The Ice Man Dreameth

I recently re-watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager called "Emanations" (S1E8), in which an expedition investigates an alien moon in the hope of finding useful raw materials. Instead, they find a multitude of lifeless bodies, each wrapped in a white net, scattered throughout an extensive cave system.

S1E8 of Star Trek Voyager. (1)

Commander Chakotay investigates a mass grave. (2)

One of the cadets examines the body more closely, but is soon rebuked by the expedition leader, Commander Chakotay, who points out that these are possibly ritual burials, and if so, must be respected at all costs. Only a very superficial medical scan is accepted, which leads to arguments, as the cadets believe that further investigation may provide more information about the mysterious situation.

 

The Commander together with questioning colleagues. (3)

However, the decision stands: the bodies and the site are to be left untouched. Because if it is a sacred ritual, the most important thing is that reverence is shown. If the price is a few unanswered questions, so be it.

Far from being the créme-de-la-créme of Voyager-episodes, it still is one of the early seasons more memorable ones climaxing in a classic Trekkian dilemma of "interfer vs. not to interfer" in the crude customs of an alien culture. However, it is the opening scenario that brought to life some old thoughts of mine concerning a famous case that for years has been nagging at the back of my mind.

British colonizers with plundered goods from the invasion
of the Kingdom of Benin (Nigeria). Late 19th century. (4)

Massive quantities of such objects are housed in museums worldwide. In fact, the majority of all historical exhibits are looted goods; seized by colonizers, foreign military and local talent for glory and money [LINK].

But not everything on display at our beloved institutions consists of pottery and talismans, the remains of the dead have often met the same fate.

It was in the fall of 1991, when two German hikers stumbled upon a human body sticking out of a thawed glacier in the mountainous area between Austria and Italy. The Iceman, later named Ötzi, was initially suspected of being a dead mountaineer, but as soon after further investigations it could be established that he was of an prehistoric origin, several thousands years old, causing a world wide sensation.

 

1991, Ötzi's remains are discovered. (5)

In the years that followed Ötzi was subject of intense research. Not only was there still flesh to his bones, but he was also accompanied by clothing and various unusual objects. The body has been dated to around 3200 BC, making it the oldest naturally preserved mummy ever. Further investigation has convinced many that he was a shaman, as a number of dried herbs and a ceremonial axe were found among his possessions.

By far the most interesting aspect of him are his 57 tattoos - dots and lines scattered across his body. Their seemingly inconsistent nature has found its logic upon closer investigation, which has shown them to correspond to acupuncture points.

Ötzi's tattoos. (6)

Diagram of the locations of the tattoos. (7)

This fact that has been recognized, though largely ignored. Because according to the sanctioned historical narrative the European Bronze Age man didn't have any contact with East-Asian culture.

Moreover, the oldest Chinese writings mentioning acupuncture date back to 200 BC (though I'm sure Chinese historians consider the practice to be much more ancient), thus more than doubling its age, as well as casting doubt on its origins [LINK].

This and more is of course valuable information that has given an exceedingly rare insight into our past; and we should, of course, know better than not to appreciate such. 

In addition, it must be taken into account that, at the time of discovery, we were in a cultural framework dominated by strict material- and scientism.

What is done is done.

 

If you pay an admission you can look at his remains in a museum freezer.
When does the respect for the dead end? (8)

Now, however, I would like to return to the position of Commander Chakotay. Even though we're not dealing with a ritual burial of any sorts, it certainly concerns a holy man, and one of our cultural ancestors; who for the last 5000 years has been part of the dreaming of a mountain; the sleeping shaman of the glaciers.

This odic union seized 30 years ago when he was tragically degraded to an academic study. 

As if that wasn't bad enough, he currently plays the main role in "Ötzi - The tourist trap"; or, the dreaming of the boomer besserwisser.

The collapse of the West, 2020s. By JaySimons. (9)

We are currently experiencing the dying breaths of the age of spiritual decay. Like many others, I interpret it as the breaking down of Western imperialism; a power that has brought material abundance to a precarious minority at the expense of the health, sanity and soul of humanity.

