Everybody should be part of something great that brings meaning to their lives.

The creation of Asgardia, the space kingdom, a nation composed  of people from all walks of life, from all over the world, with one goal in mind:  protecting the future of the human race, generates the same excitement for  the future that the Apollo space program did in sixties and early seventies.

Imagine people living permanently in low earth orbit, living on the moon and living on other planets.

We currently have people from all over the world that choose to be part of Asgardia and they give of themselves for the future of mankind. It is important to note that these people are not all privileged, fortunate or “special” by any stretch, just dedicated to the common Asgardian goal and values.

In the words of Mahatma Gandhi - “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.”  Asgardia's strength  comes from our diversity.

Building a new nation is a constructive process of engaging all citizens in building social cohesion and economic prosperity.  All citizens must be involved and the involvement of the youth is a requirement to ensure our future.

The youth are not only the leaders of tomorrow, but they are the social actors of change and progress today. In a country like South Africa where rates of unemployment remains high and future social security remains questionable, it’s vital for the youth of our country to know now that there is a bright future, what skills they need and what human resource requirements Asgardia generates.

If South Africans  position themselves right with the correct skills and knowledge, they could be at the forefront of the 150 million Asgardians over the next 25 years to take humanity to the stars.

Marshall Mcluhan, a Canadian professor, philosopher, and public intellectual, said : “There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.”

There is no simple answer or perfect policy or quick fix or pain free solution to the citizenship challenge we face in trying to form a new nation in Asgardia.

Democratic policies cannot be all things to all people, there will always be a range of social and political tensions for which we have to respond in a coherent, inclusive and future focus manner.

Social contentment tends to flourish when specific challenges are addressed as opportunities rather than problems which turns pessimism and division into renewed optimism and engagement.

What we need to define in our citizenship, is a clear, coherent and ambitious vision of why citizenship should matter and it should also define the terms of rights and responsibilities of each citizen as laid out in our Constitution but also the changing dynamics of Asgardian society.

We also need to focus very clearly on the barriers or obstacles that individuals might face in terms of fulfilling the expectations and opportunities of engaged citizens in Asgardia,  like specific troublesome laws and rules or the cost associated with citizenship.

Barriers to active and content citizenship may also be material and societal ranging from income difficulties to mental and physical health or practical challenges like transport or a lack of available time.

For Asgardia to flourish as a nation we should be looking at active citizenship together with civic engagement as a primary focus.

We need to cultivate the shared values of respect, of diversity, the rights and responsibilities to giving and taking, the talking and listening and the rights and responsibilities of society - the Core values that builds and binds Asgardia as a nation we want to call home.

It is with great honor that i have been voted for and inaugurated as an Member of Parliament during the first Asgardian Parliamentary session in Vienna.

I urge any and all Southern African Asgardians that want me to represent their issues in Parliament, to contact me via Asgardia.space and inform me of their wishes and requirements.

Head Of Nation,  Igor Ashurbeyli has expressed in media commentary that there is a 100 Euros fee for citizenship in Asgardia to help fund the creation of the Asgardian Government and related services and secondly to indicate the dedication of the Asgardian Citizens to the goals of Asgardia

The protection of humanity and the earth from space  based threads.

I am personally in ageement of this Citizenship fee that will help Asgardia reach it's goal by kick starting the Asgardian economy and enabling the government to function and provide services to Asgardians.

I do however also realize that there are many people that are not prepared to or even able to contribute this amount on an annual basis.

I invite any comments and suggestions that is feasible and realistic in the short term to finance  the creation of the grand dream Asgardia as envisaged by the Citizenship fee.

Once again I invite anyone to comment or suggest to  me via the Asgardia.space platform so that I can represent everyone's views in Parliament and not just my own.

a Shoutout to the guys of the South African Space Agency I met in Vienna.   Well done guys you make South Africa proud.

Kind Regards

As we   start our new country, we reflect on what we are about to achieve, and what we need to achieve it.

Many different economic models exist, and all of them have been tried and used throughout the ages,  with different levels of success, from completely free market economies where  supply and demand is the only guiding factor, to interventionist forms where   government plays an active role in guiding the economy to achieve the social  equality and welfare agendas it promotes.

Economic growth is   measured in terms of total output or real Gross Domestic Product ( Total  value of all final goods and Services produced within a period of time). Another measure is called the Production Possibility Curve (PPC) or otherwise referred to as Production Possibilities Frontier(PPF) A Production Possibility Frontier outward shift ( an increase), is possible by the discovery or utilization of new resources (think asteroid mining) or a change of technology, both feasible and achievable goals of Asgardia. In Economics there are four factors affecting production – Land, Labor, Capital and Entrepreneurship. In various combination, these four factors determines the ownership of production  of goods and services and thus effects the type of economic system used. Socialism and Communism allows goods and services to be owned by all by means of the state and are valued for it’s usefulness to people, while Capitalism allows individuals to own the products and services while profit is the only guiding criteria. As a space nation,  Asgardia cannot subscribe to any of the fore mentioned  models if it want's to remain focused on it's task at hand instead of being led astray by profit interests or selfish human interests, but will have to look at state or  government directed economy where there are strong regulatory oversight and interventionist policies in a privately owned means of production. This leads us to look at an economy that is lead by private enterprise,  profit seeking entities where production and services developed for profit are guided by the state or government for maximum benefit to the social development and welfare of the people and also to achieve a shared national goal The Asgardian economy must be an economy where government exerted strong directive influences through economic planning to guide the market economy with state control of critical infrastructure such as Transportation, Energy and Telecommunication and incentives for private entities to engage in certain projects that furthers the national Asgardian goal, the goal of a peaceful and conflict free space that serves all humanity. Next tiem we look at what Products and Services Asgardia needs to produce.

