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.
For the Common Good of all People, not the Rules Benefiting the Few!
International Schiller Institute/ICLC online conference, June 26/ 27, 2021
The following are the closing remarks of an 18-minute presentation given in 2017 by Sarah al-Amiri, today the chair of the UAE’s Space Agency, on “A Mars Mission of HOPE.” The UAE Space Agency just succeeded in placing an orbiter around Mars.
“… And it’s called Hope for a reason above and beyond the science that it is contributing. Today our region, the Middle East, is filled with turmoil. It is a region that is going through a few of its darkest hours. And what we are doing at the Hope Emirates Mars mission is providing a message. The Middle East is made up of over 50% youth. This project Hope is being run by a team that is under 35, a team that is made up of 34% women. The average age is 27. An entire nation is putting its hope on a team of youth, and presenting a message to the region.
“This mission is also called Hope, because we are contributing to the global understanding of a planet’s data. We are going above and beyond the turmoil that is now defining our region, and becoming positive contributors to science. Science to me is the most international form of collaboration. It is limitless. It is borderless. And it’s run by passions of individuals for the benefit of human understanding.
“Today, I’d like you all to do something with me. I want everyone to lift up their finger and cover a region of the sky. Look up at your finger. The region of your fingertip that is blocking the sky. The Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at a region that small, and it came up with this image. This image, the dots of light that you see—they’re not stars. They’re galaxies. There are hundreds of billions of stars in each one of those dots in that small region of sky that we look at. Each hundreds of billions of galaxies contains billions of stars. Each star, imagine how many Goldilocks zones [where water can exist on a planet] exist around them. How many planets could possibly exist around those? And how many possibilities of life that could possibly exist in this small portion of the sky? And today, I’d like you all to imagine, what is the positive contribution that you’re doing right here—on this unremarkable planet, in this unremarkable solar system, in this unremarkable galaxy, that justifies how infinite the possibilities are in this small image, and how positive and infinite your contribution is on this infinitesimal planet.”
“The red planet has captured human imagination for centuries. Now, we are at a junction where we know a great deal about the planet, and we have the vision and technology to explore further. Mars is an obvious target for exploration for many reasons. From our pursuit to find extraterrestrial life to someday expand human civilization to other planets, Mars serves as a long-term and collaborative project for the entire human race.”
In a fascinating interview with Space.com on Feb. 8, the day before orbital insertion, UAE Space Agency chair and Minister for Advanced Sciences Sarah al-Amiri described how Hope was designed for its mission as “the very first holistic weather satellite of Mars,” mapping the dynamics of Mars’s weather system throughout the entire day, in every region of Mars, over the course of an entire Martian year, through the combination of its three key instruments, shifting its orbit (from closer in to further out), and monitoring Mars’s lower and upper atmosphere, and the interactions between them.
“Our objectives from the get-go,” she emphasized, “are to ensure that Hope’s science is complementary to other missions and [therefore] usable to various science groups, and also new in nature so that it can continue the vast exploration efforts by different nations about Mars.”
Hope is a product of national determination and international cooperation which exemplifies how other developing countries and regions can also leapfrog into being space-faring nations. The UAE is a young nation—founded only 50 years ago—but its founder, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan, recognized that “money is meaningless if not mobilized for the good of man,” the country’s oil wealth “valueless without national human resources qualified for and capable of building up the country” through science and industry.
It was that understanding that led far-sighted leaders of the UAE to invite physical economist Lyndon LaRouche to deliver the keynote address to a two-day regional symposium on “The Role of Oil and Gas in World Politics,” at the UAE’s Zayed Centre in June 2002, and to develop both nuclear power and space programs.
Space Agency chair al-Amiri argues that the purpose of UAE’s space program is that of “stimulating a lot of change within the U.A.E.’s economy that today more than ever should have a solid foundation in science. The best way to do that, from what we have been experimenting with as a nation, has been an exploration mission to space.”
To develop its Earth-orbit satellite program in the 2000’s, the UAE turned to South Korea to jointly design and build its first two satellites, then launched from Kazakhstan. Its Space Agency was founded in 2014, and the goal of sending a probe to Mars by 2021, the 50th anniversary of the nation’s founding, adopted quickly thereafter. By 2018, the UAE space team was able to design and build a satellite itself. To meet the tougher technical challenges of building a spacecraft for another planet, the UAE Space Agency partnered with three U.S. universities: the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Arizona State University, and the Space Sciences Lab at the University of California, Berkeley campus. Hope was then launched to Mars on a Japanese rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center!
