Fellow Asgardians,

There have been some developments in the past few days and the minimum running age for parliament has been dropped from 40 to 18 and so, without further delay, I would like to take this opportunity to officially announce my candidacy for Parliament.

I would ask all of those who believe in Asgardia and all of those who feel as I do to lend me your support so that together, we can work on changing Asgardia from a dream into a reality.

You can see the full details of my campaign and vote for me on the following link:

https://asgardia.space/en/elections/candidates/English/17737/

Let us create a movement that will ensure the success of our nation!

Yours sincerely,

Ross Cheeseright
Parliamentary Candidate.

I have seen a lot of discussion about this recently and I have seen people discussing it in-depth and I also know that this will be a polarizing issue for many Asgardians, but I would like to address it none-the-less and give you my perspective on it.

Asgardian Earth Settlements.

The argument in question is “Should Asgardia make settling on earth a priority?” the ‘yes’ camp suggest that Asgardians should buy up land on Earth and start to colonise it and move Asgardians around the world to settle in this “Asgardian Country” on earth. The concept itself has had many suggestions from taking up space somewhere in ‘international waters’ to creating landmasses – such as is seen in Dubai.

Why can’t we do this?

There are a lot of reasons that we won’t be able to do this, and I feel that I could write a blog entry for each one, but for now, I will summarise the reasons in a list.

1. Land is incredibly rare and expensive.
2. Almost all land in the world is owned, Asgardia would struggle to take it and declare independence.
3. We would need a huge mass of land to house 100,000 – 300,000+ people.
4. It would take years to build a city from scratch. Building a modern metropolis would take 25+ years of production.
5. We lack the current organisation or infrastructure to build a city. We don’t have a parliament, we don’t have laws, we don’t know if we have the specialists required or enough people willing to construct it.
6. It would cost a fortune to build – Saudi Arabia have recently pledged 500 billion dollars to build a modern city (and it already owns the land.)
7. We wouldn’t be able to protect it from outside threats.
8. It would make Asgardia more of a threat to current populations
9. It does not mirror the ideals of Asgardia the dream is space and to protect the planet, not to settle on it.
10. The logistics of getting people to move to a new country is just staggering. Who’s going to pay for the relocation costs? Who’s going to decide where people live? Who’s going to decide what jobs people do?

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you actually start looking into the details of what would be required to create a brand-new settlement on earth, the ‘todo’ list starts to become staggering. Finding and contracting companies, managing the budget, purchasing the construction materials, paying the labour, handling environmental studies, making sure we won’t affect wildlife. I can’t state enough just how much effort would go into this venture.

Most cities today have been built up from small settlements over a long period of time and the more modern cities – such as those being built in china and the proposed Neom from Saudi Arabia – are backed by huge wealthy and established governments.

So what’s the alternative?

The alternatives to trying to centralise our community into a nation on earth are to embrace the concept of a decentralised digital nation.

We live in a time when people are increasingly connected. A time where people can instantaneously collaborate and communicate from anywhere on the planet. Technology is giving us the tools we need to quietly and effortlessly step over the domains imposed on earth.

Using a ‘digital first’ solution for Asgardia and having people embrace this as a ‘digital nation’ would have many benefits.

1. It’s becoming increasingly affordable to use digital technologies.
2. Smartphones are helping to boost the connected population of the world.
3. The Internet allows us to access knowledge and information freely.
4. Asgardia has already positioned itself as a digital nation.
5. Asgardia is already working across borders with people from all over the world.
6. Our currency, SOLAR will be a blockchain based crypto currency.
7. Once we have our network of satellites in space, we’ll have full control over our information giving us true independence.
8. Each citizen in our nation can enjoy the status quo of living in their own country – including working, healthcare, edication (and so on)
9. Everyone can stay where they are, there won’t be any upheaval.
10. Logistically, it is a lot easier to manage a digital nation than it is a physical nation as each person’s host nation is already catering for their physical needs.
11. A digital nation is more inclusive, if we made a physical nation people might not be able to afford to move to live there, some people might not want to move to live there. A digital nation ensures access to everyone.

A Virtual Nation.

My ideal solution would be to take the digital nation one step further and create a Virtual Nation . I have spoken at length in my previous blogs about the benefits a virtual nation could bring to Asgardia. It would allow people to come together, to collaborate, co-operate and on a much more personal level than the current digital tools we have.

It would allow us to create and share works of art using virtual-reality painting tools. It would allow us to create universities, training simulations, cinemas to go and watch movies with our friends – it would give us access to a lot of things that we take for granted in the physical space.

It would provide people with a symbolic ‘space’ in the virtual Asgardia that they could call home and invite friends over to, even just to sit and talk with their colleagues would be a novelty.

And it would allow us to enjoy these things at a fraction of the cost of a physical land-mass.

Furthermore, it’s in keeping with Asgardia’s vision. A Virtual nation could, in the future, be hosted on Asgardia’s orbital network, Allowing us to symbolically ‘live’ in our own territory in space. Much as the current “Asgardia-1” is going to symbolize our ‘territory’.

About the Author

I an active Asgardian Citizen currently volunteering as a communications specialist for civic Asgardia. I have been featured on the editor’s picks several times, interviewed by several international newspapers about my work in Asgardia and I am currently running for parliament. If you’d like to see more of my posts, you can add me on Asgardia.space as a friend, or check my blog feed .

On October 12, 2017 we celebrated Founding Day. One of the featured offerings on founding day was the infographic that looked back at some of the things that Asgardia had achieved and some of the things that were in progress and in my founding-day address I said that it had been a great year but there was still “A lot to do” and that we needed to make this a “great year for Asgardia.”

It came to mind that on traditional ‘new year’ events, it’s a time for reflections and resolutions and while it’s become a bit of a running joke that people don’t follow through with their resolutions, I think that it’s a helpful exercise.

And so for the next year ahead of us, there are my Asgardian Resolutions:

1. Start an Asgardian not-for-profit business.
2. Run for a position in Parliament.
3. Continue with my plans to learn and develop Virtual Reality.
4. Continue to volunteer for Civic Asgardia

My resolution is to continue to work to make Asgardia a success and for it to be taken seriously. I want to organise people and inspire them to continue working. I don’t want our prototype space nation to fizzle out and I certainly don’t want someone to beat us to our goals.

