Category Archives: Moon Colonization

Professor Everett Carl Dolman of the US Air Forces Air Command and Staff College extended Halford Mackinders classic Heartland Theory of 1904 to space in Astropolitik: Classical Geopolitics in the Space Age (Routledge, 2001). He claims that space is a rich vision of gravitational mountains and valleys, oceans and rivers of resources and energy, rather than being featureless.

Dolman divided space into four territories: (1) Terra, which encompassed the entire earth and extended up to the limit of a spacecrafts ability to orbit without being powered, (2) Earth Space, which included the GEO, (3) Lunar Space, which included the lunar orbit, and (4) Unlimited Solar Space, which included everything beyond the lunar orbit.

In Mackinders Theory, Heartland was a region around the then Russian Empire. Mackinder postulated that whoever controls East Europe controls the Heartland and whoever controls the Heartland controls the world. Dolmans version was that whoever controls LEO controls the near-Earth space; whoever controls the near-Earth space controls the Terra and whoever dominates Terra determines the destiny of mankind.

Realism, one of the oldest theories of international relations, believes that in the international system, states aim to increase their own power, especially in military terms, in relation to their rivals.

Throughout history, certain specific geographical features of the world have been arenas for intense competition between rival states because of their inherent commercial, military and political advantages.

According to the modern version of realism, or neorealism, the international system is anarchical, implying that there is no central authority. While cooperation between states is unlikely, an alliance or coalition between states is a possibility which in turn may trigger the formation of counter-alliances in order to balance the power of other entities in the system. Dolman believes that the state that dominates space is specifically chosen by the rigours of competition as the politically and morally superior nation, culture, and economy, obviously meaning the USA.

The 19th century American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahans concept of oceanic chokepoints which are crucial to the maritime trade routes are examples of such features ~ and such chokepoints like Gibraltar, Malacca, Bab-el-Mandeb, Suez etc. remain as crucial today to maritime powers as they were in Mahans time.

Drawing upon Mahans analogy, Dolman also characterised space as offering orbits, regions and launch points of geo-strategic significance, suggest- ing that similar space choke- points or traffic corridors will develop in space due to the efficiency costs of rocket propulsion to earth orbits leveraging the gravity of the earth. Just like the establishment of naval bases on earth to facilitate control of maritime trade, Dolman advocates the creation of space bases for stock-piling of fuel and life-support supplies for further exploration and commercial exploitation of space. A state that succeeds in gaining control of the space chokepoints and such way-stations on space routes can expect to gain significant advantages over other states; a state that controls such corridors can ensure for itself domination of space commerce and, ultimately, terrestrial politics.

As Tim Marshal corroborates in his book, in the previous centuries, dominance on earth was decided by controlling the sea routes. Airpower was added in the last century and in this century, it would likely be space power, for which the ability to place military assets in space ~, especially in the LEO ~ will become the determining factor. LEO is also the area where any spacecraft travelling to the Moon and beyond can be refuelled and resupplied, and refuelling will be a necessity if distant planets like Mars or asteroidsare to be explored for energy and mineral resources. Hence whoever controls this corridor will become a gatekeeper to the outer space beyond and can prevent a rival from refuelling within it. It is just like what is happening currently on earth in the Ukraine War ~ Turkey, a Nato member which is the gatekeeper to the Black Sea, has restricted Russian warships to sail from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus Strait.

LEO also assumes significance, as Marshal points out, for commercial considerations. A technology to deflect solar energy upon the earth for power generation using a vast array of solar reflectors will likely be placed on the LEO. Given this is also where spaceships would need refuelling, a gatekeeper can easily charge a fee to allow any space- ship to travel beyond for mining or exploration purposes. Just like on earth, space also can become an arena for intense competition. Five points denoted as L1, L2, L3, L4 and L5, known as the Lagranges Points, surround the earth where the gravitational forces of the sun and the earth cancel each other out, giving stability to a spacecraft placed therein while requiring minimal energy to keep it there.

Two of these points allow commanding views of the belts containing satellites and one in particular, L2, where the giant James Webb Space Telescope was positioned last year, is directly behind the earth in the line joining the sun and the earth. This is also where China has placed a satellite recently, allowing it to view the dark side of the moon where it is also contemplating establishing a military base. All these points will become objects of intense competition for the strategic advantages they confer. All the past efforts for disarmament of space through international consensus have so far met with failure. In 2008, China and Russia had together submitted a draft treaty called the Prevention of the placement of weapons in outer space and of the threat or use of force against outer space objects (PPWT) to the Conference on Disarmament, but the USA rejected it, as it did again in 2014 when a revised draft of the PPWT was submitted by Russia and China, on the pretext that since there was no arms race in space at the moment, there was no need for an arms control treaty. Since the USA possesses space technology superior to other nations, it will be unlikely to agree to any similar treaty. In any case, the issue is far too complex to be addressed through treaties.

Only a global governance system ~ akin to what the world is trying to achieve for climate ~ entrusted and empowered with the mandate of restoring and preserving space as a global common can provide a sustainable model for making and keeping space weapons-free, because, just like the environment, how a nation uses space affects all other nations on earth. In Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics, and the Ends of Humanity (Oxford, 2020), American political scientist Daniel Deudney examined the effects of humanitys space expansionism for colonization, military and planetary security purposes.

Contrary to the widely-held belief that space expansion is necessary for the survival of humanity from mega-disasters on earth and to meet the demands for far higher energy in future, Deudney warned against the risk of space expansion, stressing rather upon cooperative space ventures which alone can bring far-reaching security benefits by defusing conflict situations and providing safeguards against the degeneration of international relations. He cited the examples of such cooperation in respect of projects such as the International Geophysical Year (IGY) and the International Space Station (ISS). In fact, activities in space to ensure a better future for the earth will necessarily call for cooperation between space powers, whether for building large-scale orbital infrastructures, or for developing capabilities to monitor the movements of, and if necessary to deflect or destroy, asteroids, or for establishing lunar or planetary bases for manned missions to Mars or other planets in future, as a single nation will always be constrained by the demands for enormous resources and capacity necessary of such endeavours.

But for such cooperation to materialise, mutually restraining arms control in space will be a prerequisite, like restraints on testing and deployment of ASATs, creating international organisations with treaty-verification capacities and test bans in space to restrict weapons innovation. Deudney also believes that space weaponization will lead to a hierarchical world order that may ultimately degenerate into totalitarian oppression, the possibility of which cannot be ruled out given the potential for extensive surveillance capabilities likely to be developed when states compete for supremacy on earth through space-based monitoring and surveillance systems.

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space based weapons - BollyInside

May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month! You know what that means: an AAPIHM reading list. (NB: These are books that should be read/savored/returned to all year long.) I have asked a few trusty independent booksellers to recommend their favorite books by AAPI writers. They did not disappoint. Big love for the good people at Yu & Me Books (NY), Book Club Bar (NY), Loyalty (MD and DC), Wild Geese Bookshop (IN), Green Apple Books (CA), and Books Are Magic (NY) for this stellar reading list that spans time, continent, genre, and language of origin.

Although the past few years have not been easyparticularly for our communityits heartening to see the incredible work that folks are churning out. In some ways, this list is a testament to our resilience.

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Stephanie Foo, What My Bones Know

This continues to be my favorite book of the year. The prose, laughter, honesty, and research it took to write this beautiful memoir has continued to stick with me long after I finished the book. I will sometimes take the subway or walk around and randomly think of passages I read. It has helped me gain a better understanding with the women in my family throughout the generations and has given me the space to accept myself. Its an incredible non-linear and realistic way to showcase grief, loss, and self love. It will continue to be one of my favorite books of all time!

