Mike Rogers was my protest vote, or lack of a vote, this year.
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I protested by writing in my vote for Peanut the Squirrel rather than casting a vote for “the fightin’ toupee”!
4 days after the U.S. election, the UK decides to address the issue of an old satellite (launched 1969) which they call space 'junk,' which was initially used for military communications for a few years before they claim it ceased to function. The satellite was moved in the mid 70's to a region increasingly filled with active satellites, but no one knows why it was moved, who moved it, and there are no records of the move. Normally a derelict satellite is move to a 'graveyard' position with other dead satellites and junk. I question the timing of the announcement.
The satellite was named 'Skynet' and the writer assures the reader it has no relation to the fictional malevolent AI satellite of the same name in the dystopican sci fi movie The Terminator.
Somebody moved UK's oldest satellite, and no-one knows who or why
Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent
@JCDAmos
Published
9 November 2024, 00:08 GMTExcerpt:
"What we do know is that Skynet-1A was manufactured in the US by the now defunct Philco Ford aerospace company and put in space by a US Air Force Delta rocket.
"The first Skynet satellite revolutionised UK telecommunications capacity, permitting London to securely communicate with British forces as far away as Singapore. However, from a technological standpoint, Skynet-1A was more American than British since the United States both built and launched it," remarked Dr Aaron Bateman in a recent paper on the history of the Skynet programme, which is now on its fifth generation."