It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A newly published paper by Dr. Asaf Tzachor, Dean of Reichman University's School of Sustainability, warns that the backbone of our global internet infrastructure — submarine communication cables — is dangerously vulnerable to both natural disasters and deliberate sabotage, posing systemic risks to international communication, commerce, and security.
"The world's overreliance on a uniform submarine cable network is a textbook case of a progress trap", says Dr. Tzachor. "While cables have enabled a connected planet, they also represent a fragile chokepoint in global communications".
Published in Nature Electronics, the study details the growing vulnerability of submarine cables — which transmit over 95% of the world’s international data — to both natural and man-made hazards.
In 2022, the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano unleashed a tsunami and underwater shockwaves that snapped the fibre-optic lifeline connecting Tonga to Fiji, plunging the island nation into digital isolation for weeks. This was not an isolated event. In 2011, Japan’s devastating 9.0 magnitude TÅhoku earthquake disrupted trans-Pacific telecommunications, while a 2006 earthquake off Taiwan’s southwest coast triggered submarine landslides in the Luzon Strait that severed critical cables linking Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, and Japan. The fallout was global — Hong Kong’s internet was nearly paralyzed, and financial markets around the world felt the ripple effects.
More recently, in just the past 18 months, a spate of incidents has exposed the system’s fragility. Submarine cables in the Red Sea, Baltic Sea, and Pacific have been damaged — some likely the result of deliberate sabotage — disrupting data flows across continents and underscoring the risks of relying on a single, vulnerable communications backbone.
Accidental damage from ship anchors and deep-sea trawlers causes frequent disruptions, while the growing trend of targeted cable sabotage by state and non-state actors raises the specter of intentional, high-impact blackouts.
If left unaddressed, these compounding vulnerabilities could cascade into large-scale communications failures with serious consequences.
From Ocean Floor to Stratosphere and Space: A New Vision
Dr. Tzachor lays out an ambitious yet scientifically grounded roadmap for diversifying global communications infrastructure beyond the ocean floor. He envisions three alternative systems that, while at varying stages of maturity, could together reduce our overreliance on vulnerable submarine cables.
The first is satellite-based laser communication networks. Already in operation through NASA and commercial ventures like Starlink, these low-Earth orbit constellations can deliver fibre-like data speeds without the seismic or geopolitical risks that threaten undersea systems. While atmospheric interference remains a technical hurdle, advances in beam steering, adaptive optics, and high-throughput inter-satellite links suggest enormous potential.
The second solution takes to the skies. High-altitude platform systems, or HAPS, involve solar-powered drones and airships stationed in the stratosphere. Acting as floating, low-latency data relays, they've proven useful in emergencies and remote regions. Though still early in development, prototypes have shown that these platforms could one day provide agile and resilient internet infrastructure — particularly for areas underserved by current cable networks.
The third approach dives below the surface. Autonomous underwater optical wireless networks imagine swarms of robotic vehicles equipped with blue-green lasers, forming a dynamic mesh of short-range optical links beneath the sea. These systems could offer critical redundancy near existing cables, and are especially promising for military, deep-sea energy, and environmental monitoring applications.
But technology alone won't secure the future of global communications. The paper calls for coordinated public–private action on a scale not seen since the rise of the semiconductor industry. Governments must step up with targeted funding, policy reform, and international agreements. That includes incentivizing research into alternative communications, setting clear standards for space-debris mitigation and orbital traffic management, and aligning frequency, airspace, and oceanic regulations across borders.
Only by broadening our thinking, and our investments, can we build a communications infrastructure resilient enough for the 21st century.
“Cable redundancy isn’t enough. We need genuine diversification of the global digital infrastructure if we're to withstand 21st-century threats — from geohazards to geopolitical conflict", says Tzachor.
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. It was produced by Grist and co-published with IndigiNews.
It was the last night of February and a 4×4 truck vaulted down the 167-kilometre winter road to Cat Lake First Nation in northern “Ontario,” a road made entirely of ice and snow. Only the light of the stars and the red and white truck lights illuminated the dense, snow-dusted spruce trees on either side of the road. From the passenger seat, Rachel Wesley, a member of the Ojibway community and its economic development officer, told the driver to stop.
The truck halted on a snow bridge over a wide creek — one of five made of snow along this road. It was wide enough for only one truck to cross at a time; its snowy surface barely two feet above the creek. Wesley zipped up her thick jacket and jumped out into the frigid night air. She looked at the creek and pointed at its open, flowing water.
