Sam Dodge – the Mitchell BNCR camera
An evening pause: A bit of history about one of the most fundamental pieces of equipment used on practically every big Hollywood film.
Hat tip Wayne Devette.
Tag: history
Van Johnson – Flim Flam Floo
An evening pause: This song comes from the first full television movie, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, first aired on NBC in 1957, and then subsequently re-aired almost yearly for the next decade. If you want to watch it, it is available on the internet archive here.
I post it today because it is a perfect expression of the hopeful culture of the 1960s that made possible the Apollo 11 lunar landing that occurred fifty-three years ago today. As the song says, “The world is filled with wonderment and magic,” and then insists “You can find the beauty in all you perceive/Just believe that it’s there in view.”
I recently rediscovered this movie of my childhood, and was astonished to discover that though I hadn’t heard this song in more than fifty years, I remembered its message as if I had only watched it yesterday. Its message was what my parent’s generation believed, and tried with all their might to pass on to their children. Their belief made the Apollo 11 landing possible. Sadly, most of my baby boomer generation decided to reject this hopeful vision, thus producing the increasingly gloomy society we have today.
Let us work to recapture that wonder and hope. Only then can our children breathe free to achieve some true wonders of their own.
Thanks to Wayne Devette for clipping this song from the full movie for me.
Today’s blacklisted American: Thomas Jefferson and other important American historical figures banned by Cleveland school authorities
Thomas Jefferson, banned by Cleveland school officials
The modern dark age: Officials of Cleveland Metropolitan Schools have decided that its schools cannot be named after Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry because these great Americans — who trail-blazed the fight for individual freedom — had also owned slaves.
Guidelines implemented by the district last year with the urging of the Cleveland City Council require that schools not be named after people who have a documented history of enslaving other humans.
The district also prohibits naming schools for those who have actively participated in the institution of slavery, systemic racism, the oppression of people of color, women, or other minority groups, or who have been a member of a supremacist organization.
The two schools are now named after a black Democratic Party politician and a former school official. In our new dark age, these relatively minor individuals are now considered more important than two giants who made it possible to found the first country on Earth dedicated to freedom and individual liberty where the people were sovereign and the government was only their servant.
» Read more
Thomas Jefferson, banned by Cleveland school officials
The modern dark age: Officials of Cleveland Metropolitan Schools have decided that its schools cannot be named after Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry because these great Americans — who trail-blazed the fight for individual freedom — had also owned slaves.
Guidelines implemented by the district last year with the urging of the Cleveland City Council require that schools not be named after people who have a documented history of enslaving other humans.
The district also prohibits naming schools for those who have actively participated in the institution of slavery, systemic racism, the oppression of people of color, women, or other minority groups, or who have been a member of a supremacist organization.
The two schools are now named after a black Democratic Party politician and a former school official. In our new dark age, these relatively minor individuals are now considered more important than two giants who made it possible to found the first country on Earth dedicated to freedom and individual liberty where the people were sovereign and the government was only their servant.
» Read more
Victory Boyd – The Star Spangled Banner
An evening pause: Victory Boyd was supposed to perform the national anthem at the opening game of the NFL’s 2021 season. They canceled her because she has refused to get vaccinated for religious reasons. She responded with this performance made available to all. The NFL should burn in hell.
Her passion in singing the last two lines of the anthem are important. The words, “The land of the free, the home of the brave,” are meant to remind us that you can’t have the former without the latter. Right now, every time I see someone mindlessly wearing a mask I wonder if the latter still exists.
Sing it! Believe it! Make ’22 the year that freedom and courage return to America.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Mike Rowe -The One Percenters
Why we really celebrate the Fourth of July
If you really want to know why the Fourth of July has been the quintessential American holiday since the founding our this country, you need only return to the words of the document that became public to the world on that day.
Below the fold is the full text of the Declaration. Read it. It isn’t hard to understand, even if the style comes from the late 1700s. Its point however is clear. Governments that abuse the rights of the citizenry don’t deserve to be in power. The most important quote of course is right near the beginning:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. [emphasis mine]
What a radical concept — a nation founded on the principle of allowing its citizens to pursue happiness.