What about you? If you have any reflections or resolutions, why not leave them in the comments section below.

I am currently running as a strategist, please take a couple of minutes to look at my candidate profile and lend me your support.

Press Conference in Moscow - Rundown

Today, on the Anniversary of Asgardia’s founding, the Head of our Nation, Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli held a press conference in Moscow. The spirit of the conference was to address the primary outcomes of the first year and a look to the future of our nation to see what activity we might expect to see on the horizon. While this conference did raise some questions about the future, it certainly painted a picture of continued progress, productivity and an undeniable air of legitimacy. The future certainly looks exciting for the nation of Asgardia.

This document contains my rundown of some of the points that really stood out. If you’d like to review the press conference, you can watch it here .

Government & Elections

One of the hot topics facing the future of Asgardia will be our elections, there will be 150 parliamentary positions that will be divided up based on the language principle, rather than geography. The language figures are based on languages that people have selected on their national profiles.

1. It was confirmed that today was the official start of the election period following a re-design of the Asgardia.space website.
2. Asgardia does not recognize earthly borders and so the elections for parliament will be based on language and the split of parliamentary places will be as follows:
   1. English was the top language and there will be 68 places on parliament.
   2. Chinese was second with 23 places.
   3. Turkish was third with 16 places.
   4. Spanish came in fourth and will hold 15 places.
   5. Italian: 5
   6. French: 4
   7. Russian: 4
   8. Arabic: 4
   9. Portuguese: 3
   10. German: 3
   11. Farsi: 2
   12. Japanese: 1
   13. Other: 2
3. The Parliamentary Elections are due to come to a conclusion by March 2018
4. All Asgardians are asked to take Pride and Participation in the Parliamentary elections.
5. There are plans to launch the Post Office of Asgardia, stamps are expected to be available from December this year.
6. Once Parliament is elected, in the following months the members of the Court, Chamber of accounts and supreme council will also be elected.
7. Head of Nation affirms that we’re building a serious nation, not a fake nation or a vide-game and that we’re trying to move fast, but not so fast that we outstrip the law and establishment of laws which could harm our entry to the UN.

Currency & Finance

It seems that plans and progress on this front are really starting to pick up as Asgardia reaches some pretty important milestones.

1. Asgardia has been formally registered as an NGO in Vienna.
2. Asgardians are asked to provide charitable support.
3. The compensation of all functionaries will be done through Asgardia NGO starting next year.
4. Functionaries will not exceed 1% of the total number of citizens.
5. The budget will be published on the website.
6. In a serious victory for Asgardia, SOLAR (SOL) was registered formally on October 05 2017 by Europe and is classified as intellectual property.
7. More details on the cryptocurrency are due to be released once the central bank has been formed.
8. SOLAR is said to be ‘tied to the mass of the moon.’

Business & Jobs

Asgardia affirms its commitment to the business of investment in startups with a capital fund of 1 million Euros to fund startups.

1. Asgardia, the country of space start-ups will seed capital of 1 million euros which can increase to an unlimited amount due to the sale of shares to Asgardian Citizens and investors. More details will be released once the ministry of finance has been formed.

Space & Exploration

Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli shared some of his visions for the future of Asgardia as we work towards becoming the first space nation.

1. It was suggested that we could be looking at creating an orbital network of satellites in the next 5-7 years and that ideally, the head of the nation wishes that in his lifetime, he will be able to go to the moon or spend some time on an orbital Ark.
2. Asgardia-1 is due to launch and a press conference is scheduled to be held in Washington following the subsequent (successful) launch of the Satellite.
3. The 3 localities of Asgardia are said to be our Earthly locality such as spaceport, programming and flight centre, the next is the orbital network and the third would be moon-based settlements. At the moment there are no plans to go further, but the head of the nation said that those younger people may “visit mars.”

Security & Defence

Asgardia reaffirms it’s mission to peacefully protect humanity from external threats.

1. Asgardia will have no security / military presence on earth.
2. Asgardia’s primary objective would be to defend the earth from threats.
3. Asgardia will look to provide a space-fleet that will be based in orbit.
4. The Fleet will not be designed to engage in conflicts on earth.
5. The Asgardian Fleet will defend all humanity, regardless of earthly divides, from space threats such as asteroids and other threats.

I am currently running as a strategist and I could use your support!

Please take a couple of minutes to look at my candidate profile and lend me your support

Hello there Fellow Asgardians, in this blog I want to outline some of the things that I have been working on in the Asgardian domain and my progress so far. If you would like to support me, please feel free to check out my campaign profile and vote for me.

The Asgardian Development Society Concept.

I have been working on a concept called the Asgardian Development Society. The purpose of the project is to start gathering together members of the community who genuinely want to put their time and energy into making Asgardia a reality. The focus for the project would be on addressing matters that the citizens themselves could address without the intervention of the Asgardian administration such as collaboration on projects, improving the public perception of Asgardians and drawing attention to important petitions.

Setting up Shop in Asgardia

I have recently been exploring the process of setting up a business within Asgardia. The idea would be to create and sell a product to Asgardians, a portion of the proceeds being paid to Asgardia in ‘Taxes’ The main purpose of the business is to test the process and bring to light any issues that might arise so that the process can be improved for future businesses.

Requesting Expanded Tools to enable self-organization.

I am working on a proposal to send to the administration to expand the capabilities of the website so that we can start to form self-organizing groups – this would be a vital step for the development of Asgardia. The following is the first draft of my proposal:

Running for Strategist

My campaign for Strategist is starting to pick up steam and I now have a quarter of the votes that I need. The principal issue of getting votes is getting exposure. The early runners who started their campaigns when Asgardia was full of hype and energy did very well, however, the activity within the community has started dipping a little, which is to be expected.

I imagine that once the Parliamentary elections start up, there will be another surge of activity in Asgardia as people start to take more of an interest once more.

My plan, for now, is to keep pushing and working on getting my message out to people and hoping that my vision resonates with them.

Today marked another of Lena’s Live Streams where she speaks on issues that are brought up by the Asgardian nationals. In this article, we’ll be giving a run-down of the live-feed and summarising some of the more interesting points that were made.