“That’s not normal,” she said, placing a cigarette between her lips.
Wesley, who wore glasses and a knit cap pulled over her shoulder-length hair, manages the crews that build the winter road — a vital supply route that the community of 650 people relies on to truck in lumber for housing, fuel, food, and bottled water. In the past, winters were so cold that she could walk on the ice that naturally formed over the creek. Now it no longer freezes, and neither do the human-made snow bridges.
“It’s directly caused by global warming,” she said, lighting the cigarette.
Jessie Boulard / Grist
More than 50 First Nations in Canada — with 56,000 people total — depend on approximately 6,000 kilometres of winter roads. There are no paved roads connecting these Indigenous communities to the nearest cities. Most of the year, small planes are their only lifeline. But in winter, the lakes, creeks, and marshes around them freeze, allowing workers to build a vast network of ice roads for truck drivers to haul in supplies at a lower cost than flying them in.
Despite their isolation, the ice roads are community spaces. They guide hockey and broomball teams from small reserves to big cities to compete in tournaments. They enable families to stock up on cheap groceries. They bring people to medical appointments in cities and facilitate hunting and fishing trips with relatives in neighboring communities.
But the climate crisis is making it harder to build and maintainthe ice roads. Winter is arriving later, pushing back construction, and spring is appearing earlier, bringing even the most robust frozen highways to an abrupt end. Less snow is falling, making the bridges smaller and more vulnerable to collapse under heavy trucks.
The rising temperatures give trucks only a few short weeks to bring in supplies — and often with half-loads due to thin lake ice and fragile snow bridges. Last year, chiefs in northern “Ontario” declared a state of emergency when the winter roads failed to freeze on time, and in March this year, rain shut down the ice roads to five communities.
First Nations urgently need permanent roads, but it’s unclear who will pay for them. Government of Canada officials say it’s not their responsibility, and with price tags running into the hundreds of millions of dollars for each community, First Nations typically don’t have the money to fund them.
But there is a third, more complex option: Many communities that rely on disappearing ice roads sit atop lucrative minerals. And where mining is approved, road permits and government funding soon follow.
The Ring of Fire and development on Indigenous lands
For nearly two decades, companies and governments have eyed a circular mining area in northern “Ontario” as a promise of economic prosperity. Named after the Johnny Cash song, the Ring of Fire spans 5,000 kilometres and contains chromite, nickel, copper, platinum, gold, and zinc, all of which can be used to make EV batteries, cell phones, and military equipment. Scattered across the north are dozens of mines that extract gold, iron, and other minerals, but none compare to the scale of the Ring of Fire.
But resistance by First Nations and a lack of paved roads has stalled extraction. Mining the region could threaten the fight against climate change: “Ontario’s” northern peatlands, for instance, sequester an estimated 35 billion tons of carbon that could be released if the land is mined. The proposed Ring of Fire mining area alone holds about 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon. To put that in perspective, the Amazon rainforest sequesters about 112 billion tonnes of carbon.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has longed for years to develop the Ring of Fire, even promising to “hop on a bulldozer” himself. The province, which is responsible for natural resources and road permitting, has committed CAD$1 billion to build permanent roads to open up mining, asking the federal government to kick in another CAD$1 billion. Meanwhile, at least a dozen First Nations in “Ontario” are requesting government funding for all-season roads.
During the recent election, Ford vowed to “unlock” the Ring of Fire and has introduced legislation to fast-track development, actions that some First Nation leaders perceived as a threat. The Nishnawbe Aski Nation, or NAN for short, a regional Indigenous government representing 49 First Nations in northern “Ontario,” warned the province that it was overstepping its authority.
“The unilateral will of the day’s government will not dictate the speed of development on our lands, and continuing to disregard our legal rights serves to reinforce the colonial and racist approach that we have always had to fight against,” said NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler in a statement. First Nations in the Ring of Fire area are not necessarily antidevelopment, but Fiddler said they must be engaged as partners under regional treaties.
Responding to the premier’s promise to get on a bulldozer, Eabametoong First Nation Chief Solomon Atlookan said, “Nobody’s gonna come without our consent.”
