Sinister Security: Asgardia

The First "Space Nation" Wants You to Live On Their Orbital Space Station

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Asgardia, a rather strange effort to initiate a nation in space, has declared it wants to ultimately build a space station in Earth orbit and on the Moon. In a press conference yesterday in Hong Kong, Asgardia also revealed its plans to launch its primary satellite, Asgardia-1, in autumn this year.

Asgardia claims to become the world’s first space nation. It plans to launch a small cubesat on an Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft from Wallops Island, Virginia in September. Mainly a flying 512gb hard drive, this will be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) by NanoRacks, and orbit Earth for five years.

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People who have already signed up online to join the space nation, called Asgardians, will be able to send data onto the cubesat. While this is maybe envisioned to be photos and messages, there is the probability this could be some kind of data harbor for illegal content. Asgardia told New Scientist, though, that they would filter any data before it is uploaded. Each person can sent 300kb of data to the satellite.

Initially people took as a fun site and singed up but later things got a little weird and serious when company said it was also planning to build a space station.

A model image from the company displays people walking around a massive space station, complete with vehicles flying overhead. The second image displays a more accurate modular space station, with a bigger ring-shaped station in the background.

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Asgardia also plans to create the Parliament of Asgardia in six months. It also exposed a “national calendar”. That’s not it. You can also apply to be a “member of Parliament” for Asgardia, with a number of positions open. You’ll need to amass a following of about 10,000 people to do so, though. And from June 18, you can also vote for the nation’s constitution, flag, and national anthem.

To vote, you’ll need to be a registered citizen, which you can do on Asgardia’s site. They claim to have more than 190,000 registered citizens from 200 countries, making them the 185th biggest country in the world in terms of population.

You can join Asgardia here.

A Worldwide Group of Experts Wants You to Join Asgardia - The First Ever Space Nation

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There is a new country being formed called Asgardia, named after Norse mythology's city in the skies. Asgardia could be the first nation ever formed in space. The plan is to get on a mission to mine asteroids and protect Earth from dangerous meteorites, space debris, and other threats (like aliens). That is, if all goes according to an unclear, open-ended, and bold plan put forth by its founders.

The people working on the Asgardia project includes space specialists based out of Canada, Romania, Russia, and the United States, and they publicized their independent goals from a press conference in Paris.

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Their fundamental goal is to send a robotic satellite in less than next 18 months, then ultimately follow up with a stable space station, as one founding associate told Business Insider:

"Where people can live, work, and have their own rules and regulations"

The hope is to "democratize space", as they say. Eventually, the organizers foresee Asgardians constructing "a state-of-the-art protective shield for all humankind from cosmic manmade and natural threats to life on earth such as space debris, coronal mass ejections, and asteroid collisions", according to their press release.

The director of McGill University's Institute of Air and Space Law and an Asgardia project founding member, Ram Jakhu, told Business Insider:

"We must leave [Earth] because it's very much in the nature of humanity. Humanity left Africa and covered the whole globe. The resources of Earth will be depleted. Third, I would say, we have a wish to go where nobody has gone before."

So, what’s Asgardia really?

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Timothy Wild, a representative for the group, would not reveal how many scientists or other experts are presently associated with the project but according to BussinesInsider there are at least five so far.

Creator of the Aerospace International Research Centre (AIRC) in Russia and the present chairman of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) 'science of space' committee- Igor Ashurbeyli.

David Alexander - director of Rice University's Space Institute.
Ram Jakhu - director of the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University.
Joseph N. Pelton - director of the Space and Advanced Communications Research Institute (SACRI) at George Washington University.
Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu - a Romanian cosmonaut.

According to Timothy Wild, the project is currently in its "initial stages" and is expecting the early promotional stuff will attract engineers, researchers, and other talent.

Timothy Wild said:

"What we're doing now is a call to arms, so we want to widen the net,"

Timothy Wild also added that in addition to experts, Asgardia is open to you to join its ranks.

The press release stated:

"[T]he site will allow the first 100,000 people to register to become citizens of Asgardia alongside their nationality on [E]arth,".

Asgardia is also making its own flag, emblem, and even a national anthem.

So How Is this Project Going To Be Funded?

The creators won’t reveal the organization’s present funding level but claimed Ashurbeyli himself had added a considerable amount of money to get the Asgardia mission alive and going.

Wild said:

"We're absolutely confident the satellite will launch within 18 months. But in terms of absolute numbers [of money], we're not there yet."

One thing is sure that they will likely need tens of millions of dollars to take initial steps, and possibly billions to withstand itself. Just to put into perspective, it took 18 nations and almost US$100 billion to construct and control the International Space Station (ISS).

So the question is can you actually form a new nation in space?

In a press release, Ashurbeyli said:

"Asgardia is a fully-fledged and independent nation, and a future member of the United Nations - with all the attributes this status entails."

Nonetheless, according to present international space law, the country that sends an object into space is accountable for it, including any destruction it causes to residents of Earth.

The organization said:

"The project is creating a new framework for ownership and nationhood in space, which will adapt current outer space laws governing responsibility, private ownership and enterprise so they are fit for purpose in the new era of space exploration. By creating a new Space Nation, private enterprise, innovation and the further development of space technology to support humanity will flourish free from the tight restrictions of state control that currently exist."

Organization claims that it will be an independent nation.

Ram Jakhu said:

"I'm sure people will ridicule [Asgardia], but I'm not worried. Anyone who tries out-of-the-box things is initially ridiculed," Jakhu said. "Everything that's amazing starts with a crazy idea. After a while science fiction becomes science fact, and this is an idea which is just being initiated.”

You can join Asgardia here. Do let us know what you guys think about this project in the comments below.

Sinister Security

The First "Space Nation" Wants You to Live On Their Orbital Space Station

A Worldwide Group of Experts Wants You to Join Asgardia - The First Ever Space Nation

So, what’s Asgardia really?

So How Is this Project Going To Be Funded?

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