Asgardia’s latest live-stream paints a very ‘down to earth’ picture of Asgardia’s near future as a nation that’s working with the best interests of humanity in mind but is very much constrained to work within the confines of reality and notions of a ‘floating utopia’ in earth orbit were quickly dispelled.

Rather than a structure in the Arctic or on a deserted island, Asgardia’s current form is that of a virtual nation using modern technology and looking for ways to invest in the future of humanity. Through the establishment of the nation, Asgardia will have a platform to offer funding, infrastructure and legal systems that will encourage people to look to the stars and develop new technology and businesses that make it easier than ever before.

It seems that Asgardia is looking to be a driving force behind the development of Space and that moving to live in space is simply something that will happen in time as a result of the core goals and business aims of the nation.

This might not sit well with some people that have a more fantastical view of what Asgardia is. I have had many discussions recently with people that are putting all their hopes and visions onto Asgardia and creating a really unrealistic vision without thinking of where the money or the technology will come form.

Below are the highlights from the live stream. I have summarised/paraphrased them and put them into broad categories to keep it to the point. However, the video and the full transcript will be out soon.

IDs & Passports.

There was quite a lot of discussion regarding the ID’s and passports, here are some of the highlights:

1. All the ‘golden 100,000’ (which is anyone that accepted the constitution before decree 9 was issued.) will be eligible for an Asgardian ID and Passport.
2. People applying for citizenship after this date will need to wait until Parliament is formed before they can become eligible.
3. It will take several months to prepare the documents as a matter of practicality.
4. People must present themselves in person to attain their ID. They must physically meet a representative from Asgardia at least once before attaining an ID or passport.
5. No ‘first documents’ documents will be issued electronically or by post.
6. Asgardia is looking for the best way to manage this and to make it as accessible as possible.
7. For people that are not able to present themselves in person, they will be looked at on a case-by-case basis.
8. Experts are being consulted to make sure that this is as official as possible.

Embassies & Consulates

1. There will be 6 embassies around the world, but there will be more consulates.
2. The location of the consulates will not be based on population but rather based on local infrastructure, practicality, ease of access, current holdings.
   1. No current plans to establish an embassy in Istanbul/Turkey, but it hasn’t been ruled out as an option yet, either.
3. It’s too early to go into detail now but more information is expected to be released towards the end of the year.
4. It’s possible that they will have Temporary locations that periodically pop-up offering a ‘drop-in’ service.
5. More details will follow in the coming months, especially once the Ministry of Foreign affairs is established.

Law & Order

1. The Constitution is the basis for the law of the nation.
2. Once Parliament is formed, they will begin to develop laws.
3. Laws will need to be passed and accepted.
4. Changes to the law must be done by way of petition.
5. Asgardia is open to various forms of government, such as the Estonian model and are considering the different ‘best practices’ that are being used around the world.

Business & Jobs.

1. Asgardia is prepared to invest and co-invest in start-ups that are aligned with the project such as Science, technology, software, engineering but is also welcomes any start-up business proposal.
2. Asgardia’s ‘business’ focus will be on start-ups and has partnered (or formed a close relationship with) a venture capitalist company called Seraphim who are a specialist investor in start-ups that have an interest in space.
3. Asgardia will have access to an expert community that will be reviewing and advising if it’s worth investing into a start-up
4. Asgardia.com will soon be releasing more information on the topic.
5. Asgardia.com will provide ways to apply for startup funding.
6. Asgardia’s infrastructure and future space-infrastructure will be built by hired professionals that have a proven experience in the field.
7. Asgardia is not currently hiring people from within the nation , however, they welcome people from the nation to apply to volunteer their time/resources if they want to help the project grow. They must clearly state their experience and details of how they would like to volunteer when they apply.
8. Asgardia will be deriving a revenue from business tax (once it’s jurisdiction is established.), from returns on its investments into start-up businesses and from the business that it plans to establish.
9. Asgardia encourages people to start submitting their business plans and proposals from today stating “It’s time now to start making proposals.”
10. Asgardia does not currently consider space-mining or investment in space-mining as a core part of its business plans.

Currency & Finance

1. Asgardia will be using a currency known as SOLAR.
2. SOLAR is a cryptocurrency that is being developed using blockchain technology in conjunction with IT experts and Mathematicians.
3. Asgardia will be following a capitalist model.
4. Asgardia is using blockchain technology which is transparent and highly secure making it nigh-on incorruptible which they hope will eliminate corruption and fraudulent use of the nation’s resources.

Space Exploration

1. Asgard-1 is ready to go. We are waiting the launch date which is currently scheduled for the 10 ^th of November, however, it’s not unusual for these dates to change based on the launch provider’s judgment.
2. Asgard-1 will hitch a ride up to space with an unmanned supply rocket that is taking supplies to the international space station. Once the drop has been made, the rocket will fly higher on its scientific mission and deploy the satellite.
3. The satellite has the onboard data storage and several sensors that are designed to monitor radiation with a view to finding the effects of space radiation on our data storage.
4. After some time, the Satellite will be pulled in by Earth’s gravity and will burn up in the atmosphere.
5. Asgard-2 is still in the very early planning phase, but the general idea behind A-2 will be to test data handling and data transfer.

Health & Education.

1. There are currently no programs defined to offer health or education to Asgardian nationals (though I know from personal experience that there are MOOCs being developed.)

Application to the UN.

1. There are no ‘set requirements’ to be met to be appointed as a nation. There are no formal criteria.
2. Paperwork is being prepared and contact is being initiated with other countries and international institutions.
3. Extended documents are being prepared to start working with them, but we have not formally asked to be accepted as a nation.

Support me.

I am currently running as a strategist and I could use your support! Please take a couple of minutes to look at my candidate profile and lend me your support if you agree 😊

Through the application of technology, it’s possible to help Asgardia grow, make money and come together as a nation. One of the purposes behind Nerdblog is to share details of progress that I am making towards building software and virtual worlds for Asgardia.