Located in the Ring of Fire region, Eabametoong relies on a winter road for supplies, including lumber for housing. The seasonal window for their ice road has shrunk so much that the community struggles to bring in enough materials to address a severe housing crisis. According to Atlookan, some homes have as many as 14 people living under one roof. Eabametoong used to haul fuel over the winter road, but it is now flown in at a much higher cost.
Atlookan said that building a permanent road could threaten traditional ways of life by bringing in tourists, allowing settlers more access to lands to build cottages, and increasing competition over hunting and fishing. But climate change and rising costs are forcing him to seriously consider a paved road.
“We need to begin working on it now,” he said.
Atlookan is not against mining but knows there are trade-offs. His community’s traditional territories contain countless interwoven streams, lakes, and rivers, and mining upstream could contaminate nearby walleye spawning habitat.
“They don’t realize how interconnected those tributaries are, where the fish spawn,” he said. ”It’ll destroy that livelihood for our communities. So there’s a lot at stake here.”
The province is motivated to build all-season roads to allow a more sustainable flow of goods as climate change threatens the ice roads, according to a spokesperson for Greg Rickford, “Ontario’s” minister of Indigenous affairs and First Nations economic reconciliation. They’re committed to “meaningful partnerships” to advance economic opportunities in the region, the spokesperson added.
But that’s not how Atlookan views the situation. He described a conversation he had with Rickford, who offered to build him an all-season road. He said he asked Rickford if he wanted access to minerals, and the minister denied that the road would be for mining access. “I said, ‘Rickford, that is what this is all about.’”
While Eabametoong is located in the Ring of Fire region and shares a network of winter roads with a cluster of other communities, Cat Lake is in a different situation.
Cat Lake is 257 kilometres west of Eabametoong, as the crow flies. The reserve rests at the edge of a watershed where five major rivers flow in opposite directions, affording the community access to various rivers for travel, hunting, and living off the land. It is not located in the Ring of Fire region and has its own winter road that doesn’t connect to other communities.
Cat Lake is rushing to build an all-season road by 2030 at a cost of CAD$125 million, which the community cannot afford on its own. Cat Lake is considering two routes for an all-season road. One option involves construction over the current 167-kilometre winter road. The other option is to piggyback on an all-season road that would be built to a gold mine, if it is approved. The Springpole mine site is 40 kilometres from Cat Lake, giving the community the option to build a shorter all-season road.
Jessie Boulard / Grist
First Mining Gold wants to drain a lake and dig a 1.5-kilometre open-pit mine to reach the gold underneath. To access Springpole, the company needs to build an all-season road.
In past years, company vehicles reached the site by driving over a winter road that passed over a frozen lake. But several times those vehicles plunged through the thin ice due to warm weather, according to First Mining Gold’s 2023 ESG report. The company figured it was too risky to keep crossing the lake, so it asked the province for permits to build an overland winter road.
Ontario issued a permit for the company to build the winter road without Cat Lake’s consent, prompting the First Nation to request an injunction to stop construction. The community dropped its court case after reaching a settlement with the province last year. First Mining Gold did not reply when asked for comment.
In September 2020, as the company prepared to apply for permits, Wesley invited Elders to a meeting to ask two questions: Did they support Springpole, and did they want an all-season road?
“In order for us to get a road, we might have to let them open the mine,” Wesley explained.
The Elders said they don’t value gold but do value lake trout, and they believed the project would destroy fish habitat. Elders also said they wanted an all-season road that would allow young people to connect with the world while embracing their culture.
“We said ‘no’ to the mine, and we said ‘yes’ to the road,” she said.
After the Elders’ meeting, Wesley began to look for ways to fund a permanent road without relying on mining. She said the federal government is hesitant to fund an all-season road to only one community, and the province won’t talk to Cat Lake about an all-season road. To unlock funding, she began pursuing economic partnerships like working with PRT Growing Services on forest regeneration and a local bioeconomy that would involve a tree-seedling nursery in the community. Cat Lake is also partnering with Natural Resources Institute Finland to do an assessment of their forests.
“Relying on industry would mean that we would have to do mining with First Mining. And like I said, the community values land, air, and water. We don’t value gold,” she said.
‘Every year it’s been getting a little bit warmer’
The farther north you fly in “Ontario,” the fewer glimpses of infrastructure like power lines, cell towers, or paved roads. The winter landscape is composed of evergreen forests shot through with rivers and lakes, bright white from the snow resting on top. From a plane, the ice roads can be seen cutting through the trees and running over frozen lakes.