Lucy Yu, Yu & Me Books

Daphne Palasi Andreades, Brown Girls

In her debut novel, Brown Girls, Daphne Palasi Andreades delivers a series of blue-flame vignettes told by the daughters of Queens immigrants who sing the borough electric. From the opening sentence, Andreades masterfully utilizes the inclusive, first-person plural form we, a distinct ensemble of voices that create an intimate portrait of the girls households and classrooms, their friendships and relationships, their hopes and dreams.

Most impressive is how vividly Andreades depicts the overwhelming pressures (and excitement) of girlhoodbrown girlhood, that is. As the characters come of age, they take the reader on an exhilarating ride through the dregs of Queens, where they are bound together via an endless patchwork of diverse backgrounds, stories and senses-rich experiences. A native of Queens and child of Filipino parents myself, Andreades beautifully underscores the nuances of first-generation immigrant life. Not only is Brown Girls a book that is rare and special: its urgent.

Alessandro Romero, Book Club Bar

Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn, A Fish Growing Lungs

Can you feel like you still know your true self after seven years of taking a pharmacopeias worth of pills for a condition you never even had? Alysia Li Ying Sawchyns readable collection of essays, A Fish Growing Lungs, synthesizes how we think about medicine, addiction, therapy, and judgmental bookstore shoppers. In Sawchyns hands, the heavy subject matter never veers bleak (often due to the playful formatting and arrangement of the essays themselves).

Grounded like hopeful seedlings, Sawchyn details her surroundings nimbly: her sections devoted to Florida fully capture the schismatic reality of living somewhere at once so idyllic and purgatorial, and her reverence for Tampas only gay/goth/industrial/medieval nightclub will have you yearning for release on the dance floor. Brave, brief, and singular in its honesty, Sawchyns A Fish Growing Lungs is an optimistic exploration on the search for authenticity in unlikely circumstances and unexpected places.

Mathuson Anthony, Book Club Bar

Monique Truong, The Book of Salt

Monique Truongs The Book of Salt is one of those novels Ive been selling since long before I became a booksellerit is perfect for readers of historical fiction, for foodies, for fans of Paris and the Lost Generation, for those interested in queer narratives and post-colonial immigrant stories alike. The novel is narrated by Bnh, a Vietnamese emigre to Paris who works as a live-in cook to Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas at their famed house on 27 rue de Fleurus. (Though the pair did have a Vietnamese cook for a time, little is known about him, and Truong brings the mystery of who he might have been fully to life with achingly beautiful prose.)

We meet Bnh in 1934, as he accompanies Stein and Toklas to the ship that will return the pair to America, and the entire storyfrom Bnhs history as the shy youngest son of a devout Catholic Vietnamese family, disgraced and cast out after his love affair with another man is discovered, to his time as a cook abroad freighter ships, to his work in various kitchens across Paris before finding a permanent position, and a kind of home, with Stein and Toklasunfolds during this journey. Truong is a genius at crafting precise sensory detail, and The Book of Salt is evocative and visceral and heart-breaking in all the best ways.

Liv Stratman, Book Club Bar

Kim Fu, Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century

Kim Fus Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is a delightfully weird and wonderful short story collection. With elements of sci-fi, horror, and magical realism, these stories exist in that state of lucid dreaming, where the distinction between fantasy and reality doesnt quite make sense. Or, as the narrator in Liddy, First to Fly says, The realm of pretend had only just closed its doors to us, and light still leaked through around the edges. Unsettling, haunting, and strangely seductive, you will not be able to look away from Fus precise yet lyrical writing. Fans of Black Mirror, Aimee Benders The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, or Samantha Schweblins Fever Dream will love this memorable and utterly unique collection.

Christine Bollow, Loyalty

Christina Soontornvat, A Wish in the Dark

As a musical theater nerd, I was instantly hooked on the premise of A Wish in the Darka twist on the Les Misrables story set in a fantasy world inspired by Thai culture; whats not to like about that? Absolutely nothing, as it turns outI love this book with my whole heart. This captivating middle grade novel takes place in a richly imagined magical world, yet its laced with real world issues like inequality, poverty, and juvenile incarceration without ever feeling like its Teaching a Lesson.

Impassioned protagonists Pong and Nok bear resemblance to familiar Les Miz characters, but have backstories, personalities, and charm thats entirely their own. Readers of any age will find themselves gripped by Soontornvats world-building, storytelling, and clear, lovely prose, and I promise youll join me in standing up and cheering for these plucky youngsters as they risk everything in a brave attempt to rectify injustice in their society.

Amy Andrews, Loyalty

C. Pam Zhang, How Much of These Hills is Gold

Children of immigrants will feel seen in How Much of These Hills is Gold. Zhangs powerful storytellingwith raw and graphic imagerydetails the struggles of the Gold Rush. Through the adventures of two siblings in the wild west, Zhang layers on themes of colonization and land ownership, tension between dreamers and pragmatics, and identity and the limits of shaping your own fate. On the surface, How Much of These Hills is Gold is an immigrant story of survival, belonging, and grappling with family history and secrets. At its core, this magical story is about resistance and defiance against white normativity and dominance in an unrelenting world.

Jaclyn Dean, Loyalty

Lesley Chow, Youre History

Prolific film critic Lesley Chow turns her astute ear and eye to pop music in this staggering collection of music criticism. Choosing to examine pop music and some of the women in pop who strike her as strange, Chow completely turns music criticisms historic disdain for pop music on its head by illuminating, layer by layer, the genius of artists such as Janet Jackson, Kate Bush, and TLC to name a few. Written in clear, beautiful language, Chows Youre History is a must-read for any fan of music.

Malik Thompson, Loyalty

Stacey Lee, Outrun the Moon

My three children are hapa, so Im always looking for more representation of Chinese and Asian characters in YA. Stacey Lee is one of the best historical fiction writers in YA, and Outrun the Moon is a devastatingly beautiful novel. Set during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the story follows the fierce and fabulous Mercy Wong, who poses as a Chinese heiress for a spot at an elite private school for girlsand then must step up to help her privileged classmates when the earthquake leaves them homeless and traumatized. Mercy is enough reason to read the book, but the story also boasts well-researched historical and cultural details about San Francisco, particularly its Chinatown, funny and kind supporting characters, and a lovely romance. A must-read for any historical fiction fan.

Sandie Angulo Chen, Loyalty

Urvashi Bahuguna, No Straight Thing Was Ever Made

No Straight Thing Was Ever Made by Urvashi Bahuguna is a heartbreakingly honest depiction of how mental health can consume any given moment or experience. For those of us who struggle, it is painfully relatable, but for those who love someone with mental illness, these essays can give invaluable perspective. The authors account of her eternal battle and how it presents to those around her is as beautifully written as it is painful to watch unfold. The ups and downs of mental illness are hard to explain to someone who doesnt relate and never simple or the same from person to person, but Bahuguna has put it on paper in a way that made me shout Yes! Thats exactly it! every few pages.

Amani Jackson, Loyalty

Belinda Huijuan Tang,A Map for the Missing

A Map for the Missing by Belinda Huijuan Tang (Penguin Press) releases on August 9th and is definitely one to go ahead and pre-order. It is one of the best novels I have read in a long time about leaving and returning home, the mysteries of our families and how to reconcile what we choose and what we dont when our desires are contradictory. It is a powerful, yet quietly told story. I was very surprised this is the authors first novel.