This is a cross-post from my blog, www.nerdblog.co.uk

Please support my Campaign for Strategist here: https://asgardia.space/en/blog/candidate/784722-8774-virtual-space-for-our-nation/

While my skills are currently quite modest, within the next few weeks, I will be returning to university to commence the second year of my software engineering degree. During the next year, I fully expect my capabilities to advance quite significantly as I build upon my knowledge.

However; ins spite of my current skills, I am still happy to share details of my current progress.

Calendar App.

Asgardia has its own date system, so one of the things that I have been working on recently is an application that will allow us to view the Asgard date/time. Presently, I have been working with my colleague to crack the code that converts the ‘standard’ date into the ‘Asgardian’ date.

This has been a very useful exercise as it’s gotten me used to work with Android Studio – software that’s specially designed for Android app development.

Demo of date conversion.	Demo of ‘Swipe’   interface to switch between Asgard date & Standard Date.

Naturally, this is just a proof of concept and there is still a lot to learn about the tool, but it was a small victory to get the base logic down that handles the conversion of the dates and plugging all that into the Android UI.

There are several features that we’d like to add in the future to expand the functionality.

1. App will respond to Asgardian holidays.
2. Year Day will show a special screen.
3. Google Calendar integration.
4. Thought of the Day.

Throughout the year, it is my intention to update the app with some more interesting functionality and a more interesting UI so that it might be a worthy offering for Asgardians to have on their phone.

As a lot of Asgardia is going to need to be crowd funded, I am mooting the idea of a small charge for the app to help raise money to support Asgardia and fund further development of other applications, naturally – it’ll be a while before we get to a point where that becomes a serious discussion.

Preparation for Virtual Asgardian Worlds.

One of the big platforms for me is the application of Virtual Reality to create a ‘digital space’ for Asgardia. A Virtual world where we can exist, share thoughts, ideas and knowledge to solve the problems that Asgardia is facing. To make this a reality, I need to expand my skills beyond what I’m learning on the Software Engineering Degree.

Lots of Virtual Reality development shares more skills with a Game Developer / Game Designer / 3D modelling artist than it does with a Software Engineer.

To support my learning, I have started to learn about the fascinating world of ‘Game Development’ by undertaking a course on Udemy and also familiarising myself with the tools of the trade. While I am doing a lot of my self-study in Unity, recently, I have been getting to grips with a new Game Engine from Amazon called Lumberyard. I have got all the tools set up and I spent some time exploring the starter pack that they recently created to showcase what their engine was capable of.

See the Lumberyard play-test here.

This tool has a really user-friendly interface that allows you to interact with objects in your game world in ‘real time’. I am a very visual person so I love editors that can show me how the changes I make are reflected. It makes development a lot more visceral, almost like I’m reaching in and molding it with my own hands.

Lumberyard also comes with a host of content out of the box intended to give developers a taste of what they can do with the engine and in the coming months, I will be turning my hand to creating a proof of concept called ‘Asgard Island’ which will be a fully virtual world that will allow multiple users to visit.

See the Lumberyard 'edit mode' here.

As with Asgard, there is still a lot of work to do before there are any tangible results that will inspire confidence in the project, but with will and the backing of the community, I am certain that we can start to develop something amazing for our nation.

In this series, I’m going to be talking about Virtual Reality, its applications and why I believe that it could help Asgardia to achieve its goals. I’ll be using the term ‘virtual’ and ‘augmented’ interchangeably.

This is a cross-post from my blog: https://nerdblog.co.uk/?p=3456

I am currently running for the position of strategist please support my campaign .

I have already written a report at length regarding how Virtual Reality will change distance learning, so if you’re interested, I encourage you to go and read that report some time, too.

Today’s ‘let’s talk’ is going to address the concept of a ‘Virtual World’ and why I think it’s important to the future of Asgardia.

What is a Virtual World?

A virtual world is a digital environment that has been generated using game development tools such as Unity or the Unreal Engine. It is primarily made up of 3D models and artwork and it forms the basis for the ‘land mass’. It can be designed in any way imaginable. Using one of these game engines, it’s possible to apply simulated physics to the world, too so that objects within the world behave like they do in real life.

Why do we need a virtual world?

Unity

Asgardia is made up of a very widespread population. We have people from 217 countries all operating on different time-zones and speaking different languages. Now, it’s very difficult for people to come together and feel like a unified population.

The Internet dramatically changed how bonds are formed between people, the internet has given us some brilliant tools for communication and collaboration across vast distances. It’s now possible to have friendships with people that you’ve never met.

The Virtual World will take this one step further, it will allow people to communicate directly and share experiences together. It will give these bonds a sense of tangibility that wasn’t possible before. Further to that, it will enable things such as the emulation of touch and the stimulation of lights and sound.

This technology will help Asgardians come together to start to form even more meaningful social bonds and truly start to unite as a people.

Defined Territory

The Internet and Virtual reality is making it harder than ever to define things by the traditional sense. One of the key requirements for independence is that we must have a clearly defined territory. Now – practically speaking, this isn’t possible in the ‘real world’ as we have no land available to settle on.

Having a Virtual World where every citizen of Asgardia can have a ‘home’ and can reside in might help us to show the international community that we’re more than just a wide-spread decentralised group of people.

Virtual Asgardia would allow us to offer up that ‘clearly defined’ territory, at least in principle – and it would allow us to do it in a peaceful and technological way that wouldn’t infringe on the sovereign rights and territories of the international community.

Simulation of a possible future.

Having our own virtual world with space that we occupy will allow us to see, in principle, what life will be like for Asgardia. It will allow us to test how things will work in our community in practice. With people coming from all over the world it will create a huge influx of cultures and we don’t yet know what it will be like to merge all those cultures and ideas.

Our virtual world will give us a chance to test how compatible we are as people, and how willing we are to change and adopt new cultures and ideas without having to spend billions of dollars creating Arks first.

It will also enable us to test how well our government works in principle, how well certain elements of our legal system will work and it will generally give us a taste for ‘life’ as an Asgardian.

A perpetual ‘hub’.

As we move into space and we settle on platforms, the moon, mars or other celestial bodies, our people are going to be further and further apart and we will still have the same issues of ‘decentralisation’ that we have now. If technology continues to advance at the current rate, it’s possible that people from all around our globe on Arks and space platforms and those still on Earth will be able to stay connected through the Virtual World to continue to share ideas, meet up, collaborate and bond.

