Category Archives: Transhuman News

Green Goblin, the Hasty Transhumanist – Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Posted: April 18, 2024 at 3:39 pm

“The product is certified ready for human testing.” I’m not quoting Elon Musk in relation to Neuralink. That’s the line from the fictional Norman Osborn in Sam Raimi’s original Spider-Manmovie, starring Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, and the green maniac himself, Willem Dafoe. I’ve seen this movie dozens of times, so maybe it’s due to the weird fact that twenty-plus years after this film hit the scene, we now live in a world where big science organizations like Osborn’s Oscorp seem to be dealing with similar conflicts that ultimately produced the iconic Green Goblin.

Not that Elon Musk or Sam Altman are going to start flying around on saucers and terrorize New York City. But they are eager to rush new technologies down the pipeline. Are they trying to move too fast and with too little foresight?

Osborn must show the military that his laboratory’s human performance enhancement drug is successful and can be trusted. A botched test notwithstanding, Osborn has his lead expert, Dr. Stromm, apply the dosage to himself, or he’ll lose his big deal with the military.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know what happens next. Osborn gets the bad batch of enhancers. His heart stops briefly after the trial, but Dr. Stromm resuscitates him, only to get hurled through a glass wall and murdered by the Jekyll-like creature Osborn has turned himself into.

One might credit Osborn with ambition. “40,000 years of evolution and we’ve barely even tapped the vastness of human potential,” he broods before the trial. He wants to show the military and the world that he’s taking them to the next level of human civilization. The strength, agility, and enhanced cognition enabled by this special drug will allow us frail mortal beings to become gods. Also, Osborn’s livelihood and ego is on the line. If this doesn’t work, his funding gets slashed. It could mean the end of everything he’s worked for. His idealism and his income is at stake. So, he rushes the scientific process against the recommendation of Dr. Stromm. He skips prudence and reaps chaos.

The Green Goblin emerges as the powerful but unhinged result of the enhancement drug. And Osborn loses Oscorp anyway to a board vote. Now he’s on a warpath of revenge, hindered only by Spider-Man, the nerdy kid from Queens who undergoes his own enhancement from a spider bite the same night of Osborn’s unfortunate night at the lab. Both are powerful, both are brilliant minds. The difference is, Peter Parker is curious about the world. He doesn’t want to control it or supersede it. That’s actually why he can be trusted with superhuman power. In addition, he has the grounding wisdom from his Uncle Ben: “With great power comes great responsibility.” The phrase is overused to the point of cliche, but it’s the one we need today. Spider-Man uses his power to save people. Green Goblin, the wounded idealist, the hasty transhumanist, uses it to blow up the city. Spider-Man later has to resist the allure of power gone mad when the parasite Venom comes to visit.

For us, though, if haste and folly rule today’s labs of progress, watch out. The goblins might start showing up.

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Green Goblin, the Hasty Transhumanist - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

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Serfdom Reform vs. Liberty The Future of Freedom Foundation – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted: April 12, 2024 at 5:52 am

One of the fascinating phenomena in the libertarian movement for the last several decades has been the division of libertarians into those who have decided to settle for advocating welfare-warfare-state reform and those of us who have decided to continue trying to achieve liberty.

The reformers have thrown in the towel with respect to achieving liberty. They have concluded that liberty is simply too difficult, even impossible, to achieve. The federal and state welfare state and the warfare state have become too massive, too well-established, too ingrained in peoples minds, and too powerful. There is no reasonable possibility, the libertarian reformers have concluded, of achieving freedom and so there is no point in wasting our time, energy, and resources trying to achieve freedom. Better to do what is practical work within the system to make our serfdom better and more palatable.

After all, its important to keep something in mind: Freedom necessarily entails a dismantling of infringements on freedom, not the reform of infringements on freedom. If all we do is reform infringements on freedom, the most we accomplish is an improved serfdom, but we dont achieve freedom.

