General updates

In the course of his lengthy interview with NBC journalist Keir Simmons, aired two days before the Putin-Biden summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin identified for the American people a couple of areas in which both countries could cooperate, and explained how. The interview had some 750,000 views as of the afternoon of the summit.

Putin considers space one such major area of cooperation. He flatly rejected Simmons’s suggestion that Russia is preparing to stop cooperation with NASA on space, in favor of work with China, and dismissed Simmon’s reference to an earlier statement by the head of Russia’s space program, Dmitry Rogozin, that Russia would cut off cooperation with NASA if sanctions against Roscosmos companies were not lifted.

“We are prepared to work with the US in space. I think recently the head of NASA said that he could not imagine development of space programs without its partnership with Russia. We welcome this statement and we value it…. The cooperation between our two countries in space is a great example of a situation where, despite any kind of problems in political relationships in recent years, it’s an area where we have been able to maintain and preserve the partnership and both parties cherish it,” Putin responded.

Asserting that he knows Rogozin supports expanding the relationship with the US in space, Putin told Simmons “I think you just misunderstood what the head of the Russian space program said.”

“We are interested in continuing to work with the US in this direction, and we will continue to do so if our US partners don’t refuse to do that. It doesn’t mean that we need to work exclusively with the US. We have been working and will continue to work with China, which applies to all kinds of programs, including exploring deep space…. Frankly, I don’t see any contradictions here. I don’t think there is any mutual exclusivity here.”

Space science and exploration, recent breakthroughs in controlled thermonuclear fusion are the science drivers for a growing and prosperous human race. Man is surely a galactic species, and the realization of that idea has profound implications for everything from education and healthcare, to the potential for new Beethovens and Mozarts. That issue of scientific and artistic creativity will be central to the upcoming Schiller Institute/ICLC conference.

The three crew members of the first mission to China’s space station are on their way to start a 30-day trial of the first element of the station—the core module. Their mission includes very specific objectives, including unpacking the supplies delivered by a cargo ship; activating and testing the life support systems; donning EVA suits which have already been delivered, and so forth.

This mission will be for three months. It has been more than five years since the last manned mission, and a lot of new technology has been developed over that time, which can only be tested in space. If everything is running smoothly, the following missions will last six months each, instead of three.

Space science and exploration, recent breakthroughs in controlled thermonuclear fusion are the science drivers for a growing and prosperous human race. Man is surely a galactic species, and the realization of that idea has profound implications for everything from education and healthcare, to the potential for new Beethovens and Mozarts. That issue of scientific and artistic creativity will be central to the upcoming Schiller Institute/ICLC conference.

The head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, spoke yesterday at the Global Space Exploration Conference 2021 taking place in St. Petersburg from June 14-18, and he called for international cooperation to address the dangers posed by asteroids and comets that could collide with the Earth.

Rogozin is a close ally of President Putin, and his remarks were well-timed to issue a call for US-Russian cooperation right before the Biden-Putin summit. “There is no technology that would make it possible to change the trajectory and ward off the danger for our Earth,” Rogozin stated. “It is necessary to create these technologies, but not a single country will be able to do that alone. This is a common task to protect our planet… The most important task is how to protect the planet from hazardous collisions with celestial bodies that may ruin civilization.”

Rogozin’s call for cooperation to address threats coming from space, resembles Lyndon LaRouche’s long-standing policy proposal for the Strategic Defense of the Earth.

Space science and exploration, recent breakthroughs in controlled thermonuclear fusion are the science drivers for a growing and prosperous human race. Man is surely a galactic species, and the realization of that idea has profound implications for everything from education and healthcare, to the potential for new Beethovens and Mozarts. That issue of scientific and artistic creativity will be central to the upcoming Schiller Institute/ICLC conference.