Tiffany Phillips, Wild Geese Bookshop

Kyle Lucia Wu, Win Me Something

This smart debut throbs with the ache of feeling like one doesnt belongabout a biracial woman who works as a nanny, Wus sharp and clear prose explores what it means to be part of a family.

Emma, Books Are Magic

E.J. Koh, The Magical Language of Others

Fifteen year old Eun Jis world is turned upside down when her parents leave her and her brother to live in California while they return to Korea for work. Her mother begins writing letters in Korean, which Eun Ji only really begins to understand years later as she tries to translate them in an attempt to better understand her mother, her family, and why her parents decided to leave their children on the opposite side of the world. This is a powerful story of familial love, heartache, and forgiveness, that acknowledges how feeble language can be when trying to articulate the depths of our emotions, yet blooms in the understanding that we try anyway.

Colleen, Books Are Magic

Yanyi, Dream of the Divided Field

In the way that bright lights hurt tired eyes, these poems carve from their raw material an aching tenderness of similarly piercing quality. They occupy the dreamlike space where memories dwell, where hopes and reveries reside as well. Dealing in the duality, and often cyclicality, of death and (re)birth, past and future, visibility and invisibilityand all the beauty and violence that falls in between these two moving pointsYanyi, with his razor-sharp lyricism, sculpts skin-like truths within the marble of the page.

Serena, Books Are Magic

Elaine Hsieh Chou, Disorientation

This novel is biting, hilarious, a little sad, and truly wild from start to finish. It has twist after twist and I found it truly hard to put down! Ingrid is an unlikely and flawed hero who you cant help but root for, and this books exploration of being Asian American (and an academic) is so wonderfully honest. Come for the incredible cover, stay for the fantastic content.

Jacs, Books Are Magic

Matt Ortile, The Groom Will Keep His Name

The Groom Will Keep His Name is absolutely THE BOOKas in, the book I want all of my friends to read ASAP, and quite possibly my favorite essay collection! Matt Ortiles writing is full of brilliant and witty and sensual commentary on being gay, being Filipino, being an immigrant, the city of New York as aspirational, the process of decolonizing identity and the American Dream, and navigating a multitude of identities in various spaces. There are essays here that feel especially relevant in this specific cultural moment, particularly the one about how we relate to history by rewriting and sanitizing it, but every essay touched me. This is a collection of essays but also a wildly smart and sharp manifesto. I cannot more highly recommend!

Julia, Books Are Magic

Mieko Kawakami, tr. Sam Bett and David Boyd, Breasts and Eggs

By luck, I was given a copy because it was damaged and couldnt be sold at the store. It was one of those reads that immediately absorbed me; in the end I self-declared it a feminist masterpiece. Originally it was published as a novella, then adapted to a novel because of the immense recognition it received in Japan. What I love about it, and from what I gather from other readers too, is that it so painstakingly encompasses womanhood.

Breasts and Eggs takes three related women who are each transfixed or even obsessed with a different part of their own womanhood: fertility, body image, and puberty. What Kawakami does so well is have an unbiased opinion throughout her storytelling. She doesnt judge a woman for wanting breast implants or unconventionally seeking out artificial pregnancy. If we could integrate Kawakamis thinking on women into our daily lives, the world would be a better place.

Jacque, Books Are Magic

Angela Mi Young Hur, Folklorn

For fans of Yaa Gyasis Transcendent Kingdom or Min Jin Lees Pachinko, Folklorn joins the ranks of contemporary classics re-shaping the canon of family saga and immigrant narratives. Excavating the illness and pain brought by generational trauma, Hur incorporates Korean folklore, parables, and reimagined myths into modern-day science, history and research, creating a dazzling experience rooted in the search for understanding and healing.

Colleen, Books Are Magic

Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling

My purpose is precision. / Even when Im unclear Im deliberate. / When Im deliberate Im liberated.

Its hard for me to believe that this is a debut, given how skillful, expansive, and yes, deliberate Paul Trans writing is. What works so beautifully here is the way each piece plays with volumesome feel quiet, and others build into a piercing crescendo, all without saying a word aloud. Confronting themes of violence, survival, love, and more, All the Flowers Kneeling is an incredibly rich text. Gorgeous, evocative, and deeply affecting.

Julia, Books Are Magic

YZ Chin,Edge Case

I could not stop thinking about YZ ChinsEdgeCase.It follows Edwina, a young Malaysian woman working in tech in New York City who comes home one day after work, takeout sushi in hand, to discover that her husband has left her. The story floats between the present, as she desperately searches for where he is, the story of how they met and how their relationship began to crumble. Their immigration status is tentative, shes stuck in an awful tech job that oozes sexual harassment, racism, and classic tech-world toxicityand Edwina is convinced that the only way to get out of this awful situation is to find her husband again and convince him to stay. Chins writing is unflinching and sharp and will stay with you long after you finish the last page.

Eileen McCormick, Green Apple Books

Truong Tran, Book of the Other: Small in Comparison

Truong TransBook of the Otheris a searing and powerful look into the way institutional racism pervades communities, classrooms, and everyday life. This book peels back layer after layer until we discover our selves at its centeroften beautiful, often ugly, often both. This book takes to task, among many things, wokeness-as-social-currency, violent legacies of silence, and it reminds us that every one of us creates the world, both in our actions, as well as our inactions, for better or for worse. It reminds us that every single moment is a new one and with it comes a choice to change and grow and become better humans to one another. Its painful and intense and heartbreakingly urgent. Its fierce and beautiful and funny and sincere. Its filled with defeat and its filled with hope. Its difficult as the world. Do yourself a favor and please read this book.

Maxwell Shanley, Green Apple Books on the Park

Muriel Leung, Imagine Us, The Swarm

Sometimes collections extend outside of themselves, sometimes they spin and redirect back again into the reader, like light refracting off of all our hidden parts. Imagine Us, The Swarm was a collection I saw ricochet between the hearts of really great readers. Outside of having language that felt geologic, old, time-grown and witnessedthe collection also felt that it walked into the newer version of the world (one weve all have tried to grow accustomed to over the last few years).

I dont know if any of us can talk about what grief is without looking into the well of our memories, into our own histories of reaching pains and domesticated brutalities. This book is in the undercurrent. I couldnt put the book down, it is special. Leung offers us great work, from a great press. I think if you love poetry, you should read this book.

n.cuzzi, Green Apple Books

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The Art of the Hand-Sell: It's Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month! - Literary Hub

Our intuition that life is far more widespread in the universe than technology may be misleading us. Reconsideration could affect how resources are prioritized in one of science's great quests.

The search to find life beyond the Earth has followed two broad paths seeking signs of intelligent life such as radio signals, or hunting for the effects of biological activity. Having so far not succeeded on either account, it's hard to be definitive as to which is more likely to work.

Nevertheless, a study published inThe Astrophysical Journal Letters carries the somewhat counter-intuitive case for technology over biology.

The argument for seeking biological signs is simple. Not all worlds with life will spawn civilizations whose technology we can detect, indeed it is likely the vast majority won't. A star like Alpha Centauri could easily have lifeforms on orbiting planets, the chance of something high-tech is remote. The idea is implicitly encoded in the famous Drake equation, an attempt to calculate the number of technological civilizations in the galaxy.

However, Dr Jason Wright of Penn State University and co-authors argue that this simple reasoning needs to be set against four factors which may collectively outweigh it.

