The Autonomous Astronaut Association of Oakland

Column From "Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed"

We began by naming our insurmountable enemy and brainstorming methods by which we can defeat it. For the Oakland chapter of the Association of Autonomous Astronauts our enemy is simple: Gravity. Gravity is the force that is, literally, keeping us down. It is the basis of every assumption about what we can and can’t do. Gravity sticks us to the ground, stops us from fl ying, and sticks the entire government apparatus square on top of our heads and backs. As empiricists we recognize that our battle against our pre-conceptions must begin with a brush war against gravity. Under what terms should we accept this conflict?

It is well established by the Law of Universal Gravity (a selfenforcing name if ever there was one) that every two material objects attract each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance. This is usually understood at F=GM1M2/R2. Stated in terms of G, G=FR2/M1M2. G was fi rst measured through what is called the Cavendish Balance, which is comprised of two balanced spheres with a vacuum container between. Within the vacuum was a smaller balanced weight that would be disturbed once the equilibrium of the spheres was shifted. The measurement of this disturbance accounts for our measurable evidence for gravity. As our measuring technologies improved our knowledge (that is, what can be described in terms of number of significant digits), the constant force of gravity has grown. As our technology has improved, our internalization of the specific nature of our enemy has improved.

Till now the fight against gravity has been waged by those looking to decrease the coefficient of friction for short-to-medium range travel. Looking not just for another commodity but to make distance itself a product. Flight has commodified space and created the illusion of a victory against gravity. Instead it is the equivalent of a rugby match. One force pushing against another in some sort of scrum. Part of our challenge in our own battle against gravity is not to follow the path of merely joining in this scrum.

As one can imagine, primary literature along this line is difficult to find, and the secondary literature is ideological to the point of absurdity. UFOs, , the Rockefellers, and hour-long orgasms may be connected to the battle against gravity but only, at best, in tenuous ways. Researchers willing to break with the dogma of science-ism are as rare as anarchists willing to break with the dogma of anarchism.

The most fruitful direction for our research appears to follow the clues left by Yevgeny Podkletnov in his never-published “Gravitational shielding properties of composite bulk YBa2Cu3O7-x superconductor below 70K under an electromagnetic fi eld,” and in the hints he has left since then. The point is obvious. Gravity isn’t fixed and there are ways that we can contest it.

We also love the levity of John Searl, who not only claims to have built 50 versions of his fully functioning antigravity device, but also to have fl own around the world—undetected—in at least one of them. In many ways he is a kindred spirit, but mostly in his practice of eschewing authority in his pursuit of trans-conceptual intersections. His arrest for the theft of electricity is similar to our recent arrests for “Unpermitted launching of sky rockets using external guidance and stability.” Experimentation transcends earthly law.

AAA’s strong preference is to get directly involved in the experimental fi eld; we refuse to trust our confl ict with gravity to the struggles of peer-reviewed scientific journals and the pockets of government agencies and multinational corporations. Their priorities continue to be terrestrial. At this time our research isn’t possible due to our own lack of resources, but is a project we plan for the future.

For now we struggle with our participation in what is derogatorily referred to as “amateur rocketry,” which has recently seen a major resurgence. Not since the Space Race of the 1960s has there been more excitement and participation by people-who-are-not-paid-to-care about the human capacity to travel to the stars. This means that obtaining a certain level of material beyond model rockets is easier than it has ever been.

We are still working at the level of small liquid bi-propellant rocket motors using pre-manufactured solid fuel motors, but desire to work in the direction of experimenting with liquid fuels and pushing more mass into the sky. This update on our work is largely a call for more participation in our project along the lines of resources, knowledge, and other empiricists who are interested in autonomous space travel. We have several methods where we hope to continue our shared project: the Oakland AAA blog, personal correspondence, and in the field where the battle ensues.

Liberated from their systems of control, so-called common sense ideas about how to live and think, the spirit of autonomous astronauts will require the grit and determination of a new golden age of speculative empiricists. From that we will gain the ability to live freely and the will to engage in impossible struggles that can achieve successes beyond what has been imagined up till now. A determination to be competent at the skills necessary for the next stage of our struggle; calculus, a steady hand with explosive materials, fleet feet, procurement skills, craftiness, and a sense of humor. Join us!

There will be no ideology in space.
http://anarchymag.org/aaa