At an average cruise speed of 8 kilometres per second (28.800 kilometres per hour), one can imagine it is not always easy for the occupants of the International Space Station to identify the part of the world they are right above at a given time. After all, just as our Head of Nation Dr. Ashurbeyli mentioned several times, from space, one cannot see the manmade arbitrary borders that define Earthly states and nations!

The picture above was taken on Saturday, February 11th 2012 during Expedition 30 , under the Command of Dan Burbank (NASA). It was Burbank's third spaceflight and at the time the picture was taken, another Astronaut, Don Pettit, three Cosmonauts, Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoli Ivanishin, and Oleg Kononenko and a Spationaut, André Kuipers, were under his command.
Up to this day, it is not known who exactly of the six men took the picture.
The week the picture was taken was an important week for the crew of the ISS: the preparation and training for the first EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity, better known as "Space Walk") of the year 2012, scheduled to take place five days later. A few hours after the picture was taken, the six men went to sleep. Little did they know that their sleep that night would be shorten by six hours!!

The crew was woken up by an emergency wake up on Sunday, February 12th around midnight (UTC), and found that the Station had suffered a temporary loss of power during their sleep, due to the failure of one of its power channels!
With the participation of everyone onboard and the help and guidance of organised teams on the ground, the re-powering of the ISS Systems was able to be established by 8pm (UTC) that same day. It took almost a full day to verify the integrity of all parts of the Station, the safety of the crew and the stability of the Station. By Monday 13th, all necessary resetting and controls had been operated and the crew was able to go back to its scheduled routine.

Usually, for the occupants of the Space Station, Sunday schedules are organised to be as "off duty days", meaning that they only have essential science and usual maintenance items to perform to keep things to a minimum. But the emergency nature of the situation and the processes necessary for the reset and restauration of the Station made that this Sunday ended up being a busy day... with not much rest!
Fortunately, the EVA that was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday, February 16th, thanks to the power loss to have occurred on the Sunday and not during the busy week schedule, didn't need to be postponed. That first Space Walk of 2012 (the only one of Expedition 30) lasted 6 hours 15 minutes and was led by Shkaplerov and Kononenko mainly to prepare for the undocking of the Pirs docking compartment relocating the Strela 1 Equipment Crane module to the Mini-Research Module 2 . There was also the retrieval of an experiment module which exposed materials to the space environment, while another experiment ( the Vynoslivost Sample Experiment ), was installed on handrails on MRM2. As there was not enough time to install the two units for the "TEST experiment", just one unit was installed before time for the EVA ran out. The scheduled task to install five shields on Zvezda to protect it from micrometeoroid debris was also cancelled and was rescheduled to be done during the following EVA, scheduled to take place in August that same year, during Expedition 32 .
This event that occurred hours after the picture was taken, is what is called a "Power-On Reset". It occurs occasionally aboard ISS and is considered a random event possibly associated with radiation. Prior to that event, the Station had previously suffered two such PORs, one on February 11th 2007 (during Expedition 14 ) and the other on November 3rd, 2008 ( Expedition 18 ).

What an adventure!
The photo of the unknown city that had just been taken before the whole POR incident was brought back to Earth and posted on the ESA website three years later, on 13th of March 2014, under the Space Station image tag #ISS030-E-85887.

It is with the help of the fans of the ESA website that the city was actually identified as being Kuala Lumpur, the city I have adopted!

Dear Asgardian Followers from the great city of Kuala Lumpur, from the Wilayah Persekutuan and from the Klang Valley!

First as a tourist and for business, I have been coming and passing through Kuala Lumpur off and on for the last 20 years for well over 60 trips! So when I had to relocate with my family after having lived 8 years in China, it just made sense to choose to come and live in the muddy confluence! :-)
I have now been a KL resident for the last two years and have been enjoying my everyday life here, the different parts of our city, its culture and of course, going mamak with friends!

I own two businesses and mostly work online which allows me to dedicate time to meaningful activities with my wife and friends. I’ve lived in the Cheras area, in Bangsar and I am now relocated in Wangsa Maju.