The most obvious of these is the ease of detection. If a radio signal is powerful enough, we could spot it across the galaxy, whereas biological signs are likely to be noticeable only around nearby stars.

There is also the fact technological life forms may spread their products far wider than they themselves will travel. As far as we know, only Earth hosts life within our solar system, but human technology can be found on Mars and the Moon and in orbit around Venus and Jupiter. It's possible some will stay functional long after not only humanity, but all life on Earth, has gone.

The possibility technology could go on self-replicating far beyond its original makers (whether through their design or by accident) also needs to be considered, the authors argue.

Finally, life is tied to planets or at least moons, while technology can exist between worlds and even between star systems.

The authors state that while those involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence are familiar with many of these arguments, they're less familiar to other astrobiologists.

To weigh these arguments, the authors modify the original Drake equation to produce two Drake-like versions that estimate the numbers of technological or biological signatures to be found. As with the original version, each requires estimating the chance of various events, often with little to go on.

Will one in a hundred planets that host life eventually evolve a technologically advanced civilization, or one in a million? No one knows, but many people have opinions. Where spaceflight is achieved, will it on average lead to the colonization of a handful of planets, or millions? The answer is equally uncertain. Depending on which numbers you pick, the authors note one could conclude biological signatures far outnumber technological ones, or the reverse.

An objective, quantitative comparison of the actual relative abundances of technosignatures and biosignatures is difficult because it depends on details of extraterrestrial life that we cannot know for certain until we have some examples to learn from, the paper notes.

On the other hand, we can probably be more certain that where technology exists, it will be easier to find than signs of life at least as long as it is still operating, rather than a colossal wreck. Technological signals are also less likely to be ambiguous.

When astronomers such as Frank Drake were first contemplating the question, they had little choice in the matter. We could search for signs of biology on Mars and perhaps elsewhere in the Solar System, but anywhere further afield would depend on radio signals. We couldn't even detect more distant planets, let alone examine their atmospheres for gasses indicative of life.

Today we know of thousands of exoplanets, some potentially capable of supporting life. Forthcoming telescopes may allow us to find evidence if it is there, at least in closer examples. Much as the JWST will transform other areas of astronomy, the authors think we'll get more value for money when it comes to finding life from the Square Kilometer Array, with its massively enhanced capacity to detect radio signals.

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Technology May Beat Biology When It Comes To Finding Alien Signatures, Scientists Argue - IFLScience

Hop-on jet service JSX spent years trying to find the right in-flight Wi-Fi before SpaceX's Starlink came along, its CEO Alex Wilcox said.

Elon Musk's SpaceX signed its first deal last week to offer its Starlink satellite internet for free onboard planes of JSX, a semi-private regional carrier which was founded six years ago.

Wilcox told Insider that Wi-Fi onboard its planes was the number one request from customers, especially when the company started to offer longer haul trips across the US.

JSX spoke to various internet providers before they realised Starlink was the perfect match. The jet service firm had been in talks with Starlink for around a year, Wilcox said.

"We've kissed a lot of frogs," said Wilcox, who is also a founding executive of JetBlue.

Other internet providers would have required JSX to stick huge antennas, which connect to satellites, onto its aircraft but these weren't compatible with the company's small, 30-seater jets, Wilcox said. JSX even tried to convince the providers to make a different antenna, but the market was too small, he added.

Whereas Starlink only required an antenna, which is 50 centimeters by 50 centimeters big and can be mounted on top of the plane, Wilcox said.

Wilcox described Starlink's technology as "compact" and "lightweight." The antenna doesn't add any fuel burn, nor does it have any drag to the plane, he said.

JSX also chose Starlink for its fast speed and low latency, given that the satellites are positioned in low-Earth orbit and are therefore closer to the aircraft and Earth, Wilcox said. Other internet providers' launch their satellites into geostationary orbit, which takes longer for the signal to travel.

"When you consider most of the other providers, the in-flight Wi-Fi is the hardest thing they do," he said. "When you consider SpaceX and the other things they're trying to achieve, this is the easiest thing they're trying to do."

Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX, a company which builds rockets designed to fly to the moon and other planets, and one day help with the colonization of Mars.

Passengers selecting Starlink WiFi on their devices while cruising on JSX jets won't be faced with a log-in screen, terms and conditions to accept, or credit card details.

"You'll accept all of that stuff when you buy your ticket," Wilcox said, confirming that the Wi-Fi service will be free.

JSX is different from major airlines because it offers more of an exclusive journey. Customers pay more to fly with JSX but in return, they receive free cocktails, snacks, baggage check, and carry-ons. They can also turn up to the flight 20 minutes before departure, Wilcox said.

Starlink will "make our customers' lives easier," Wilcox added.

Within days of signing the deal, Starlink engineers were on JSX's site testing the service on planes, Wilcox said.

The aim is to have half of its fleet of 77 planes equipped with Starlink by December this year. The other half will be kitted out by the end of next year, Wilcox said. The deal between JSX and Starlink covers service on up to 100 planes.

As part of the tests, Starlink has to make sure the antenna doesn't interfere with the safety and operation of the plane and ensure it won't get damaged by ice or other weather conditions, Wilcox said.

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The CEO of an exclusive jet carrier says he 'kissed a lot of frogs' before landing a Wi-Fi deal with SpaceX - Business Insider India

The Drake equation is one of the most famous equations in astronomy. It has been endlessly debated since it was first posited in 1961 by Frank Drake, but so far has served as an effective baseline for discussion about how much life might be spread throughout the galaxy. However, all equations can be improved, and a team of astrobiologists and astronomers think they have found a way to do so.

The equation itself was centered around the search for radio signals. However, its formulation would imply that it is more likely to see what are now commonly called biosignatures rather than technological ones. For example, astronomers could find methane in a planets atmosphere, which is a clear sign of life, even if that planet hasnt developed any advanced intelligence yet.

That search for biosignatures wasnt possible when Drake originally wrote the equation but it is so now. As such, it might be time to modify some of the factors in the original equation to reflect scientists new search capabilities better. One way to do that is to split the equation into two separate ones, reflecting the search for biosignatures and technosignatures respectively.

Biosignatures, captured in the new framework by the term N(bio), would likely develop much more commonly than technosignatures, captured in the new framework as N(tech). Logically that would result from the fact that the number of planets that go on to develop a technologically advanced civilization is much less than the total number of planets that form life in the first place. After all, it took Earth around 4 billion years after its first spark of life to develop an intelligent civilization.

But that first blush doesnt account for a fundamental characteristic of technology while it might have to originate from a planet with a biosphere, it certainly doesnt have to stay there. This significantly impacts another factor in the Drake equation L or the length of time that a signal is detectable. Dr. Jason Wright of Penn State University, the first author of the new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and his co-authors point out that four factors point to technology being potentially longer-lived than biology.

First, as would be apparent to anyone who is a fan of science fiction, technology can long outlive the biology that created it. In fact, in some cases, the technology itself can destroy the biosphere that created it. But it would still be detectable, even at a distance, long after the lifeforms that had created it had died off. And it could do so on the order of millions or even billions of years, depending on the robustness of the technology.

If the lifeforms didnt die off in the early stages of their technological awakening, they probably would want to expand to other planets and would take their technology with them. Which leads to the second factor technospheres can potentially outnumber biospheres. For example, if lunar colonization moves steadily over the next few hundred years, the Moon would become a world with no biosphere but would very clearly have a technosphere around it.

