Choosing a flag to unite a planet [should U.S. or U.N. flag be planted on Mars?]

Int. Herald Tribune ^ | 1.28.04 | Ted Daley

[ambrose]

Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Choosing a flag to unite a planet Tad Daley IHT Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Earth to Mars   LOS ANGELES, California President George W. Bush took a shot at establishing a legacy beyond a permanent war on terror when he delivered his space vision speech at the headquarters of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration earlier this month. Arrayed behind him were several pieces of NASA artwork depicting future moments in space exploration. The one most directly behind his back showed a futuristic landing craft, a rocky red surface, a blue-gray sky and an astronaut holding a pole with an American flag. Although such a landing is probably at least a quarter-century away, according to the Bush administration's own timetable, apparently it has already been decided to plant in the soil of Planet Mars not a flag representing all the inhabitants of Planet Earth, but a flag of the United States. Perhaps the most obvious level on which this might turn out to be an unwise artistic choice is financial. President Bush advocated going back to the moon, establishing a permanent presence there, and only then venturing onward to Mars. The only possible way to pay for all that will be to allow this new space initiative to unfold as a global collaboration rather than an international competition. It's difficult to see what motive either a citizen or a government of another country might have to invest their toil and treasure in such an undertaking after seeing that piece of art. Why participate, if the decision has already been made that the very first astronaut will be representing only some rather than all of us? There's also an issue larger than simply sharing the expenses. If there's anything that should be done on behalf of all the Earth, it is the first time a single human sets foot on a planet other than Earth. A 21st-century space program could generate a profound sense of human solidarity, a non-negotiable ethic of shared destiny, an intuition that we are all in the same boat on Spaceship Earth. It could cultivate what the great developmental psychologist Erik Erikson called an "all-human solidarity," and what Voltaire called a "party of humanity." The irony to the president's backdrop is that almost every astronaut seems to perceive such larger horizons. "The first day or so we all pointed to our countries," said the Saudi Arabian astronaut Sultan Bin Salman al-Saud, himself from a region as polarized as any in the world. "The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were aware of only one Earth." Another international astronaut, Kalpana Chawla, born in India but raised to the heavens as an American, looked down from Columbia's last voyage, but then decided to look up. "When you look out at the stars and galaxies," she said, "you feel like you come not from any particular place, but from the solar system." Even Neil Armstrong experienced a transnational epiphany. Interviewed in 1979 for Apollo 11's 10th anniversary, he was asked how he felt as he saluted the American flag. "We didn't have a strong nationalistic feeling at that time," he said. "We felt more that it was a venture of all mankind." The 27 fortunate souls who have ventured outward to lunar orbit have all gazed upon a single, borderless, breathtaking planet suspended among the blazing stars. They were perhaps the first humans to have the opportunity to grasp that the whole Earth was more than the sum of its parts, that it was something singularly deserving of our loyalty, our allegiance, our planetary patriotism. So let us envision a slightly different scene than the one arrayed behind the president. The first passenger-bearing spacecraft has just set down on the Martian plain, near a gully in the long shadow of Olympus Mons. Five billion human souls sit spellbound, glued to television screens, the single greatest moment of shared human experience. The door opens, and the chosen one emerges into the Martian sunlight. Perhaps he or she is today a sophomore at a high school in Kansas, or Mississippi, or Ethiopia. He or she takes three cautious steps down the ladder, and then plants a boot squarely onto the surface of Planet Mars. And the visitor declares, "We come in peace, we come to explore, and we come to endure. And so today, here in the soil of Planet Mars, I plant the flag of Planet Earth." It would be a precious gesture, one that would make all Earthlings feel part of the venture. If an artist's rendition of that moment had been displayed behind the president, it might have done more to bring our world together, in a stroke, than all the things Bush has done in three short years to drive it apart. The writer serves as senior policy advisor to the presidential campaign of Representative Dennis Kucinich. Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune

[dpa5923]

Agreed.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

ACCORDING TO THEM THEY ALREADY OWN IT!

