Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Saturday, 23 January 2016

The European Union Times


Posted: 23 Jan 2016 08:10 AM PST

President Barack Obama announced his administration is giving $80 million to help repairs Flint’s water infrastructure and make the drinking water safe, calling the situation “inexcusable.” The head of Michigan’s Environmental Protection Agency resigned.
“We’re going to have that funding available to you by the end of next week, and that includes $80 million for the state of Michigan,” Obama told a gathering of mayors at the White House on Thursday, according to the Detroit News. “Our children should not have to be worried about the water that they’re drinking in American cities. That’s not something that we should accept.”
Obama said the money would come from the recent bipartisan budget allocated to help cities build water infrastructure, and would be separate from the $5 million already allocated to the state through an emergency declaration Obama made on Saturday. The allocation is also separate from the money sought by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder in his appeal letter to the president on Wednesday, asking Obama to reconsider on his lack of support for major disaster relief.
“It was encouraging to hear President Obama say that $80 million will be coming to Michigan to help local governments, like the City of Flint, improve their water systems,” Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement from Washington, DC, according to the Detroit News.
“The residents of Flint could benefit greatly from that type of money. We are waiting to see how much of the $80 million will be allocated to the City of Flint and how much of it will go elsewhere, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
Michigan’s Legislature is fast-tracking $28 million in state funds, which are intended to buy more bottled water and filters. The money is also supposed to be used to back health and educational services for children with elevated levels of lead in their blood.
Meanwhile, the regional head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Michigan, Susan Hedman, announced her resignation on Thursday. She has been accused of not doing enough to prevent the contaminated water crisis.
Hedman told the Detroit News last week that her office knew in April 2015 that Flint’s decision to switch to the Flint River for its water supply “could increase pipe corrosion and spiked lead levels.” She did not take any public action, instead choosing to try and pressure Michigan officials to address the situation internally.
Dan Wyant, director of Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality, already resigned in December for his role in the crisis.
Emails released by Governor Snyder on Wednesday showed that his staff and the environmental agency spent months last year pointing fingers at local and federal offices for the lead problem as they downplayed concerns.
The EPA also sent a letter to Snyder Thursday officially declaring that Flint is violating federal drinking water rules, and must work quickly to fix them.
EPA head Gina McCarthy said the agency “is deeply concerned by continuing delays and lack of transparency and has determined that the actions required by the order … are essential to ensuring the safe operation of Flint’s drinking water system and the protection of public health,” according to the Hill.
The problem with Flint’s water began in April 2014, when the city switched from Detroit’s water supply to water from the Flint River in a cost-cutting measure. Despite the water having high salt content, it was piped untreated into homes and offices. The salt corroded the lead in the pipes, causing the water to become contaminated. Residents then began complaining about dirty water with a bad smell and taste, as high lead levels started appearing in the blood samples of children.
The city switched back to Detroit’s water supply in October, but only after months of complaints and protest from residents, who were angry that the government had ignored alarms raised by doctors and scientists. Lead contamination can cause brain damage and other health problems.
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Posted: 23 Jan 2016 08:05 AM PST

Swedish media have published screenshots of a video in which a man hit a woman with a child on the subway. The woman prevented the culprit from committing a theft and for that he attacked her.
Some Swedish media, such as the SVT channel hid the face of a criminal by pixelating it. This is despite the fact that the police appealed to the public to help find the attacker.
The question of how citizens should seek a ‘man without a face’ was a concern that was raised by the television journalists.
Stockholm police asked for help in finding the perpetrator who hit a woman, after she prevented the robbery on 5 January. Until now, the search has been unsuccessful, Swedish Fria Tider wrote.
The young woman with two small children noticed that the man attempted to rob an elderly woman and yelled at him. The man punched her in the face and spat on her, and then he quickly disappeared.
The tolerant Swedish television, however, did little to help the police as in the story of the crime the wanted man is beyond recognition due to the pixeled image of his face.
​The decision caused a wave of sarcasm and indignation on social networks.
“Good idea to hide the face, SVT. Otherwise someone will suddenly recognize him and he will be caught,” one Twitter user wrote sarcastically.
“Why did you hide the face, when the police have clearly asked for help in his capture?” another person wrote.
SVT journalists, however, expressed confidence in their actions. “The main principle of SVT: we never show people the suspects, who are not yet convicted. We are not a court and can never know the whole picture,” according to their comment on Facebook.