Moving even further up the technology tree, technology itself could become self-replicating, such as a von Neumann probe or another self-replicating system. These would be able to leave any originating biosphere behind, but they could also potentially keep going long after whatever biology had initially created them had moved on.

That would hint at the fourth factor that technosignatures can even exist without a planet at all, in the form of spacecraft or satellites. In fact, this might even be the most common form of technosignature in the galaxy. As such, the limiting factors of the Drake equation, which are all directly tied to a planet, dont apply to technology.

One other factor affects how easy it would be to find biosignatures versus technosignatures how detectable they are. Dr. Wright and his colleagues mention that biosignature detection is challenging in fact, we currently cant even detect Earths biosignature at the distance of Alpha Centauri. Data from James Webb might eventually allow for that. But even so, radio astronomy projects such as the Square Kilometer Array are much more attuned to detecting what are clearly signs of technology.

Just how clearly is another sticking point, though, for both biosignature and technosignature searchers. For both categories, it can be challenging to separate a valid signal from the noise, which can take many forms, such as muddied spectral analysis or heat signatures. Despite that, Dr. Wright and his team make a strong case that technosignatures at least have the potential to be much clearer than any biosignatures, which are likely unintentional side effects of the growth of life more generally.

What all this means is simple the search for extraterrestrial intelligence should continue, and it is probably more likely to find a sign of a technologically advanced civilization than it is to find a burgeoning non-technological one. Even if the civilization that created the signal is long gone, that would still hold true. That permanence can be viewed as either a somber side effect or the happy result of years of evolution and discovery. You can decide for yourself which way to look at it.

Learn More:Wright et al The Case for Technosignatures: Why They May Be Abundant, Long-lived, HighlyDetectable, and UnambiguousUT 60 Years Later, is it Time to Update the Drake Equation?UT Calculate the Number of Alien Civilizations in the Milky Way for Yourself.UT Could We Detect an Ancient Industrial Civilization in the Geological Record?

Lead image:Artists concept of a Dyson Sphere.Credit SentientDevelopments.com

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There Should be More Evidence of Alien Technology Than Alien Biology Across the Milky Way - Universe Today

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Japan, South Korea look to repair ties ahead of Biden visit - Leader-Telegram

Jasmin Moghbeli, 38, sat in a manila and pale blue quarantine room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, preparing to support the upcoming SpaceX Crew 4 launch planned for April 23. She was also most likely contemplating her own launch to the International Space Station, most likely late next year.

Its more excitement than nervousness, Moghbeli, a native of Germany who was born into an Iranian family that immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Baldwin when she was 8 months old, told the Herald last Friday. Its something Ive wanted to do for an extremely long time.

Alongside her will be Pilot Andreas Mogensen, two other mission specialists, yet to be announced, and a Crew 7 Dragan vehicle, all going into space to maintain the ISS and head back. Assisting back on Earth will be Mission Control, where Moghbeli has worked in the past.

Her experience there gives her a sense of tranquility in the face of uncertainty, knowing just how many people are looking out for our well-being out there and making sure, if a problem arises, that they help us solve it that gives me a lot of comfort, knowing the people working behind the scenes to get us safely up there and get us safely back.

Its kind of surreal to think about, Moghbeli a Baldwin High School and MIT graduate, added of making her lifelong dream a reality. Theres a part of you thats like, oh, thats never really going to happen, and to be so close to actually going into space, its kind of hard to even process.

Astronauts work is essential, she said. Anytime we explore and push the boundaries further, she said, we learn things we didnt know we were going to learn.

Focused on medical breakthroughs on Earth and the future colonization of Mars, her work now and in the coming years will give humankind the cornerstone for many firsts. A member of the Artemis Project, which will utilize the next generation of lunar landers, Moghbeli is slated to explore the moons untouched south polar region.

It is possible that she will be the first woman on the moon, there to set up a sustained presence by utilizing the hydrogen and oxygen in the water in the form of ice, which NASA scientists believe exists in that region to produce breathable air, fuel and more.

The development there will be a test before mankind attempts to settle on Mars. The importance of the moon operation, Moghbeli said, is to practice operationally how we do things on another planetary body when its only a couple days of transit, a few seconds of com delay Talking about Mars, its orders of magnitude further delays are minutes, at times more than that. Getting those practices down before that is really important.

Nonetheless, she said, We need to push out further and further into the solar system, I think that is a must thats really important to us as humanity.

Moghbeli explained the space agencys plans: Later this year well be sending [an] Artemis 1 rocket unmanned to test it around the moon, then a crude mission Artemis 2 around the moon with humans in it, and then the one after that will be putting humans on the surface of the moon again.

So far, the only experiments she knows she will be doing on the ISS are the ones on herself, as her body acclimates to space: the effects of weightlessness and radiation, as well as the psychological impact on her.

One of the remarkable things about the space station, Moghbeli said, is the diversity of the crews and the mutual cooperation. It seems to be one of the few areas where we can let go of our differences, set those aside, and say were doing this together for the betterment of humanity, she said.

She also cant wait to see Earth from a different perspective, What Im really looking forward to [about] being in space is looking back at Earth, because so many people say just seeing it, and seeing the vastness of space around it, you recognize how fragile it is and how special it is.

Leaving behind her husband and twin daughters in California, where she lives now, Moghbelis first space flight will feel different than her three deployments in the Marine Corps. Each week she and her family will be allowed a 20- to 30-minute video conference.

Moghbeli has become a role model in the lives of young women around the world, but especially in Baldwin, where she visits and speaks at the Lenox Elementary School when she can. It didnt quite sink in how powerful her story was until the Artemis program graduation ceremony, when a classmates daughter, who was 2 or 3 at the time, saw both women graduating and shouted, Mommies can be astronauts, too!

Ive traveled a lot, being in the Marine Corps, Moghbeli said. Ive lived in different parts of the U.S., and its made me appreciate Baldwin for so many reasons. Primary among them is the hamlets school system. Those teachers were so invested in us , she said. I felt I was set up so well for success I hope to come back there and visit again pretty soon.

She said she remembers when her Advanced Placement physics teacher, Barbara Reese, took time out of her day to help prepare Jasmin and a few other students who wanted even more after we took the honors physics class for the AP exam. Listing name after name, there were too many to count, there were so many people in the schools helped her along the way.

She added, Its really nice to see the support coming from Baldwin, my hometown Baldwin was the start of everything for me.

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'This is a new age' - liherald.com

In the latest installment in theMoon Knighttelevision series, things took an unexpected turn. During the exploration of the tomb of Alexander the Great, Marc Spector/Steven Grant, and Layla encountered Arthur Harrow once again. Without spoiling too much for now about their latest meeting, lets just say that things didnt go according toSpectors plans. The protagonist was more vulnerable than ever since he lost all his powers following Khonshus imprisonment by the other Egyptian gods. After some frantic action and a dreamy sequence took place,the episode ended with a surprising cliffhanger that introduced a new character in the story: a beautiful hippo goddess.

And no, its not Gloria fromMadagascar, although the description fits.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe took some liberty from the comic book source and introduced a brand-new character in Spectors story. The talking hippo from Moon Knight episode 4 is Taweret, the Egyptian goddess ofchildbirth and fertility.Taweret made her first live-action appearance when Spector and Grant (now two different entities) attempted to escape from thePutnam Psychiatric Hospital. The giant hippo, voiced by Antonia Salib,just said a warm Hello to the terrified unusual team. The images faded to black before she could say anything else or explain why she was there.