A veteran of NASA Mars missions, now based at Northern Arizona University who worked on the design of one of Hope’s instruments, Christopher Edwards, told the Wall Street Journal that the Hope mission “is like nothing I’ve ever experienced in the spacecraft program so far. There’s a huge training aspect to it and a huge collaborative aspect that is like nothing else.”
At a press conference held yesterday in Beijing, representatives of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) described in some detail, the missions to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and lesser bodies in the Solar System over the next 25 years. China will continue its advance of increasingly difficult lunar missions, leading up to a scientific laboratory in the next decade. For example, Chang’e-6 and 7 will explore the environment and resources of the Moon, and collect samples from the polar region over the next five years, said Xu Hongliang, CSNA spokesman..
In manned space, Xu said, the space station should be finished next year, “in which astronauts can stay for long periods to carry out scientific experiments.” But he also stressed that the scientific research should be “contributive.” The space science, space technology, and space applications should be coordinated, he said.
Referring to the release of photographs taken by China’s Mars rover, Zhurong, the previous day, Xu said the success of the mission shows “the country has come to the forefront of the world in Mars exploration.”
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.
For the Common Good of all People, not the Rules Benefiting the Few!
International Schiller Institute/ICLC online conference, June 26/ 27, 2021
While one of the Empire’s favorite leak sheets, Buzzfeed, exposed itself with its latest lying story targeting President Trump, he opened the prospect that LaRouche’s design for the SDI might be back on the agenda. And while May and Macron continue in their vain attempts to prop up the collapsing neo-liberal model, the Italians continue to forge ahead.
This week’s Schiller Institute’s webcast with Helga Zepp LaRouche presents an optimistic perspective on what it will take to finish off the era of British imperial geopolitics.
Listening to the Western news media, you would think the world is all chaos, no ordering principle whatsoever. However, stepping back and putting U.S. and European ‘current events’ in context of what’s occurring worldwide, it is easier to see what’s going on in the West is an establishment reaction to the positive forces of change shaping up across the globe. Xi-Kim talks are moving forward, foreshadowing a possible second Trump-Kim summit, potential progress in U.S.-China trade talks, Trump decision to pull U.S. out of Syria, in conjunction with Astana process, China’s successful Chang’e 4 landing on the far side of the Moon, and more.
Hear Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and Harley Schlanger discuss all the things the media is trying to hide from you!
Jan. 27 -In 1971, the Apollo 15 crew left a retro-reflector on the Moon. It is a passive instrument, and just reflects laser pulses from Earth back to Earth. The time–very precisely measured–of he return pulse, indicates the distance between Earth and its nearest neighbor. In all, three reflectors were left on the lunar surface during the Apollo missions, and one by the Soviet Lunokhod 2 over. They are still used by scientists for research in astrodynamics, Earth-Moon system dynamics (the Moon is slowly moving away from the Earth), and lunar physics. The technique is called Lunar aser Ranging (LLR), and now Chinese scientists are using the Apollo 15 reflector for LLR experiments, in preparation for their future missions to land astronauts on the Moon.
On Jan. 22, Xinhua reported yesterday, an applied astronomy group at the Yunnan Observatories in Kunming carried out China’s first Lunar Laser Ranging experiment, to obtain precise measurments of he distance between the Earth and the Moon.
While it was an interesting scientific experiment, the technique also has important practical applications. Landing an unmanned vehicle on the Moon requires using detailed orbital photographs to define a safe and interesting general landing region, where the engineers aim the lander. For a robotic spacecraft, the landing ellipse can be a relatively wide area to aim for. But or a manned mission, a more precise targetting is preferable. China can now use the laser ranging technique for its manned lunar program.
Until now, only the U.S., France, and Italy have successfully deployed laser ranging technology. It is reported that on a future mission, China will place its own retro-reflector on the Moon.
Chinese scientists are also studying the human factor itself, and technology to support crew on the Moon. Chinese student volunteers have just completed 200 days in Beihang University’s “Lunar Palace.” The two men and two women are biomedicine students and are the second group to work in the simulated space lab. A main capability needed to live off Earth is regenerative life-support ystems, where waste is recycled, and in the advanced phase, virtaully no materials have to be suppplied from the outside. The “mission” also entailed study of the social interactions and sychological condtion of the crew.
Chief designer Liu Hong said that her team would apply to have a mini-life support system on a lunar or Martian probe, with another system as a ground control. NASA and its partners have used the International Space Station to test closed-cycle life support systems, and the station itself recycles various waste products to reduce the amount of material that has to be delivered from the ground.