On a chilly, sunny afternoon on the Cat Lake winter road, Jonathan Williams drove a red truck with chains pulling heavy tires behind it. Known as “drags,” the tires smooth out the rough parts of the road. Warm weather makes the surface bumpy, requiring constant attention from workers like Williams, who has built winter roads for the last eight years.
“The year I started, it was minus 50 [degrees Celsius],” he said. “I was out fixing trucks on the road, and it was frickin’ crazy getting frostbite on your hands. After that, every year it’s been getting a little bit warmer, a little bit warmer.”
It costs about CAD$500,000 each year to build and maintain Cat Lake’s winter road. The warming climate is taking a toll on the machines used on the road, but the budget no longer covers the expense of a CAD$10,000 broken machine part.
Winter road construction, which splits the cost 50/50 between Indigenous Services Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development, typically starts in November or early December. That’s when crews drive heavy machines over the earth to press it down. When snow arrives, they use grooming machines to pack it.
Like many reserves, driving over Cat Lake’s winter road requires passing over a lake with no bridge. When winter arrives and lake ice begins to form, crews repeatedly flood the lake to make the ice sturdy enough for heavy trucks. When the ice is ready, workers celebrate by spinning their grooming machines in circles on the frozen surface, a ritual called their “happy dance.”
To build the required snow bridges, crews use grooming machines to jam huge piles of snow into creeks. They let the snow settle for about 36 hours and then flood it to form icy crossings. The flowing water underneath naturally forms the ice into a culvert shape. “That’s why you need such a massive pile of snow to push out there, because all the water will take it away if there’s not enough,” Williams said.
A century ago, before planes and trucks became ubiquitous, remote reserves used tractor trains to pull supplies in sleds over the frozen landscape.
“It’s a big bulldozer that pulls trailers behind them, sometimes 10 of them, and that’s where all the fuel came from, the groceries. Because they didn’t have big planes at the time,” explained Chief Atlookan of Eabametoong.
“Back in the day, you didn’t worry about ice conditions — the ice was 40 inches thick.”
The remoteness of reserves is a direct outcome of the country’s colonial history. In 1867, the British Parliament claimed “Canada” as a colony by passing the British North America Act, which later became its constitution. It granted the federal government exclusive authority over “Indians and lands reserved for Indians” and gave provinces authority over certain issues that affect First Nations, like mining.
Since European settlement, massive land grabs and the creation of reserves have left Indigenous peoples in “Canada” with only 0.2 percent of their original territories. Reserves were often deliberately sited in remote locations, away from critical waterways and productive farmland. There was never any intention of connecting reserves to cities; instead, they operated like jails, preventing people from moving off-reserve or seeking economic opportunities.
The federal government has a fiduciary responsibility to First Nations, as affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada. Similar to the “U.S.” government’s relationship with tribes, this means the government has a legal duty to act in the best interest of Indigenous people.
“Since the [court’s] decision, they’ve been looking for ways to offload their fiduciary obligations,” said Russ Diabo, a First Nations policy analyst and member of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawake.
Although the federal government is obligated to provide the necessities of life on the reserve, like housing and water systems, federal funding formulas are unregulated and up to the government’s discretion, explained Shiri Pasternak, professor at Toronto Metropolitan University. As a result, there are huge discrepancies between what is needed and what is approved. “The underfunding of reserves amounts to systematic impoverishment,” she said.
This chronic underfunding means many First Nations experience crowded homes and broken-down water treatment plants. Although the federal government has committed to ensuring clean drinking water on reserves, more than 30 First Nations currently have long-term drinking water advisories. This includes Neskantaga in northern “Ontario,” which has been under a boil water advisory for three decades. Last year, in response to a lawsuit over “Canada’s” failure to provide clean drinking water to First Nations, the federal government argued it has no legal duty to ensure First Nations have clean water.
Despite the federal government’s history of abandoning its duties to First Nations, more communities are looking to Indigenous Services Canada, or ISC, for road funding. Of the 53 First Nations that depend on winter roads, 32 have asked ISC for funding to develop all-season roads.
Adapting to a warming climate
The sun’s pink light disappeared over the horizon and night fell over the frozen lake surrounding Wesley’s community. She sat in the driver’s seat of her 4×4 truck that was parked on the lake’s icy surface. She watched as workers, bundled up in coats, toques, and boots, drilled a hole in the ice and pumped murky lake water through a hose into a machine. The spout of the machine, pointed upward at a 40 degree angle, blasted a stream of snowflakes into the air.