Right now, however, we have a federal government in America that more fits the description of King George III’s Great Britain in 1776 in the Declaration. The corrupt elitist uni-Party of federal elected officials and the federal bureaucracy in Washington has for too long run roughshod over the general population. If you take the time to read the full text of the Declaration, you will be astonished at the remarkable conceptual similarity between the abuses that Jefferson describes coming from Great Britain and the many abuses of power that are now legion and common by the uni-Party in Washington.
When November comes the American public will likely have its last chance to overthrow the political wing of the uni-Party, led by the Democratic Party. The Republicans are no saints, but at least that party contains within it many decent politicians who honor the Constitution, the rule of law, and the Bill of Rights. Many are right now campaigning on those ideals. Based on the past six years, we now know that no one in the Democratic Party honors those values. What they honor is blacklisting, racism, segregation, anti-American hate, and above all power. If they are not removed from office, they will ramp up that power, in league with quislings like Romney and Cornyn in the Republican Party, to further corrupt our Constitutional government.
These people do not like losing power. The longer they hold it, the more they will work to undermine the election system to make sure they do not lose. The corruption and election fraud in 2020 election was merely a dress rehearsal of what these goons will do if they have the chance next year.
In fact, November 2022 might very well be the last election that has any chance of producing legitimate results. Americans had better not waste this last chance.
» Read more
Today’s blacklisted American: Lincoln bust and Gettysburg Address plaque removed from Cornell library because “someone complained”
Our modern dark age: Apparently because some unidentified individual “complained” about the presence of a bust of Abraham Lincoln and a bronzed plaque of his Gettysburg address, officials running the library at Cornell University immediately removed both.
“Someone complained, and it was gone,” Cornell professor Randy Wayne told the College Fix, referring to a Gettysburg Address plaque and Lincoln bust that had been on display in the Ivy League university’s Kroch Library since 2013. The professor said that he had noticed that the items were gone after stopping by the library several weeks ago, adding that when he asked the librarians about it, they were unable to give any details, other than saying it was removed as a result of some type of complaint.
The plaque and bust have been replaced with, “Well, nothing,” Wayne told the College Fix.
According to professor Wayne, when he asked the librarians why the bust and plaque were gone “they had no details to provide, except to say it was removed after some sort of complaint.”
» Read more
Our modern dark age: Apparently because some unidentified individual “complained” about the presence of a bust of Abraham Lincoln and a bronzed plaque of his Gettysburg address, officials running the library at Cornell University immediately removed both.
“Someone complained, and it was gone,” Cornell professor Randy Wayne told the College Fix, referring to a Gettysburg Address plaque and Lincoln bust that had been on display in the Ivy League university’s Kroch Library since 2013. The professor said that he had noticed that the items were gone after stopping by the library several weeks ago, adding that when he asked the librarians about it, they were unable to give any details, other than saying it was removed as a result of some type of complaint.
The plaque and bust have been replaced with, “Well, nothing,” Wayne told the College Fix.
According to professor Wayne, when he asked the librarians why the bust and plaque were gone “they had no details to provide, except to say it was removed after some sort of complaint.”
» Read more
Yasuo Yamamoto – Making real soy sauce
NASA halts sale of Apollo 11 Moon dust, claiming ownership
We’re here to help you: The auction of a tiny amount of Moon dust brought back by Apollo 11 and used in a post-flight experiment using German cockroaches has been canceled because NASA claimed ownership of that dust and demanded its return.
“NASA asserts legal ownership of the materials consisting of the Apollo 11 lunar dust experiment … based upon the information and documentation provided in the description of the lot and evidence regarding NASA’s contemporaneous contracting practices,” an attorney in NASA’s Office of the General Counsel wrote RR Auction in a letter on Wednesday, a week after first reaching out to the firm. “It is clear and undeniable that the materials consisting of the experiment are owned by NASA.”
The lot under contention comprises what remains from the late Marion Brooks’ research into the physiological effects of lunar material on Blattellas germanica, or German cockroaches. The insects had been fed moon dust by NASA scientists in the immediate aftermath of the 1969 Apollo 11 lunar landing mission. After no ill-effects were seen while astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were held in quarantine, the (now dead) cockroaches were handed off to Brooks, an entomologist from the University of St. Paul, for more thorough study.