I’ve been involved in the building of our Nation for over a year now. I’ve organised the first meeting of Asgardian Followers in Kuala Lumpur to celebrate the First Anniversary of the Founding of our Nation last October (see the pictures in my blog post http://bit.ly/AsgardiaKL1) and have had the chance and the honour to be in Vienna at the end of June to witness the Inauguration of our Head of Nation Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli and meet all the Members of Parliament who were present at the opening of the First Parliamentary Session.

For the last few months, I have been in regular contact with the Administration of Dr. Ashurbeyli and also with several of our local Parliamentary Representatives. As such, I believe to be a good candidate able to foster the progress and development of our Nation in its current plans in Kuala Lumpur and its region, in the whole of Malaysia and in the wider South East Asia.

The role of a Mayor at this time for Asgardia is to bring our Nation from its present virtual and online state to the birth and sustaining of a thriving community life at the grassroots level in a given earthly locality.

At this time, we are just users of a website, part of an online group of people believing in the future of humanity as being beyond this terrestrial existence, in the immensity of space and getting ready to launch its conquest which is the reason why, for most of us, we chose to join the Space Kingdom of Asgardia in the first place and accepted its Constitution!

But it is now time to transition from being an online community to becoming a real life Nation, going from the virtual to the reality of our Malaysian lives, greeting and meeting each other in our beautiful city of KL which, I believe, can become a beacon of light in the development of our Nation for the whole of South East Asia with its diversity and cultural wealth, an example of success for the whole of Asgardia.

Together, let’s make Kuala Lumpur the best example of what « One Humanity, One Unity » truly means!

I stand here, as a candidate for the position of Asgardian Mayor of the city of Kuala Lumpur, to help you become a full Citizen of Asgardia and obtain your first Asgardian ID, to promote our Nation’s interests to the wider Malaysian community by connecting with companies, local businesses, the Media and the Press to render Asgardia more visible, and reaching out to the bright young minds in our local educational institutions and invite them to join us in the building of our spacefaring Nation.

Thank you for your support and for your willingness to participate in these mayoral elections!

[P.S.: a Mayor cannot do his or her work on their own, it takes a solid team of people both in the forefront alongside the Mayor but also some others helping in the background. If you believe you have what it takes to join my team as a volunteer, please contact me privately through your asgardia.space profile, adding me as a friend there and sending me a private message sharing your experience and your motivation.]

Here is the link to the map of the Earthly Cities having an Asgardian "Mayor": https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=3214775

This map was made according to the list of Mayors attached to Decree 26 ( http://bit.ly/Decree26-list ).

Remember to vote for your favorite Mayoral candidate in your own city!
To do so:
1) Follow this link: https://asgardia.space/en/mayoral-elections/around-the-world
2) Under the heading "Election Status", click on "Your electoral region"
3) Click on the profile(s) of the candidate(s) in your electoral region to read their platforms
4) If there are no candidates: apply to become Mayor yourself!!

October 12th came again in Kuala Lumpur! Last year four followers had managed to gather together to celebrate and this year, it suddenly was eight of us getting together to celebrate Asgardia’s second Birthday!! Yes, already two years!

It was in Paris that on October 12th 2016, that the scientist, businessman and philanthropist Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli announced the founding of Asgardia the Space Nation. Well, two years down the road , Asgardia not only has a Constitution, a democratically elected Head of Nation, a flag, a national anthem and a coat of arms, Asgardia now has a satellite  Asgardia1 representing its first territory in space, a fully functioning elected Parliament of currently 127 Members that has already held two sessions, one physical and one virtual , has voted on several laws and has finalised its 12 permanent parliamentary committees ; a Prime Minister who is currently forming her first Cabinet of Ministers to be announced by the end of this year 2018 ; a Supreme Justice appointed during the First Parliamentary session of Parliament that was held in Vienna in June 2018, and in a few hours, Asgardian Mayors from various cities all around the globe establishing Asgardia's official presence in 44 earthly cities around the globe!