A couple of years ago, Wesley asked her band council for a snowmaker.
“They thought I was crazy,” she said. “The chief finally told me, ‘Go ahead and buy a snowmaker.’”
Wesley has managed winter road construction for the past eight years. Her dad was the community’s economic development officer before her and was also responsible for the winter road. She grew up crawling around big machines; she would climb them and pretend the floor was lava.
When she took over her father’s job, men cast doubt on her ability to oversee winter road construction.
“She’s a girl, we don’t have to listen to her,” Wesley said, describing how they perceived her. “My dad told me, ‘You’re the boss. Tell them what to do.’” She said she proved herself, and now the workers respect her. They don’t ask questions, they do what she says.
The snowmaker is a short-term adaptation. Wesley said the community has asked the provincial and federal governments to support construction of its all-season road.
Jessie Boulard / Grist
In an interview in March, ISC minister Patty Hajdu recognized the disappearing ice roads as an emergency.
“‘Emergency’ doesn’t even feel strong enough [to describe the situation],” she said. “It’s so urgent that we do more together to figure out what this next stage of living with climate change looks like for, in particular, remote communities.”
But Hajdu stopped short of committing funding for specific all-season roads. Instead, she said the cost will likely be shared but that the federal government was committed to funding all-season roads. “In theory, yes, but it isn’t as simple as a yes or no — it is project by project,” she said. “I can’t speak about specific amounts. I can’t speak about specific routes.”
She said the situation is more complex than it seems, and the province has complete control over which routes are prioritized and built.
ISC provided about CAD$260,000 for Cat Lake’s feasibility study to confirm potential routes for an all-season road. Hajdu said this is “an important step to the finalization of any infrastructure funding.”
Hajdu vowed not to tie all-season road funding to the acceptance of mining projects. “We should not be increasing funding for First Nations in any realm as a condition of approval for anything. That is very coercive and it’s very colonial,” she said.
“I wouldn’t believe it, because they use money as a way to coerce decisions. They may not directly openly tie it,” said Diabo, the policy analyst.
Last year, ISC allocated CAD$45 million for construction of a bridge and permanent road to Pikangikum First Nation, which has a winter road that crosses a lake. Although the government announcement did not mention mining, the road will also lead to a proposed lithium mine.
Each summer, more fires burn through northern forests, Diabo said.
“We’re in a time of emergency, and the issue of the disappearing winter roads is part of that.”
Under the dual pressures of climate emergencies and extractive industries, some communities will decide to go forward with mining to build all-season roads. “We’re seeing that already,” he added.
In October, Wesley visited the lake that First Mining wants to drain for its proposed Springpole project. The company’s open-pit mine is in the final stages of the permitting process, and the company expects to receive federal approval by the end of this year.
For Wesley, the area isn’t just beautiful, it’s a reminder of her connection as an Ojibway person to the water, trees, fish, and land. It’s a relationship she described by saying, “I belong to the land.”
“I was almost crying, because the land is forever going to be changed in that area,” she said. “We’re gonna have a hole in the ground that’s forever going to be there. I don’t know how not to be emotional about that. Those are my relatives.”
Author HILARY BEAUMONT Hilary Beaumont is an investigative journalist covering the climate crisis and intersecting issues. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Rolling Stone, VICE News, The New Republic, and High Country News, among others.
Jules Verne: The writer who inspired space exploration
Timothy Jones
DW
January 3, 2025
French author Jules Verne gave us some astoundingly accurate predictions of future technological advances. His stories inspired many scientists and inventors to make his visions a reality.
Jules Verne's works have delighted both adults and children for more than 160 years
When French author Jules Verne died in 1905, powered air flight, which he put at the center of his 1886 book "Robur the Conqueror," had moved from fiction to reality. Just two years earlier, the Wright brothers had achieved the first manned air flight in human history.
Yet more of Verne's predictions of world-changing technologies were still far from being realized when he died. Being able to orbit the moon on a spaceship, as he depicted in his 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon," seemed like a distant fantasy. But it came true just 60 years later with NASA's Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
Verne's brilliance lay in the way he vividly imagined how existing technologies might be developed, then embedded his ideas in exciting adventure stories.
