Yet Another Stealthy Space Meeting In Washington, DC

Keith's note: There has been a meeting (actually an "unconference") called "Decolonize Mars" at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC this attended by people who do not want to colonize Mars.

According to the unconference website "The term decolonization refers to undoing the legacy of colonialism. Many people are used to hearing about "colonizing Mars" to talk about humanity living in space; here, we examine how using a colonialist framework in space reproduces past harm from humanity's history on Earth. This event is about envisioning fresh pathways for thinking about space exploration by stepping away from the ways we usually talk about space, which by definition is "decolonizing" the topic. Hence, "Decolonizing Mars"."

In other words they only seem to want like-minded attendees. Not that I don't agree with part of what I think they are getting at since we have certainly screwed up this planet - but there's a clear bias on one side of the argument in the mission statement. They are tweeting with the hashtag #decolonizemars but the invitation-only attendee list is password-protected. No media seem to have been allowed. No webcast. Nothing. This is rather odd for a meeting in a government facility convened by government employees.

This meeting was organized by the current Baruch S. Blumberg/NASA Chair of Astrobiology at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. I knew Barry Blumberg rather well. Barry wanted to tell everyone about everything. I am not certain he'd like this closed door approach. This is just more DC choir practice in an echo chamber by a subset of the usual suspects. The remaining 99.9% of the people who pay for this party get left out. Just sayin'

from NASA Watch https://ift.tt/2yVCqzj
via IFTTT