The U.N. General Assembly has implicitly recognized a sovereign state of Palestine, despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding much-needed funds for the West Bank government. A Palestinian resolution that changes the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. observer status from “entity” to “non-member state,” like the Vatican, has passed in the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly. Israel, the United States and a handful of other members have voted against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians.
I’m sure plenty of you have been asking yourself the same question as I have. Why are we not going into space anymore? Why are we not exploring the universe? I mean if we humans plan to slowly kill our planet with pollution and terrorism, we should have a Plan B in place right. So here a breakdown of what is currently happening. In the original space race of the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union launched the first human being, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit in 1961. The United States gradually caught up; Neil Armstrong was first to walk on the moon in 1969. But after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, the U.S. decided to wind the program down. It is now trying to outsource some launches to private companies such as SpaceX. In the meanwhile, you will be surprised to hear that, the Chinese space program is slowly moving along. In June it launched its first female “taikonaut” — as Chinese astronauts are known — and performed a docking with an orbiting laboratory. It talks of establishing its own space station by 2020 and later sending explorers to the moon. I think it’s time for the US administration to release further space exploration funds, otherwise China will not only dominate our world but perhaps some other planets on top of it.
The U.N. General Assembly has implicitly recognized a sovereign state of Palestine, despite threats by the United States and Israel to punish the Palestinian Authority by withholding much-needed funds for the West Bank government. A Palestinian resolution that changes the Palestinian Authority’s U.N. observer status from “entity” to “non-member state,” like the Vatican, has passed in the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly. Israel, the United States and a handful of other members have voted against what they see as a largely symbolic and counterproductive move by the Palestinians.
I’m sure plenty of you have been asking yourself the same question as I have. Why are we not going into space anymore? Why are we not exploring the universe? I mean if we humans plan to slowly kill our planet with pollution and terrorism, we should have a Plan B in place right. So here a breakdown of what is currently happening. In the original space race of the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union launched the first human being, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit in 1961. The United States gradually caught up; Neil Armstrong was first to walk on the moon in 1969. But after the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003, the U.S. decided to wind the program down. It is now trying to outsource some launches to private companies such as SpaceX. In the meanwhile, you will be surprised to hear that, the Chinese space program is slowly moving along. In June it launched its first female “taikonaut” — as Chinese astronauts are known — and performed a docking with an orbiting laboratory. It talks of establishing its own space station by 2020 and later sending explorers to the moon. I think it’s time for the US administration to release further space exploration funds, otherwise China will not only dominate our world but perhaps some other planets on top of it.