Saudi Arabia signs Artemis Accords
According to an announcement yesterday by NASA administrator Bill Nelson, Saudi Arabia has now become the twenty-first nation to sign the Artemis Accords, joining the growing American alliance to explore the solar system.
The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.
The accords were introduced by the Trump administration and are bi-lateral agreements between each nation and the United States. Their language is designed to protect property rights in space, and thus get around the limitations of the Outer Space Treaty. By signing up as many nations as possible, the accords are also creating this new American space alliance, which will be competing against the Chinese-Russian axis that opposes the accords.
Right now Germany and India remain the only major players in space who have not aligned themselves with either side. I expect Germany to eventually sign. India however appears to want to remain non-aligned.
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.
According to an announcement yesterday by NASA administrator Bill Nelson, Saudi Arabia has now become the twenty-first nation to sign the Artemis Accords, joining the growing American alliance to explore the solar system.
The full list of signatories so far: Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.
The accords were introduced by the Trump administration and are bi-lateral agreements between each nation and the United States. Their language is designed to protect property rights in space, and thus get around the limitations of the Outer Space Treaty. By signing up as many nations as possible, the accords are also creating this new American space alliance, which will be competing against the Chinese-Russian axis that opposes the accords.
Right now Germany and India remain the only major players in space who have not aligned themselves with either side. I expect Germany to eventually sign. India however appears to want to remain non-aligned.
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 only major players in space who have aligned themselves …”
Missing a “not”, I believe.
Call Me Ishmael: Yup, you are right. Fixed. Thank you.
India will remain non-aligned because it wants to be a strong player in the evolving Multipolar World Order.
India is going to put its national interest – national security & national economic interests ahead of ideological considerations.
I would prefer if India joined the Artemis Accords but I doubt that will happen.
Still, I hope America assists India with its Space Program outside of the Artemis program because the Indian Civilization is important and its talented People can contribute much to the World.
??: “What am I, chopped liver?”
?: “Well, now that you mention it…”
The Germans seem likely to sign on to the Artemis Accords fairly soon with the remaining small ESA member states either preceding them or following. I expect most, and perhaps all, of ESA to have come aboard by the end of next year.
India will also come aboard at some point, but will wait at least until it can arrive as a self-made manned spaceflight power.
Questions of “alignment” are unlikely to weigh heavily in India’s considerations. India will never “align” with China. The PRC, in any case, has problems more than sufficient to end it as a going nation-state quite soon.
India’s de facto alignment with Russia has been mostly just that of a weapons and energy customer since the USSR fell and India, itself, abandoned socialism as an ambition in the 1990s. The military side of that alignment has been fading for years and the rest will decay away quite rapidly once Russia is no longer able to supply India with either significant energy or weapons exports. India will find itself needing to make other long-term arrangements for both weapons and energy supply. It will increasingly rely upon itself for weapons, supplemented by selective purchases from Europe, Israel and the U.S. Future energy imports may well come from the Middle East or even from the U.S. once the Biden regime is gone.
The notional “Multipolar World Order” will arise, to a degree, but it will be missing at least two of its putative “poles,” Russia and the PRC. The first is already in the process of destroying itself by deliberately accelerating all of the decay factors already afflicting it prior to its launch of the ongoing Russo-Ukraine War. Its rapid demographic decline is being exacerbated by KIAs suffered in Ukraine. The circumstances of that war have radically reduced Russia’s capacity to export anything, especially energy. The loss of the Western energy and services firms, whose technical assistance was key to Russian oil and gas production, will result in major losses of production capability quite soon.
The PRC, for its part, has even poorer demographics than Russia and, has, for the last year, been undergoing a melt-down in most sectors of its economy, especially construction, housing and export-based manufacturing. Endemic Covid-related lockdowns of entire cities and regions will continue to play such hob with the PRC’s national economy indefinitely. As a nation that imports most of its energy, food and related inputs, and derives much of its national income from exports, the PRC is now exquisitely vulnerable to the sort of geographic/political fracturing that has characterized most of Chinese history. Even massive famine is a real possibility.
I’m not sure if this will change expectations, but political alliances are changing, even in NATO countries and there’s a group that are banning together for their own economic and strategic reasons.
The newest members joining bric.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220714-brics-expects-egypt-saudi-arabia-and-turkey-to-join-group-soon/
Other countries like Iran have petitioned to join also.
In the end, “might makes right”. With a series of military blunders with our friendly countries, and the attempted overthrow/regime change of countries we don’t like, does not bold well for future trust. (Just ask the American Indians about how many treaties were violated)
Even the walrus that testified on behalf of the CIA admit in the January 6 hearings, that coup d’état are not difficult to arrange, that he’s actually performed a few… (Qaddafi comes to mind)
Everyone will play nice behind the accords until a leap in strategic or economic value is realized and then the knives will come out….
India is between two superpowers and will choose survival in an uncertain world. They’re too vulnerable to adequately defend themselves, Not enough natural resources to be self-sufficient. But the people are industrious and numerous and will be useful both in Russia and China for a future labor/brain drain. A valuable resource that the bric can use and take advantage of.
Russia does not have a replacement population, low birth rate. China has the 4 2 1 problem…
One child policy developed a shortage of young workers. One child taking care of 2 parents who are taking care of 4 grandparents. Even though they lifted the one child policy years ago, few are taking advantage of it.
What is a communist to do? Infect the elderly and reduce the amount of useless eaters on the economy. Perhaps we are witnessing it in action now.
But then the call for vaccinations on TV and radio have accelerated recently here in the United States. Pfizer buying off the radio and TV stations? Signed contracts state, they cannot say anything negative against the shots or they lose their advertisement funding… Trump disturbed their plans. The timetable has been accelerated to catch up with the coordinated actions that undermine our country.
Enjoy your summer rest, the two steps forward for the next plan of action is accelerating.
Dick Eagleson – I found your comment so interesting that I read it twice. There is a great deal of flux in our current World Order and many futures are possible.
Mr. Z. – Thx for Artemis Accords updates.
I hope in the future you write more analytical posts about the evolution of “this new American space alliance”..