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Posted: 23 Jan 2016 07:54 AM PST

The International Monetary Fund is recommending that a million European migrants from the Middle East and Africa be paid below the minimum wage.
The international organization argues undercutting the European labor market is the only feasible way to integrate the migrants.
EuroActiv, a source for European Union news, reported on Wednesday:
For the IMF, employment is the major means by which the refugees will become economically integrated in their host countries. To accelerate their integration, the IMF recommends the implementation of “temporary and limited derogations of the minimum wage for refugees”. The aim of this measure would be to redress the initial imbalance on the labour market between the recent immigrants and the native population.
As the German economist Hans Werner Sinn notes, the huge influx of largely unskilled migrants will put pressure on the wages of domestic low-skilled workers. Sinn uses the United States as an example.
In the United States there are “8.3 million native-born workers 18 years of age or older working full-time who have not completed high school. In addition, there are 3.4 million adult native-born Americans who lack a high school education working part-time. There is a good deal of evidence that these workers are in direct competition with Mexican immigrants,” reports the Center for Immigration Studies.
In 1997 the Brookings Institution published a paper showing that natives and immigrants who do not have a high school education usually hold similar jobs and concluded that immigration had a significant adverse impact on the wages of natives.
Larry Neal writes (The Economics of Europe and the European Union) that instead of a decline in wages for unskilled native workers, an influx of immigrant workers has in the past resulted in unemployment. Additionally, unskilled and low-paid migrant workers do not benefit higher skilled workers. “Skilled labor, rather than enjoying increased real wages, saw employers reaping higher profits,” Neal notes.
Prior to the current wave of Middle Eastern and African migrants Germany struggled to find low-skilled jobs for migrants from Romania and Bulgaria. A document produced by the German Association of Cities in 2013 showed how immigrants from southeastern Europe struggled to find employment.
“Of particular concern is that many of those coming from southeastern Europe come from financially unstable backgrounds, the paper notes, and are not well educated, making it virtually impossible for them to find jobs once in Germany. The influx of Roma, the document says, presents an especially difficult challenge given that they often end up living in desolate conditions once they arrive,” Der Spiegel reported.
In October the German Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA) reported a full 80 percent of migrants have no skills or qualifications. Only a mere 8 percent of arriving migrants have any kind of academic qualification.
The problem of migrant labor is further exacerbated by a shortage in high-skilled vacancies. In the United Kingdom six in ten university graduates are too qualified for the jobs they are performing because of a shortage in high-skilled positions, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. (This is not the case, however, in Germany with a history of strong vocational training.) A study by the British Home Officefound that native workers are routinely forced out by foreign workers.
“There just aren’t many jobs anymore for the very low-skilled” in Sweden,Tino Sanandaji, a Swedish economist with the Research Institute of Industrial Economics, told AlJazeera English in 2013, prior to the current influx. Statistics compiled in the Scandinavian country at that time revealed 84 percent of people aged 25-64 who were born in Sweden are employed, compared with only 57 percent of foreign-born residents of the same age group.
In addition to competition for jobs the tidal wave of migrants—the vast majority consisting of young males—is producing social tension as ethnic and cultural differences surface and often explode. The widespread molestation of women over the New Year holiday by gangs of mostly North African migrants in Cologne and other German cities has produced conflict and angry calls by native Europeans for the expulsion of migrants.
Global Elite Destroying the Bastions of Western Culture
The IMF plan to undermine the European labor market with workers paid less than the minimum wage is part of a larger plan by the global elite to eliminate borders, destroy national sovereignty and ultimately impose a centralized and totalitarian world government.
Increases in hidden unemployment, a lack of new job openings, and a deterioration of real wage rates are the consequences of neoliberal globalization, not only in so-called developing countries but, increasingly, in Europe, the United States and elsewhere in the industrial world.
As Charles Hugh Smith explains, “the bankers are the new feudal lords, and the politicians of the EU and its influential member nations are the servile vassals who enforce the ‘rule of law’ on the serfs.”
The globalist “rule of law” enforced by unelected bureaucrats is being used as a hammer to collapse the West and usher in world government. The mass migration of uneducated, unskilled and culturally alien “refugees” allegedly escaping from globalist engineered wars and crises are being used to attack the endangered bastions of western civilization.
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Posted: 23 Jan 2016 05:48 AM PST
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton “Clinton does not have morals, she’s amoral, she is power ripen and she is corrupt,” says Dr. Randy Short.
US Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton is a “corrupt” and “vicious” candidate who will do anything to become president, a researcher and historian in Washington says.