The major point emphasized repeatedly by Helga Zepp LaRouche in today’s webcast is the importance of exposing the British role in the increasingly shrill anti-China operation, and contrasting that with the history of Lyndon LaRouche’s intervention on behalf of global cooperation for economic development. The pressure on President Trump to adopt a posture against the WHO is a dangerous escalation, run by the same people responsible for the attacks against him with Russiagate. Helga said she doubts that Trump wrote the letter to WHO President Tedros himself, but reflects instead the hysteria coming from Pompeo, Navarro, Esper and Tucker Carlson. The lies against China over the coronavirus are “geopolitical” in nature.
If the two largest economies can work together, for the benefit of mankind, there is no problem which cannot be solved. She used the example of the CGTN tv program on China’s fusion program, and the cooperation with ITER on it, as an example of how that could proceed. This is in the tradition of the development programs written by Lyndon LaRouche for every part of the world. It is in sharp contrast with the Green lunacy being pushed in Europe and the U.S., exemplified by the role being given to BlackRock for the bailout of speculators.
There is really good news: Man is capable of reason and therefore limitless intellectual and moral perfectibility! We can do something that neither the donkeys nor the monkeys can do: we can discover new scientific principles of the universe in which we live, without limits! And these qualitative discoveries mean that, unlike donkeys and monkeys, we can constantly redefine what resources are, therefore making them unlimited, and that we can continue to improve the livelihoods of humanity!
We are experiencing unprecedented, fascinating scientific revolutions: the Chinese are exploring the dark side of the Moon with their Chang’e Moon missions, planning to mine helium-3 as fuel for the coming fusion economy on Earth, and next year a Mars mission will investigate the conditions for terraforming the red planet. With their Chandrayaan-2 mission to the south pole of the Moon, the Indians will explore the ice in the craters there, which are always in the shade, and thus one of the essential prerequisites for life on the Moon. The European Space Agency is working on concrete plans for international cooperation on a permanent Moon village! The U.S. is building upon the Kennedy Apollo program with its Artemis program, and Russia, the U.S., and China all see nuclear-powered spaceships as the right choice for future flights to Mars and deep into space!
The great thing about space travel is that it proves that we are not living in a closed system where raw materials are limited and the murderous views of Thomas Malthus, Julian Huxley, Bertrand Russell, and Prince Philip would be correct, but on the contrary, we live an anti-entropic universe. Space travel is the irrefutable proof that the universe “obeys” an adequate hypothesis of the human mind, that there is therefore absolute coherence between the immaterial ideas produced by reason, and the physical laws of this universe, and that these ideas are the spearhead of the anti-entropic dynamics of the universe.
There have been groundbreaking proofs recently: around 100 years after Einstein’s theses on the existence of gravitational waves and black holes, the change in space-time has now been proven, and shortly thereafter, with the help of eight radio telescopes distributed all over the world, images were made of the area around a black hole whose mass is 6.5 billion times larger than that of the Sun, 55 million light years away at the center of the M87 galaxy. There is still so much to discover in our universe, where, according to the Hubble telescope, there are at least two trillion galaxies! Space exploration opens up a deeper insight into how the laws of our universe work, and what role we humans play in it!
This is the life-affirming cultural optimism that comes with the idea of humanity as a space-faring species, in complete contrast to the contrived doomsday atmosphere which is spread by the apostles of the coming apocalypse—such as Prince Charles and the hedge-fund cover girl Greta Thunberg. Behind the Greta hype are quite vile interests: the trans-Atlantic financial system is facing a more serious crash than in 2008, and the financial sharks and locusts of the City of London and Wall Street are trying one final big deal, to steer as much investment into “green” technology as possible, before the systemic crisis hits.
A closer look at the sponsors of Greta’s extremely ambitious and well-funded agenda, the Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Fridays For Future (F4F), reveals that this movement is being funded by the richest people on Earth, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros and Ted Turner. The fact is that the beneficiaries of the climate hype and the Green New Deal are the banks and hedge funds.
The target of this unprecedented manipulation is you, the children and teenagers of this world! Shouldn’t it make you stop and think, when your alleged “rebellion” is supported by the whole spectrum of mainstream media and the entire liberal establishment? Yet the vile idea that manipulating the paradigm shift of an entire society must begin with the indoctrination of children is nothing new. As early as 1951, Lord Bertrand Russell wrote in his article “The Impact of Science on Society”:
“I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology. … Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. … It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. …not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten.”