A worldview, built on a paradigm that has reduced reality to measurable particles - valued solely in terms of the dollar-and-deutschmark mirage. This particular lens has been in service for the last three to four hundred years now. With a steady ramping up in the last few decades.

One need only to look out of the window to see how it's fairing (or in this case: through a small freezer glass).

The site of the discovery is basically an empty tomb.
Is the reverence for the splendors of time something mythical, or just a myth? (10)

It's high time we facilitate the healing process of this 400 year old trauma. Let us honor the Iceman for the years he has served our infantile minds, by freeing him from our dull spell, and return him to the rocky bed where he belongs; reunited with the dreaming of the Mountain.

Sooner or later we will have to pick up the pieces of what's left our culture's dignity. 

The lesser they are, the better.

References:

i)https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/13/4326306/museum-artifacts-looted-repatriation
ii)https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-otzi-icemans-tattoos-reveal-about-copper-age-medical-practices-180970244/
iii)https://www.news-medical.net/health/Acupuncture-History.aspx

Pictures:
1-3, Screenshots from the Star Trek Voyager-episode.
4, https://www.bansoro.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/bedddd-992x1024.jpg
5, https://www.nationalgeographic.de/geschichte-und-kultur/2019/11/forscher-rekonstruieren-oetzis-fieberhaften-letzten-aufstieg?gallery=40882&image=01-otzi-iceman-moss
6, https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/d31be586-0001-0004-0000-000000804817_w616_r1.165954139137194_fpx54.87_fpy49.99.jpg
7,https://i.imgur.com/RoxasHl.jpeg
8,https://www.br.de/berge/sonstiges/sonderaustellung-20Jahre-oetzi100.html
9, https://www.deviantart.com/jaysimons/art/Collapse-of-the-Modern-Civilization-355449519
10, https://img3.oastatic.com/img2/51039664/max/oetzi-fundstelle.jpg

        

Estimating the X Factor

By now it should be quite clear that we're not simply living through a rough patch of time, but that we are in it for the long run. Rampant corruption, civil unrest, financial turmoil, media manipulation etc. are all too relevant symptoms of our world today.

Should we consider the current geopolitical conflicts and the likelihood of escalation - involving the biggest armies on the planet - there's plenty of reason to be concerned. Because the dark forces that are steering this civilization seems hell bent on driving it into the ground - sledgehammer style. 

For good and for worse.

How it will go down specifically is the big question. Will we see nuclear warheads detonate over cities or will torches and pitch-forks against local governments suffice? Rest assured, we can at least agree that this godless-fake money-child slavery-mindless consumption-debt based-war mongering society is crumbling. 

As the media apparatus is part of the structure, it's incapable of giving an honest estimation of the situation - past, present, future included. Instead I have found that the system that all of humanity have been using since the dawn of time, astrology, is far more efficient as a tool to get an objective grasp of current and coming affairs. 

Astrological forecast with Gordon White and Austin Coppock concerning what's in store for us the first six months of 2024.

Cam White interviewing Gordon White regarding the next decades of Pluto being in Aquarius.

As I don't want this post to be about space weather I won't extrapolate further on the topic. However, I do recommend giving the videos a chance, as well as keeping an eye out for Gordon White's and Austin Coppock's astrological forecasts (they foretold the Russia-Ukraine conflict when no one had a clue)  and Cam White in general. 

***

Having the collapse scenario in mind, I would now like to shine a light on what I consider to be the news story of the decade: the MH370 videos. Most of you might recall the Malaysian Airlines plane that made world headlines when it vanished from the face of the earth in March 2014. 

I even wrote an article about it in my Swedish blog because of the excessive amount of question marks surrounding the story. Admittedly I couldn't draw any conclusions at the time but since then I have been strongly leaning towards classified technology being involved in the case. 

As it turns out, two leaked videos show MH370 being intercepted by three flying orbs before disappearing into a portal. One of them was shot by a satellite camera, the other was recorded by a drone. Both show the exact same thing from different perspectives. 