Think about 19th-century American slaves. A group of reform-oriented libertarians in 1855 Alabama exclaim, Slavery is too deeply ingrained in Alabama life. Its protected by the state constitution as well as by the U.S. Constitution. Popular sentiment, especially here in Alabama, is in favor of continuing slavery. We have to be practical. We are not going to get rid of slavery any time soon. We need to devote our efforts to reforming slavery, making it better and more palatable. We need to promote legislation that will bring about fewer lashings, shorter work hours, better food and healthcare, and even a modicum of education for the slaves.

The liberty-minded libertarians say otherwise. They say, Slavery is wrong. We need to end it, not reform it. It doesnt matter how deeply established it is or how popular it is. We need to continue standing squarely against it. Constitutions, both state and federal, can be amended. We need to continue making the case for immediately ending slavery. We cannot settle for reform.

Serfdom is not exactly like slavery, but it comes pretty close. In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote his popular book The Road to Serfdom. People can debate on when the end of that road was achieved for Americans but there is no doubt that by the time the late 1960s arrived, Americans had become full-fledged serfs on the U.S. welfare-warfare-state plantation. Ever since, Americans have lived their lives to support the welfare-warfare state. Thats our role in life to work and toil to maintain the structure of serfdom under which everyone is born and raised and under which they ultimately die.

Libertarians who have thrown in the towel on achieving freedom say to those of us who are still fighting for freedom, Whats the big deal? You all can continue fighting for freedom while the rest of us have settled for reform of our serfdom. What difference does it make?

It makes a huge amount of difference!

Lets hypothesize. Lets say that we need 125,000 libertarians who want freedom to bring about a paradigm shift to freedom. Lets assume that we currently have 100,000 libertarians. Theoretically, we need to find only 25,000 more to achieve the genuinely free society.

But lets assume that out of those 100,000 libertarians, 90,000 have thrown in the towel and have decided to settle for reform. Obviously, that makes it much more difficult for those of us 10,000 who are still fighting for freedom. We now have to find an additional 90,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to reach the 125,000 critical mass that will bring us freedom.

Now, lets turn things around. Lets say that out of those 100,000 libertarians, only 10,000 have thrown in the towel in favor of serfdom reform and 90,000 are still committed to achieving freedom. That means that those 90,000 only have to find an additional 10,000 libertarians plus an additional 25,000 libertarians to achieve freedom. Moreover, with 90,000 libertarians making the case for freedom, rather that reform, it becomes a much easier task to find those additional 35,000 libertarians who want freedom.

One thing is for certain: The more libertarians who throw in the towel and settle for serfdom reform, the more diminished becomes the libertarian light of freedom. If 100 percent of libertarians decide to settle for serfdom reform, the possibility of achieving freedom is virtually nonexistent. In that case, the libertarian light of liberty is extinguished.

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Serfdom Reform vs. Liberty The Future of Freedom Foundation - The Future of Freedom Foundation

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N.Y. Libertarian Party launches petition drive for ballot – Spectrum News

Posted: April 10, 2024 at 5:32 pm

The New York state Libertarian Party is gearing up to get their presidential candidate on the ballot in the Empire State. Due to new ballot access provisions, the Libertarians and other parties without automatic ballot access will need to collect 45,000 signatures between April 16 and May 28 to get their party on the ballot.

The Libertarian Party has placed a candidate on the ballot for president in New York every cycle since 1976 with their best performance on their own line coming in 2020 with Jo Jorgenson receiving over 60,000 votes. In 2016, the partys ticket, which included former Massachusetts Governor and New York gubernatorial candidate Bill Weld, was cross endorsed by the Independence Party and received over 176,000 votes.

Candidates from a party that does not have ballot access must obtain 45,000 signatures or 1% of the total number of votes in the last gubernatorial election, whichever is less. At least 500 signatures each must come from 13 congressional districts.

Currently, the only parties in New York state that have automatic ballot access are the Democratic, Republican, Working Families, and Conservative parties. The Working Families Party has typically cross endorsed the Democratic candidate and the Conservative Party has done the same with the Republicans.

In 2020, the Green and Independence parties placed their own candidates on the ballot, Howie Hawkins and Brock Pierce respectively. This cycle, Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Partys nominee in 2012 and 2016, is leading in her partys primary and the Independence Party has slowed their activity with their party website not being active. The Greens will need to go through the ballot petitioning process as well.