It’s a lot to think about, and in future blogs in this series I will be going into more detail about ‘Virtual Asgardia’ and why it could be a huge boon to our project.

Hello Fellow Asgardians,

It’s official, the head of state Mr. Igor Ashurbeyli has just signed off on Decree number nine. In the decree he states:

“By this Decree, I hereby:

Announce that the fi­rst Constitution of Asgardia has been accepted, and order it to be immediately published on the website www.asgardia.space in accordance with Chapter 10, Article 46 of the Constitution.”

Source: https://asgardia.space/storage/page/publication/attach/a0/69/a069a8940b7af40e8bc9b539a408df3307cf925d443d51d5cb2e91542e39190f.pdf

This shows that we’re progressing one step at a time along the path that was laid out. I hope that the march of progress will show doubters that Asgardia is serious about its goals and that under Mr. Ashubryli’s leadership, we’ll continue to make progress. As I have said in previous articles and interviews, results are the best way to convince people of our project.

The next vital step for Asgardia is the formation of the government and the election of the local leaders. There is still a lot of work to do and there are still a lot of elements that need to be worked out. How everything will fit together and function in practice will doubtlessly take time and discussion and I, for one, look forward to the challenge.

Good luck to us all.

I am running for the position of Strategist, please view my Campaign Page and lend me your support.

This is a cross-post from my blog, Nerdblog. View the original here: https://nerdblog.co.uk/congratulations-decree-n9-has-just-been-issued/

The campaign is starting to pick up steam and I'm almost 20% on my goal to becoming a strategist. I thought that it would be a good idea to share a little more information on my campaign in the hopes of convincing more voters to throw their support behind me. Please feel free to like, share and discuss this post if you want to help me out.

Vote for Me.

Core Goals: Unity, Virtual space.

One of Asgardia’s truly noble goals is to unify people under one goal and one banner. But this is very difficult as people from Asgardia come from all over the world and it’s very difficult to get together. I want to push for virtual technology to create virtual space where Asgardians can truly come together, bond, collaborate, share knowledge and share experience.

This is a lengthy post, but I encourage you to read it and understand why I am worth your vote.

Who am I?

My name is Ross Cheeseright, I’m 33 years old I worked for several years as a data analyst before moving on to study Software Engineering. I am currently a second-year student and run a small digital marketing that specializes in getting small businesses online. I have been passionate about Asgardia the moment I heard about it and I have a strong desire to turn a lot of talk into a lot of action.

Why Virtual Reality?

Virtual Reality is an emerging technology that gives people amazing capabilities and opportunities that they might not otherwise have access to. I plan to leverage this technology to ‘Centralize’ Asgardia for the following reasons:

1. The International community insists that we have a ‘defined territory’ and a ‘permanent population’ but there is no more land available on Earth, it’s all been claimed by other powers. With Virtual Reality we’ll be able to create a world that all Asgardians will have access to and will be able to have a virtual home upon and symbolically and technically prove that we’re a people who exist within a defined territory.
2. With Virtual Reality, Asgardia will be able to create schools, training facilities, entertainment, theatres, art, gather together to hold concerts, enjoy live stand-up performances. It will give our people a place to gather and live.
3. Virtual Reality will provide a source of income – By creating a virtual world, we will have something to offer to the international community. People will be able to visit our virtual world to undertake ‘long distance study’ at our universities, to visit our art installations, to play our games, to buy our services and all this will help to generate income for our people and our nation.
4. A Virtual World is a good ‘test’ for us as a population. By using a virtual world we’ll start to be able to understand what life is going to be like living together, without having to spend billions on floating platforms or buying land. We can test government, legal practices, trace and simulate a whole host of other activities of daily living.

I am still only just learning about how to create virtual reality, but I know that there are a lot of skilled people out there that I can organize to bring this technology to benefit us.

What else?

I believe in action, I don’t just want to sit around talking and philosophising about what Asgardia could be. I want to act so that people around us start to take us seriously. At the moment I am doing this by

1. Running for Strategist so that I can start to organize people and create projects.
2. Raising awareness of Asgardia so that we get more members.
3. Writing a blog on the topic of Asgardia ( www.nerdblog.co.uk )
4. Creating a community site that will help spread word of Asgardia and the good work that we do.
5. Doing my civic duty by voting, raising awareness of voting and participating in discussions.

What are my goals if you get elected?

There is a lot of work to do to get Asgardia on it’s feet, and I am prepared to give a lot of my time and dedication to the nation. These are my immediate goals if I get elected.

1. Centralize my community – Start bringing people together and sorting them out into ‘Citizens’ and ‘Activists’. Citizens are those that want to be a part of Asgardia and Activists are those that want to volunteer their time and help Asgardia grow.
2. Take stock – Find out details about what resources we have available and at our disposal.
3. Start Fundraising – If we want to do things, we’re going to need resources. Fundraising and supporting local businesses will be central to this.
4. Start building Asgardia’s reputation – We need to take control of the narrative, we’ll be using digital marketing techniques to spread word of Asgardia and have people start taking us seriously.
5. Work with other local leaders and Set up a committee for the application and development of VR / AR technologies.
6. Be completely transparent in my activities, results, work and communications so that people can freely scrutinise my activities.

So if you want action as I do, and if you want Asgardia to be taken seriously as I do, then lend me your support and we shall make people take note.

Vote for Me.

Hello Fellow Asgardians,

It is good to see that the voting has been concluded on the temporary symbols of our nation. These images represent more than just a flag or an anthem, they show that we’re moving forward, they show that there are hundreds of thousands of people that say “We want humanity to be better.” – and it’s under this message and these symbols that we’re going to unite and make that a reality.

So congratulations to all those that voted and congratulations to those artists that took the time out to share their craft to create some really wonderful designs. It will be interesting to see what the final flag, anthem and coat of arms look like -- but for now I think that these are damn fine representations for our cause.

You can see the official post here: https://asgardia.space/en/page/chronicles/list-of-conest-winners

Regards,

Ross Cheeseright
I am running for Strategist, please support me on my Campaign Page .