 

A side by side comparison of the leaked vids.

 

The videos surfaced on the Internet shortly after the disappearance (time span 4 max 72 days), but didn't gain any attention until earlier this year. Ashton Forbes is the main guy responsible for reviving the story and his work is exceptional. Constant attempts are being made to debunk them, but so far nothing substantial has come to light.

One of the orbs punching a hole through the clouds. 

For many years now I have written articles* promoting the notion that the military industrial complex have their hands on exotic technology, emanating from an understanding of how physics really work in contrast to the deliberate dead end-nonsense they teach at the academies**. 

I strongly believe the footage is genuine. It might look incredible for the average eye, but compared to what has been reported in the UFO literature for decades, it looks pretty crude. Similar to the infamous tictac-video, which has been acknowledged as true by the Pentagon, we see something that has a definitive physical nature. 

Still frame from the infamous Tictac UFO video.

Of course it's impossible to prove that the orbs in the MH370 and tictac videos belong to a classified program. But assuming that those programs do exist, it surely becomes the more likely scenario compared to extraterrestrials or what not. 

***

In a diary entry from 1985, President Ronald Reagan wrote:

"[...]Lunch was with 5 top space scientists. It was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier and some of the developments there in astronomy etc. are like science fiction except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such we could orbit 300 people.[...]" [LINK]

Reagan was surely aware that the diary would become public a few decades later, though it's impossible to know how much truth is behind the entry. He could have been lying, or maybe he was telling it truthfully not knowing he was being lied to. If that's the case though, what was the purpose? 

Former CEO of Lockheed Skunkworks, Ben Rich

Another prominent person making statements was the former head of Lockheed Skunkworks, Ben Rich. During the last years of his life he apparently told the audience at several lectures that there exist technology within the most classified military industrial programs, that could be straight out of Sci-Fi. 

“There is an error in the equations, and we have figured it out, and now know how to travel to the stars, and it won’t take a lifetime to do it [...] There are many in the intelligence community who would like to see this stay in the black, and not see the light of day” (source: UCLA School of Engineering Alumni speech 3/23/93)

“I wish I could tell you about the projects we are currently working on. They are both fascinating and fantastic. They call for technologies once only dreamed of by science fiction writers”. (source: AIAA lecture Atlanta, Ga. September 7-9 1988)

Naturally many have attributed those quotes to hearsay, ignoring the fact that there were people there who witnessed the whole thing, among others engineer Jan Harzan, who used to be head of MUFON. According to the highly respected aerospace journalist James Goodall, he had a phone conversation with Rich just shortly before his passing, in which he said:

“Jim, we have things out in the desert that are fifty years beyond what you can comprehend. If you have seen it on Star Wars or Star Trek, we’ve been there, done that, or decided it wasn’t worth the effort. They have about forty-five hundred people at Lockheed Skunk Works. What have they been doing for the last 18 or 20 years? They’re building something.”

Let us also not forget that Donald Rumsfeld the day before 9/11 made a speech in which he admitted that $2.3 trillion dollars of the Department of Defense could not be properly accounted for. [LINK] That's an incomprehensible amount of money. 

Corruption and recklessness aside, a lot of it obviously went into black projects. The question is how far those top secret technologies goes. Bear in mind that we are talking about trillions and decades here. 

***

If I was asked a year ago of my prognosis I wouldn't have been very optimistic. But now that the MH370 footage has established a solid footing, I would say that the ball is officially rolling. How fast and for how long only time will tell.

The point I'm trying to make is that even though the good times are past, and that escalation of war, economic chaos etc. etc. are imminent, we still have the x factor to take into account. 

Remember that the collapse is also going to involve the academic institutions and most certainly the physics departments too. This will crush the materialistic dogma and pave the way for a more correct and, dare I say, magical understanding of the world.

How long this progress will take depends on how much exposure of the technology, that already has been developed through these different principles, will get. My advice is to follow the space weather for the best estimate as to when the deus ex machina might appear.