Incumbent President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, are the presumptive nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties.

The Libertarians will select their official candidates for president and vice president at their national convention which will be held in Washington, D.C. at the end of May. Chase Oliver, the partys nominee for U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2022, has won five state primaries but other candidates for the nomination include 2000 vice presidential nominee Art Oliver and former party Vice Chair Joshua Smith.

Due to New Yorks petitioning process happening before the partys nominating convention, the party will be using stand-in candidates, which will step aside for the official candidates. The stand-in candidates will be former gubernatorial nominee Larry Sharpe and the partys second Vice Chair Rich Purtell. Sharpe briefly ran for the partys vice presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.

The next major election in New York will be closed primaries for state and federal legislative offices on June 25with early voting running from June 15-23. The general election is set for Nov. 5with early voting running from Oct. 26 to Nov. 3.

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N.Y. Libertarian Party launches petition drive for ballot - Spectrum News

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Understanding Freedom and Faith in Freedom The Future of Freedom Foundation – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted: at 5:32 pm

There are two major obstacles to achieving a genuinely free society in our lifetime: one, a lack of understanding of the genuine principles of freedom, and two, a lack of faith in freedom.

The first obstacle involves principally nonlibertarians. The second obstacle involves everyone, including libertarians.

If someone were to conduct a survey among the American people today in which people were asked if they felt they lived in a free society, I would bet that the vast majority of Americans would respond yes. Sure, Americans complain about how the federal government operates, about the large amount of federal spending and debt, about regulatory mishaps, about the adverse results of various foreign interventions and wars, and about various other aspects of the welfare-warfare state system under which Americans live. But I believe that most Americans would willingly agree with singer Lee Greenwalds refrain, Im proud to be an American where at least I know Im free.

My favorite quote is by the German thinker Johann Goethe: None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. That quote perfectly characterizes the plight of the American people. Americans honestly believe they are free, but it just aint so.

The first thing we need to do is to define what a genuinely free society is. A free society is one in which everyone is free to engage in any activity he wants so long as he is not violating the rights of everyone else to do the same thing that is, as long as he isnt initiating force or fraud against others.

A free society entails the exercise of such rights as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association. It also entails the right to keep and bear arms. These three rights and others are enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

It also entails what is known as economic liberty. Freedom entails the right to engage in any economic enterprise without permission of the state. It entails the right to enter into economic exchanges with anyone in the world, without first securing permission of the government. It entails the right to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and the right to decide what to do with it: save, invest, spend, donate, hoard, or squander it.

We do not live in a society that protects the exercise of economic liberty. We live in what is called a welfare state and a government-managed economy in which the state forces people to send their money to the government so that the government can give it to others. The government also regulates economic activity, such as with minimum-wage laws, and tightly controls trade with people in foreign countries. It also manages the monetary system, choosing paper money as a medium of exchange, whose value it has debased since its inception in the 1930s.

We also live under what is called a national-security state, one in which the national-security branch of the government wields omnipotent powers, such as assassination, torture, coups, and foreign interventions and wars. It is a system that is contrary to the limited-government system on which our nation was founded.

Libertarians hold that all of these aspects of Americas welfare-warfare state system violate the genuine principles of a free society. Nonlibertarians are falsely convinced that the welfare-warfare-state way of life has instead brought them freedom.

The first obstacle in achieving a free society is the lack of understanding among the American people as to what a genuinely free society entails. Now, granted, if Americans were to see what a free society entails, they might still conclude that they dont really want to be free. They might want to continuing living under a welfare-warfare-state form of governmental system. But at least then they would be making a conscious decision rather than one based on a false reality.

Since libertarians have an understanding of the importance of economic liberty, social liberty, and a limited-government republic, it is only libertarians who can lead America to freedom. But they can only do this by standing squarely for freedom and steadfastly making the case for freedom.

Many libertarians have given up on freedom and resigned themselves to making the case for welfare-warfare-state reform. Whats wrong with reform? Nothing, if all that one is looking for is an improved form of serfdom. Freedom entails identifying infringements on liberty and removing them. Reform entails leaving infringements on liberty in place and reforming or improving them.