Taweret is part of theEnnead, the ensemble ofAncient Egypt gods who have watched over humanity since the beginning of time. Much like their cosmical counterpart, the Eternals,theEnnead had decided to hide after humankind stopped believing in them. Their choice implied that they didnt interfere when Thanos wiped out half of the living creatures in the universe.

Inside Alexander the Greats tomb, Layla andHarrow talked about the womans dead father,Abdallah El-Faouly. He was a very famousarchaeologist who used to wear a red scarf.Abdallah really loved his job so much that he even gave his life for it. The circumstances ofAbdallahs death involved Spector, who witnessed the assassination of his wifes father at the hands of his business partner, Raul Bushman. The motivation behind Bushmans radical gesture is that he wanted all thetreasures to himself.The name of Laylas father vaguely resembles the one ofAbdul Faoul. Marvel fans already know that he is a sort of Egyptian Captain America who fought to liberate his country from British colonizationduring World War II.Faoul was better known asthe Scarlet Scarab and wore a red scarf.

During the conversation about the death of Laylas father, Spector revealed how he died the first time. Not only did Bushman kill Abdallah, but he also shot at his business partner at the time on that occasion. Thats also when Spector became the avatar of Khonshu, who found the mercenarys corpse. The Egyptian god hinted at what happened in the second episode when he recalled Spector about his duty. The fact that Spector is still alive is proof that some characters can bind even deaths boundaries in the MCU. Spectors power might come in handy to escape his apparent second death. Shortly after their talk, Harrow shot Spector in the heart, and the mercenary woke up in the Putnam Psychiatric Hospital.

What do you think aboutMoon KnightEpisode 4? Did you enjoy the series so far? Let us know in the comments.

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Moon Knight Explained: Who Is Taweret, the Hippo from Episode 4 - ComingSoon.net

Hwang: This is commonly referred to as the worst period for Korea-Japan relations since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1965. Observers are also saying that relations have worsened under the Moon administration.

Lee: I do not completely agree with such statements. In fact, relations between Korea and Japan have worsened structurally since 2012 (before the Moon administration took office). We can say the conflict has intensified and deepened because problems were not resolved. Beyond the governmental dimension, anti-Japanese or anti-Korean sentiments are reaching a climax in both countries. On top of that, communication between national leaders has been cut off, which has continued this situation under an absence of trust. I would add that the interruption in human resource and private exchanges due to COVID-19 are additional obstacles in improving Korea-Japan relations.

Hwang: How do you evaluate the Moon administrations handling of Korea-Japan relations?

Lee: I would largely divide it into two parts. The first half of the Moon administrations term (2017-2019) can be assessed as an omnidirectional conflict with Japan. This conflict arose from issues related to politics, history, security, and approaches toward North Korea. Most of all, wartime sexual slavery and forced labor issues were the largest factors of conflict. They triggered an economic hit from Japans export regulations, which excluded South Korea from its whitelist of countries with preferential trade status. This later escalated into Koreas No Japan movement boycotting Japanese products. In terms of security, there was also mutual distrust that resulted in disputes, such as the 2018 radar lock-on dispute or announcement on the temporary termination of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). When it came to policies toward North Korea, the Moon administration considered Japan as an obstacle in reaching peace on the Korean Peninsula. Japan regarded the Moon administration as anti-Japan and pro-North Korea as a result. In the latter half of Moons term, there were efforts to improve relations with Japan through a two-track approach following US President Bidens inauguration. However, not much came of this approach. There was no clear consensus on the sexual slavery issue, nor on compensation for forced labor. On the other hand, Japan was likely watching Korea like a teacher waiting for the homework to be done with his arms crossed, rather than positively responding to the Moon administrations efforts.

Nam: I guess it is hard to tell if we can blame worsened Korea-Japan relations on the Moon administration. I can see factors that limited the Moon administrations diplomacy with Japan. The Moon administration conceptualized national identity as based on constitutional principles, and valued judicial judgement based on the separation of legal, administrative, and judicial powers. It also valued an international norm which focuses on victims. Under the given reality and conditions, at times the Moon administration decided to take a very realistic approach toward Japan, which even disappointed and confused the Moon administrations supporters. Also, due to the politicization of history, the government paradoxically happened to take the burden of resolving historical issues. This eventually resulted in civil society organizations excessive politicization of certain historical issues meeting resistance. The Moon administrations diplomacy with Japan is within the realm of pragmatic diplomacy to a certain level. As such, if the new administration excludes these strategies it would actually narrow down the spectrum of pragmatic diplomacy. Moreover, if it chooses to accept Japans one-track approach, it will face considerable domestic opposition. Moving forward, if the politicization of history gets toned down, the new government must remember the possibility that it might have to deal with massive resistance from civil society organizations.

Hwang: I would like to hear your outlook on further changes in relations with Japan after Yoon Suk-yeols inauguration.

Jo: I personally think we should avoid overly positive expectations of Korea-Japan relations under the Yoon administration. Of course, the new administration seems to be concerned with Korea-Japan relations. Cooperation between the US, Korea and Japan has become more significant due to the war in Ukraine and heightened animosity against China and North Korea. The Kishida administrations leadership is maintaining stability with 50 to 60 percent support domestically. The Japanese public seems to have very low expectations regarding Korea-Japan relations. The Biden administration also is continuously stressing US-Korea-Japan relations. All these factors point to better relations between Korea and Japan. However, Koreas pro- or anti-Japanese framing and the majority opposition and minority ruling party structure in parliament has a high possibility of constraining the implementation of specific policies toward Japan. Conservatives in Japan with former Prime Minister Abe have created a historical war framing which is now acting as a constraining factor on Prime Minister Kishida and Foreign Minister Hayashi in regard to bilateral relations. Since the two countries still have domestic political obstacles, both Korea and Japan should utilize well the momentum of Koreas new government.

Lee: When we look into President-elect Yoons overall pledges and remarks made during his campaign, he mainly emphasizes setting a future oriented and cooperative relationship with Japan not one buried under historical issues. He has consistently called for negotiating a comprehensive deal that covers all the current major issues of conflict between Korea and Japan. This includes compensation for forced labor, export regulations, interruption of GSOMIA, and so on. He also mentioned his intent to upgrade the JapanSouth Korea Joint Declaration of 1998 between Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. Moving forward, the Yoon administrations diplomatic strategies are generally in pursuit of a comprehensive US-Republic of Korea (ROK) alliance; strengthened US-Korea-Japan security cooperation; gradual participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad); and cooperation on the US Indo-Pacific Strategy. In this sense, I see a high possibility for Korea-Japan relations to naturally turn into a cooperative one.

Hwang: Despite all these optimistic prospects, I guess we can still see restrictive factors from home and abroad.

Lee: Yes. First of all, we can think of Korea-Japan relations within the context of Northeast Asian geopolitics, where strategic competition between the US and China is intensifying. Transitions are taking place with the flow and balance of power. Additionally, as Korea-Japan relations have gone from vertical to horizontal, there is disharmony and maladjustment. Under structural limitations, this new dynamic cannot be easily and naturally overcome even with a new government in Korea. Furthermore, domestically Koreas opposition party holds the majority of seats in parliament. In addition, civil rights and historical victims organizations continue to take a resolute stance against Japan. Thus, if the new administration takes a passive stance to Japan regarding historical issues, these organizations will denounce the new administrations policies as a humiliation. This will give rise to anti-Japan public sentiment, and the new administration will have to undertake the task of persuading the public otherwise.