The goal of the apocalyptic scaremongering by people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (“We have only 12 years left!”), or the head of the British Commonwealth, Prince Charles (“We only have 18 months left!”), is an induced radical change in way of life of mankind. Everything that we have understood as progress during the last 250 years should be abandoned, and we should return to the technological level that existed before the Industrial Revolution. But this also means that then the number of people who can be sustained at that level will drop to about a billion or less.
It would mean that developing countries would have no prospects for ever escaping poverty, hunger, epidemics and a shortened lifespan; it would be a genocide of an unimaginably large number of people! If “climate scientist” Mojib Latif thinks that the Western lifestyle can not be transmitted to all people in the world, and if Barack Obama is outraged that many young people in Africa want a car, air conditioning and a big house, then behind that lurks the inhuman arrogance of members of the totally privileged upper class. It is precisely this view by the colonial rulers that is responsible for the fact that Africa and much of Latin America are still underdeveloped, and many hundreds of millions of people have died early unnecessarily.
For the developing world, the pseudo-religion of anthropogenic climate change means genocide, but for the soul of the young people of the world, the cultural pessimism it induces is a poison that destroys confidence in human creativity. When everything becomes a problem and is suddenly laden with guilt—eating meat, or eating at all, driving a car, flying, home heating, clothing, and indeed life itself—it destroys any enthusiasm for discovery, any enthusiasm for that which is beautiful, and all hope for the future. And if every human being is just another parasite that destroys the environment, then quite a few come to the misanthropic conclusions of the mass shooters of Christchurch and El Paso, who in their “manifestos” cited environmental reasons for their actions.
Conversely, the scientific and technological advances associated with space travel are the key to overcoming all apparent limitations of our present existence on Earth. “Terraforming”—the creation of human conditions—then becomes possible not only on the Moon and Mars, but also here on Earth, and in the future on many heavenly bodies in our solar system and perhaps beyond.
In his “Anthropology of Astronautics,” the German-American space pioneer Krafft Ehricke writes:
“The concept of space travel carries with it enormous impact, because it challenges man on practically all fronts of his physical and spiritual existence. The idea of traveling to other celestial bodies reflects to the highest degree the independence and agility of the human mind. It lends ultimate dignity to man’s technical and scientific endeavors. Above all, it touches on the philosophy of his very existence. As a result, the concept of space travel disregards national borders, refuses to recognize differences of historical or ethnological origin, and penetrates the fiber of one sociological or political creed as fast as that of the next.”
Today, we need this culturally optimistic image of mankind, and the passionate love for humanity associated with it as the only creative species known to date! The fact that we can venture into space means that we can overcome the narrow, Earth-bound mindset. “There, in the stars, lies mankind’s entry into the long-awaited Age of Reason, when our species sheds at last the cultural residue of the beast,” as Lyndon LaRouche put it.
It is an incredible privilege to be young now, to reach for the stars and help shape an epoch of humanity that, for the first time in history, can unleash the unlimited potential of our species!
”Houston, Shackleton Base Here: Artemis 3 has landed!” You may be saying, “What? What is Shackleton Base? Isn’t it Tranquility? Artemis 3 has landed? I thought it was the Eagle.” Yes, it was the Eagle, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin becoming the first men to walk on the Moon. Armstrong declared, “Houston, Tranquility Base here: The Eagle has landed.”
That extraordinary accomplishment of American astronauts landing on the surface of the Moon for the first time—“in peace for all mankind”—was followed by twelve more astronauts, participating in another six missions. The last mission was in 1972. That was the Apollo program, a program to go to the Moon and explore the lunar surface. The Apollo 17 astronauts would be the last to walk on the surface of the Moon. Following that last mission, despite several additional planned missions, the program was unceremoniously ended and funding for the future Apollo missions was cut. However, the cutbacks didn’t start abruptly in 1972; the mission was being chipped away at even as the Apollo program was getting started—the peak in funding was in 1966.
“Have you heard? We are going, not back, but forward to the Moon again! This time to stay!” The Shackleton Crater is the proposed landing site for the next Moon mission. Shackleton is an impact crater that lies at the lunar South Pole.