Making the case for reform doesnt cause people to think about the principles of freedom. Instead, it focuses peoples attention on how to reform the serfdom under which they live. In the process, the lack of freedom continues.

The only way to achieve a genuinely free society is by arriving at a critical mass of people who understand what freedom is and who are passionately committed to attaining it. In order to find the people who fall within that category, it is necessary to make the case for genuine freedom. Making the case for reform doesnt do that.

Why have so many libertarians thrown in the towel and resigned themselves to making the case for reform rather than the case for liberty? The answer to that question leads us to the second principal obstacle for achieving freedom the lack of faith that so many libertarians (and nonlibertarians) have in freedom.

Why is faith in freedom important for libertarians? Given that libertarians have achieved the breakthrough that enables them to see that we are not free, obviously it is only libertarians who can lead America to freedom. But if libertarians lack a faith in freedom, how can they possibly lead anyone to freedom? Why would nonlibertarians be attracted to a philosophy that its proponents have little or no faith in?

Lets examine some real-life examples of this phenomenon.

Social Security and Medicare are the crown jewels of American socialism. These two welfare-state programs are based on the socialist principle of using the coercive force of government to take money from those who own it and give it to those who, the government claims, need it more. The system, proponents say, shows that Americans are good and caring.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Care and compassion come from the willing heart of the individual, not the coercive apparatus of the state. A free society entails everyone having the right to decide what to do with his own money.

Thus, freedom necessarily entails the immediate eradication of Social Security, Medicare, and all other socialist programs.

Many libertarians say that the system needs to be reformed, not abolished. Or they say that it must be gradually reduced over the next several years, perhaps even a generation. Or they call for opt out plans that entail letting young people opt out of the system but continue paying the taxes to fund Social Security and Medicare for those who choose to remain in the system. Or they propose a fascist type of plan that entails forcing people to invest in government-approved retirement accounts.

Why dont these libertarians favor simply repealing these socialist programs? Because they have convinced themselves that freedom wont work. They are convinced that freedom would mean that thousands of people would be dying in the streets.

America lived without Social Security, Medicare, and other socialist programs for more than a century. In fact, Americas system of economic liberty led not only to the greatest surge of economic prosperity but also to the greatest outpouring of voluntary charity that mankind has ever seen.

There is no doubt that if Social Security, Medicare, and other socialist programs were to be suddenly repealed today, everyone would be fine. The wealthy dont need the help. Those in the middle would have to adjust, perhaps by returning to work or reducing expenditures. For those truly in need, there would be more than sufficient help from children, grandchildren, church groups, charitable foundations, friends, relatives, physicians, hospitals, and neighborhood groups.

Permit me one example from personal experience. I grew up in Laredo, Texas, one of the poorest cities in the United States. There was no Medicare or Medicaid. Every day, doctors offices were filled with people, many of whom could not pay. Nonetheless, there was never an instance where a doctor refused to treat a patient based on inability to pay. They did it out of a sense of moral obligation. Thats what happens in a free society.

Lets take another example immigration. For our entire lives, we have lived under a socialist immigration system, one based on the core socialist principle of central planning. Under central planning, the government determines the total number of immigrants that will be permitted into the country, the number of immigrants allocated to each country, the qualifications necessary for entry, the number permitted to work (i.e. green cards), and other such things.

It simply cannot be done, at least not without what the famous free-market economist Ludwig von Mises called planned chaos. What better term to describe the situation on the U.S.-Mexico border for the last 80 years, at least? Immigration central planning is the cause of Americas decades-old, never-ending, ongoing immigration crisis.

The system comes with a massive police state along the border in order ensure that foreigners do not enter the country illegally or without an invitation. This system entails warrantless searches of farms and ranches within 100 miles of the border, highway checkpoints, roving Border Patrol checkpoints, boarding of Greyhound buses to check for peoples papers, and the criminalization of hiring, harboring, helping, or transporting immigrants who are here illegally. It is also a system that comes with death, suffering, humiliation, and abuse.