“Ms Clinton does not have morals, she’s amoral, she is power ripen and she is corrupt,” said Dr. Randy Short, who has a PhD in African studies.
“She is a very mean, corrupt, vicious, racist woman who will do anything for money, to advance her career and to be president,” Dr. Short said in an interview with Press TV on Friday.
Clinton is also aligned with neoconservative officials like Victoria Nuland and funded by Zionist Jews like Haim Saban, an Egyptian-born Israeli American financier and film producer, Dr. Short noted.
Saban, a staunch supporter of Israel, has stated that his greatest concern is to protect the Zionist regime.
At a conference in Israel in 2010, Saban said the best method to support Israel is to influence American politics, which include making donations to political parties, establishing think tanks, and controlling media outlets.
In 2002 Saban provided an initial grant of $13 million and a pledge of additional funds to create the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, now called the Center for Middle East Policy, a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, DC.
The center is part of the larger Brookings Institution think tank.
Saban has also been a generous and consistent donor to the US Democratic Party according to his mandatory Federal Election Commission filings. In September 2004, Hillary Clinton described Saban as a very good friend, supporter and adviser.
This underscores that “American politics is corrupted and it’s almost controlled like a puppet by Zionistic people and dual citizens who are Israel first [and] America last,” Dr. Short said.
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Posted: 23 Jan 2016 05:39 AM PST

The Russian Navy gave journalists an onboard tour of the Udaloy-class anti-submarine destroyer that has been deployed to the Syrian port of Latakia to assist other Russian warships in their Mediterranean mission.
The Vice-Admiral Kulakov is one of eight frigates of its class currently in service in the Russian Navy. Its main purpose is to detect and destroy enemy submarines, meaning its current Syrian deployment is in more of a supporting role.
While guarding the Russian flotilla off Latakia, the ship detected and tracked several foreign submarines on reconnaissance missions off the Syrian coast, but was not engaged in combat missions. The Vice-Admiral Kulakov’s search and rescue helicopter, a Kamov Ka-27PS, is ready to respond to emergencies on the seas.
The operation in Syria has became a turning point for the military’s public relations. The latest tour is one of a series in which the Russian military has invited journalists from Russian and foreign media outlets to high-security facilities. Earlier, the media were allowed to visit the Khmeimim airbase south of Latakia, from which Russian warplanes fly sorties, and the Moskva missile destroyer, the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.
Unlike most of the Russian Navy ships involved in the Syrian operation, which belong to the Black Sea Fleet, the Vice-Admiral Kulakov is based with the North Fleet in Severomorsk. Mixing ships from different fleets is a common practice aimed at building cross-fleet cooperation and fostering ties between officers and sailors.
The warship left its home base four months ago and started its mission off the Syrian coast in December.
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Posted: 22 Jan 2016 02:41 PM PST


Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton denied reports that her private email server had been hacked Thursday after being confronted by an Infowars correspondent at a campaign stop in Iowa.
“Secretary Clinton, last week it was reported on Infowars.com that your email server was hacked and you knowingly continued to use your email server,” Infowars’ Richard Reeves said. “Can you comment on that?”
“It’s totally untrue. Totally untrue,” Clinton replied.
The question stems from an exclusive Infowars interview earlier this month in which former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino reported that Clinton continued using her private email to discuss classified information despite knowing her server had been compromised.
“A source fed to me… and by the way Alex, an unimpeachable source by any measure… This is an unimpeachable source who said, ‘Not only was the email server hacked,’ which is breaking news… but not only was it hacked Alex, but the Clintons knew it was hacked and they kept using it,” he said.

Clinton’s denial came only hours after former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates agreed that the “odds are pretty high” that Russia, China, and Iran accessed the presidential candidate’s server.
“Well, given the fact that the Pentagon acknowledges that they get attacked about 100,000 times a day, I think the odds are pretty high,” Gates told radio host Hugh Hewitt.
Just last Tuesday a letter written by Intelligence Community Inspector General I. Charles McCullough III. obtained exclusively by Fox Newsrevealed that a comprehensive review of Clinton’s email by intelligence agencies found not only dozens of additional classified messages but emails classified above the top secret level.
“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels,” the letter, written to both lawmakers and the State Department, said.
In response, the Clinton campaign accused investigators of working with Republicans to politicize the issue in order to damage the former first lady’s run for the presidency.
The latest release of emails from the State Department also found that Clinton instructed an aide to remove classification markings from sensitive documents before having them sent in an insecure manner.