Included in the auction was a small vial of moon dust that Brooks’ had carefully extracted from the cockroaches’ corpses, as well as three of the remaining (dead) cockroaches and two boxes of tissue slides for microscopic study.
It appears the dust had been in the Brooks family possession for more than forty years, then sold by them at auction in 2010 for $10,000. Under standard adverse possession law, you lose ownership if you don’t claim that right after twenty years. It would thus seem that NASA’s claim is bogus.
But then, NASA as a government agency doesn’t believe the standard laws apply to it. It continues to demand that all Apollo lunar material belongs to it and be returned, no matter what the circumstances it was originally handed out by the agency and no matter how long ago.
We’re here to help you: The auction of a tiny amount of Moon dust brought back by Apollo 11 and used in a post-flight experiment using German cockroaches has been canceled because NASA claimed ownership of that dust and demanded its return.
“NASA asserts legal ownership of the materials consisting of the Apollo 11 lunar dust experiment … based upon the information and documentation provided in the description of the lot and evidence regarding NASA’s contemporaneous contracting practices,” an attorney in NASA’s Office of the General Counsel wrote RR Auction in a letter on Wednesday, a week after first reaching out to the firm. “It is clear and undeniable that the materials consisting of the experiment are owned by NASA.”
The lot under contention comprises what remains from the late Marion Brooks’ research into the physiological effects of lunar material on Blattellas germanica, or German cockroaches. The insects had been fed moon dust by NASA scientists in the immediate aftermath of the 1969 Apollo 11 lunar landing mission. After no ill-effects were seen while astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were held in quarantine, the (now dead) cockroaches were handed off to Brooks, an entomologist from the University of St. Paul, for more thorough study.
Included in the auction was a small vial of moon dust that Brooks’ had carefully extracted from the cockroaches’ corpses, as well as three of the remaining (dead) cockroaches and two boxes of tissue slides for microscopic study.
It appears the dust had been in the Brooks family possession for more than forty years, then sold by them at auction in 2010 for $10,000. Under standard adverse possession law, you lose ownership if you don’t claim that right after twenty years. It would thus seem that NASA’s claim is bogus.
But then, NASA as a government agency doesn’t believe the standard laws apply to it. It continues to demand that all Apollo lunar material belongs to it and be returned, no matter what the circumstances it was originally handed out by the agency and no matter how long ago.
David Bull – David’s Choice
An evening pause: Hat tip Cotour, who admits “This is a bit different.” I agree, but it gives you a flavor from the past when a new technology first met art, to produce something beautiful but new. From the youtube webpage:
The next in our ‘David’s Choice’ series, where Tokyo-based woodblock printmaker David Bull introduces some of his favourite prints. This time, the print(s) being featured are from the old Doi Hanga Company, and are two different scenes of the Kagurazaka district of Tokyo. The designers were Tsuchiya Koitsu, and Noel Nouet, and the prints were originally published in the late 1930s.
Mister Rogers – Garden of Your Mind
An evening pause: As a kid, I could never stomach Mister Rogers. The most I could ever watch him was about ten seconds before becoming totally bored. Thus, I was initially very doubtful about scheduling this video — until I watched it. It takes the things Rogers said and did and turns it into a really good rap video!
Hat tip Tom Wilson, aka t-dub.
DNA tests of 800-year-old gravesite in Kyrgyzstan suggest that region was source of Black Death
Based on DNA tests of several 800-year-old graves in northern Kyrgyzstan near Lake Issyk Kul, it appears that the Black Death that first appeared in Europe in the 1300s and killed as much as half its population came from this region initially.
Working with Slavin and Russian collaborators including Valeri Khartanovich of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, where the Issyk Kul skulls were stored, Spyrou extracted DNA from the pulp of seven individuals’ teeth and found three were infected with Y. pestis. She was able to reconstruct a high-quality genome of the ancient strain that killed them. That strain “fell exactly on the origin point of that big bang event” in the evolution of Y. pestis, Spyrou says. “That was incredibly exciting.”