The solution is to eradicate the socialist cause of the problem. In the area of immigration, that means the immediate dismantling of the Border Patrol, the immigration service (ICE), and all restrictions on the freedom of goods, services, and people to cross political borders.

Economic liberty is the solution to the perpetual crisis, death, suffering, and police state that comes with socialism. I repeat what I have been saying for more than 30 years: Economic freedom is the only solution to the immigration morass caused by socialism.

Too many libertarians have lost faith in freedom. They have convinced themselves that freedom simply will not work, at least not in the area of immigration. What they fail to recognize is that the free market and the price system are the best and most efficient regulators of human activity. Think about the United States. It has the biggest open border area in history open borders between the states. In the past few years, countless Californians have flooded into Austin, Texas. Do you see any chaos there? Oh, sure, people have had to adjust to the massive influx of people. But as more people have moved into Austin, the prices have risen, which has induced other people to live further away or even in another part of the country. What you dont see is thousands of Californians at the Texas border clamoring to get into the state, like we see on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Another example: Every day, hundreds of thousands of people cross back and forth between Maryland and my state of Virginia. There are no border guards regulating the flow. No one is checking for terrorists, criminals, or people with Covid or other illnesses.

Libertarian proponents of immigration controls also point to the migrant crisis in American cities. What they forget is that the government prevents migrants from working without a green card. Thus, the state then feels the need to take care of the people they wont permit to work. In a free market, everyone would be free to work, and the state wouldnt need to be taking care of anyone.

A third example: education. The genuinely free society is based on the separation of school and state that is, the end of all government involvement in education, just as our ancestors did with religion. Thus, freedom necessarily means making the case for educational liberty.

All too many libertarians have thrown in the towel on this area of statism as well. They have convinced themselves that educational liberty simply will not work that children would simply not be educated if the state did not maintain its coercive apparatus of mandatory schooling.

Thus, many libertarians have chosen to go down the road to reform with the advocacy of school vouchers, a reform program that leaves the public-school system intact but uses the coercive apparatus of the state to take money from people to whom it belongs in order to fund the education of children from other families.

Making the case for vouchers is totally different from making the case for educational liberty. Vouchers leaves the socialist educational system intact and purports to make it better through choice and competition. Educational liberty entails making the much more difficult case of ending all governmental involvement in education.

A fourth example of this phenomenon involves the drug war. The government punishes people for ingesting substances that the government disapproves of. Genuine freedom entails the immediate repeal of all drug laws that is, it involves the right of people to ingest whatever they want, no matter how harmful or destructive.

All too many libertarians have given up in this area as well and have settled for calling for reform, such as the repeal or reform of mandatory-minimum sentences or asset-forfeiture laws or the legalization of only marijuana and not the so-called hard drugs. They have convinced themselves that if drugs were legalized, most everyone in society would become drug addicts. Since many addicts would undoubtedly go on Medicaid to seek treatment for their addiction, some libertarians undoubtedly have concluded that we cant end drug laws until weve ended Medicaid. Thus, like with Social Security, Medicare, immigration, and education, they continue supporting a program that brings with it perpetual crisis, chaos, death, suffering, and police-state coercion.

Libertarians are the only ones who can lead America to freedom because libertarians have a firm grip on reality when it comes to freedom. But leading America to freedom requires a faith in freedom. If libertarians are to lead America to freedom in our lifetime, it is necessary for libertarians to restore a faith in freedom in themselves.

This article was originally published in the March 2024 issue of Future of Freedom.

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Understanding Freedom and Faith in Freedom The Future of Freedom Foundation - The Future of Freedom Foundation

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Arizona voters question petition for Libertarian candidate: Not even close to my signature – Washington Examiner

Posted: at 5:32 pm

Multiple Arizona voters say their signatures were forged in Libertarian Michelle Martins paperwork to run in Arizonas 1st Congressional District.

Four people told the Arizona Republic that they had not signed the petition that their signatures were on. In order to appear on the ballot in Arizona, candidates must gain a number of signatures proportional to the number of registered voters in their district.

That is definitely not me. Not even close to my signature. Thats very upsetting, Stephen Riordan, a Phoenix resident whose name and signature were listed on Martins paperwork, said.

