UN announces proposed Dream Chaser international mission
Capitalism in space: The Outer Space office of the United Nations has announced an opportunity for member nations to express their interest in doing a science mission using Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser reusable spaceship.
The UN announcement states that
The purpose of this Call for Interest (CFI) is to provide a summary of the proposed mission and to solicit information from Member States interested in providing experiments, payloads, or satellites that could be flown on this mission. The CFI also has the objective of gathering information on the interested countries so that UNOOSA may better understand the demand for this type of mission.
The actual call [pdf] roughly describes a mission lasting 2 to 3 weeks and carrying about 20 experiments. This call is designed to give them a better idea of what those experiments might be, what nations wish to participate, and where the funding for the mission might come from. The actual announcement to submit experiment proposals won’t come until March 2018.
Being a UN mission, it is not surprising that it wants to focus on a variety of leftwing “Sustainable Development Goals”:
- No Poverty
- Zero Hunger
- Good Health and Well-Being
- Quality Education
- Gender Equality
- Clean Water and Sanitation
- Affordable and Clean Energy
- Decent Work and Economic Growth
- Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
- Reduced Inequalities
- Sustainable Cities and Communities
- Responsible Consumption and Production
- Climate Action
- Life Below Water
- Life on Land
- Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
- Partnerships for the Goals
Many of these areas of research actually make sense. Many are leftist Orwellian propaganda positions that have nothing to do with space research and are solely designed to give them power over the language and thus everyone else. Anyone who opposes “strong institutions” must therefore also oppose “Peace and Justice” and must be a fascist! You are against “Reduced Inequalities?” You must be a racist!
The problem is that the strong institutions they desire will not be used to establish peace, justice and reduced inequalities. Instead they will impose tyranny on us all in an effort to create the left’s typical fantasy about utopia. The result will be disasters like Venezuela, the Soviet Union, and North Korea.
The irony here is that the leftist UN is doing this using a spaceship built entirely on the concepts of freedom and capitalism, ideas that interestingly are not included in these “sustainable development goals” and are actually the best proven ways to bring about sustainability and wealth. Sierra Nevada is trying to develop customers for its reusable spaceship, and while the UN wallows in leftist dogma, it will be making money and building spaceships that will bring wealth to itself and to the United States.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Capitalism in space: The Outer Space office of the United Nations has announced an opportunity for member nations to express their interest in doing a science mission using Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser reusable spaceship.
The UN announcement states that
The purpose of this Call for Interest (CFI) is to provide a summary of the proposed mission and to solicit information from Member States interested in providing experiments, payloads, or satellites that could be flown on this mission. The CFI also has the objective of gathering information on the interested countries so that UNOOSA may better understand the demand for this type of mission.
The actual call [pdf] roughly describes a mission lasting 2 to 3 weeks and carrying about 20 experiments. This call is designed to give them a better idea of what those experiments might be, what nations wish to participate, and where the funding for the mission might come from. The actual announcement to submit experiment proposals won’t come until March 2018.
Being a UN mission, it is not surprising that it wants to focus on a variety of leftwing “Sustainable Development Goals”:
- No Poverty
- Zero Hunger
- Good Health and Well-Being
- Quality Education
- Gender Equality
- Clean Water and Sanitation
- Affordable and Clean Energy
- Decent Work and Economic Growth
- Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
- Reduced Inequalities
- Sustainable Cities and Communities
- Responsible Consumption and Production
- Climate Action
- Life Below Water
- Life on Land
- Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
- Partnerships for the Goals
Many of these areas of research actually make sense. Many are leftist Orwellian propaganda positions that have nothing to do with space research and are solely designed to give them power over the language and thus everyone else. Anyone who opposes “strong institutions” must therefore also oppose “Peace and Justice” and must be a fascist! You are against “Reduced Inequalities?” You must be a racist!
The problem is that the strong institutions they desire will not be used to establish peace, justice and reduced inequalities. Instead they will impose tyranny on us all in an effort to create the left’s typical fantasy about utopia. The result will be disasters like Venezuela, the Soviet Union, and North Korea.
The irony here is that the leftist UN is doing this using a spaceship built entirely on the concepts of freedom and capitalism, ideas that interestingly are not included in these “sustainable development goals” and are actually the best proven ways to bring about sustainability and wealth. Sierra Nevada is trying to develop customers for its reusable spaceship, and while the UN wallows in leftist dogma, it will be making money and building spaceships that will bring wealth to itself and to the United States.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The much-lauded UN Declaration of Human Rights has an interesting tidbit, tucked near the very end. Most of its 30 articles sound very generous and wonderful, and then you get down to Article 29, part 3:
“These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”
Nice all-purpose backup clause! Best not to give them some actual power.
http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
Matt in AZ,
In the past, I have noted Article 29, part 3 as being the UN retaining the right to eliminate any of the human rights that it has deigned to grant to us.
This is the difference between a tyrannical governing body and one that promotes liberty and freedom. The US Constitution is written not from the point of view that the government grants us rights but that we naturally have rights that the government may not take away from us, that governments are our creation and we own it and have power over it, not it having power over us and owning us.
Robert,
I noticed that missing from the list of goals are:
— life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness
— property rights
— individual choice (where someone’s choice may result in his own poverty, hunger, poor health, and low quality education)
It shows quite a difference between the top-down thinking that continually gets into wars and the bottom-up thinking that, in a mere 300 years, turned the US from a backwoods village that couldn’t even feed itself to the global economic powerhouse that rescued the world from two global wars (both started by top-down nations).
As you noted, Robert, bottom-up thinking nations and their freedom, capitalism, and private property have proved to be far more sustainable than the top-down thinking nations, such as Venezuela, the Soviet Union, and North Korea. The productivity generated in countries that rely upon enlightened self interest beats out that of countries that impose governmental self interest, the latter countries being so unproductive that they depend upon other people’s money to look sustainable, and when they run out of those people’s money they often threaten to or actually start another war in order to get a new source of other people’s money.
With luck, commercial space will help show the world that bottom-up thinking is the superior, more sustainable way to go.