*

Unriddling the Moon Rabbit

The Sudden UFO Threat

The Implications of the UFO Phenomenon (Part I)

The Implications of the UFO Phenomenon (Part II)

**

The Big Sham

Cause for Con[CERN]

The Hole Story

Time Captives

Chocolate Fuzzy Balls

 

 

Unriddling the Moon Rabbit

 

 

Perhaps you heard about Chinas lunar rover taking a picture of a geometric structure on the far side of the Moon [LINK]. It happened a couple of months ago and as the story goes they were eager to get their rover to the apparent anomaly as soon as possible, which according to them would mean no less than 3 months. 

 

The original image taken by the lunar rover Yutu 2.

Considering the fact that the rover moves at 0.2 km/h, and that the farthest distance on the Moons horizon is 2.46 km, then, even if it was traveling at half speed, and is as far away from the object as possible, it still would reach it in about 24 hours. 

When one also takes into account, that the resolution of the image could be likened to that of a webcam from the early 2000's it becomes apparent, that a blatant ruse of some kind was in the making.

One month (!) later, the Chinese space agency tells the world that they already reached the target (with no mention as to how fast they got there), and that it was merely an optical illusion, caused by... a rabbit shaped rock. [LINK]

In Chinese culture they imagine they see a rabbit in the moon instead of a human face as we do in the west. There's a Chinese proverb that goes "The Rabbit is the most wronged one.", and the word for injustice contains the character used for rabbit...

... so the question we should ask ourselves is, who's being wronged by whom?

Make what you want of this; but if you ask me it's beyond laughable. The rock is not even close to scale, and the resemblance to a rabbit is questionable at best. So what to make of all this? 

To make sense of this story a broader context is needed. Let's start with the supposition that the first picture, the blurry one, is in fact a genuine, albeit deliberately skewed, image of an artificial structure.

Assuming there's a bunch of those things up there* it should be safe to say that the US have had knowledge about their existence since at least the 70's when they started to send satellites with mapping technology there. This would also mean that the government has been part of a half-century old cover-up to hide this truth from the public; a truth that would most certainly cause some serious ruckus. 

"In 2004, a researcher named J.P. Skipper made some astonishing findings when scrutinizing the pictures taken during the US military (BMDO) project called Clementine. The picture above is just one of several in which one clearly can see tall objects blurred out." (read more here)

I would argue that China's intention with this stunt, was to give the US a three month dead line to give in to some demand; or else the cover up would be exposed. A few weeks later a compromise was reached, a random bs-photo was given to the public and the whole story was quickly forgotten.

Obviously governments negotiate and cut deals with each other all the time. And even if it's a loosely defined term, the "Deep State" - mainly consisting of intelligence agencies and financial & industrial power houses, who influence world affairs without the general public's direct knowledge - certainly exist, not only in America. 

In fact, I would be willing to bet that the great majority of geopolitical events, as they are being portrayed in mainstream media, in reality (also) happen for reasons undisclosed to the masses, by forces behind the curtains. 

The western media didn't pick it up much, but the fact of the matter is that Putin recently made a statement addressing an elusive western elite, with far reaching and ruthless influence.

[LINK]

To many this might seem like the ramblings of a mad man, but the fact of the matter is that he might as well be describing the doings of the wealthiest families in the States, just as Ferdinand Lundberg, Professor in social philosophy, lays it out in the meticulously well-researched The Rich and the Super Rich from 1968. 

With the help of an endless array of official documentation this 800 page epos makes the convincing case that those with the real power are in fact not individuals posing as philanthropists or politicians, but instead the unfathomably rich families which through (inherited) stakes and bonds control all the industries on a permanent basis - and thus also the political and judicial systems, which they in many instances have directly shaped. 

 

Professor Lundberg might not mention anything about exotic space crafts in his book, but he has a whole chapter on the Mellon's. A banker family who has been in the upper wealth-and-power echelon for well over a decade now. Now one member of this family, namely Christopher Mellon, did show up on CNN a couple of years ago, as front man for To The Stars Academy (sponsored by billionaire Robert Bigelow), talking about UFO's as a 'security threat'.

Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and member of the Mellon family dynasty.