Martin submitted 1,200 signatures, which is more than the required at least one-half of one percent of registered voters in the district needed to get on the ballot.

Im disappointed, Shannon Speagle, another resident whose signature was allegedly forged, said. It completely delegitimizes this candidacy. She said her signature was bogus. Speagle said she asked three additional neighbors to verify their signatures on the petition. They say their signatures were also bogus.

Martin did not respond to the Arizona Republic for comment. Several signature gatherers also did not respond for comment.

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Arizonas newly redrawn 1st District is now labeled a toss-up going into the 2024 general election.

Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) has represented the district for more than a decade and will have to defend his seat in an area that has voted increasingly blue in recent years. In 2022, Schweikert kept his seat in the House by a narrow margin of 3,000 votes.

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Arizona voters question petition for Libertarian candidate: Not even close to my signature - Washington Examiner

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Soyuz Spacecraft Undocks to Return Three Crewmates to Earth – NASA Blogs

Posted: April 6, 2024 at 11:37 am

The Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft with three crewmates aboard slowly backs away from the space station after undocking from the Rassvet module. Credit: NASA TV

At 11:54 p.m. EDT on Friday, NASA astronaut Loral OHara, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, undocked from the International Space Station in the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft to begin the journey back to Earth. The Soyuz is heading for a parachute-assisted landing Saturday, April 6, on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan.

NASA coverage of the crews deorbit burn and landing will begin at 2 a.m. on NASA+, NASA TV, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agencys website with landing scheduled at 3:17 a.m. (12:17 p.m. Kazakhstan time).

After landing, the Soyuz MS-24 crew will split up, as per standard crew return practice, with OHara returning to NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston.

With the undocking of the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft with OHara, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya, Expedition 71 officially began aboard the station. NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Tracy Dyson, and Jeannette Epps as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko make up Expedition 71 and will remain on the station until this fall.

Learn more about station activities by following thespace station blog,@space_stationand@ISS_Researchon X, as well as theISS FacebookandISS Instagramaccounts.

Get weekly video highlights at:https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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Multinational team safely returns to Earth from the International Space Station – UPI News

Posted: at 11:37 am

1 of 3 | NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara (C) is shown after the landing of a Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft Saturday in Kazakhstan. She and fellow Expedition 70 members Oleg Novitskiy of Russia and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya landed in a remote area near the town of Zhezkazgan following a stay on the International Space Station. Photo provided by Roscosmos/EPA-EFE

April 6 (UPI) -- NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, Belarus's Marina Vasilevskay and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky successfully returned to Earth Saturday after spending time on the International Space Station.

The trio landed near Karaganda, Kazakhstan, at 3:17 a.m. EDT after spending 3.5 hours aboard a Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft, the Russian news agency TASS reported.

They departed the International Space Station at 11:54 p.m. EDT Friday.

O'Hara and Vasilevskaya completed their first missions aboard the International Space Station, while Novitsky completed his third. Vasilevskaya is Belarus' first citizen to enter space.

O'Hara arrived on the space station on Sept. 15 to undertake a six-month research mission during her first spaceflight. She spent 204 days in space while orbiting the Earth 3,264 times and covering a distance of more than 86.5 million miles, according to NASA.

O'Hara's mission was in support of NASA's Artemis campaign to explore the Moon to make scientific discoveries, advance technology and learn how to live and work on another celestial body.

While she was on the ISS, O'Hara studied heart health, space manufacturing techniques and cancer treatments.

NASA officials said O'Hara's mission will help the space agency prepare for further exploration of the Moon and eventual crewed missions to Mars.

Vasilevskaya and Novitsky arrived at the space station on March 23 for two-week missions. Novitsky has made four spaceflights and spent a combined total of 545 days in space across the four missions.

Vasilevskaya is a flight attendant for Belavia Airlines and has a total of 14 days in space.

The ISS remains fully manned with NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Tracy Dyson and Jeannette Epps.

Cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin and Oleg Kononenkoalso are also aboard the Earth-orbiting ISS until fall.