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Posted: 22 Jan 2016 01:58 PM PST

For decades in history space was the giant playground – but only for NASA and the USSR. Now, many nations strive to reach and explore the last frontier. With the enormous costs for the venture, will cooperation prevail over national interests? Are there benefits in the near future – for all of us – in spending so much to get to the orbit? We touch upon all these questions with Director-General of the European Space Agency, Jean Jacques Dordain, on Sophie&Co.
Sophie Shevarnadze: Jean Jacques Dordain, the director-general of the European Space agency, it’s great to have you with us today.
Jean Jacques Dordain: Thank you.
SS: Europe is changing. With economic slowdown, with political scandals, with European countries being involved in wars – do you think society is paying less attention to space exploration?
JJD: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so, and, especially, because all citizens are taking more and more benefits from space development. There is not anymore one single European citizen not taking benefit from space infrastructures, be that weather forecast, communications, TV-broadcast, navigation. I think that nobody could live anymore without space systems, and that is certainly the change in space. When I was young, space was mostly a race to go far away from planet Earth. Now, space is used more and more to improve the quality of life on planet Earth and to develop economy and growth. So there was a change in the way space is perceived, but I think that space is just at the beginning of its development, so I am very confident that we shall benefit more and more from space.
SS: But tell me about your agency, the ESA, how stable is it financially, and if you compare it to NASA, or the Chinese…
JJD: In terms of budget, we are very small agency. Our budget is ¼, ⅕ of the one of NASA, for example.
SS: But how competitive do you feel?
JJD: We are very competitive, we are very competitive. We are not…for example, in human spaceflight we are dependent on U.S. and on Russia. We cannot launch our astronauts by ourselves. There are parts where we are not competitive, we are even dependent, but there are fields where we are certainly, the leaders and this is particularly true for Earth observation. The member states of ESA have put priority No. 1 in Earth observation, be it to understand climate change or to have weather forecasts and security and also in science in general. I think we have fantastic missions like Herschel, Planck, Gaia which have no equivalent, beating NASA, or Russia, or China. We have some part of activity where I can say that we are the leaders.
SS: Where you’re at with your cooperation with NASA? DO you still share a lot of projects together?
JJD: Oh yes, we have a lot of cooperation with NASA. ESA started almost 50 years ago in full cooperation with NASA, we have learned from NASA how to make satellites and since then we are cooperating with NASA, it is our oldest partner and we are still cooperating with them, and, especially in science onboard the ISS; but we have diversified a lot of our international cooperation. We have more and more cooperation with Russia, but we are cooperating also with China, with Japan, with India, with almost all space-powers in the world. We are even cooperating with countries which have no space systems, because we are sharing our data with a lot of African countries, or South Americans. If there’s one to pick in which ESA can teach the world is that of international cooperation. Very simple – it’s because ESA is an international cooperation venture.
SS: You have 20 countries.
JJD: We have 20 countries, I am working with my colleagues that are coming from 21 nationalities, we are cooperating every day – this is the reason why I think that we have good experience of international cooperation.
SS: Let me ask you something: does ESA just spend-spend-spend the money, or do you make up for it? Do you ever think that you should become more commercial?
JJD: First of all, we are not making space crafts by ourselves – we are contracting the activities to industries. We are governmental agency, and clearly, we are using industry to make the spacecraft, so the expertise is with the industry. Our role is also not only to ask European industry to make our missions, but our role is also to develop competitiveness of European industry on the world market. I think that the result is not so bad, meaning that European industry is benefiting not only from money of government, but also they are very competitive on the world market and they are developing, they have business on the world market.
SS:You have said recently that ESA doesn’t exclude defense work, despite the general mission statement being for peaceful purposes only. What exactly does that mean, and why take that way?
JJD: At least in Europe, the European defense policies are very peaceful. I have not read any line in the European defense policy which was aggressive; and the peaceful purpose of the ESA convention is just the peaceful purpose of the Treaty of Space. There is a lot of signatures of the Treaty of Space which are using space for defense purposes – provided its for peaceful purposes. We are not a civilian agency, we are not a defense agency – but we are an agency for peaceful purposes. We are authorized to work for any activity which is peaceful, and that can include some defense activities, provided that they are for peace.
SS: I want to just specify a little bit about that, because some people, when you say “defense policy” – you think, automatically, “NATO”. Do you know what I mean? So, you could use space for positioning and see how you troops are positioned, for example – could something like that be part of defense policy in ESA?
