Tag: Argentina

Argentina demands right to inspect Chinese antenna facility

9:45 pm

The Argentina government of Javier Milei is now demanding the right to inspect a Chinese antenna facility that was established in Argentina in 2014 and began operating in 2017 under a 50-year-lease.

Under the agreement between the two nations, 10% “of the resources in the base must be utilized by Argentina.” However, China has been operating the facility unsupervised from the beginning. Likely built to support China’s space program, manned and planetary, U.S. officials have also suggested it is being used for military purposes, a possibility that cannot be dismissed since all of China’s space program falls under the supervision of the People’s Liberation Army.

Milei apparently wants a hand in its operation, or at least a much clearer idea of what it is doing. It is very possible he will even shut it down if he is not satisfied with the answers he gets.

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Will libertarian Javier Milei actually be able to institute his revolution in Argentina?

1:18 pm

The victory of libertarian and outsider Javier Milei in Argentina this past weekend has been met with joyous approval on the right and outright horror on the left. Both expect Milei to immediately begin imposing his radical anti-government polices that will eliminate whole agencies of Argentina’s federal government.

This video by Paul Joseph Watson I think provides an excellent summary of Milei’s agenda. Though Watson sees the agenda from a wholly conservative perspective, he also covers the wide range of Milei’s goals and ideas quite nicely.

After Milei’s election many other news sources did the same, describing his goals in detail. Practically none however took a close look at the reality of Argentina’s new government, and how that reality might impringe on Milei’s plans.

You see, Argentina still has a constitutional government with a federal legislature made up of a Chamber of Deputies (its House of Representatives) and a Senate. Any analysis of Milei’s future plans has got to consider the political make-up of these bodies.

And yet, though I searched hard, I could find almost news reports that discussed that make-up in any way. Politico, NPR, and CNN didn’t mention it all. The only mainstream source I could find that even mentioned the make-up of that legislature was Reuters, but it did so in a short paragraph near the end of its report, with few details.

So, though this is not my area of expertise, I decided to try to find out, both for myself and my readers.
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Argentina signs Artemis Accords

9:16 am

Argentina yesterday became the 28th nation to sign the Artemis Accords.

Originally conceived by the Trump as a series of bi-lateral agreements between the U.S. and another country in order to strengthen property rights in space as well as build a U.S. alliance in space, the Biden administration has been more focused on the latter, using the accords more as a tool to increase international cooperation.

The full list of signatories to the Artemis Accords is now as follows: Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

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China launches ten satellites for Argentinian company

7:52 am

China today used its Long March 6 rocket to successfully launch ten satellites for the Argentinian company Satellogic S.A.

The satellites form the beginning of a 25-satellite constellation designed to do Earth resource observations. The Chinese rocket in turn is designed to capture the emerging smallsat market.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

28 China
19 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. remains ahead of China 30 to 28 in the national rankings.

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China’s unsupervised radio antenna in Argentina

12:01 pm

A Chinese invasion? A Chinese radio antenna in Argentina, initially proposed as a communications facility for use with China’s space program, operates without any supervision by the Argentinian government and appears to have military links.

Though U.S. government officials are pushing the idea that this facility is being used by China to eavesdrop on foreign satellites, and though China’s space program is without doubt a major arm of its military, I doubt the radio antenna is being put to military use. As the story notes

Tony Beasley, director of the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, said the station could, in theory, “listen” to other governments’ satellites, potentially picking up sensitive data. But that kind of listening could be done with far less sophisticated equipment. “Anyone can do that. I can do that with a dish in my back yard, basically,” Beasley said. “I don’t know that there’s anything particularly sinister or troubling about any part of China’s space radio network in Argentina.”

It was installed to support China’s effort to send spacecraft to the Moon and Mars, and that is likely its main purpose. China does not wish to be dependent on the U.S.’s Deep Space Network for such interplanetary communications. This facility helps make that independence possible.

At the same time, the fact that China has been allowed to establish a remote facility in another country and operate it with no oversight is definitely an issue of concern. Essentially, China has obtained control over a piece of Argentinian territory, and unless the Argentine government takes action, China can do whatever it wants there. While the antenna itself might not be an issue, the facility itself is.

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Thirty ton meteorite excavated in Argentina

9:10 am

In what is one of the largest asteroid chunks ever found on Earth, an excavation team from a local astronomy club this week excavated a thirty ton iron-nickel meteorite from the ground.

Dubbed Gancedo after a nearby town, it isn’t a record-holder, but it sure is big. What I found interesting from the article, however, is this:

Gancedo’s fall to Earth occurred between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. Locals knew of the fall for centuries, even making iron tools from meteorites found in the strewnfield. In the 16th century, the Spanish became interested in stories of a piece of iron that fell from the sky, and in 1774 don Bartolomé Francsico de Maguna led an expedition that came across a mass of iron, referred to as Mesón de Fierro (“Table of Iron” in Spanish). Another 1,400-pound fragment from Campo del Cielo named Otumpa now resides at the British Museum in London. With more than 100 tons of meteorite recovered, Campo del Cielo is the top producer in terms of pure meteorite mass worldwide.

The Campo del Cielo strewnfield extends over an ellipse 3 km wide by 19 km long over an area northwest of Buenos Aires, and meteorites found here have a polycrystalline coarse octahedrite composition characteristic of iron-nickel meteorites. They are also unusually pure even among iron-nickel meteorites, consisting of 93% iron. Most of the remaining 7% is nickel, and less than 1% are trace elements.

The evidence here is that a very dense asteroid, weighing a minimum of 100 tons but probably several times that, smashed into the Earth about five thousand years ago. Yet, all life on Earth was not wiped out, as is repeatedly suggested might happen whenever a similarly sized asteroid zips close past the Earth. In fact, there is no evidence this impact had any significant global environmental effects.

Remember this the next time another asteroid of similar size zips past the Earth and the media doom-sayers begin to sing their siren song again.

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