This fascinating combination of fact and fiction have made Verne's novels ideal for stimulating interest in science and technology, despite all the progress since they were written. That's why Verne’s stories have inspired countless scientists and inventors, and continue to do so today. Here are four such examples.
Simon Lake (1866-1945), submarine designer
Simon Lake was a US naval architect who designed some of the first submarines for the US Navy. He said he was indebted to Verne, in particular the novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas" (1869-1870), which he first read at the age of 10 or 11.
This book features the Nautilus, an undersea vessel far more advanced than the rudimentary submarines that existed when the book was written.
Lake was gripped with the ambition to build a submarine that matched or exceeded the Nautilus in its performance.
He made some progress, designing a submarine called the Argonaut. A successful 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) voyage of the Argonaut in 1898 earned Lake the delight of receiving a congratulatory telegram from Verne himself.
Lake's Nautilus bore the motto 'Mobilis in mobili' ('Moving in a moving element') — that of Verne's character Captain Nemo
Image: public domain
Later, Verne's grandson, Jean Jules Verne, was invited to be a "godparent" of one of Lake's later, more advanced submarines. The vessel was even rebaptized as the Nautilus ahead of an Arctic expedition in 1931, in honor of the French author.
Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), aeronaut and inventor
Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont not only designed and built some of the first powered airships, but also flew them. Among his many trips, he circled the Eiffel Tower in Paris with his airship No. 6 in 1901, a performance which brought him great fame across the world at the time.
A flight by Santo-Dumont's 14-bis in October 1906 is considered the world's first officially registered motorized flight
Image: Jules Beau
Santos-Dumont went on to design, construct, and fly powered aircraft like gliders and ornithopters. He carried out a flight of 220 meters (241 yards) at a height of 6 meters (20 feet) in his 14-bis in November 1906.
In his book, "My Airships," Santos-Dumont mentioned several of Verne's works as inspirations for his curiosity about the world and technology, calling the French writer the "favorite author" of his youth. Igor Sikorsky (1889-1972), aviation pioneer
Igor Sikorsky's mother, Mariya Stefanovna Sikorskaya, instilled a love for Verne's stories in the Russian-American aviation pioneer.
In particular, "Robur the Conqueror," with its vividly described aircraft, inspired Sikorsky to build the helicopters for which he became famous.
After several failed attempts early in the 20th century, Sikorsky succeed in designing and flying the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, the first workable American helicopter, in 1939.
The Sikorsky 330 was the first workable helicopter in the US
The early form of a helicopter was modified to become the Sikorsky R-4, the first mass-produced helicopter in the world.
Sikorsky also designed numerous fixed-wing airplanes, mostly after he emigrated from Russia to the US in 1919 after the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), rocket scientist
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, one of the pioneers of modern rocketry and astronautics, named Verne as the person who inspired his interest in space flight.
Tsiolkovsky also emulated Verne as a writer, publishing the novel "On the Moon" in 1893. He also wrote many philosophical and scientific works related to space travel and the human relationship with the cosmos.
Verne's fictional depictions of spaceships carrying lunar voyagers as a shell shot from a cannon could never succeed in reality. In contrast, Tsiolkovsky developed theories on many principles of rocket propulsion and space travel that are workable and still hold true today.
Like Verne, Tsiolkovsky was convinced humans would one day move out further into the solar system.
"Man will not always stay on Earth; the pursuit of light and space will lead him to penetrate the bounds of the atmosphere, timidly at first, but in the end to conquer the whole of solar space," reads the epitaph on his obelisk that Tsiolkovsky himself wrote.
Edited by: Fred Schwaller
India unveils plans for 10 missions in 2025 after successful space-docking launch
Jan. 3, 2025
An Indian PSLV-C60 rocket carrying Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDeX, payloads is shown lifting off from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh on Monday. SpaDeX is a pioneering mission to establish India's capability in orbital docking.
\Photo courtesy Indian Space Research Organization
Jan. 3 (UPI) -- India's space agency says it is planning a record 10 orbital missions, as well as its first commercial effort, during 2025 after successfully launching a space-docking project this week.
Indian Space Research Organization chairman S. Somanath told reporters following Monday's launch of a PSLV-C60 rocket carrying Space Docking Experiment, or SpaDeX, payloads, that the nation has big plans for the coming year.
"ISRO set to launch the NVS-02 satellite in January 2025, with more missions planned for upcoming year," he said on Tuesday while marking the agency's 99th launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh, which carried two small spacecraft built to dock together in space, a mission deemed as essential for India's space ambitions.