The strain was closely related to ones found in rodents near Issyk Kul today. The authors suggest it spilled over to humans, perhaps from a marmot, which are abundant in the Tian Shan mountain region of northern Kyrgyzstan, southern Kazakhstan, and northwestern China.
What is fascinating most about this discovery is that we actually have the names of some of the Black Death’s first victims, read from their tombstones: ““This is the tomb of the believer Sanmaq. [He] died of pestilence.”
Based on DNA tests of several 800-year-old graves in northern Kyrgyzstan near Lake Issyk Kul, it appears that the Black Death that first appeared in Europe in the 1300s and killed as much as half its population came from this region initially.
Working with Slavin and Russian collaborators including Valeri Khartanovich of the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, where the Issyk Kul skulls were stored, Spyrou extracted DNA from the pulp of seven individuals’ teeth and found three were infected with Y. pestis. She was able to reconstruct a high-quality genome of the ancient strain that killed them. That strain “fell exactly on the origin point of that big bang event” in the evolution of Y. pestis, Spyrou says. “That was incredibly exciting.”
The strain was closely related to ones found in rodents near Issyk Kul today. The authors suggest it spilled over to humans, perhaps from a marmot, which are abundant in the Tian Shan mountain region of northern Kyrgyzstan, southern Kazakhstan, and northwestern China.
What is fascinating most about this discovery is that we actually have the names of some of the Black Death’s first victims, read from their tombstones: ““This is the tomb of the believer Sanmaq. [He] died of pestilence.”
Puzzling telemetry from Voyager-1 suggests problem
Engineers are puzzling over strange operational data coming from Voyager-1, launched in 1977 and now in interstellar space more than 14 billion miles away, that suggests a technical problem but also makes no sense.
The engineering team with NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying to solve a mystery: The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. But readouts from the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don’t reflect what’s actually happening onboard.
The AACS controls the 45-year-old spacecraft’s orientation. Among other tasks, it keeps Voyager 1’s high-gain antenna pointed precisely at Earth, enabling it to send data home. All signs suggest the AACS is still working, but the telemetry data it’s returning is invalid. For instance, the data may appear to be randomly generated, or does not reflect any possible state the AACS could be in.
The issue hasn’t triggered any onboard fault protection systems, which are designed to put the spacecraft into “safe mode” – a state where only essential operations are carried out, giving engineers time to diagnose an issue. Voyager 1’s signal hasn’t weakened, either, which suggests the high-gain antenna remains in its prescribed orientation with Earth.
Figuring out what has happened is made more difficult by distance. It takes about 20 hours for signals to get from Voyager-1 to Earth, even at the speed of light. Thus, any attempted fix will arrive almost two days after it first occurred, at the soonest.
Both Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 are still operating, though at significantly reduced power. It is expected that sometime in the next few years their nuclear power sources will finally be unable to produce enough power to keep them functioning. If so, both spacecraft will have survived the maximum time predicted when launched.
Engineers are puzzling over strange operational data coming from Voyager-1, launched in 1977 and now in interstellar space more than 14 billion miles away, that suggests a technical problem but also makes no sense.
The engineering team with NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is trying to solve a mystery: The interstellar explorer is operating normally, receiving and executing commands from Earth, along with gathering and returning science data. But readouts from the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS) don’t reflect what’s actually happening onboard.
The AACS controls the 45-year-old spacecraft’s orientation. Among other tasks, it keeps Voyager 1’s high-gain antenna pointed precisely at Earth, enabling it to send data home. All signs suggest the AACS is still working, but the telemetry data it’s returning is invalid. For instance, the data may appear to be randomly generated, or does not reflect any possible state the AACS could be in.
The issue hasn’t triggered any onboard fault protection systems, which are designed to put the spacecraft into “safe mode” – a state where only essential operations are carried out, giving engineers time to diagnose an issue. Voyager 1’s signal hasn’t weakened, either, which suggests the high-gain antenna remains in its prescribed orientation with Earth.
