Post by rk0atheist on Jan 6, 2024 10:40:24 GMT -5
Who owns the Moon?
Navajo Nation’s objection to landing human remains on the moon prompts last-minute White House meeting
January 6, 2024
www.cnn.com/2024/01/05/world/peregrine-moon-mission-navajo-nation-objection-human-remains-scn/index.html
The White House has convened a last-minute meeting to discuss a private mission to the moon — set to launch in days — after the largest group of Native Americans in the United States asked the administration to delay the flight because it will be carrying cremated human remains destined for a lunar burial.
If successful, the commercial mission scheduled to launch Monday — dubbed Peregrine Mission One — will be the first time an American-made spacecraft has landed on the lunar surface since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. But Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren said that allowing the remains to touch down there would be an affront to many indigenous cultures, which revere the moon.
“The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology,” Nygren said in a Thursday statement. “The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations.”
Peregrine Mission 1 (TO2-AB)
nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=PEREGRN-1
Launch will take place from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rocket in the VC2S configuration, with 2 GEM-63XL solid boosters, a standard short faring, and two RL10 engines in the Centaur upper stage. The launch window opens on 8 January 2024, with launch currently scheduled at 07:18 UT with a 45 minute launch window.
Human Remains Are Headed to the Moon, Despite Objections
The Navajo Nation has called for a delay in launching the commercial lander Peregrine, which is set to carry human remains on a private mission to the moon
JANUARY 5, 2024
www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-remains-are-headed-to-the-moon-despite-objections/
In the meantime, the spacecraft in question, called Peregrine, as well as its developer and operator, the Pennsylvania-based company Astrobotic, have the chance to become the very first private effort to achieve a gentle lunar landing. If successful, Astrobotic would join only four entities—nation-states all—that have accomplished the feat: the former Soviet Union, the U.S., China and India. And legally, there’s nothing stopping them.