I wrote a piece (called The Sudden UFO Threat) on the media circus surrounding the UFO topic that suddenly surged between 2017 to mid 2021. Surely the purpose of the story (which recently came back on a lukewarm drowsy wave) was many fold: buffing up the defense budget and serving as a curious distraction from other events, to name a couple.

However the point can be convincingly made, that it indeed was a demonstration of top secret, highly advanced technology**, ready to be used if necessary, maybe in an attempt to steer China away from abandoning the dollar as world currency? We all know what happened to others (see: Libya) who tried the same thing.

 

I) The video shows a UFO flying over Kyiv about a week after the conflict between Ukraine and Russia started. II) The picture is a still from the infamous Tictac-UFO video shot by the marines. It does have some resemblance to the object in the video.

Just as the Chinese Lunar rover incident made little to no sense; the New York Times shining the spotlight on a b/w flying tictac video (bear in mind the NYT categorically ridiculed UFO's throughout its existence up until 2017), clearly was about something hidden to the public eye.

That we are dealing with a deep state covert cold war is certain. The notion that other worldly technology might be involved - at the very least - deserves consideration.

 

*That there exist many of them on our Moon's surface should be considered more likely than not to anyone who has looked into the matter thoroughly - I have written extensively about it in a previous post called Moonolith.

**In a diary entry from 1985, President Ronald Reagan wrote:

"[...]Lunch was with 5 top space scientists. It was fascinating. Space truly is the last frontier and some of the developments there in astronomy etc. are like science fiction except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such we could orbit 300 people.[...]" [LINK]

Officially humankind didn't have anything even remotely close to that kind of technology in the 80's, nevermind today. For more thoughts and testimonies on hyper exotic tech of the hidden kind check out my post The Implications of the UFO Phenomenon (II)

Spell Breakers

During a short flight between Stockholm and Berlin recently, I did what I always do when up in the air, I listened to a podcast. One of my go to-pods the last couple of years is called Rune Soup by Gordon White. In this particular episode he engaged in quite a lengthy chat with a chap named Rhyd Wildermuth, of whom I had never heard of before but definitively earned a spot on my radar.

The episode, titled Politics as Religion: Ressentiment and Identitarianism, is from mid June this year and is a meta-discussion about politics - what it is and what it isn't, etc.. The amount of highly sophisticated perspectives the two gentlemen share with the listener are really staggering, so I recommend anyone who has the least bit of interest in the topic, be it ideology, philosophy or current affairs, to give it a listen.

What stuck with me the most though, were three simple examples, on how to disarm three of the most toxic spells of today's lunacy. They casually dropped them at the end of the show, and as of hearing them utter the sentences, they immediately struck me as both being highly potent as well as being easy-as-cake.

Therefore, let me share with you, three magnificent responses to three common declarations - declarations which in most cases only serve to assert power over you and the world in which you dwell (the reason why I call them spells).

5 Reasons NASA Sucks

In a day and age were everybody and his mother are wearing NASA T-Shirts - living in a European metropolis I see them more or less daily on every body from nerdy kids to grandmas - wouldn't it be reasonable to stop for a minute and ask ourselves, 'What kind of agency is this anyway?'.

Not only seen on regular Joe's.

I think so, and because nobody else seems to care, I feel obliged to share my thoughts on what I feel is anything but an honorable association. Frankly, I don't care for NASA at all; in fact, my blood starts to boil every time I see someone who unsuspectingly do free PR for them as they prance around in their €1 Primark shirt. 

Walt Disney and Wernher von Braun the ex SS-Officer who later became a NASA hot shot.
It should come as no surprise that these two got a long. 

Why? You might ask. I will tell you why. Rest assured, there are reasons a plenty (besides cancelling the Moon program or making a high ranking ex-Nazi their spokesperson) to cause certain caution whenever the logo shows up; however, the following five are the most egregious. 