Remembering all of these achievements, eight courageous Asgardian followers came from different parts of Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, to mark this second anniversary with a cheerful get together in KLCC, the beating heart of Malaysia, at the feet of the Twin Towers. Among us were a PhD candidate in space studies, a student of economics, a student of electrical engineering, a university lecturer, a high school student, a chiropractic doctor, a team manager for a Malaysian nation wide company and a software engineer. It is the Urbean Café that welcomed us and allowed us to celebrate this event.

We discussed on some of the achievements of our Nation, its current affairs and its short and long term future developments. While some of us have been long time Asgardians, others had just signed up on http://asgardia.space a few days before and still others had just heard about the First Space Nation a few hours before the meeting! All were cheerful and happy to finally meet in real life other Asgardian followers!

From the Inauguration of our Head of Nation at the Hofburg palace in Vienna on June 25th , I had kept the copy of the National Anthem that was then given to me as a guest and I shared some copies of the document with all of us and so, with the help of the recording available online, we rehearsed the anthem once and then went to sing it together outside of the café , in front of the emblematic Petronas Towers. It is there that we had a short session of pictures together, enjoying an evening out without monsoon and with a few stars. But then came the time to say our goodbyes promising to meet again very soon!

It was a beautiful moment of unity. Sharing about our lives and backgrounds, we realised that we had in our little group not less than 5 earthly nationalities from 3 continents and that yet, we were all united with the same vision! “One Humanity, One Unity”!

As Dr. Ashurbeyli concluded in his Head of Nation inaugural speech, we might not be the best but "we are the future.”
I believe he is right, we are the future!

Happy second Birthday ASGARDIA !!!

If the elections were ending now, how many potential Mayors would we have?

As we are approaching the final day of the First general Mayoral elections of Asgardia's History, here are some statistics, less than 62 hours before the voting ends.

In Decree 20 from July 30th 2018, our Head of Nation announced the Mayoral Elections. The Decree specified that after having successfully submitted their platforms, candidates had to fulfil two conditions to be eligible by the end of the period of the elections:

* they must be running for Mayorship in a town that ends up having at least 100 Asgardian Residents (by September 9th 23:59 UTC)

* and they must have paid the compulsory application fee of 100 euros in full by that same date and time.

At the time of writing of this blog post (Friday 1pm UTC), there are exactly 1.037 candidates for Mayorship across the globe.

Among these candidates, only 7.4% (77 candidates) have paid in full their 100€ fee.

Among these 77 persons, only 43 of them are candidates in cities that have a population of more than 100 Asgardian Residents.

Here is the list of the cities of these 43 candidates, showing the one with the highest Asgardian Residents population first:

(City/ Country/ Number of candidates having paid the fee in that city/ Number of Asgardian Residents registered to vote in that City)

As you can see, at this time, there are only 3 cities (Vienna, Austria; Toronto, Canada and San Francisco, USA) where there are more than one valid candidate (2 actually) creating serious competition to garner votes from their constituents. Let's wish them good luck knowing that the best and most suitable candidate will win!
The candidates of all other cities are either the only candidates in their city or are competing with other candidates who have not paid their 100€ fee yet!

That also means that among the 77 candidates who have paid their 100€ fee in full, 34 of them have not been able at this time to raise up the number of Asgardian Residents of the City where they have applied to become a Mayor to reach the 100 threshold defined as the rule of the Elections...

TO CONCLUDE
If the elections were to end today, we would only have 37 Mayors elected after the Central Electoral Commission validation (according to the rules set alongside Decree 20).
These numbers are very low because 92.6% of the Candidates have not paid in full their 100€ fee...
How can you help in these elections for them to have a better outcome?
First, by reminding your favorite candidate that they need to pay their 100€ candidate fee!
Then, if they tell you they're having some difficulties paying it, you can actually offer to help them out by paying their fee in full (that would be nice of you!) or just offer to contribute in part (you can pay by increments of 10€ at a time). If you don't know how to do that, check the link below.

If more Candidates pay their fees before Sunday midnight (UTC time), that would then allow more Cities to have an Asgardian Mayor for these first Asgardian Mayoral Elections in the History of our Nation!