In December 2017, President Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1, calling for the return of American astronauts to the surface of the Moon before the end of the next decade. In March of this year the plan and the timeline were accelerated, and it was announced by Vice President Pence, on behalf of the President, that NASA and its administrator, Jim Bridenstine, would be charged with a new mission to launch American astronauts to the surface of the Moon—they will be the first woman and the next man to walk on the lunar surface since 1972. This time, they will build a sustainable presence, and will develop the platform, technologies, and resources required to prepare the way for American astronauts to the land on the surface of Mars.
The bold and exciting new mission to return American astronauts to the surface of the Moon is Project Artemis, named for Apollo’s twin sister Artemis, the goddess of the Moon. Well, you may ask, this all sounds very exciting and optimistic, but how will it be done? We haven’t been back in nearly 50 years. What will be different now? How will we guarantee that we not only achieve the goal of returning to the Moon and go to Mars, but build a commitment and a policy with lasting impact for several generations to come?
Houston Meeting, Shooting for the Moon
The Schiller Institute is hosting conferences and seminars around the world, not only to educate people on the requirements for returning Americans to the lunar surface in 2024 and building a lunar base by 2028, but going beyond—setting forth a vision for the next two to three generations of space exploration.
In Houston, Texas on July 25, just one day after the 50th anniversary of the splash down of the Apollo 11, the Schiller Institute had its most recent such event. The theme of the community meeting was, “50 Years After Apollo: NASA’s Project Artemis, A New Generation of Space Explorers Emerges.” The meeting, held at the Bayland Community Center, was a major outreach effort with broad attendance and participation. The audience included blue collar families from the Houston neighborhood, university students, a high school science club, friends of the Fabrication and Innovation Laboratory at a local college, robotics club members, families with NASA ties, members of several local AARP chapters who had previously invited the Houston Schiller Institute Chorus to their meetings, and longtime Schiller Institute activists. There was great excitement following the presentations.
The environment was electric from the start! Attendees were greeted with a fascinating “Fabrication Lab” exhibit on 3D printing, overseen by the lab’s supervisor. 3D printing in its industrial applications is known as additive manufacturing and will be a crucial feature of building cities on the Moon and Mars.
There were also NASA memorabilia and models of a scramjet and a Space Shuttle. Also on display was an exhibit from the Houston Robotic Club, which brought a working robotic Moon/Mars Rover, built to NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) specifications. Discussion was continuous around the tables, including the Schiller Institute’s table and a display of Fusion and 21st Century Science and Technology magazines. Attendees got a direct idea of breakthrough work in 3D printing and robotics applications that are relevant for use here on Earth and in space travel and exploration. A group of high school students, all members of a robotics club, had a great time at both exhibits. Many people saw a 3D printer and a robot, up close, for the first time, and were able to talk to experts about the technologies involved.
Attendees also gained greater insight into international cooperation in space by seeing material from a project called “United in Space.” The project’s mission is to promote space cooperation between the United States and Russia. It is involved in creating and placing a statue of Neil Armstrong in Russia. The United in Space display included a scale model of the statue of Armstrong and announced that ground had been broken in Russia for the placement of a life-size statue. The Russian-American founder of United in Space has already placed a statue of Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly in space, in Houston, Texas.
Project Artemis and International Cooperation
The program was opened by Kesha Rogers, Lyndon LaRouche’s representative in Houston, speaking for the Schiller Institute. She presented a dramatic overview of the Artemis Project, opening with a 3-minute NASA film titled, “We Are Going,” which drew applause and shouts from the entire room. Rogers outlined the Artemis Project with detailed slides drawn from NASA and NASA contractors, including the project’s phased development, emphasizing NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and President Trump’s declarations that international cooperation would be required for Project Artemis to succeed.
We need cooperation with Russia, Europe, India, Japan and China, and the more so because Trump has committed the United States to use the Moon as a jumping off place to go to Mars, Rogers explained. She made clear that this perspective had been laid out by economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, inspired by his collaboration with German-American rocket engineer Krafft Ehricke and many other scientists who worked with the Fusion Energy Foundation in the 1970s and 1980s.
A video except from a 2009 speech by LaRouche was shown, in which LaRouche outlined a future Mars mission as a “science driver” project for the United States, which would simultaneously require cooperation with Russia, China, and other nations, and thereby contribute to securing peace on Earth. Rogers then introduced a special guest, the Vice Consul of the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Houston, Dr. Viacheslav Levchick, PhD, who received a warm greeting from the audience.