5. The Golden Record

Back in 1977, NASA came to the conclusion that the satellites Voyager 1 and 2, both destined for the outer reaches of our Solar system, should carry with them a couple of LPs featuring the sounds of planet Earth. So they gave a team the task of putting together a music playlist that would be inscribed on one of the records. Needless to say, the selection could've been more varied. Especially considering it was the late 70's. 

I really can't quarrel about the traditional folk representation, but as far as the rest goes a good third of the tracks is western classical music, Beethoven even gets two tracks and Bach three (!). Of course, the whole thing was never meant to be taken seriously, predominantly serving as a PR stunt, but it still jerks me that the only tracks that wasn't in the classical or indigenous folk genre, was Johnny B. Goode, a blues and a jazz track. 

Yeah yeah, royalties and whatnot, but I mean, come on, throw some Kraftwerk or King Crismson on that b ... 

4. Dissing Cydonia

The year was 1976 and the Viking 1 probe had just completed a lap around Mars. NASA held a press conference showcasing its progress, in which they presented an image containing a stone mesa eerily reminiscent of a humanoid face. 

Frame 35A72

They laughed it off as a trick of shadow and light, blaming the particular positions of the sun and the probe during the time the picture was taken. They even claimed to have another photo supporting their explanation. But they didn't show it, because it didn't exist.

Several years later, two guys stumble upon a second photo that was taken a month after the first one, showing the same features, despite a change of conditions. (For more detailed info about the Face, check out this article I wrote a few years back)

Frame 70A13

Cydonia is the name of the region in which the possible monument is situated. A closer look at topographic photos from the area shows several interesting geographical objects in close proximity to the face. Among the more interesting ones are the two 5-sided "pyramids". 

To make a long story short.

Anyway, there was good reason to get excited, as the plan was to land the Viking 2 module in Cydonia not too long after. Unfortunately someone deemed the landing spot too risky and therefore changed it to a place far away. 50 years and a truckload of rovers later, not a single one has even tried to check it out. 

Just a big goddamn tease.

3. Losing Stuff

When I tell people that we have lost the technology to go to the Moon, they roll their eyes and go on to explain that the reason we haven't gone back since the early 70's, is simply because it was too expensive. Assuming this being true, it merely explains why we stopped going. 

However, the fact of the matter is that public announcements have confirmed that the tech used by the Apollo missions indeed has been lost. Meaning that even if we wanted to recreate the space shuttles used by Armstrong and Co., we couldn't. 

Here's Don Pettit, a NASA Astronaut, confirming the tech demise.

This wouldn't be so noteworthy, if our space faring tech was just as good, if not considerably better, today. But it isn't even close. And I would need to see a lot more, than billionaires pretending that the mid-layer of our atmosphere is outer cosmos, until I'm convinced that the know-how hasn't disappeared a long with the nuts and bolts. 

As if that wasn't enough, the original Apollo 11 telemetry tapes, i.e. the raw Moon footage Houston got before transmitting it to the world, doesn't exist anymore. According to themselves it was erased or taped over. 

What kind of headline is that anyway?
And who has ever claimed this to be a mystery?

In this extremely convoluted article on NASA's official website, called Not-Unsolved Mysteries: The Lost Apollo 11 Tapes, they give the impression that all is fine, nothing is amiss; though if one reads it carefully, they 

i) do admit that they lost the original tapes.

ii) but they found footage in a CBS News archive showing what Houston transmitted, ergo

iii) no Moon footage has been lost.

thus spinning the original query into something else, then pretending that a solution has been satisfactory given. Alas, the proof is in the pudding. According to this report, called: The Apollo 11 Telemetry Data Recordings: A Final Report (again, from their own website) they state: 

Probably ...

No? Arguably the most significant video data in history ... Gone... 

From: Not-Unsolved Mysteries: The Lost Apollo 11 Tapes

Can you really blame people for questioning if we ever went there?

2. False Pretenses

One of the main arguments for sending unmanned vehicles to Mars has always been to look for clues that might tell us if life once existed there. That's the reason why many of the rovers have been placed on what's suspected to be dried out lake beds and such - because as the story goes, the first life forms on Earth manifested in water. 