Here is a link indicating how you can vote and how you can contribute in paying the fee of your favorite candidate: Elections of Asgardia's Mayors Guide

Thank you for voting and for supporting your Candidate!

Dear fellow Asgardian Followers residing in the City of Kuala Lumpur and around!

Ever wondered how many we are? What our demographics are?
Well, don't wonder any longer!
Here are a few statistics of the population of our area gathered from the Asgardia Statistics Page in a 10km radius of Kuala Lumpur according to the data provided to the website by the Followers themselves upon signing up as retrieved and compiled in the afternoon of Monday September 3rd, 2018, Malaysian time.

How many are we in Malaysia, both West and East Malaysia?
We currently are 3.318 people to have registered an account to become Asgardian Followers having chosen "Malaysia" as our country of Residence.

Among them, how many live in or around Kuala Lumpur (10km radius)?
Among these 3.318, we currently are 1.179 adult Asgardian Followers to live in Kuala Lumpur or within a 10km radius of KL. That represents 35.6% of all Asgardian Followers who have chosen to register their profile in Malaysia.

Here is a table indicating all the areas that were chosen at the time of signing up:
(sorted by alphabetical order with the percentage of the total number of adult Asgardian Followers within a 10km radius of KL)

Hm... it appears that a majority of us live in Kuala Lumpur itself ( 60% ) while others mainly live in "Selangor" (so vague!), PJ, Puchong, Kajang, Seri Kembangan and Ampang!

What is the average age of the adult Followers in KL and around?

The youngest adults among us are obviously 18 years old while our oldest Follower is 72 years old! The average age of the adult Followers living in and around KL is 30 years of age .
We also have a few youngsters who have registered (26 of them to be precise, between age 9 and 17).

What languages are most widely spoken among the Asgardian Followers of KL and around KL?

With no surprise, English is the most widely spoken language among the Asgardian Followers of the Greater Kuala Lumpur with over 95% of them having mentioned it as one of the languages they can communicate with.
Second is Chinese (Simplified) that was indicated by 62.9% of the Asgardian Followers!
Malay comes third, having been indicated by 31.6% of the Asgardian Followers of the Greater KL.

That's it for today! I hope these numbers will help you get to know our community better!
Comment below, add me as a friend and/or contact me on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/IvanRosel19 ) if you'd like to interact with other Asgardian Followers of the Greater KL!!

Sometimes, in order to join a public or private group related to Asgardia on social media sites, you may be asked to provide a link pointing to your asgardia.space profile to show you are really registered as a future Citizen of the Space Nation of Asgardia. In the future, the Asgardian Mayor of your city will also need to have access to that information to verify your profile and be able to ascertain that the information you provided on the website is accurate in order to start the verifications necessary for the granting of your Asgardian Citizenship.

Whatever the reason may be, getting that information is not as straightforward as it could be: when you click on your name or your picture in a post on this asgardia.space website, it doesn't send you to your profile for you to copy its own address, no, it sends you to the "edit page" of your profile!

So, how to get the link to your own profile?

Over the months, through the many updates our asgardia.space website has known, there have been several different ways to get that link. I will only share here the one that seems to be the current (as of August 19th 2018) easiest and most universal way to get it from a computer or a mobile phone.

From a computer:
Click on the upper left part of your screen on the "Global Search" tab and type the exact name you provided on your profile at the time of registration. Your picture and name should appear on the list. Don't click on it otherwise you would be sent directly to the "edit page" of your profile! Instead, right-click the link over your name/picture and select "Copy Link Address" or equivalent in the chosen language of your computer.
Now, you just need to "paste" that link somewhere for later reference. Et voilà !

From a mobile phone:
Tap on the upper part of your screen on the blue circular icon showing a white magnifying glass. A "Global Search" tab should appear right below. Tap on that tab and type the exact name you provided on your profile at the time of registration. Now, validate. Your picture and name should appear on the list. Don't tap on it otherwise you would be sent directly to the "edit page" of your profile! Instead, make a prolonged tap on your name/picture and select "Copy Link" or equivalent in the list that appears in the chosen language of your mobile phone. As a confirmation that it is done, it should say something like "copied to your clipboard".
Now, you just need to "paste" that link somewhere for later reference (with a prolonged tap in a space where you can type text). Et voilà !