The View From Russia
Vice-Consul Levchick outlined some of his country’s work in space, stressing that he thought that cooperation between Russia and the U.S. had “a solid basis,” based on his visits to Johnson Space Center and the cooperative work on the International Space Station. He talked about some of Russia’s recent contributions, including the “Single Pass” delivery of astronauts to the Moon, which shortens the trip from six hours to two hours, saving astronauts and cosmonauts from exhausting trips as well as saving on costs and equipment. This drew audible agreement from the audience.
He also underscored the important breakthroughs in astronomy that are expected from the Specter RG telescope satellite, launched in July. Russia has its own lunar program, but the Vice-Consul wanted to stress the importance of ongoing cooperation, saying, “In 1998 when the first models of the ISS were launched, it was the U.S. and Russia who did it.”
Now there is a rapidly growing private space sector in many countries. “This is like the dreams of our fathers—or my grandfathers,” the youthful Vice Consul added, drawing chuckles. “It is important that we can talk casually about such huge projects,” he said. All nations are going to the Moon’s South Pole, adding that helium-3, along with ice water, are the major resources being sought. Russia, he reported, plans a manned landing on the Moon by 2030 and a permanent presence by 2040, adding that India and China have similar plans. Vice Consul Levchik’s relaxed and humorous remarks were warmly received by the audience and elicited numerous questions.
The Last Time We Went to the Moon
The next speaker was retired NASA and TRW scientist F. Don Cooper, who began working at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama in 1962. Cooper, an Oklahoma native, was soon assigned, as a young physicist and mathematician, to develop the targeting equations for Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI), which guided the Apollo projects to the Moon. Then from Houston, Cooper worked on eight Apollo missions, including Apollo 11 and Apollo 13. He also worked on the Atlas Centaur, the Air Force Dyna-Soar space plane, and the early planned Mars mission NOVA rocket. Cooper gave a very exciting presentation, which took his audience to the Moon, landed on the Moon, and back to Earth with Apollo 11, with a model Saturn V rocket, astronaut voice recordings, graphics, and whiteboard sketches, all making it come alive.
Since his retirement, Don Cooper has found a new calling—that of encouraging a new generation of students to pursue a future in the physical sciences. He enjoys speaking to youth groups, among others, hoping to inspire the technology leaders of the future with his first-hand account of the events as they actually happened. “Of the seven primary people who did this, I am the last one alive,” said Cooper recently. “Students do not know much about Apollo since it all happened before they were born. My objective is to show them how it happened, emphasize that education is essential, and show how math and physics solve real-world problems.” Cooper makes the point that “Apollo 13 was saved by thousands of nerds.”
Mars and Beyond
Brian Lantz, Schiller Institute spokesperson in Texas, addressed the audience on the need for a science driver perspective to realize the full potential of a Moon-Mars colonization over the next 50 years, as developed by the great visionaries, Krafft Ehricke and Lyndon LaRouche. He made clear that a Moon-Mars program is needed for transforming human civilization. A program to fully colonize the Moon and Mars will require major breakthroughs in science and technology, including a crash program for the development of thermonuclear power and fusion propulsion systems for space travel. The ability to sustain a long-term human presence requires the building of major infrastructure and the building of functional and beautiful cities on the Moon and Mars. This will require construction from the Moon’s regolith.
Cutting-edge technologies will have to be further developed, including robotic machines for mining and the production and assembly of habitats on the Moon and Mars. More powerful lasers and other electromagnetic plasma beam systems will be required for communications, for additive construction and manufacturing, and the mining of helium-3. Lantz presented LaRouche’s idea, made famous in the 1988 “Woman on Mars” television broadcast, that we require a telescope with the aperture of the Mars orbit, a concept that drew surprised gasps from the audience. As Lyndon LaRouche outlined in 1986, we will build a civilization on Mars, with cities of hundreds of thousands of productive human beings, because that is what will be required.
What will such an investment cost us? A Moon-Mars project, over two or three generations, will cost us nothing, Lantz emphatically stated. The importance of the American System of economics and the re-creation of a credit system and National Bank, as was understood and developed by our nation’s first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and used effectively by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt will be necessary. We know this from the Apollo program, which returned 10 cents back for every penny we spent. How is that possible? The source of wealth is human creativity. We must unleash human creativity and reorganize the financial side of things accordingly. After all, we have done it before.
President John F. Kennedy launched one of the greatest economic recovery and national credit programs the nation has ever seen, through the unleashing of the creativity of the population through the Apollo program. Indeed, a Moon-Mars colonization program—advancing through the long-term success of the Artemis program and the advancement of mankind in the Solar system—will multiply the productivity of our civilization while it uplifts mankind, as every human being’s capacities will be required.