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Multinational team safely returns to Earth from the International Space Station - UPI News

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A Soyuz capsule carrying 3 crew from the International Space Station lands safely in Kazakhstan – Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Posted: at 11:37 am

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Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe

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A Soyuz capsule carrying 3 crew from the International Space Station lands safely in Kazakhstan - Bozeman Daily Chronicle

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Soyuz capsule with crew of 3, including 1st female astronaut from Belarus, lands safely to end ISS mission – Space.com

Posted: at 11:37 am

The first female Belarusian in space, alongside a NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut, came back to Earth early this morning (April 6).

A Rusian Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus landed near Karaganda, Kazakhstan at 3:17 a.m. EDT (0717 GMT; 12:17 p.m. local Kazakhstan time), about 3.5 hours after departing the International Space Station (ISS) at 11:54 p.m. EDT (0354 GMT) on Friday April 5.

O'Hara, selected by NASA in 2017, and Vasilevskaya were both on their first missions. Novitskiy had already conducted three long-duration missions aboard the ISS: Expeditions 33/34 in 2012-13, Expeditions 50/51 in 2016-17 and Expeditions 64/65 in 2021.

Related: 3 spaceflyers arrive at the ISS aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft

Novitskiy, Vasilevskaya and NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson lifted off from Kazakhstan on March 23 aboard a different Soyuz. Their launch came after a rare abort of a Soyuz rocket two days before, which was traced to a battery issue that was swiftly resolved. O'Hara, meanwhile, launched on yet another Soyuz last September, spending 204 days in space before coming home today.

Belarus is a military ally of Russia, particularly after the latter's internationally condemned invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that is still ongoing. Belarus was thus invited by Russia for a short-term ISS mission. (NASA and other space agencies severed most of their relationships with Russia after the invasion, but the nation's participation in the ISS program program continues more or less unchanged.)

Flight attendant Vasilevskaya, 33, won her seat through the Belarus Academy of Sciences and Belarus Space Agency after a nationwide contest that attracted 3,000 applicants. She and six other finalists were considered for the flight; when Vasilevskaya was chosen, her backup was 28-year-old pediatric surgeon Anastasia Lenkova.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

"I'm overwhelmed with emotions. It's something incredible," Vasilevskaya said immediately after being lifted from the Soyuz capsule. "I wish all people on Earth to treasure and cherish what they have because it is precious.

"We wanted to stay longer [on the ISS], but it is great to be back."

Each of the crew members was showered with gifts after being lifted from the Soyuz capsule including Matryoshkadolls, or stacking dolls, bearing their likenesses.

Vasilevskaya is the first citizen of the Republic of Belarus to reach space. Pyotr Klimuk and Vladimir Kovalyonok, however, were both from the former Belarus Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and flew to space for the first time in 1973 and 1977, respectively. (Belarus and a number of other former Soviet states became independent after the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s.)

The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, which carried Vasilevskaya, O'Hara and Novitskiy to orbit about two weeks ago, is still docked to the ISS. It will come back in the fall with Dyson and cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, after the Russians complete a year in space.

The space station is also currently host to the SpaceX Crew-8 Dragon spacecraft with the remaining astronauts of Expedition 71: NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barrett andJeannette Eppsand cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. They launched on March 4 for an expected half-year stay in space.

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Soyuz capsule with crew of 3, including 1st female astronaut from Belarus, lands safely to end ISS mission - Space.com

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Will the 2024 total solar eclipse be visible from space? – Space.com

Posted: at 11:37 am

NASA astronauts and weather satellites will watch next week's solar eclipse from space.

SpaceX Crew-8 astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), alongside at least one of the two Russian Soyuz crews on board right now, will experience a "very unique vantage point" when a total solar eclipse sweeps across Mexico, the United States and Canada on April 8, a senior NASA manager said during a livestreamed eclipse science briefing on March 26.

"Instead of looking up at the moon casting the shadow, they'll also be able to see the shadow racing across the Earth," said Pam Melroy, NASA deputy administrator and former astronaut, in the briefing. "So, there is involvement, and they will be able to participate in that way."