[If you find this tip useful, please leave a like or a comment below. If you would like to be informed when I post other tips/blog posts, please add me as a friend and you will be informed in your notifications each time I make a new post!]

In the evening of Wednesday, May 9th, I received a message from Administration informing me that, as an elected Member of Parliament, I had been placed “under review” as a consequence of multiple complaints about some of my posts/activities in the last few weeks preceding that message.

No timeline about that review was given in the message.

It was informing me that as a consequence, and until that review would be over, I would not be able to join the other Members of Parliament Elect and work on the SLACK platform created for us on which we have been invited to gather and work to prepare for the first Parliamentary session to take place on June 24th in Vienna.

I was offered the option to either choose to keep that review quiet or decide by myself whomever I wanted to share this piece of news with.

In a spirit of transparency, I decided to share, with my constituents and with the other Asgardians who might be wondering what is happening, the extent of my current situation.

Still in that spirit of transparency, I also decided to render public, to that effect, the reply to be sent to the person from Administration who had informed me about that review. That message is posted here below as a reply to that post and has already been posted on the Facebook group "Asgardia General Official".

Dear fellow Asgardian Citizens!

We're back for our fourth update, less than an hour from the end of the First Parliamentary Elections of Asgardia!!

DISCLAIMER : this is like a screenshot of the elections at a given time. Please note that the data change all the time (new votes are added or removed) and therefore might get outdated really quickly! The information that follows is based on the data retrieved from https://asgardia.space/en/asgardians/?mp=on&page=1 at the above mentioned date and time.

Reminder: the elections have been announced to end at Midnight Paris time (France) . That means March 9th 11pm UTC .

Here is how the voting progress has gone throughout the day:

March 9th, 09:47 UTC
252 candidates 22298 votes

March 9th, 16:45 UTC
251 candidates 22694 votes

Sergei Menshchikov changed his candidacy to become a Government Candidate.
He was then in position 9 with a gap of 25 votes at the time to make it to the 6th seat of District #7 - Russian and have a chance to join the next stage of the election process, namely the interview with the CEC and the Head of Nation personal endorsement.

We wish him good luck as a Government Candidate!

March 9th, 19:10 UTC
251 candidates 23001 votes

March 9th, 20:15 UTC
251 candidates 23063 votes

March 9th, 21:20 UTC
251 candidates 23162 votes

Below, you will find a table answering the following questions:

What is the age average of the Candidates in each District?
How many Candidates can be elected for each District?
How many Candidates are actually running in each District?
How many votes would it take to be elected?**

• (1) *PLEASE NOTE: being among the candidates with the most votes making them within the number of seats available in the District they run in doesn’t make them Members of Parliament. It makes them eligible to go to the next stage of the process of the elections: the interview with the Central Electoral Commission and the Head of Nation.
• (2) **It was announced, at the time the Candidates who were running for the leadership elections were transferred to the Parliamentary elections, that for their candidacy to be valid, a candidate needed then to have at least 3 votes. We speculate here with that same number.

That's it for this post! In a few minutes, the voting should be closed and Candidates will only have to… hold their breath until April 1st , when the list of names of the First Parliament of Asgardia will be rendered public!

Last important piece of info, the link to go back to vote and a reminder HURRY YOU HAVE ONLY MINUTES LEFT TO VOTE!!!!
– you cast as many as 150 votes for as many as 150 candidates for Parliament. So, choose your team in Parliament!

– go vote now! >>> https://asgardia.space/en/elections-districts/

Dear fellow Asgardian Citizens!

Back for our third update, one day before the end of our elections. We’ll first see today the progression of votes based on data retrieved today, March 8th, 7:34am UTC.
And today, we will show interesting data about the languages of our candidates.