This article briefly discusses my recent experiences with the press following some publications that I was interviewed for and raises concerns over the narrative.

This is a cross-post from my blog: www.nerdblog.co.uk
View my Candidate Profile and lend me your support if you like what I have to say.

Recently, there have been a couple of publications that have contacted me for my opinions as an active Asgardian and because I’m running for a community leadership position. They’ve all been writing articles about Asgardia, Taxes, diplomacy and our goals.

It struck me just how difficult it must be for them to write a well rounded article and try to make sense of all that information that’s swirling around about Asgardia.

Each time that I’ve been contacted about Asgardia – I’ve provided a very lengthy succinct response to their questions and each time, 99% of what I said has had to be cut.

Due to the issue of space and time (not in the same way that Asgardians think about space and time.) my very succinct answers have been boiled down to ‘soundbites’. Now, I don’t blame the authors for this, but it does make it difficult to have a meaningful narrative on Asgardia.

I will provide an example of the extent that things are getting condensed.

Question:
“The specific issue of the low number of women among Asgardians (15% per cent of the 100,000 who approved the constitution, Lena told me) has come up. Does that bother you personally? Wouldn’t that be a problem if there was a colony in space with only 15% women?”

My answer:
“I think that's something that can be thought about on multiple levels. Firstly; Asgardia's goal isn't specifically to populate space with its own citizens but to make space accessible by all people and to see humanity as a single people in that respect. It aims to make space peaceful and separate it from the conflicts on earth.

"Asgardia is also unique from a philosophical aspect – to serve entire humanity and each and everyone, regardless of his or her personal welfare and the prosperity of the country where they happened to be born."

(https://asgardia.space/en/word)

I think that the vision that Asgardia is moving to create a utopian society and populate it with its own people so the number of women from this perspective doesn't specifically apply.

Further to that, I don't think that it's unusual to see more interest from men than women in this sort of area. It's very reminiscent of the STEM -- This project is about Science, Engineering, Technology -- an area that women, classically at least, are under-represented in.

I think that once the community starts to be more widely accepted as something more than theoretical, the population will start to further diversify.

And when the prospect of actually going to space is on the table, I'm certain that will be of interest to everyone, regardless of their gender.

Add to that the fact that some of our highest-ranking members are females, I can rest secure in the fact that women have strong representation.

To answer your question directly: 15% of 100,000 is 15,000 people, the number of people required to repopulate is 160. 15,000 : 85:000 would provide more than enough bio-diversity to create a successful population. But I don't think that it will come down to that.”

What was printed:
“As for the worrying dearth of women, he said: “When the prospect of actually going to space is on the table, I'm certain that will be of interest to everyone, regardless of their gender”. In any case, 15 per cent would provide “more than enough biodiversity to create a successful population” ”

So, you can see here that a large section of my actual response was cut out in order to present a friendly ‘bite’ of my overall point and moreover, most of the questions I answered only served to provide some context, or were cut entirely. Now, that is perhaps part of the ‘art form’ of the author of an article when space is limited.

But it definitely raises the question: What can Asgardia do to control the narrative about the project and help others to understand, with more depth, what Asgardia is about without diluting the message.

Is it possible to pay for Asgardia through crowd-funding? This blog discusses Asgardia's plans for funding itself through crowd-funding.

This is a cross-post from https://nerdblog.co.uk/lets-talk-about-taxes/
Click Here if you would like to support my Leadership Campaign.

How will we pay for Asgardia?

Tax is used to help provide funding for a range of public services such as education, welfare, health-care, roads, railways, public-transport, housing, public projects and it really is the life-blood of a country and there have been a lot of conversations recently about how Asgardia will pay for all its services.

I am a man of the modern world and I am no stranger to the modern way of doing things and so it will come as no surprise to those like me, that I have experience in crowdfunding.

Crowdfunding is the collective effort of a large group of often unconnected individuals who come together and pool small amounts of money to invest in something.

Crowdfunding works by creating a central point for a very decentralized network of people and is the exemplar of “Strength in numbers.” It works because a vast group of people spread out all across the world have a common interest and come together to support that interest.

A good example of this is Kickstarter which is a Crowdfunding website where people can raise projects or business start-ups and appeal for money from the crowd. Kickstarter has raised 3.2billion dollars and has funded over 130,000 projects.

So intrinsically, the concept of Crowdfunding shares a lot of sentiment with the philosophy of Asgardia. A group of people coming together regardless of borders to reach a common goal. Great. And it’s not just the sentiment that works, either. Crowdfunding is becoming a massive industry.

According to Massolution (via http://crowdexpert.com/ ) the total funding volume has more doubled each year to a massive $34.4 billion dollars in 2015. A large sum of that money includes P2P financing, but even without that the total is still over 10 billion dollars and it shows that the money is there.

The total funding volume more than doubled each year to a massive $34 billion dollars in 2015.

So there is money in Crowdfunding and it seems like it might be a viable way to fund some important government services, potentially get some money together to fund start-ups or inject some life into a field of research. But is it enough to run a country?

In terms of population, Asgardia is close in number to Iceland which has a population of around 332,000 – it’s an impressive economy and in 2007 it was the 7 ^th most productive country in the world so it’s a good example of an economy of a similar population.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the usual method used to measure a country’s economy. GDP is the total value of everything produced by all the people and businesses in the country. In 2017 Iceland’s GDP was $18 billion dollars which gives them a GDP per capita of $52,500.

According to OECD in 2015 the total tax revenue for Iceland was 6.1billion dollars – as it currently stands, this would mean that each member of Asgardians would need to contribute a whopping average of $20,500 per year through crowd funding to match Iceland’s tax revenue.

Of course, it’s easy to poke holes in that logic, we don’t have any public transport, we don’t have to pay for health care, we don’t need to pay for sanitation or for refuse and so Asgardia in its current form is going to need a lot less money to be operational and fund things, but it certainly gets the point across.

So it’s clear that funding the entire country through crowdfunding is going to be a challenge, but we can we afford through crowdfunding?

Rockets

According to space.com NASA’s new rockets, scheduled for 2023 will cost around 500 million per launch. With a population of 300,000 this would mean that we’d need an average donation of $1,666 per person and we’d be able to afford to launch our own rocket into space! (Assuming NASA would let us borrow one.)

