizona President Robert C. Robbins said the mission marks a new milestone in the university's long history of space exploration.

"Being selected for the first iteration of NASA's Astrophysics Pioneers program is a testament to our excellent track record in space exploration from providing the scientific approaches needed to tackle some of the most challenging questions in the universe, to developing innovative technology and providing successful management throughout the project," he said.

Elizabeth "Betsy" Cantwell, UArizona senior vice president for research and innovation, applauded Vargas's leadership of the mission.

"Dr. Vargas's leadership on the Aspera mission reflects the excellent caliber of researchers attracted to the University of Arizona. We are particularly pleased because Dr. Vargas represents the exemplary nature of scientific inquiry at a Research 1 Hispanic-Serving Institution like the University of Arizona," she said. "To receive this prestigious award so early in his career demonstrates Dr. Vargas's incredible capability, and I am thrilled to see our researchers expanding our understanding of a subject as fundamental as galaxy formation and evolution."

Cantwell added that the newly launched University of Arizona Space Institute provided the research team with support, and it will be building support for other large and impactful space initiatives as the institute grows.

"I'm tremendously proud to be part of a university that encourages and supports early career scientists like Carlos Vargas and Haeun Chung both post-doctoral researchers and the faculty members and engineers in their team, to successfully compete for ambitious missions like Aspera," said Steward Observatory Director Buell Jannuzi.

Aspera brings together an interdisciplinary and diverse team including researchers from Columbia University, the Universityof Iowa, and Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany. The UArizona team includes deputy principal investigator Erika Hamden, assistant professor of astronomy and assistant astronomer at Steward Observatory; mission manager Tom McMahon, head of Steward Observatory's engineering group; Peter Behroozi, assistant professor of astronomy; Ewan Douglas, assistant professor of astronomy; Dennis Zaritsky, professor of astronomy and deputy director of Steward Observatory; Aafaque Raza Khan, a graduate student at Steward Observatory; Dae Wook Kim, assistant professor in the College of Optical Sciences; and Simran Agarwal, graduate student in the College of Optical Sciences.

Corporate mission partners are Tucson-based companies Blue Canyon Technologies, a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, and Ascending Node Technologies.

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AIxSPACE: a first step towards the transformation of the space industry by artificial intelligence, January 18 and 19, 2021 – GISuser.com

Posted: at 2:46 pm

Montreal, January 6, 2021 The space industry is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to push and redefine the boundaries of what is possible in space exploration. AIxSPACE, an event dedicated to AI applications in the space industry, has therefore been launched by Euroconsult and Innovitech, experts in space and innovation respectively, to address these challenges. For this first edition, the event will be held virtually on January 18 and 19, 2021.

AIxSPACE will seek to provide an in-depth analysis of five key applications of artificial intelligence designed to significantly improve the space industry. The event will focus on how AI will define a new era for space innovation when applied to the following themes: deep space exploration, astronaut health, earth observation, satellite communications and connected aviation.

Applications of artificial intelligence in aerospace are already visible, while major space players are progressively integrating AI into their technologies. From autonomous decision making and predictive analysis to astronaut medical assistance, AI defines itself as an intelligent assistant collaborating across the industry and these collaborations open the two niche networks to each other like never before.

With a roster of more than 30 national and international opinion leaders from a variety of industry, government and academic backgrounds all working in the sector, AIxSPACE will be a unique opportunity to find answers to some of the most complex challenges facing the industry. Speakers will include

A complete overview of the program, as well as a detailed list of speakers at the event are available athttps://aixspace.ca/.