DISCLAIMER : this should be considered as a screenshot of the elections, a snapshot taken at a given time. Please note that data change all the time (new votes can be added or removed all the time) and therefore might get outdated really quickly! The information that follows is based on the data retrieved from https://asgardia.space/en/asgardians/?mp=on&page=1 at the above mentioned date and time. I will provide updates every few hours on my blog. Stay tuned, enjoy, and please leave comments below!

How many Parliamentary Candidates were running on March 8th, 7:34am UTC?

There were 252 Parliamentary Candidates.

How many votes had been cast at that time?

There were 20702 votes cast over the 13 language Districts and the 252 candidates.

What has the progression of votes been over the last 48 hours?

Languages

As you can see in our table above, we have some monolingual candidates (meaning, they can only speak one language) but we also have many polyglots!

Number of candidates who listed only one language on their profile:   64

Number of candidates who listed two languages on their profile:         97

Number of candidates who listed three languages on their profile:       49

Number of candidates who listed four languages on their profile:         24

Number of candidates who listed five languages on their profile:          12

Number of candidates who listed six languages on their profile:             5

Number of candidates who listed seven languages on their profile:        0

Number of candidates who listed eight languages on their profile:          1

How many Parliamentary Candidates are running under a District which language they have not listed?

Number of candidates who are running in a district which language they haven’t mentioned on their profiles:
Turkish (1 candidate)
French (1 candidate)
Arabic (3 candidates)
Portuguese (1 candidate)
Other (4 candidates)

That's it for this post! Once again, if you would like to see other information compiled in the data, feel free to make your request in the comments below. I cannot promise it will be feasible but if it is possible to do so by contrasting and compiling the available updated data, I will do it for you!
Next update in a few hours... I'll keep you posted!

Last important piece of info, the link to go back to vote and a reminder as our election ends tomorrow, March 9th:
– you cast as many as 150 votes for as many as 150 candidates for Parliament. So, choose your team in Parliament!

– so, go vote now! >>> https://asgardia.space/en/elections-districts/

Dear fellow Asgardian Citizens!

Back for an update since our first post yesterday. We’ll see today the progression of votes based on data retrieved today, March 7th, 7:54am UTC.

DISCLAIMER : this is like a screenshot of the elections at a given time. Please note that the data change all the time (new votes are added or removed) and therefore might get outdated really quickly! The information that follows is based on the data retrieved from https://asgardia.space/en/asgardians/?mp=on&page=1 at the above mentioned date and time. I will provide updates every few hours on my blog. Stay tuned, enjoy, and please leave comments below!

How many Parliamentary Candidates were running on March 7th, 7:54am UTC?

There were 252 Parliamentary Candidates.

How many votes had been cast at that time?

There were 19058 votes cast over the 13 language Districts and the 252 candidates.

Why is there one more candidate today?

The profile of one candidate from District 13 (Other) didn’t appear on the available statistics at the time of retrieval yesterday and was therefore not counted yesterday (maybe the candidate had suspended their candidacy for a day?). Their profile being up and running today, we have again 252 candidates for our current statistics today.

Is there any important change to mention?

It appears that 2 candidates from District 13 (Other) moved their candidacy to District 3 (Turkish), probably by changing their language of choice on their profile.

What is the progression of votes between the two days?

That's it for this post! Once again, if you would like to see other information compiled in the data, feel free to make your request in the comments below. I cannot promise it will be feasible but if it is possible to do so by contrasting and compiling the available updated data, I will do it for you!
Next update in a few hours... I'll keep you posted!

Last important piece of info, the link to go back to vote and a reminder:
– you cast as many as 150 votes for as many as 150 candidates for Parliament. So, choose your team in Parliament!

– go vote now! >>> https://asgardia.space/en/elections-districts/

Dear fellow Asgardian Citizens!

If like me, you are curious and wish to know a bit more about the election demographics, then you might be interested in the following information I compiled, based on the available data retrieved today, March 6th, 6:27am UTC.