Research

Even with modest Crowdfunding, we’d be able to give a financial boost to a lot of ongoing research initiatives, or even fund our own research to help further our goals and develop marketable space technologies.

Business

Funding start-up companies through the use of crowdfunding would be another great return for Asgardia. By creating businesses that are successful and marketable under the Asgardian banner, it would not only help our reputation as a nation, but the more money they make, the more they can put back in to Asgardia through donations and crowdfunding.

In addition to funding our own start-ups, there is also the option of seeking out other Asgardians and buying their goods and services to help build a stronger overall economic base for our citizens. The wealthier our citizens are, the more money they would have to donate towards the rise of our nation.

Infrastructure

We can invest in ownership of land around the world and start to create the infrastructure that we will need in the future. Solar energy plants, launch platforms, fuel refineries – and until we need them, we can rent them out to people or sell their produce to help increase the nation's available funds.

However the situation looks right now, a conversation about how we're going to pay for everything will definitely need to take place in the future, for now, there are plenty of things that we can be working on to start building up a financial basis for the nation.

Congratulations to all those that voted on the constitution, you’re the first ‘official’ citizens of Asgardia, not just space tourists 😊

Citizens of Asgardia have the right to receive Asgardia’s documents for free; upload their files to Asgardia-1 and future satellites without charge; nominate themselves for leadership and Parliamentary positions; work in the government and become local representatives. Citizens can bring forth petitions, including those to update the Constitution.

The ‘state’ of the nation is still very disorganized. It’s going to fall to the community members of Asgardia to start pulling together and getting organized. It’s important to know that this will be a gradual process. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither will Asgardia be.

Community Leadership Elections

Okay. So this one is pretty important. To start getting people to work together, we need to start creating active community groups and the best way to do this is to start voting for and electing community leaders, Debutants, Strategists, Trendsetters and so on.

These people will be able to start organizing more community action, support petitions, allocate budgets, form committees and will eventually undertake fundraising activities, too (which is the principle source of funding for Asgardia.)

Parliament

Now that the constitution has been accepted, it will be important to start setting up the actual government. We’re going to need all those ministries, banks and government services to be fully operational if we’re ever going to be taken seriously as a nation.

The actual conditions and guidelines for Parliament positions are still yet to be determined and are likely to be determined after the leadership elections end in September / October (though that date might shift.)

Getting word out

Asgardia is still relatively unknown, though we have had some press success, there is still a lot more that we can do to build up a strong image of our nation. Spreading the word about Asgardia and doing what you can to build support will go a long way to helping us get more citizens in the future, and to help us be taken more seriously by other members of the international community.

Getting down to business.

Asgardia is open to start-up companies, bringing your business into Asgardia’s jurisdiction will help the economic growth of the nation. Getting to know people in your local area, making connections and sharing skills and resources would be a great way to start your business in Asgardia.

A great way to really help build up the business is to try to use the goods and services of other Asgardians, making everyone in our community more prosperous and pumping some life into our economy.

Official Documents.

Now that the constitution has been voted on, it’s possible to start thinking about official documents. ID cards will come first – these will be tied into your ‘presence’ within Asgardian and will be linked to banking and government services. It’s likely that you’ll need to travel as these documents will be picked up in person, one such office is in Vienna – but it’s likely that there will be embassies, representatives and consulates that will be set up at a later date.

This certainly isn’t an exhaustive list, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make our nation a success. Good luck and I’ll see you out there.

regards,

Ross

I am currently running for a community leadership position, please consider voting for me.

According to some recent sources , only 15% of the 100,000~ people that have signed Asgardia’s constitution are women. This blog explores that number and what it might mean for the future.

This is a cross-post from my blog, you can view the original here .

I am currently running for the position of Strategist, please view my Candidate Profile and support me if you agree with my platform.

ASGARDIA’S 15%

Posted by Ross | Sep 1, 2017

What does Asgardia’s 15% mean for our future?

The first I heard about this figure was from the Wall Street Journal, and later from the Times, they maintain that only 15% of the people that voted for the constitution (which at the time had been signed by about 100,000 people.) were females, but what does that really mean to the project? Does it matter that we appear to have so few females in our ranks and what can we do to address this small number?

(A woman gazing up to the stars. Photograph via Unsplash)

I think that the first thing we need to look at is why are the numbers so low?

Asgardia itself currently exists in a very unique ‘space’ – It exists pretty much on paper and in the minds of the visionaries that want to make it work. The topic of ‘Space’ immediatly puts this into the realm of ‘science fiction,’ a genre dominated by male readers and writers. So when people hear about Asgardia and it’s lofty goals, it’s easy to be put off.

The elements of Asgardia that make the news are typically things like the development of space platforms and planetary defence weapons and defending humanity from threats from outer space. These things currently only exist in the realm of science fiction.

If we look past people’s perceptions of Asgardia and focus on what it’s really about, we find at the core it’s about Science, Technology and the development and protection of humanity. Infact, in the core concept, 2 of the 3 parts that make up the project’s concept focus wholly on science and technology.(source: https://asgardia.space/en/word )

Classically, women in the STEM fields are underrepresented or have less interested in STEM disciplines than men. Only 13% of all people working in a STEM are female.
(source: https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/uploads/wise/files/WISE_UK_Statistics_2014.pdf )

With Asgardia’s focus on science, technology and near science-fiction goals, it’s easy to see why this might not be the most attractive community for the majority of women.

However, as Asgardia expands and starts to create results and communities, the appeal of the Space Kingdom will grow and the demographic will start to increase in diversity. People will start to understand that there is a lot more to it than science and technology.

We have teachers, artists, creators, carers and people that genuinely care for the welfare of the planet. It’s a project that will appeal to a great deal of people and by the time we’re actually ready to move up and start building platforms in space, then people of all genders and backgrounds are going to be chomping at the bit to join.

“Only 13% of all people working in a STEM field are female.”

(Picture of a woman reading a book. Photograph via Unsplash)

So we’ve addressed why the population of women is so low. But why does a low population of female asgardians cause problems for us?