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is the United Nations office responsible for promoting international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. The Office serves as the secretariat for the General Assembly's only committee dealing exclusively with international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space: the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). The Committee has two subcommittees: the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal Subcommittee.

The United Nations Programme on Space Applications (PSA) is implemented by UNOOSA and works to improve the use of space science and technology for the economic and social development of all nations, in particular developing countries. Under the Programme, the Office conducts training courses, workshops, seminars and other activities on applications and capacity building in subjects such as remote sensing, communications, satellite meteorology, search and rescue, basic space science and satellite navigation.

On behalf of the Secretary-General, UNOOSA maintains the Register of Objects Launched into Outer Space and disseminates information contained therein. A searchable index of the Register is available online.

As part of its technical assistance programme on international space law, the Office provides a searchable index to the Status of United Nations Treaties Governing Activities in Outer Space, which is now available online.

OOSA prepares and distributes reports, studies and publications on various fields of space science and technology applications and international space law. Click here for an index of documents published by UNOOSA.

The Office provided the substantive secretariat for the three United Nations Conferences on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNISPACE), which were held in 1968, 1982 and 1999. The Office now supports and participates in the implementation of the recommendations of UNISPACE III.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs is located at the United Nations Office at Vienna, Austria.

http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/

[ambrose]

Isn't Neil Armstrong's flag still flying on the Moon? Kofi Anan is certainly welcome to go there and take it down.

[YOMO]

You took my comment, however I would have inserted France instead of the UN. Either way they are both a piece of CRAP.

[RightWhale]

The register of launched objects was in disrepair a year ago. Seems a lot of space business is bypassing the UN already with supreme indifference.

[jaz.357]

Make it so....

[LandofLincoln]

WHEN THE US GETS TO MARS, THEY SHOULD PLANT THEIR FLAG. WHEN THE UN GETS TO MARS THEY SHOULD PLANT THEIR FLAG.

NOW, IF THE UN HAS NO PLANS OF MAKING A TRIP TO MARS, WE SHOULD OFFER TO PLANT ONE FOR THEM. FOR A SMALL FEE OF COURSE.

[saul goode]

"I certainly wouldn't want to live in a condo where my neighbor has full license to turn her stereo way up, put her grill next to my door and blow smoke in the house, or leaving things cluttered all over the shared porch. Smoking right outside my door falls into those categories."



Dammit Lincoln,
I read all 87 posts to make sure I didn't post an idea someone else had already offered...only to be thwarted by yours.

[saul goode]

Ummmmmm,
Sorry guys, I have no idea how that quote got thrown in there. Moo moo. By bad.

[highlander_UW]

Well according to Sheila Jackson Lee, there already is a US flag on Mars.

Yeah, but she also thinks James T. Kirk is a recently retired member of NASA.

[lawdude]

When the UN can honestly boast of ONE, 1, uno, ein, any, accomplishment, I will consider acknowledging their existance,

[RJL]

apparently it has already been decided to plant in the soil of Planet Mars not a flag representing all the inhabitants of Planet Earth, but a flag of the United States.

Anyone here remember voting for the UN to represent us?

How many people worldwide voted for the UN to represent the World? About 100?

[rocknotsand]

The writer of the article is just publicising 'a given' from his 'collective future' worldview. What else would you expect; the left has smeared patriotism as being nationalism and painted nationalism as being racist/genocidal.

He expects, being a card-carrying internationale-ist, that the US flag is doomed to fade out of history this century. Why put up a doomed flag on Mars, why not the UN flag, even if a few years premature? The UN is the under-grad and post-grad perceived/promoted 'heir' to mankind/civilization.

If you extrapolate current policies, from the leaders of both the UN and the US, I can see the socialist's move to demand the "UN on flag on Mars" push as simply thinking ahead. It would circumvent the embarrassment inherent in the UN having to go back there one day to remove the embarassing "DWM" US flag and 'update' it with the UN flag.