DISCLAIMER : this is like a screenshot of the elections at a given time. Please note that the data change all the time (new votes are added or removed) and therefore might get outdated really quickly! The information that follows is based on the data retrieved from https://asgardia.space/en/asgardians/?mp=on&page=1 at the above mentioned date and time. I will provide updates every few hours on my blog. Stay tuned, enjoy, and please leave comments below!

How many Parliamentary Candidates were running on March 6th, 6:27am UTC?

There were 251 Parliamentary Candidates.

How many votes had been cast at that time?

There were 16675 votes cast over the 13 language Districts and the 251 candidates.

How many countries are represented in the elections?

If we consider Hong Kong as a country, there are 64 countries in which reside our current Parliamentary Candidates, across the 13 language Districts.

What is the list of these countries, how many candidates in each of them and how many votes have been received per country?

That's it for this post! If you would like to see other information compiled in the data, feel free to make your request in the comments below. I cannot promise it will be feasible but if it is possible to do so by contrasting and compiling the available updated data, I will do it for you!

One last important piece of info, the link to go back to vote and a reminder: you cast as many as 150 votes for as many as 150 candidates for Parliament. So, choose your team in Parliament!

Go vote now! >>> https://asgardia.space/en/elections-districts/

Operation: Treasury

By Ivan Rosel & Ross Cheeseright | 21/02/2018

Introduction

In the text of Decree 15, HoN Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli announced that he would bring an end to the funding of the nation, with all funding due to wrap up by the end of the year. The purpose of Operation: Treasury is to start exploring ways for Asgardia to develop its own funds.

Aim

To mobilize and organize a think-tank of volunteers from  the community with a view to source viable methods of funding Asgardia in both the pre and post formation of Parliament, and to help deliver the vehicles and services required for Asgardians to generate income and trade with one another.

Objectives

1. Operation: Treasury will seek to bring into the fold any Asgardians who think that it is something they might be able to help with.
2. This Operation will seek to explore, address and propose and implement both short-term and long-term solutions regarding the financing of the nation.
3. The operation will be comprised of independent citizens, parliamentary candidates and government candidates, but no current ranking officials or members of Asgardia NGO.
4. Within the scope of this operation will be the research and establishment of revenue-generating businesses or solutions, project proposals and reports.

Scope

As we are not currently permitted to raise funds on behalf of Asgardia, the think-tank will be limited to conducting research, making proposals or developing projects that have the involvement or the formal agreement of Asgardia’s copyright holders / Asgardia NGO.

Transparency

One of the primary goals will be the absolute transparency of the operation and every effort shall be made to share the details, costs, income and expenses of any projects that are run. Furthermore, all reports, investigations and research will be shared with the community, with Parliament and Asgardia NGO.

First Step

The first step we are taking is to notify the community of this think-tank and start to gather together volunteers so that we can conduct meetings and brainstorming sessions to come up with some solutions to the financial problems that we’re facing as a Nation.

How you can help

If you would like to join Operation Treasury and work with us to build up a catalogue of research, investigations, reports and solutions then please let us know and volunteer some of your time. We’re especially interested in:

1. People with a background in finance
2. Innovators
3. People with a background in logistics or international trade
4. People who genuinely want to help Asgardia succeed

Contact us

Please comment below or contact Ross Cheeseright or Ivan Rosel directly if you would like to be involved.

That may sound to you as an evidence but I came to realise that it is not one for every Asgardian citizen. First, I saw comments about “Members of Parliament should be volunteering, not paid” then a citizen saying in the AGO on Facebook [ bit.ly/AGO-FB ] that in the aftermath of Decree 15 [ bit.ly/Decree15 ] a first move should be to “scrap the salaries” of future Members of Parliament and other future Government workers.

In times of financial distress such as the one we entered with Decree 15 , I can understand the idea. But then, if you were a candidate for a position that you know is going to be overwhelming and time consuming –not the standard 9 to 5– work, how would you feel if you were told that actually, you should be doing that FOR FREE because the current finances are too low to finance your salary?