Figuring out what has happened is made more difficult by distance. It takes about 20 hours for signals to get from Voyager-1 to Earth, even at the speed of light. Thus, any attempted fix will arrive almost two days after it first occurred, at the soonest.
Both Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 are still operating, though at significantly reduced power. It is expected that sometime in the next few years their nuclear power sources will finally be unable to produce enough power to keep them functioning. If so, both spacecraft will have survived the maximum time predicted when launched.
Mahma Comparisons – Biggest volcano eruptions known
An evening pause: I run this at 2x speed, but if you aren’t impatient enjoy it as it is. The size difference between the smallest and largest is quite daunting. Note too that this video only lists the known giant eruptions, explosive events that happened suddenly. It does not include some of the Earth’s largest long term volcanic events, such as the Deccan Traps, that happened repeatedly lasting millions of years that is thought to have possibly contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Bobby Troup – Route 66
An evening pause: The animation created to go with Troup’s jazzy version of this song is utter fantasy, imagining America as portrayed in culture, not reality. No matter. Sometimes the myth is better.
This also makes a nice pause to usher in the weekend.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
AmazingViz – American X-planes
An evening pause: A nice quick visual summary of every experimental X-plane so far developed in the U.S.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Apollo 16 on Moon, as visualized by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission to the Moon in April 1972, scientists using images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have created a short digital visualization of the lunar surface where astronauts John Young and Charles Duke completed three different excursions across the lunar surface.
I have embedded that video below. The audio is the discussion between John Young and the capcom at mission control during the last excursion. The key moment is when John Young reaches the rim of North Ray crater, and realizes he cannot see its floor because the interior slopes are so steep.
» Read more
In celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 16 mission to the Moon in April 1972, scientists using images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) have created a short digital visualization of the lunar surface where astronauts John Young and Charles Duke completed three different excursions across the lunar surface.
I have embedded that video below. The audio is the discussion between John Young and the capcom at mission control during the last excursion. The key moment is when John Young reaches the rim of North Ray crater, and realizes he cannot see its floor because the interior slopes are so steep.
» Read more
The seeds of today’s madness were planted decades ago
Political journalist Doug Ross yesterday re-posted an essay he had written a decade ago, which had successfully predicted the crime wave we are undergoing today.
In it, he outlined how the growth in 2011 in government anti-poverty and welfare programs — which acted to further tear apart families — was going to lead to what he called “a true Obama Crime Wave” sometime in the early 2020s.
- Fact: There are a record number of Americans dependent upon government anti-poverty programs thanks to the Obama Democrats
- Fact: Expanded access to welfare and food stamps greatly increases the number of children born to unwed mothers
- Fact: Single-parent families correlate to higher crime rates
- Conclusion: with the unprecedented increase in welfare, food stamps and unemployment, we will also see an unparalleled increase in violent crime within the next dozen or so years.
Obama and his Democrat sycophants in Congress will have created hundreds of thousands of single-parent families. These kids, born out-of-wedlock, will find themselves trapped in lives of criminality at far higher rates than kids from two-parent families.
Fast forward a dozen years, give or take a couple, and we will see a true Obama Crime Wave. I predict that we will see an unprecedented increase in crime. In fact, you could call it historic.
And the question is not whether it will happen. The question is just how bad it will be.
Ross’s prediction in 2011 was of course guaranteed to be right, as good social science research since the early and mid-twentieth century had shown that if you raise children in broken homes, chaos ensues when they reach adulthood.
I think however that Ross and most previous researchers have missed half the equation. Broken homes certainly produce adults who don’t know right from wrong, and thus become hardened and violent criminals.
» Read more
Austin McConnell – The Absurd 2nd Century Space Opera You’ll Never Read
Ben Rich, Skunk Works, & the F117 Stealth fighter
An evening pause: As one commenter at the youtube page said, “Every once in a while 60 minutes comes up with a great story.”
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Steely Dan – Home at last
An evening pause: The song is set to visuals from many Steely Dan concerts over the decades.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
Viet View – In The Year 2525
An evening pause: This is a cover of the classic Zager and Evans 1960s song. It also cleverly uses material from numerous post-1980s sci-fi movies to match the words. Overall, those movies portray a brave new world future (as Huxley saw it), humorless, soulless, and inhumane — as does the song.