JJD: Why not? When I compare European, and not even speaking just of ESA, when I compare space activities in Europe to space activities in U.S. – what are missing is the defense part… The biggest space agency of the world is not NASA, it’s the U.S. Department of Defense. The budget of space of the U.S. department of Defense is much larger than the budget of NASA. While in Europe most of what we are doing is coming from civilian budget sources. That is a choice. In U.S., GPS is a military program. In Europe, Galileo is civilian program. But as I said many times, the one is using the signal on ground, the satellite does not care if the user is civilian or military – he is just giving the time and position. Europe has made a choice to finance the biggest part of space from civilian budget sources, but it’s a choice. Today, there are European Defense programs, which are peaceful – there is no reason for ESA not to be instrument of that.
SS: We’re going to get to exploring Mars and technologies we need for that – but before, I would like to talk about the Chelyabinsk meteor, because once it happened, it fell down, all of us realized that technologies here on Earth to defend us certainly aren’t perfect. I mean, scientists have admitted that small space objects – they can cause damage, and as of today there are more than 20 million space stones orbiting around us. How come, with that amount of stones there are so little collisions that actually take place? Is that, what, like, divine providence?
JJD: Oh, I must I say that it’s a question of statistics, but do you refer to natural stones or…
SS: What is a meteor if it’s not a big stone?
JJD: Ok, so this is a natural stone, this is not debris or the human-made…
SS: No, no, we’re going to talk about debris later.
JJD: It’s more a question of statistics. As you know, there are stones which are coming down on planet Earth since centuries. These are small stones, but there were big collisions with big stones on planet Earth. That may happen and this is one of the threats that we have on planet Earth.
SS: Are we helpless? Could, theoretically, a meteor destroy life on Earth?
JJD: Certainly, yes.
SS: And are we helpless against them?
JJD: I hope not. I think there’s no perspective of such collision in foreseeable future that we know of. We can more and more detect the trajectories of these stones and I have no knowledge that in the foreseeable future there will be the risk of such collision – I am convinced that in, not even in terms of centuries, but in term of million years. Planet Earth is still there for 5 bn years, and it’s a long time. I cannot bet myself – I would not be there anymore to verify it. During this long time…maybe, there is some risk of big collision. What I hope is that at the time this type of risk will become important, we would have means to deviate the trajectory of such stone. As know NASA is looking at how they can go to an asteroid – and this is exactly for this type of a risk. It’s to see how you can reach an asteroid, how you can act on that asteroid, changing its trajectory and moving it from place to another – and this is a precursor of what could be shielded to protect planet Earth from this type of risk.
SS: You know, in your early days when you were thinking about exploration, it was so romanticized and every kid was dreaming to become an astronaut or cosmonaut. How you teach – you teach in colleges, you are an honorary professor – how has the interest in the space exploration changed? When you talk to your students, what do you tell them to aspire for?
JJD: I think that each child, because I meet children and up to students – I think that they are all interested in exploration and space. I think that space is still very inspiring.
SS:What do you tell them? Because, once human being went to the moon, it was obvious that we could actually walk on other planets. What do you tell them now, because the moon is done. What do you tell them? “We should conquer Mars”? Are you actually an advocate of Mars colonization?
JJD: Colonization – I don’t know, but we should certainly go to Mars with humans, and we should certainly stay on Mars – humans will stay on Mars, I think it is just a matter of calendar. I never said that it’s not “if” – it’s “when”. We have some time. If you go to Mars 10 years later – what’s the difference? It may make a difference for me, because I will not see it, but it will not make a difference for humanity. I must say, if we had gone to North Pole 50 years later than today – it would not change anything. I am convinced, yes, that humans will go to Mars, for me it’s not a question, it’s just a calendar.
SS: I’m just trying to understand what’s at the root of…you’re saying “exploration is inherent for mankind, exploration makes us human and it must involve a human presence” – so you are for human presence everywhere, but – is it exploration just for discovery or exploration to conquer?