Anyone else see shades of Orwell's memory holes, shades of John Galts speech all over the Mars flag proposals?

Howabout installing a solar powered LCD screen that plays a loop 'tape' displaying the flags of the world, rotating a week at a time? When -say- the Rhodesian/Zimbabwe flag is up there, the leaders and intellectuals of that member nation can perhaps percieve -covertly- the outright fraud of it all?

The whole idea is very very very Mini-Truth.

[mikrofon]

Hmmm -- 'didn't realize that Marvin was the product of Japanimation...

[Vigilanteman]

We could work out a compromise: The U.S. pays to send the U.N. to Mars and plant the U.N. Flag. We just don't bring them back.

[Trailerpark Badass]

The weenie in question:

[LandofLincoln]

I on the other hand have enough life to prevent me from reading every response before posting mine. If mine has not appeared prior, consider it my response. If it has appeared prior, consider it my vote.

[JoJo Gunn]

[vannrox]

this story was taken from www.inq7.net

URL: http://www.inq7.net/wnw/2004/jan/16/text/wnw_6-1-p.htm



Bush space plan to include
Mars, moon trips
Posted:11:12 PM (Manila Time) | Jan. 15, 2004
Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON ? President George W. Bush unveiled ambitious plans for the United States to return to the Moon as early as 2015, saying a lunar base would serve as a jumping-off point for manned missions to Mars and "across our solar system."

Bush's televised speech, late on Wednesday, came as a US robotic vehicle called Spirit was due to make its first short trip across the surface of Mars, part of a mission to find out if the red planet once supported life.

It also came just under a year since the Columbia space shuttle disaster, which put a serious damper on the US space program, and the multinational International Space Station.

"We do not know where this journey will end, yet we know this, human beings are headed into the cosmos," Bush said, speaking at the headquarters of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Bush sought to preempt concerns about the initiative's potential military implications, explicitly rejecting a return to the costly "space race" between the United States and the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

"The vision I outline today is a journey, not a race. And I call on other nations to join us on this journey in the spirit of cooperation and friendship," he said.

If realized, the US plan would take humans back to the Moon for the first time since 1972, when the last of a series of US Apollo flights took place.

The plan calls for completing US obligations to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2010, and retiring the agency shuttle fleet around that time, with the goal of replacing it with a new "Crew Exploration Vehicle" that could carry humans to the moon and beyond.

The new Crew Exploration Vehicle would be tested by 2008 and conduct its first manned mission no later than 2014, the White House said, while work on the ISS would focus on research into the effects on humans of space travel.

US astronauts could return to the moon as early as 2015 but at least by 2020, and setting up a base to sustain "an extended human presence," the president said.

Scientists would explore the possibility of drawing rocket fuel or breathable air from lunar resources, and pursue technological breakthroughs that could make space travel easier, he said.

"With the experience and knowledge gained on the moon, we will then be ready to take the next steps of space exploration: Human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond," said Bush.

A lunar base could provide another advantage, the president said: Its lesser gravity compared to Earth would mean that launching a spacecraft would be cheaper.

Bush did not specify which nations he hoped would join the US-driven effort, but the ISS partners the United States with 16 countries, including Russia, the European Union, Japan and Canada.

But NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe later told reporters that he had spoken to the heads of the European, Russian and Canadian space agencies, which expressed "enthusiasm and interest" in the initiative.

"They're anxious to have an opportunity to begin to see the detail of where we're going with this and where there may be opportunities to collaborate," said O'Keefe.

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union fiercely competed in a space race. The Soviet Union was the first to both put a satellite into orbit around the earth and to send a man into space, Yuri Gagarin.

China, which launched its first manned space flight last year, has said it would send a spacecraft to orbit the moon within three years and planned an unmanned landing in 2010. Eventually China would operate their own moon base. India has also spoken of sending an unmanned mission to the moon by 2008.
©2004 www.inq7.net all rights reserved

[Atchafalaya]

Kofi can work in the "Brown 25" mine on Uranus!