Firstly people seem to have this notion that Asgardians are a group of people that simply want to rise up and colonise space. I was recently interviewed for an article that is set to appear in The Times (UK) and the question I was asked was:

Wouldn’t that be a problem if there was a colony in space with only 15% women?

My first response to this question was that at the core of our concept , we want space to be accessible by everyone, regardless of their geographic location, wealth or religion.

We’re not looking to assemble and all just abandon earth and head for the stars and start to compete with ‘humanity’. We want to be an independent nation of Earthlings that gradually expand our territories into space. Article 5 of the constitution on Territory outlines our plans of expansion and it clearly mentions having territories on earth, earth orbit and celestial bodies.

The intermingling between people of all genetic backgrounds will still be intrinsically possible, regardless of what Asgardia’s current digital population. So it’s a moot question.

But, let’s just consider the question — would a population of 15% of 100,000 people be a problem for a space colony?

According to some some calculations a population of 20 generations could be maintained with as little as 80 – 160 people while others suggest a population of 10,000 – 40,000 people would maintain nearly 100% generic diversity.

15% of our 100,000 constitution adopters is 15,000 people – and if we consider that Asgardia has 300,000~ members in total, 15% of that would represent 45,000 females which is more than enough to completely repopulate the human race.

(A woman traveling in a foreign land. Photograph via Unsplash)

So looking at the question from multiple angles, we can see that the 15% female population doesn’t really represent a problem to Asgardia – but there are definitely some areas that we should keep in mind.

with only 15% of the population that signed the constitution female, it means that there is a danger that women will be poorly represented by the nation and that the needs of women in general might go unheard.

There are issue that might not be addressed — such as women’s rights, equality, government subsidised sanitary products, abortions and specialist health care.

We’re fortunate that some of the top members of our administration and community are women such as Lena De Winne and Rebekah Berg. This shows that Asgardia is serious about being a progressive nation and making sure that women have strong representation.

(With 15,000 women, we can colonise the moon! Photograph  via Unsplash)

Hello there fellow Asgardians. This blog is a cross-post from www.nerdblog.co.uk that briefly introduces what Nerdblog is and how it relates to me and to Asgardia. It's a work in progress at the moment as I am still getting all the elements of the website up and running and working on cultivating a more engaging writing style.

I am currently running for the position of Strategist if you like what you see, please consider supporting my campaign .

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ASGARDIA, VIRTUAL REALITY AND CODING. WHAT DOES IT ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

Posted by Ross | Aug 31, 2017 |

My way of reaching the stars.

31

AUGUST, 2017

Asgardia Virtual Reality Code. What does it all have in common? Well – the simple answer to that is “Me.”

This blog is a place for me to talk about the various efforts that I am taking in my life to pursue various passions of mine which I will outline later in the article, but in a brief executive summary – I am fascinated by the potential applications of virtual reality and the impact that it could have. I am studying to be a software engineer and finally, I’m a member of Asgardia, the first space nation and I seek to help develop this community and bring my growing technical knowledge along for the ride.

In this blog, I’ll be sharing my findings, projects and writing about anything that I find particularly pertinent to the topic.

A lot of things out there worth taking a look at, don’t you think?

Photograph via Unsplash

Now, I imagine that most of you have heard about coding and virtual reality, but I’ll bet that far less of you have heard about Asgardia , so it’s probably a good idea to start by talking about the first Space Nation. Asgardia is an incredibly ambitious project founded by eminent Russian scientist, Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli. Over the course of the blog, I will be going into a lot more detail on this, but in brief it's a project that aims to build a community of people up around three principle ideals.

1. Philosophical
2. Legal
3. Scientific / Technological

Philosophical
Simply put, the philosophy behind the project’s concept is that Asgardia will serve all humanity, regardless of ‘earthly divides’ such as race, geographic location or religion. Asgardia seeks to become a fully independent nation with all that entails, including membership to the United Nations, a government and foreign embassies.

Legal
Asgardia seeks to be instrumental in the creation of a new legal platform ‘Universal Space Law’ that deals with exploration of near earth and deep space. Today, only about 20 of the 200 nations on earth have any form of space presence and have plans to explore, mine and claim exclusive rights in space. Asgardia seeks to be a force that will help protect individuals and countries from the threats of space, and to help ensure they too can benefit from the bounties that space has to offer.

Scientific / Technological
Asgardia seeks to use Science and Technology to provide solutions to three core goals. Peace, Access and Protection. Asgardia seeks to really rally the scientific community from all nations, especially those that don’t have access to space, to ensure that they can benefit from a truly demilitarised and central base of knowledge in space. Now trust me, I know that it is a lot to take in, but at the core this community wants to help humanity to become a border-less space-faring people. What’s not to like about that?

“I am fascinated by the potential applications of virtual reality and the impact that it could have.”

So now that we’ve discussed the basics of the space nation, let me tell you a little bit about me. My name is Ross and I’m currently studying Software Engineering at Southampton Solent University and my goal is to learn to use code and computers to solve various problems that people might have. Presently, I am a second-year student, so I have a lot to learn and if you follow this blog, you’ll get to see my progress as I evolve and create new and amazing solutions to some of Asgardia’s problems.

As we look to the stars, there are a lot of issues that we will need to address, especially if we want to create robotic defence platforms that are powered by AI.

A Virtual Space for Asgardia won't be the only space we have.

Photograph via Unsplash

Virtual Reality recently had it’s ‘year one’ in 2016. Sure it’s been around for decades, but 2016 was the year that people really started to take it seriously.

Facebook decided to wade in and fork out $3billion and that’s when people said “Okay, Virtual Reality is go!” I’ve always had a fascination with Virtual Reality, especially having read books such as “Ready Player One.” and growing up watching Star Trek and just imagining all the possibilities of a ‘holo-deck’ but it wasn’t until I started researching virtual reality for a project at university that I really opened my eyes to some of the real applications of the technology.

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to use this Virtual Reality to help communities all over the world come together and remove those borders. To provide a place where people can meet up, share ideas, learn, train and generally socialise.

This technology seems perfect for Asgardia and I will be writing about it at length. So that about covers the introduction to this blog if it seems like it might cover anything you’re interested in, why not consider subscribing or following the Facebook group.