I can’t speak for you as after all, for what I know, you could be a retired person with a good monthly pension with a lot of spare time, no family responsibilities anymore or with no more house mortgage to pay, the kids’ college fund fully paid off, and all of that with a good health! (don’t we all wish that? )
But from where I stand, well, I’d say things are different. I would just not be able to take care of my family working to debate and enact laws in a 24 time zone job (day and night: no solution proposed there as yet, that’s for another blog post), working through 13 possible languages, with a calendar of priorities (not set yet) to spend the first few weeks of work (first month maybe?) just getting organised on the actual law enacting and voting procedures themselves.

As I mentioned, I don't know for you but I would just have to decline to take the position, being actually seriously pressured by my wife and some friends to “come down back to Earth and quit dreaming”. To them, the daily (and nightly!) time I already dedicate to Asgardia and the belief I share that the building of the Nation with the current constraints will actually work makes them think I’m mad, or involved in a kind of game, and I know I’m not the only one in this situation [ https://asgardia.space/en/blog/23874-my-husband-is-crazy-says-my-wife-non-agardian-family-support/ ]...

Now, please don’t mistake my post here as a campaign withdrawal post or a complaining about the situation, NO, I am still in love with Asgardia, I am still believing heart, mind and soul in the future of our Nation and I am still willing to dedicate myself to finding solutions as a citizen and as a candidate for Parliament. I am also thankful for all that our Head of Nation has done so far for Asgardia. Without him after all, you wouldn't be reading this post here today. So, I just want to state here that future Members of Parliament and Government officers cannot just be “volunteering" .

And yes, I am aware that Decree 15 announced that our Head of Nation will be covering elected members of Parliament with a $500 salary (stipend?) for the months of April, May and June, and I am thankful for them. I am just rightfully worried that, just as the citizens who see that logically, such a salary cannot be sustained with the current finances in our coffers [ https://asgardia.space/en/order ]...

Quick calculation: 150 full time members of Parliament X $500 = $75.000 a month. We could continue paying our Parliament this $500 (not even covering my basic family expenses!) per member for 440k/75k = 5 full months!
Hurray!!

Really, fellow Asgardian citizens, we are in a bad shape …

So, if you are an over 40yo citizen of Asgardia and wish to do that Member of Parliament job for free, please, step forward in the comments, open your electoral campaign mentioning in your platform that you don’t want/need any salary: I promise I will support you and I can assure you that if your vision is sound, you will no doubt be elected.

Citizens, in the quest of finding financing solutions for our Nation, cutting off the salary of your lawmakers and government civil servants is not a rightful, productive, efficient or pragmatic solution.

Instead, I say it is time to gather our minds and come up with realistic solutions for financing our Nation .

[ to be continued ]

If you’re 25yo or less,

You are not trusted

and it seems that you don’t care not to be trusted.

The current main debate is not anymore “should the age to be elected to the Parliament be lowered?” but rather “should a petition to change the age for Parliament list 18 or 25 as the minimum age for Parliamentary members?” as the poll launched by Christina Cole , a civic.asgardia moderator and Parliamentary Candidate, shows.

You are not trusted because out of 224 votes as seen today, 162 votes choose 25yo as the new minimum age and only 62 votes choose 18yo.

This is justified by saying that someone under 25 years of age cannot possibly have suitable ideas, enough and relevant life experience, education, etc. to become a Member of the Parliament of Asgardia.

Why do I say that you don’t care not to be trusted ?

Because statistics show that 18-25yo represent over 50% of all Asgardians. To justify my claim, just among the last 100 Asgardians who signed up in the last hour or so, there are 60% under 25yo people who signed up to the website asgardia.space.

But you don’t care because you don’t go to vote in that poll.

Maybe is it that you are not interested in seeing your peers able to become members of the Parliament?
Or maybe you agree that you don't have suitable ideas , enough and relevant experience, education , etc. to be Members of the Parliament of Asgardia?

Either way, I STRONGLY suggest, that you take the time to vote for that poll, as its results will be used to justify the push for the modification of the Constitution to change the age to become MP.

So, if you want that minimum age to be 25 , just don’t do anything . It is what is going to happen.

If you believe it should be 18, then don’t wait and vote here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/204018803354568/permalink/377039049385875/

Have a great day!