The current ISS track suggests the astronauts will have three chances to watch the eclipse, NASA said in a follow-up release: they'll see the shadow cast by a partial eclipse above the Pacific Ocean, a partial above California and Idaho, and perhaps totality over Maine and New Brunswick at 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT.) Satellites will also have a good view of the unique event, the agency said.

Related: Why ISS astronauts won't know where to look for next total solar eclipse for a while

Total solar eclipses happen when the moon completely blocks the sun from Earth's perspective. Luckily, you don't need to be in space to see the event. As long as you're in the right geographical location on our planet and the skies are clear, you can see the highly anticipated event. You can find out how to do so safely in our sun-observing guide.

ISS astronauts won't be the only ones watching the eclipse from orbit. Two satellites in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) series, which is jointly operated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will use ultraviolet imagers to gaze at the sun, officials said in the March 26 briefing. The imagers on GOES-16 and GOES-18 will capture the moon's disk passing in front of the sun, while advanced baseline imagers on the satellites will track the moon's shadow.

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Two other satellites are scheduled to launch to space post-eclipse for even more solar observations: NOAA's GOES-U will fly no earlier than June 25 this year to examine the corona, or outer atmosphere of the sun. Also, NOAA's Space Weather Follow On L1 (SWFO-L1) will fly a million miles from Earth in 2025 to Lagrange Point 1, a gravitationally stable point in space. There, the satellite will examine space weather, or the effect the sun's activity has on our planet.

Expedition 71 astronauts on the ISS will be witness to the rare event in space. That group includes Crew-8 and the long-duration astronauts set to come home this fall on Soyuz MS-25. (A short-duration Soyuz crew is in space now, but is expected to return home before eclipse day.)

The astronauts on board the ISS are well trained in taking pictures of dynamic events, but the challenge is their orbit, Crew-8 NASA astronaut Michael Barratt told Space.com on Jan. 25 during a pre-launch telephone interview from NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Since the ISS needs to boost its orbit periodically to avoid falling back into Earth's atmosphere, and may need a last-minute shift to avoid space debris, the astronauts won't have their exact location until close to April 8, he said.

"Every once a while, we have to tweak the orbit of our station to avoid hitting stuff," Barratt said. "The closer we get [to April], the more we'll be able to sharpen our approach. We'll know what our viewing angle is going to be."

Barratt did point out one advantage for ISS observations: Compared to the last total solar eclipse that swept across the U.S. in 2017, the camera technology is improved. He didn't see that eclipse from space, but he did have a unique vantage point on board an Alaska Airlines charter flight observing it at 40,000 feet (12,200 meters).

"The shadow was just speeding, hurtling towards the mainland. It was really amazing to me," he recalled of the 2017 eclipse in the Space.com interview.

The ISS is jointly co-managed by NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency. Expedition 71 mission specialist Alexander Grebenki, a cosmonaut who's part of Crew-8, told Space.com on Jan. 25 that he hadn't received specifics yet on eclipse observations.

"I didn't really train specifically for the observing," Grebenkin said, speaking in Russian through an English interpreter. "I do know that it's going to happen, and I am planning to do my best to take pictures and also observe the event itself."

If you're looking to observe the solar eclipse on Earth, we have you covered. Our guide onhow to observe the sun safelyguide tells you what you need to know to look at the sun. We also have a guide to solar eclipse glasses, and how to safely photograph the sun if you'd like to get practicing before the big day.

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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Green Goblin, the Hasty Transhumanist – Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence

Serfdom Reform vs. Liberty The Future of Freedom Foundation – The Future of Freedom Foundation

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Understanding Freedom and Faith in Freedom The Future of Freedom Foundation – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Arizona voters question petition for Libertarian candidate: Not even close to my signature – Washington Examiner

Soyuz Spacecraft Undocks to Return Three Crewmates to Earth – NASA Blogs

Multinational team safely returns to Earth from the International Space Station – UPI News

A Soyuz capsule carrying 3 crew from the International Space Station lands safely in Kazakhstan – Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Soyuz capsule with crew of 3, including 1st female astronaut from Belarus, lands safely to end ISS mission – Space.com

Will the 2024 total solar eclipse be visible from space? – Space.com

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