About Innovitech

For the past 30 years, Innovitech has established itself as a true actor of change in innovation strategy through the creation and management of specialized research consortiums in aerospace (CRIAQ, CARIC, GARDN) and in medical technologies (MEDTEQ). Our expertise in innovation and our knowledge about Montreals ecosystems makes us a top choice for innovation in the AI ecosystem. For more information:www.innovitech.com

About Euroconsult

Euroconsult is the leading global consulting firm specializing in space markets. We provide first-class strategic consulting, develop comprehensive research, and offer tailored training programs on topics related to satellite communications, space exploration, launch and manufacturing of satellites, etc.For more information:http://www.euroconsult-ec.com/

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AIxSPACE: a first step towards the transformation of the space industry by artificial intelligence, January 18 and 19, 2021 - GISuser.com

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Robot Made of Ice Can Repair and Rebuild Itself – Freethink

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A team of researchers want to build robots out of ice and send them to space. The idea is that lacking a local repair shop the icy bots can use found materials to rebuild themselves.

Ice can be located all over the solar system, from the moon to the distant rings around Saturn. So researchers from the University of Pennsylvania are trying to figure out how to tap into that nearly unlimited resource for robotics.

NASA wants to send the robot dog, Spot, to space. The canine-bot can do many tricks from herding sheep to helping the NYPD in a hostage situation but it likely won't be able to repair itself. Where could it find enough materials to do the job?

Introducing IceBot, a concept robot that could be the future of robotic space exploration although the team says they've only just begun. The work is still very preliminary, reports IEEE Spectrum, however, their goal is to design a robot that can exhibit "self-reconfiguration, self-replication, and self-repair."

In a paper presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) the team outlined several ways to create the bots out of ice, using additive and subtractive manufacturing processes.

Their first robot, a proof-of-concept Antarctic exploration robot, weighed 6.3 kilos, could roll up a 2.5-degree incline, and turn side to side. One caveat: they included regular batteries and actuators in their plans. But the bulk of the robot, and its structural parts and wheels were all built out of ice.

Devin Carroll told IEEE Spectrum that he and his co-author Mark Yim wanted to build the robots from found materials "as a way to add robustness to robotic systems operating in remote or hostile environments."

"We ultimately settled on ice because of the design flexibility it affords us and the current interest in icy, remote environments. Climate change has many folks interested in the Antarctic and ice sheets while NASA and other space exploration groups are looking to the stars for ice and water," he said.

Carroll sees the ice robots working in teams, where an explorer bot collects materials and the other bot acts as the mechanic.

"We can envision the exploration class of robot returning to a centralized location with a request for a plow or some other augmentation and the manufacturing system will be able to attach the augmentation directly to the robot," he said, adding that one of the biggest challenges is minimizing the amount of energy required to repair the robots.

There is still a lot of work to do before IceBot is space-ready. But this proof-of-concept robot is the first step in demonstrating that a robot made of ice could perform different tasks. For now, there are other exciting space feats to look forward to this year.

We'd love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at[emailprotected]

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Space-Themed 1949 Harley-Davidson Panhead Is Truly Out There – autoevolution

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Back in 1949, the year when parts of this here bike were born, humans were not even dreaming of becoming space explorers. The world was fresh out of the worst years of its existence, a time when most of the planets nations tried to obliterate each other in more or less creative and horrific ways.

The fast pace of space exploration was of course sung in literature and movies, but also on mundane objects such as teacups or T-shirts. And yes, even on cars and motorcycles.

This 1949 Harley-Davidson Panheadis one of the objects celebrating space exploration. It does so by displaying one of the most intricate and detailed custom paint jobs weve seen on such a project.

Despite the rather limited real estate available, the bike reeks space no matter where you look: there is a big NASA logo visible on one side, a couple of planets and a self-propelled astronaut on top of the tank, suns, moons, and alien UFOs on the side of the thank, and a fancy human spaceship on the frame.

The motorcycle is part of the larger lot of two-wheelers known as the Legends Motorcycles Museum collection. No fewer than 36 of them, including this one, are going under the hammer in April, during the massive Mecum auction, which is to be held in Las Vegas.

There is no estimate on how much the bike is expected to fetch, but those with a big enough passion for Panhead Harleys and space can boldly go where their competitors cannot, as this one is selling with no reserve.

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Space-Themed 1949 Harley-Davidson Panhead Is Truly Out There - autoevolution

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