Hwang: What would be a specific roadmap for improving and normalizing Korea-Japan relations?

Lee: We need to reopen communication between leaders on both sides through a summit. So far, Korea and Japan have maintained abnormal relations for 11 years without a single summit. Since a meeting is crucial in recovering Korea-Japan relations, we must consider the possibilities of holding a summit close to the time of Yoons inauguration. I see either Prime Minister Kishidas visit to Yoons inauguration ceremony or President-elect Yoons participation in the Quad summit scheduled in Tokyo at the end of May as likely to happen. The period after Koreas local elections in June or Japans House of Councilors elections in July is also a feasible time. This shuttle diplomacy based on leaders restoration of trust and communication is critical. In case a summit of the two leaders is unavailable for some reason, they could start thinking of holding a trilateral summit. The summit can be one of either US- Korea-Japan, or Korea-China-Japan.

Jo: The Yoon administrations policies toward Japan seem to deal with issues in a comprehensive way. However, negotiations and talks between Korea and Japan can reach a more effective outcome by using multiple gradual approaches, not a package deal. In particular, Korea and Japan must recognize that they must cover both areas of diplomacy and domestic politics at the same time. Accordingly, this approach would take some time. I also agree with the significance of Japan taking cautious moves regarding Korea-Japan relations until the House of councilors election, though the inauguration of Koreas new government will be a worthy opportunity. From the Kishida administrations view, President Bidens visit to Japan will be a necessary opportunity for the election. In this context, I would like to recommend that Japan seek a similar method in improving its relations with Korea. Lastly, I am a bit worried about Japanese politicians who are insisting on very firm hardline policies toward historical and territorial issues.

Nam: The new government is planning on a Joint Declaration 2.0 through an inclusive approach. However, the declaration back then was achieved through sharing a common goal, which was to build an East Asian community. Both Korea and Japan came to a consensus on planning a vision for peace, as well as solving and moving on from historical problems. That is why former President Kim Dae-jung assessed Japan as having contributed to the development of international society as a peaceful country after World War II when mentioning Japans postwar constitution. If the new administration strives to upgrade the Joint Declaration, how it does so will be its critical challenge. If these problems are not seriously dealt with, a final and irreversible crisis may once again strike Korea-Japan relations.

Hwang: It seems that the forced labor issue, the biggest area of conflict between Korea and Japan, must be resolved.

Jo: When it comes to the resolution of the forced labor issue, subrogation in a broad sense stands on extending the Declaration of Waiver of Compensation against Colony, also called the YS Formula. When we interpret subrogation within a wide spectrum, it is to require an apology and show of regret from Japan. Also, it is to have the Korean government provide material compensation to victims and the bereaved. Then it has a certain point of intersection with the YS Formula. If the Yoon administration can come up with a measure combining these two alternatives and present them to the people, I think it will be a more persuasive approach.

Lee: I think it is necessary to resolve the issue after the measures to withhold cashing through consultation with victims groups are taken. The scope of the conscription issue is quite wide, and I personally believe the cases won in the Supreme Court should be given priority for resolution. This means 50 billion to 300 billion won ($40 million-$242 million) should be paid to approximately 34 to 200 people. The ways to solve this conscription problem are through fundraising and subrogation through legislation. Also, they can be resolved through the International Court of Justice, the Arbitration Commission and the YS Formula. Considering the current situation, subrogation through legislation and the YS Formula might be possible.

Hwang: How about the sexual slavery issue?

Lee: I actually do not think it is the biggest issue at hand in terms of Korea-Japan relations. The essence of resolving the sexual slavery issue is restoring the dignity and honor of the victims through an apology from the Japanese government. To that end, we must solve it with a sexual slavery agreement fully involving both parties. Currently, the Research Institute on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery under the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family provides unpaid compensation to survivors and bereaved families. This compensation comes from a fund which includes 5.4 billion won from the Japanese government and 10.4 billion won from the Korean governments gender equality funds. This fund also allows the implementation of symbolic projects for historical research, memorials, and future education about the issue. An example would be building and maintaining a historical museum for the victims.

Hwang: What other efforts can be made for better Korea-Japan relations?

Nam: The tenuous disputes today between Korea and Japan trace their roots to the system in 1965. In fact, the principle of compensation was transformed into a form of economic cooperation under the Park Chung-hee regime, which resulted in Korea losing its right to make further compensation claims. Within this context, the Yoon administration is trying to normalize Korea-Japan relations. Following the Moon administrations oppositional approach, the system back in 1965 lingers as a reminder of conflicts between Korea and Japan. Moreover, as Korea has recently shifted to a middle power mentality, progressive cooperation and development in Korea-Japan relations may meet some difficulties. In this respect, I think that the Japanese government should consider these issues cautiously and make active efforts to solve these problems.

Lee: Korea needs to utilize a private-public mix. Those standing between Korea and Japan should be considered from the 1.5 track perspective. In particular, it is important to take into account the experiences of public-private joint commissions or studies on a new era for Korea-Japan relations. A Korea-Japan public-private institute can find an efficient resolution for further improvement of bilateral relations. Additionally, we may be able to develop the Joint Declaration 2.0 while preparing for the 60th anniversary of normalized diplomatic relations between Korea-Japan in 2025.

Hwang Jae-ho is a professor of the division of international studies at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He is also the director of the Institute for Global Strategy and Cooperation and a member of the Presidential Committee on Policy and Planning. This discussion was assisted by researchers Ko Sung-hwah and Shin Eui-chan. -- Ed.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)

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[Hwangs China and the World] Toward the Korea-Japan relations of vision and coexistence - The Korea Herald

Waistcoat, $2,595, blouse, $1,185, Simone Rocha.

Marco GIannavola

When have we ever believed that the world wasnt ending? asks a character in Emily St. John Mandels Sea of Tranquility. Theres always something. At a time when that fear is so acutely alive, the question is revelatory.

Depending on how you look at it, Emily St. John Mandel is either a remarkably prescient writer or simply a student of history who recognized that pandemics are an inevitable part of life. Her award-winning 2014 novel Station Eleven, set in a world in which 99 percent of humanity has perished, debuted as a television series just as America was nearing the end of a second full year coexisting with COVID. Mandels The Glass Hotel, which centers on a Ponzi scheme, had an unfortunate release date of March 24, 2020. Rather than traveling to promote it, she spent much of lockdown writing her latest novel, Sea of Tranquility (out April 5). The expansive book features a time-shifting plot that explores pandemics, moon colonization, time travel, and, perhaps most brilliantly, the idea that the basic rhythms of daily life carry us along even as our circumstances shift into unrecognizable forms. While Mandel focuses on many of the things that terrify us, she also illustrates how hope and humanity are flames that can never be fully extinguished. Recently, she sat down with Jia Tolentino, author of the acclaimed essay collection Trick Mirror, for a wide-ranging conversation on isolation, the future, and finding beauty in the mundane.Adrienne Gaffney

Jia Tolentino: Sea of Tranquility is the name of a waterless plain on the moons surface, which, in your novel, has been colonized in a remarkably humane way. The moon colonies have rivers, scheduled rainfalls. There are defects, accidents, but there is no sense that there is a sort of Bezos-masterminded inequality-magnifier extractive plunder operation.

Emily St. John Mandel: Its not perfect, as you say. But its a little bit utopian. The state of being on the moon itself is a somewhat utopian vision, the kind of antiStation Eleven. Civilization didnt collapse into nothingnesswe made it to the moon.