To be a citizen of Asgardia, we are all idealists to one or another extent. Through our believes and values, we want to shape our society and our future together.

To achieve this, we need people with skills, compassion empathy and that are willing to sacrifice of them self to achieve a greater goal that they them self might not see realize in the future, but which their descendants might call a new reality.

Towards this end, I wish to offer myself as a member of parliament to help fulfill this great project.

Platform:

My aim is to have a "offline" Asgardian Distributed Electronic Trading System  (ADETS) and Asgardian Currency Transaction System (ACTS) developed that will allow trade and commerce anywhere on and off the earth, connected electronically or not.

I also support and will promote EQUAL treatment and opportunities for all Asgardians irrespective of Current Position and Status,  Culture, Sexual Orientation, Religion, Emotional Intelligence and Education, among all the other standard quoted criteria.

Profile and Background:

Military, Training and Software Development :

My 16 years in the Military (Air Force) has taught me to share a common vision with others, work towards that common vision, to follow orders and also to give orders to subordinates.  Experience and Skills gained from this has given me a strong Technical, Electrical and Electronic background ( Radio and Fire Control RADAR), as well as Aerodynamic Flight background, Flight simulators and Embedded Systems Programming.

I have also developed curricula, training material , presented and evaluated skills based and outcomes based training courses for close to 10 years  in diverse fields, ranging from technical training for apprentices to aircraft based computer training and flight simulator training, financial trading, basic adult education  and training courses in animal husbandry.

My 16 years of commercial and bespoke software development in various fields of interest ranging from financial, logistics to farming, retail  and software development, has given me insight, contacts and experiences that is priceless.

Economy and Business:

Currently i hold the position ( 3 years running) of Chairman of the Local Business Council in Heidelberg / Witsand / Slangrivier region in the Western Cape, South Africa.

In 2014 i was awarded the "Businessperson of the year" award by the Heidelberg Business Council.

I also held the position of Chairman of the Hessequa Municipality  Economic Advisory Council for a year.

I am also a member of the AHI (Afrikaans Trade Institute) Western Cape Province, management board and have recently been elected as the secretary of the same board.

I own three businesses that operate in diverse fields - From Retail Computer sales and repairs, to custom software development and also the Local Town Info and Tourism office and a travel agency.

Political :

I am currently the vice chairman of the Hessequa regional election  council for the Democratic Alliance in the Western Cape of South Africa.

I am also the vice chairman of the ward 9 voting district for the  Democratic Alliance in the town Heidelberg, Western Cape.

Personal:

I have 4 kids (two sons and two daughters) and believe that they deserve a better future than what was handed down to me, and i am working at achieving that by minimizing my carbon footprint on this earth by living self reliant, partially-"off grid" at this time, but fully "off -grid" in the near future.

I am in the process of building my own home for myself and my family (with two helpers) and have also recently opened a new business venture that helps and teaches people to install and use renewable energy sources to reduce their carbon footprint and do their part to preserve our future heritage to our children.

Conclusion:

I believe that my diverse knowledge and skill set can be a great benefit to the first parliament to help steer discussions and decisions in the right way.

We all came to this place in our lives due to the romanticism of a very grand thought experiment called Asgardia.

As time progresses, the ideas start to become reality to the point where we sit with a constitution we had to vote on.

I think there are very few of us that agree with the constitution in it's current form, but we have to ask our self a few questions:
.  Do I join into the discussion and affect the outcome?

.  Do I leave when the outcome is not my desired outcome, or do I stay and work from the "inside" to achieve a better outcome?

We are all people form different walks of life, different educational backgrounds, childhood and grownup experiences, but we are all united in one common goal, to make a better future for our self, our children and our communities - and ultimately the human race.

We cannot deprive each other from the wisdom and lessons learned in our life journey so far - we need to share our ideas and believes and dreams and hopes with each other.
Anyone reading this has already given the first steps towards making that better future a reality by joining Asgardia.

The next step is to discuss our dreams of what Asgardia represents to us, how we imagine it to be, operate and how we want to experience it, and for that we need active Asgardians that are not afraid to voice their ideas - specially around our most important document - the Constitution - Say your say on the forums.

The next step is to be able to listen to conflicting ideas, analyze them critically and take the good out of it and combine it with our own ideas and feelings to get to a better tomorrow for us and our fellow beings.

Kind Regards - Ben Dell

Every business that hopes to be successful, needs to take their current and future clients, as well as the community they operate in, and make it part of their strategy and re-invest into their communities.

It is so much easier to look at the big opportunities far away and hope to join in, when you can look at the small opportunities closer to home, put a little work and effort in and make a long term committed return on your investment from your local community and clients.

This is precisely the direction I feel we need to take with Asgardia, let's look for the small projects and the small wins as stepping stones to our bigger projects and bigger wins - like becoming a space nation in the practical sense - but for that we need everyone to pull in the same direction, with the same strength.

My plan is to make sure that all Asgardians have the same basic, minimum economic and social opportunities and help create them where they do not exist, then slowly we increase the level of the economy and opportunities ( a rising tide lifts all boats).

This obviously necessitates us to put into place measurement instruments to make sure we truly affect the lives of people in a positive and productive way towards our ultimate goal.

It also means we will be measuring the participation and productivity towards Asgardia from all it's participants, so as to identify optimal or sub optimal performance and social issues.

I will be putting my expertise and skills learned "on-the-job" over the last 50+ years towards this effort. Knowledge and skills learned in the South African Military (Air Force 16 years), Business Analyst (18 years), Software Development (21 years), Educational Technologist ( 15 years), Chairman of Heidelberg Business Council  ( 3 years), etc.

I need your assistance and expertise, as well as your vote, to help me so that we can all help each other economically to achieve our dream in this exciting venture called Asgardia.

Thank You - Ben Dell