"Through this mission, India is marching towards becoming the fourth country in the world to have space docking technology," the agency said in a statement.
Among the upcoming plans outlined by Somanath are 10 missions, including the NVS-02 navigation satellite. With that "milestone" 100th launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, ISRO will launch the second in the series of 2nd-generation navigation satellites and the ninth satellite in its Navigation with Indian Constellation.
Similar to its predecessor NVS-01, the NVS-02 will likely have both navigation and ranging payloads which are meant to serve both civilian and military geo-positioning needs, NDTV reported.
Four other geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle missions are on the agenda for 2025, as well as a manned LVM-3 launch for India's Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, three Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle missions and a launch of the SSLV solid rocket, Somanath said.
Bezos’s Blue Origin poised for first orbital launch next week
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin is poised to launch its first orbital rocket next week, marking a pivotal moment in the commercial space race currently dominated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Named New Glenn, the rocket is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as soon as Wednesday 1:00 am (0600 GMT), with a backup window on Friday, according to a Federal Aviation Administration advisory.
While Blue Origin has not officially confirmed the launch date, excitement has been building since a successful “hotfire” test on December 27.
“Next stop launch,” Bezos declared on X, sharing a video of the towering rocket’s engines roaring to life.
The NG-1 mission will carry a prototype of Blue Ring, a Defense Department–funded spacecraft envisioned as a versatile satellite deployment platform, which will remain on board the rocket’s second stage for the duration of the six-hour test flight. Jeff Bezos, pictured in November 2021, founded Blue Origin two years before Elon Musk started SpaceX — but the company has progressed at a far slower pace – Copyright POOL/AFP/File Paul ELLIS
It will mark Blue Origin’s long-awaited entry into the lucrative orbital launch market after years of suborbital flights with its smaller New Shepard rocket, which carries passengers and payloads on brief trips to the edge of space.
“The market is really orbital,” analyst Laura Forczyk, founder of Astralytical, told AFP. “Suborbital can only take you so far — there are only so many payloads and customers for a quick ride to space.” – Space barons –
The milestone will also escalate the rivalry between Bezos, the world’s second-richest person, and Musk, the wealthiest, who has cemented SpaceX’s dominance and is now in President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets have become industry workhorses, serving clients from commercial satellite operators to the Pentagon and NASA, which relies on them to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.
Like Falcon 9, New Glenn features a reusable first stage designed to land vertically on a ship at sea.
The vessel, playfully named “So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance,” reflects the challenge of landing a reusable rocket on the first attempt, Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said on X.
At 320 feet (98 meters), New Glenn dwarfs the 230-foot Falcon 9 and is designed to carry larger, heavier payloads. It slots between Falcon 9 and its larger sibling, Falcon Heavy, in cargo capacity while burning cleaner liquid natural gas rather than kerosene and relying on fewer engines.
“If I were still a senior executive at NASA, I’d be thrilled to finally have some competition to the Falcon 9,” G. Scott Hubbard, NASA’s former “Mars Czar” now at Stanford University, told AFP, adding that increased competition could help drive down launch costs. – Politics at play –
For now, SpaceX maintains a commanding lead, capturing the lion’s share of the market while rivals like United Launch Alliance, Arianespace and Rocket Lab trail far behind.
Like Musk, Bezos has an enduring passion for space. But where Musk dreams of colonizing Mars, Bezos envisages populating the solar system with massive floating space colonies.
Bezos founded Blue Origin in 2000 — two years before Musk started SpaceX — but the company has progressed at a far slower pace, reflecting a more cautious approach.
“There’s been impatience within the space community over Blue Origin’s very deliberate approach,” Scott Pace, a space policy analyst at George Washington University and a former member of the National Space Council, told AFP.
If successful, New Glenn will offer the US government “dissimilar redundancy” — alternative systems that provide backups if one fails, said Pace.
This could prove vital as SpaceX plans to retire Falcon 9 by the end of the decade in favor of Starship, a prototype that relies on not fully proven technologies.
Musk’s closeness to Trump has raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest, especially with private astronaut Jared Isaacman — a business associate of Musk — slated to become the next NASA chief.
Bezos, however, has been making his own overtures, paying his respects to his former foe during a visit to the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence, while Amazon has said it would donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee.
