Guest:  Dr. Lena De Winne;  Topics:  Dr. Winne introduced us to the Asgardia Space Nation (https://asgardia.space/en) plus she described this soon to be four year old nation in great detail.

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We welcomed Dr. Lena De Winne, the Head of Administration to the Head of the Nation of Asgardia , to this comprehensive discussion about the Asgardia Space Nation which covered one segment in 72 minutes.  Our guest began the discussion by providing us with a brief history of the founding of the Asgardia Space Nation, why Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli of Russia founded Asgardia, plus Dr. De Winne talked at length about the structure. Infrastructure and governance of the first and only space nation.  Please follow along as much of what we talked about can be see on their website per the URL provided above.  Once again, if you follow along with the tags and key words which I have copied below, you will have an excellent summary of our 72 minute discussion.

Tags/Key Words:  Asgardia Nation, Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli, Asgardia Fourth Anniversary, Asgardia Nation goals and objectives, Asgardia vision, UN recognition, childbirth in space, Asgardia Space Nation symbols, Asgardia purpose, Asgardia important timelines, NGO status in Vienna, Asgardia Space Nation around the world, membership fee, Asgardia community volunteers, Asgardia on Social Media, Discord Social Media Platform, SOLAR Asgardia Currency, internships, diplomatic relations with Asgardia Space Nation, returning to the Moon, Mars, space tourism, the ISS, LEO, Asgardia satellite, water in space, gravity, radiation, ROOM - The Asgardia Journal, alien life in the universe, Asgardia vision and inspirational efforts and outreach, Asgardia Space Nation Parliament.

Some of the highlights of our discussion per my observation included Lena telling us about the Asgardia symbols such as the flag. Check out their national symbols at https://asgardia.space/en/national-symbols.  Be sure to listen to their National Anthem. You will find both the words and music here:  https://asgardia.space/assets/doc/asgardia-anthem-score.476661.pdf.  In addition to the Asgardia National Symbols, I thought their goal of getting access to the United Nations to be sound and challenging.  Don't miss what she said about this.  Later in the show, we talked about Asgardia establishing diplomatic relations with other countries.  Also of interest was their governmental and legal structure, the parliament, elections, their advisory and management staff and membership/citizenship process.  Clearly the founding and establishing of Asgardia has been carefully and thoughtfully planned.  It also seemed to be handled well, as is the case with many new countries seeking recognition. 

Their goals of seeing routine spaceflight by anyone, the peaceful and beneficial use of space by everyone and their striving to make space routine no matter how long it might take was of interest.  Note what our guest said about the process of becoming a nation and the path taken along this road by Asgardia regardless of the timeline.  We learned that the Asgardia goal of figuring out how to live in space was key, even to the degree of making sure their could be childbirth in space.  Childbirth was a very important high priority goal for the new space nation though early in our discussion our guest did say it might take 25 years or more to see this happen. Throughout our discussion Lena talked about the work and research they were contributing to in order to realize this goal. 

Listener Todd asked Lena via email if Asgardia had a physical presence for their operations here on Earth.  As it turns out they, are currently headquartered in Vienna and listed as a non-government organization (NGO) with the UN.  Don't miss the details of this provided by our guest.  Another listener asked about the Asgardia relations with NASA and other national space agencies.  Don't miss what she said about national space agencies as  you might be surprised by her answer. 

We received an email from an Asgardia community.  Lena told us about Asgardia communities, the all-volunteer nature of the community, plus I read the email from Arcane Space which was a new Asgardia community created to broadcast news and events with documentary videos about space.  Listen to the questions asked and answered.  One that got my attention dealt with SOLAR.  As it turned out, SOLAR was the Asgardian currency and it has already been launched.  Listen to Lena explain the SOLAR, how it is being used today and the plans for it in the future. 

Another topic of interest was Asgardia and social media. Lena mentioned their social media footprint but she focused in on the Discord platform which she said was the most popular for Asgardia.  You can find our more about Discord at https://discord.com/why-discord-is-different.  The Asgardia Discord information is at https://discord.com/invite/3GdJvNd.  If you go to the bottom of the Asgardia home page, you will find links to all of their social media platforms.  Asgardia uses social media to not just talk about the new nation but to engage in genuine discussions with lots of people about space, Asgardia goals and related issues and concerns. 

Much was said about the Asgardia Parliament and the upcoming elections.  Lena talked about available spaces for interested people and how they can participate as well as vote. Follow the large link for more information on this which is on their home page.  Later in our discussion, I asked Lena about Asgardia positions on returning humans to the Moon, humans going to Mars, space settlement, free space settlements and more.  Later I included space tourism in the list.  Lena provided us with very interesting commentary on all of these topics including the ISS and LEO.  This discussion then took us to the topics of gravity, artificial gravity, and radiation concerns.  From there, Lena talked about the importance and multi-use of water in space.  In winding up this part of our discussion, our guest commented on the fact that there were no borders in space. 

John sent in an email asking about Asgardia presentations at conferences plus he wanted to know more about Asgardia and space tourism.  In responding to these questions, Lena introduced us to ROOM, the Asgardia Journal.  You can see ROOM at this URL:  https://room.eu.com/tag/Asgardia.  I'm quite sure you will find many of their articles and presentation interesting.  I certainly did. The last topic was introduced by Josh in Tucson when he inquired about the Asgardia position on extra-terrestrial life in the universe.  Once again you do not want to miss what our guest said on this topic.

Before concluding this summary, let me take you back to their home page.  If you click on any of the topics such as News, Science, Democracy , you will see multiple new subtopics to take you to that part of the Asgardia policy and infrastructure.  I urge you to check it out and visit many of the available pages as we barely touched on all of Asgardia during our discussion.  Get the details by visiting and exploring their home page. 

Please post your comments/questions for Dr. Lena De Winne on our blog page for this program.  You can reach Dr. De Winne through me or the Asgardia website.