Hat tip Bob Robert.
A thumbnail bio of George Washington
An evening pause: This day, February 22nd and the birthday of George Washington, was once celebrated yearly by Americans to honor the leader of the American army in the Revolutionary War, the leader in the effort to write the Constitution, and the country’s first president who had the humbleness to step down after two terms in office.
Congress in 1971 turned that celebration into the empty “Presidents Day” holiday, that means nothing and devalues the profound importance of Washington, especially when compared to the generally mediocre individuals — with the except possibly of Lincoln alone — who followed him in that office.
I choose to celebrate Washington instead, on this the actual anniversary of this birth. The video below is a short but succinct and accurate outline of his life. It only touches the surface of the man’s unfathomable importance to American history, but it is start.
An evening pause: This day, February 22nd and the birthday of George Washington, was once celebrated yearly by Americans to honor the leader of the American army in the Revolutionary War, the leader in the effort to write the Constitution, and the country’s first president who had the humbleness to step down after two terms in office.
Congress in 1971 turned that celebration into the empty “Presidents Day” holiday, that means nothing and devalues the profound importance of Washington, especially when compared to the generally mediocre individuals — with the except possibly of Lincoln alone — who followed him in that office.
I choose to celebrate Washington instead, on this the actual anniversary of this birth. The video below is a short but succinct and accurate outline of his life. It only touches the surface of the man’s unfathomable importance to American history, but it is start.
Mike Rowe – Can You Be There By Nine?
Restoring a Japanese hanging scroll painting by Kitagawa Utamaro
Kathy Loves Physics – Why the U.S. uses 120 volts and not 220 volts
An evening pause: Here’s a bit of technology history that still affects us daily.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Les Paul interviews and plays with ZZ Top
An evening pause: Stay with it. The story Billy Gibbons tells in between the songs is fascinating about how he got started. And this sudden jam session music is fine indeed.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
5 Things You Don’t Know – Pearl Harbor
An evening pause: Some nice tidbits of historical trivia related to the attack that occurred this day in 1941 that forced the U.S. into World War II, and literally signed the death warrants for the Nazi and Japanese warlords.
The United States Army Field Band – The Battle Hymn of the Republic
An evening pause: Performed live 2016.
Hat tip David McCooey, who had recommended this 1908 recording.
History Unplugged – The Age of Discovery 2.0: Episode 6
Episode six of the six part series, The Age of Discovery 2.0, from the podcast, History Unplugged, is now available here.
On this episode Scott Rank interviews Ram Jakhu, an associate professor at McGill University and a researcher on international space law. From the show summary:
The British East India Company is perhaps the most powerful corporation in history. It was larger than several nations and acted as emperor of the Indian subcontinent, commanding a private army of 260,000 soldiers (twice the size of the British Army at the time). The East India Company controlled trade between Britain and India, China, and Persia, reaping enormous profits, flooding Europe with tea, cotton, and spices. Investors earned returns of 30 percent or more.
With SpaceX building reusable rockets and drawing up plans to colonize Mars, could we be seeing a new British East India Company for the 21st century? The idea isn’t that far-fetched. In the terms of service for its Starlink satellite internet, one clause reads the following: “For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”
Episode six of the six part series, The Age of Discovery 2.0, from the podcast, History Unplugged, is now available here.
On this episode Scott Rank interviews Ram Jakhu, an associate professor at McGill University and a researcher on international space law. From the show summary:
The British East India Company is perhaps the most powerful corporation in history. It was larger than several nations and acted as emperor of the Indian subcontinent, commanding a private army of 260,000 soldiers (twice the size of the British Army at the time). The East India Company controlled trade between Britain and India, China, and Persia, reaping enormous profits, flooding Europe with tea, cotton, and spices. Investors earned returns of 30 percent or more.
With SpaceX building reusable rockets and drawing up plans to colonize Mars, could we be seeing a new British East India Company for the 21st century? The idea isn’t that far-fetched. In the terms of service for its Starlink satellite internet, one clause reads the following: “For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.”