JT: And in this book, even further.

EM: I wrote Sea of Tranquility during lockdown in 2020, whichyou know what it was like. The constant sirens, that sense of death all around. For me, it was the feeling of being stuck in my apartment, wondering if I would see my family again, after years in which I traveled constantly without a second thought, barely noticing when I was on a plane. I found myself just imagining this beautiful place that was really, really far from my apartment. That was a way to leave the neighborhoodto imagine myself on the moon. And youre right, I hadnt thought of it in terms of the corporate-dystopian nightmare it probably would be in real life. Colony Two by Amazon. Who else has the money to do that? But I needed to think through, How good could it be? I was thinking in terms of creating a beautiful space and trying to imagine a peaceful [place] that is as far away as humanly possible. There are a lot of dystopic science fiction stories where theres some insanely oppressive government doing X terrible thing. It was just nice to imagine a space that was fairly Earth-like in the sense of being not particularly heaven or particularly hell. Its a place, its got problems; its mostly fine most of the time, but not always.

JT: Its a little funny that were talking about it as utopianyou dont go into great detail in the book, but its assumed that cataclysmic climate events on Earth have spurred this moon colonization. Huge portions of the world are uninhabitable.

EM: Yes, in my hypothetical year 2203, its not that all is lostits that there are lots of new countries, and parts of the world cant be lived in anymore. And What am I doing for dinner? and I really miss my familythese human things that I think would remain.

Marco GIannavola

JT: Its especially visible in the HBO Max adaptation of Station Eleven, the way youve rendered stately and humane some of the exact scenarios that keep us up at 4 a.m. when we roll over and look at a new climate report on our phones. You foreground a standpoint that is optimistic in that it is concerned with the beauty of mundane human existence. Are you writing yourself toward that standpoint to reinforce it, or is it native to the way you see the world?

EM: Its fairly native to the way I see the world. Partly because, when I first started out as a writer, I was very conscious that character development was a weak spot for me, so I developed an obsessive interest in the way people respond and the things they notice. And its hard to say something like this without sounding really pretentious, but I do find myself caught up in and in love with the details of the world. It probably comes through clearest in that one chapter in Station Eleven that I probably have memorized, which is just a list of things [that no longer exist]No more diving into pools of chlorinated water lit green from below. No more ball games played out under floodlights. In writing about the moon colony, I was still just thinking about what people value, and the larger question of what comprises a life. Its these details, and you put them together, and thats your day, your month, your year, your lifetime.

JT: You mentioned in another interview that you had wanted to write about technology with Station Eleven, and you ended up doing that through writing about its absence. Was there any equivalent subjectsomething you wrote about through absencewith Sea of Tranquility?

EM: In Station Eleven I found myself thinking about how incredibly small your world would become in the absence of the internet or other telecommunication systems. Your whole field of knowledge would be about a hundred square miles around you. You would belong to a very specific place. That would be lost in a world like that of Sea of Tranquility, where you could live anywhere, including the Andromeda galaxy. Especially if you carry that forward to time travel. Can life be meaningful without constraints?

JT: There is in fact something beautiful about being bounded, trapped with your family. In imagining its opposite, you have the beauty of confinement come through.

EM: During the early months of the pandemic in particular, I was so aware of trying to create a little, magical, self-contained world inside my apartment for my daughter, whos almost six. I think thats a project most parents were engaged in. That was very real.

Can life be meaningful without constraints?

JT: This novel includes something like autofictiona narrative that exists in the section about [the character] Olive Llewellyn, an author who wrote a best-selling pandemic novel called Marienbad. Olive is on an endless book tour, with all its attendant depersonalizations, the self-aggrandizement that comes from speaking onstage, and also the minor degradations. In one scene, a business traveler traps Olive in a monologue about his career, then asks her what she does for a living, and when she says she writes books, he reflexively asks: For children?

EM: That was a guy in the airport in Amsterdam.

JT: I felt sure that that was a guy somewhere. It must have been tonally difficult to write about all that.

EM: Absolutely. I wasnt sure what it was at firstmaybe a personal essay I would never publish, maybe fiction. Ive just had the sense for some time that Ive been leading a very strange life, even as I have incredible gratitude for it. Still, there are regularly these little sexist moments. What happens to me at almost every onstage event is that an interviewer will ask me what message people should take away from Station Eleven. Ill explain that I did not write it with a message in mind, and theyll say, Are you sure?

And Im like, Yes, I am actually sure. I am the expert on this particular book.

Marco GIannavola

JT: Theres one sentence in particular: In Shanghai, Olive spent a combined total of three hours talking about herself and her book, which meant talking about the end of the world while trying not to imagine the world ending with her daughter in it. I was thinkingyou wrote Station Eleven before youd had a baby, but went on a book tour after?

EM: I found out I was pregnant at the Auckland Writers Festival, told my husband over FaceTime, and kept touring until I was seven months pregnant. And to be honestand Im not proud of thisI dont think I could have written Station Eleven after having a child, because of exactly that: Imagining the end of the world means imagining the death of everyone you love.

JT: Theres this attraction in your work to transitory spaces, like airport terminals and hotel lobbies. You seem to have an interest in the kind of human presence that is revealed in these places where people are passing through. I share this attraction in terms of watching and noticing. What is it about these spaces?

EM: Theres something in that that fascinates me just in terms of the possibility of interacting with people. Maybe having a nice moment, or just seeing them, or maybe its even less than that, and then never crossing paths again. Its not like your neighborhood coffee shop, where youre going to run into people. You walk by the guy from Des Moines and thats it, the only interaction.

JT: Theres something about the way these spaces are positioned within the narratives of your last three novels, in particular, that also just suggests an essential fact of transience about our lives. Its another way of suggesting a level of scale that renders us individually and not unpleasantly insignificant. Its like were in many senses just passing through. We pass through an airport terminal as lightly as we, from at least a planetary scale, pass through the world.

EM: One of my favorite Tom Waits songs has the lyric The world is not my home, Im just a passin thru. Theres something of that in the experience of all these characters. I dont know if that just comes from me thinking about fictional characters that pass through the length of a book, or if it is just a broader interest in mortality and what it means to only be on this planet for, like, a flash of light and were gone and the world moves on without us. That sounds so morbid and depressive, which Im not, but it is what I think about.

JT: I dont think its morbid at all. I think its like the writer John McPhees metaphor that you could take the entire existence of the Earth and itd be the length of someones arm, and you could snip off the fingernail and you would cut off the entirety of human existence. I find that really freeing.

EM: Absolutely. This whole thing is so small.

JT: In this novel, a sense of mystical chance and unity is rooted in the possibility that were straight-up living in a simulation.

EM: Its possible that the experience of writing a novel has seeped into the contents of the novel. Theres something about the way novels have a sense of limitless possibility for me when I start writing themI feel its starting to creep into the structure, where there are these shadow novels under the novel. The only way to really make time travel work for me, and maybe this is a cognitive limitation on my part, was to imagine that were in a simulation. I dont know whether to keep thinking about these endless possibilities of narrative, and to keep expressing them in the weirdness thats crept into my work nowthe element about the nature of reality and the possibility of multiple universes and the shadow lives we didnt liveor to just pull it together and go back to something more straightforward.

JT: Straightforward? Oh, I vote for the weirdness.

This article appears in the April 2022 issue of ELLE.

Excerpt from:
Emily St. John Mandel and Jia Tolentino Look at the Future - ELLE