JJD: I think it’s more for discovery and also to make the future on planet Earth possible. I must say that there is no alternative of planet Earth for humanity. This is maybe something that we have learned from space. There is no other place where this humanity can live. We cannot live on different planets in Solar System and going to an exoplanet will be much too far away, at least with the technologies that we know. So, we have no alternatives but to stay together on planet Earth. Now, does that mean that we should continue to find all resources that we need just on planet Earth, that it’s number one, and maybe we should find some raw sources in other planets or on the Moon, for example- I don’t know. That is number one, number two – going to the other planet is also to understand what is future of planet Earth. Couple of billions of years ago, Mars, Earth and Venus were sister planets – and we have evolved very differently. There was water on Mars, we know it, the was, certainly, an atmosphere around Mars. Where is the water? We still find some traces. Where is the atmosphere? Today, we are living on planet Earth because there is water and atmosphere, so understanding why Mars has changed so dramatically since its creation would be certainly very interesting, to understand where we are going to ourselves. So, planet Earth is not isolated. I remember, that I ever started a speech by saying “space does not belong to Earth”, it’s the Earth which belongs to space, and we don’t have a chance to understand planet Earth if we don’t understand the overall system where we are living in, so I think that the Moon is not anymore “something” – it belongs to our environment. Mars – also, Venus – also, so I think that we have to understand that and we have to explore, because exploring Mars is also exploring planet Earth. Our future is on planet Earth, and we have to make our future possible. I am sure that our future on planet Earth, for humanity – not for me, it’s too late – but, to make the future of humanity on planet Earth possible we’d better understand the system we are living in.
SS: For a while now, space actually has been a field of cooperation rather than competition – compared to what happens on Earth, so we do many things together – but I think there’s still, like, a little bit of politics in it, because China is growing and its space program is growing, and it’s very promising – and Americans don’t really seem too keen on that. How do you breach the gap?
JJD: For me, the future is made of global cooperation – we should not exclude any country from the global exploration of space. I am convinced that we have to explore space together. Within global cooperation we can find different clusters of cooperation. This is same at ESA, and I am just taking the model of ESA. We have 20 member states, but within these 20 member states we can have 10 member states working together on the launcher, 6 others to work on another satellite and so on – and this is the way I see the future of global cooperation, meaning that we are today cooperating with the U.S., Russia, Canada and Japan on ISS. When I was in China we have made trilateral meetings between Russia, China and ESA to see how we can cooperate together, and this is not against the others, this is just another cluster of cooperation.
SS: So you are not one of those who are like “oh, China is the future of the space exploration” – because it’s so huge economically, now – economic future is in China, and people are saying that space exploration future is also in China. You don’t think like that?
JJD: No, I wish to cooperate with China, but China is not the only one. We have to continue to cooperate with the U.S., it’s not choosing between China and U.S. We can cooperate with U.S., we can cooperate with Russia, we can cooperate with China on different types of programs…
SS: How about India? It also has ambitions to go to Mars. Are you cooperating with them?
JJD: We have some cooperation with India, and we have provided some payload on some lunar missions of India, so, yes, India is also an interesting partner.
SS: Now, you aren’t very enthusiastic about the future of the ISS. Why?
JJD: I think with the ISS we have crossed a fantastic step, which was to reconcile the Western world and Eastern world – for me the ISS is the symbol…we have broken the walls on ground, but we have broken the walls also in orbit, and the ISS is, again, the merge between Mir-2 and Space Station Freedom. When I came to ESA I was on Space Station Freedom and Space Station Freedom was the station of the Western world. There was Mir, and I am so glad that we could arrive in situation where instead of having two different space stations we have only one – it took time, it took efforts, it took energy. We even have crossed drama with space shuttle accident, but at the end, we have built a partnership; I am quoting my previous colleague, Mike Griffin – “We have built a partnership which will last much longer than the hardware” – so I am more enthusiastic about the partnership of the ISS that by the hardware itself. I think that the hardware will come to an end. Today, our plan is to be part of the space station until 2020 – I know that the U.S., Russia, they are considering to extend the space station till 2028. We shall see if we, ourselves, would join them until 2028, it’s not yet decided, we are working to see if its worthwhile. So, I am much more enthusiastic on the work which has been done to build up this partnership than by the hardware itself.
SS:But, when you have that amount of partnership and that amount of common space exploration done, it becomes more than just a piece of metal and just more than a hardware – how hard it is to say “goodbye” to the project?
JJD: It’s always a pity to stop mission, but I am always glad that when I stop a mission, there is another mission coming. So, what I would like is to stop the ISS, but to have already something even better to do after the ISS, and that is the important thing. So, yes, I am always sad to close house, but if it is to have even better house following that – it’s not so difficult.
SS: Well, we wish you all the best in your endeavors. Jean Jacques Dordain, the president and the head of the ESA, thank you so much for this interview.
JJD: Thank you.
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Posted by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi at 21:47