Potential megalithic structures aside, one would think that fossilized algae or other rudimentary organisms would qualify as highly interesting to any of the robo-missions. 

One would think that the following photo (Sol 034), taken by the Opportunity rover in 2004, on a rock with what appears to be crinoids, would spark some kind of cautious examination. 

Microscopic Imager: Sol 034

Click here for the original images.

I mean, if they were really serious about this 'looking for signs of life' business ...

Click here for the original images.

Instead, they activated Opportunity's Rock Abrasion Tool (a.k.a. RAT), so that they could grind down every single trace of the formations. Taking into account that the RAT is very slow, and the fact that the post-pictures were taken approximately 3,5 hours after the first ones, one have to conclude that they didn't waste any time before getting down to business. 

In the screenshot above, once again taken from NASA, the mission is clearly stated. When looking at the official results, Opportunity only gets credit for finding "signs of water and conditions for life".

It's clear that the Opportunity Sol 034 images tell a different story: either of suppression of evidence, or grave incompetence. Regardless of which, because of the RAT farce, possible alien fossils accompanied by a considerable amount of NASA's credibility, went up in smoke.

1. Perseverance, Ingenuity and Variations on a Theme

The latest addition in the line of Mars rovers was put there earlier this year, it's called Perseverance and in one of my favorite clips of 2021 you can see how the agency collaborated with newly elected Biden, for this hilarious PR stunt. 

Anyway, this rover has landed nearby what scientists have concluded must be a dried out river bed (surprise...), and therefore a great spot to look for traces of ancient martian life. It goes without saying that they once again managed to chose a landing spot not even close to Cydonia. 

This time its not only bigger, but comes with a slightly higher resolution camera than the previous models, and its very own drone, called Ingenuity (which by the way has a price tag of 80 million USD). Since its take off it has been busy sending us weekly in flight videos looking like this:  

Scouting. In black and white...

Keeping in mind the previous points made in this post (#2 and #4 in particular), when videos like See Perseverance's latest rover tracks & Mars 'litter' pics or Sounds of driving on Mars! Perseverance makes first-ever recording pop up in my feed, I can't help but to shake my head at how low the level is. And to top it all off, people get all flabbergasted by this dog and pony show. 

Some samples of the flabbiest show in our Solar system.

Because when it comes down to it, that's what it is. Nothing more than lame distractions. Sure, I won't deny the technical expertise that fodders these type of missions. Surely the engineering teams deserve their fair share of respect. Then again, this isn't about the technology per se, instead it's about the latest of a long line of rovers on Mars, which so far has done nothing that the others didn't do, i.e. taking pictures of sand ... and rocks. 

Taken by the Viking 2 lander, later half of the 70's.

By Opportunity, May 3, 2018

Curiosity, Feb 14, 2014

Perseverance, August 26, 2021

No matter how much they try to hype up the extreme importance of these missions (mostly through arguments regarding future human colonization or insight into how life arose on Earth), the curriculum is there for everybody to see, and so far it hasn't produced anything even remotely overwhelming. At least not to the public.

Just look at this list of "Top Science Findings" they present. Water (rather "signs of Water") is listed three times! Even four if you count "Right Conditions for Life" which is all about water as well. I mean really, haven't the space probes already confirmed all of the below and more since decades back?

Bread and Circuses

Thank you for putting food on our plates ...

Judging from the latest NASA Goddard Youtube-uploads [link1][link2], which are all about the agency's crucial role in monitoring crop production - as if humankind hasn't been fully competent the last ten thousand years give or take - it's easy to get the impression they are exceptionally important. 

Kind of like when Volkswagen used the slogan "We Drive Diversity" at the UEFA EURO this summer. Is it really true though, or are we just victims of dynamic marketing strategies?

The bottom line is, that at the time of this writing the biggest thing in space travel are private billionaires who can't even leave the upper atmosphere and remote controlled robots producing an endless stream of rock pictures. Considering we supposedly had people walking the Moon's surface 50 years ago, NASA's main course at the moment is under cooked technological de-evolution, served with a side dish of stone cold deceit. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, sucks. 

Big time.