First Protest in Space Targets Trump

By Abby Zimet / Common Dreams

In a cool feat of “suborbital dissent,” members of the international, community-based, DIY Autonomous Space Agency Network have launched the first protest in space against our anti-science ignoramus-in-chief.

The activists of ASAN (NASA backward), which believes in bridging the gap between science and art in the “radically free cosmic environment” of space without military or corporate involvement, hitched a giant tweet onto a weather balloon to an altitude of 90,000 feet – technically near-space, below the 330,000 feet of space-proper.

The tweet, tagging @realDonaldTrump, all-caps and all, quotes late Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell on the perspective he gained seeing the Earth from on high. “From out there on the Moon, international politics look so petty,” he said. “You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”

ASAN’s action was in solidarity with the upcoming March For Science on April 22, when over 500 cities will protest Trump’s culture of climate change denial, slashing of NASA earth science funding, and loosening of environmental standards.

It was also timed to coincide with Yuri’s Night 2017 – marking the first human flight into space by Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961 – which all month sees hundreds of “World Space Parties” in 55 countries, from Antarctica to New Zealand.

When Gagarin returned to earth, he famously focused on not the universe, but Earth’s loveliness within it. “Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship, I marveled at the beauty of our planet,” he said. “People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty, and not destroy it.”

This rapturous “cognitive shift in awareness,” named The Overview Effect by author Frank White, is what Trump and many others need to achieve, suggests ASAN; they argue that “everyone is already an astronaut” and space should be open to all. Their fundraising toward that end starts at $5 for a bumper sticker and goes up to the “Yr Goin 2 Space” category. For $50,000, they say, “We will literally send you into space somehow” – if it’s still there post-Trump.

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March for Science San Diego

Saturday, April 22, 10am
San Diego Civic Center Plaza
(Ending at the County Administration Building)
For More Information

March for Science is an effort comprised of hundreds of independent, nonpartisan coordinators. Recent rhetoric has inspired the coordination of the March for Science on Washington. In solidarity, we are organizing a San Diego sister march. The March mission statement is as follows:

“The March for Science champions publicly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good, and for political leaders and policymakers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest.”

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