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Taras

@stellaratum.bsky.social
149 followers 312 following 223 posts

Space, security, and whatever else I feel like. All tweets represent me and me alone. 🇸🇪 + ⬜️🟦⬜️ in 🇩🇪

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Andrew Parsonson @andrewparsonson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My latest for SpaceNews: The Nordic space race heats up as Norway and Sweden confront growing fears of falling behind their neighbours. spacenews.com/nordic-launc...
spacenews.com
Nordic launch race heats up as Sweden secures 2028 orbital launch at Esrange
Nordic launch race heats up as Sweden secures 2028 orbital launch at Esrange
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Chris Terry-Enescu @cjterry.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Next time someone tells you off for going to BlueSky and says you should have stayed and fought show them this.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026
Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.
Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?
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Brian Weeden @brianweeden.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Expert Backgrounder: Weapons in Space Under International Law
justsecurity.org
Expert Backgrounder: Weapons in Space Under International Law
An expert outlines the body of international law governing the placement and use of weapons in outer space.
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Taras @stellaratum.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A rare spot of self-promotion: I've launched a Substack! Inaugurating with a decidedly niche article, but one that felt strangely compelling to write: the story of a ubiquitous image of a satellite, and what it says about our relationship with space. terminalintercept.substack.com/p/the-satell...
terminalintercept.substack.com
The Satellite Without Qualities
A space-age stock image, and what it says about us
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WarTranslated (Dmitri) @wartranslated.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
An Ukrainian grandmother single-handedly neutralized a Russian "waiter drone" by picking up the UAV and removing the fiber-optic spool from it.
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Steve Peers @stevepeers.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Here's a non-paywalled version of the reporting on Canada becoming a possible "associate member" of the EU. It suggests Canada is willing to agree free movement of people, which (if true) would mean that the EU would be willing to agree more internal market access. www.reuters.com/world/americ...
reuters.com
Carney pushes idea of making Canada 'associate member' of EU, WSJ reports
The EU is open to the idea, the Journal reported.
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Ian Higham @highamian.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This two hours has been a rollercoaster and I am not okay
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Taras @stellaratum.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
It's been looking likely for a while that the Swedish opposition parties would get a narrow majority over current govt., with the bitter pill that Sweden Democrats may become 2nd largest party. Now SVT polling is giving me some microscopic hope that this may not come to pass
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Nordic News @nordicnews.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
World's northernmost Pride parade was held this weekend in Longyearbyen, Svalbard 🇳🇴 Pictures: Longyearbyen Pride/Instagram www.instagram.com/reel/DdMTf-a...
People walking with rainbow flags, a mountain as a backdropPeople walking with rainbow flags, a mountain as a backdrop, a truck seems to drive in front of the parade
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Cabe - GreggB @cabe.shadowtek.uk · 10/09/2026
Poor Miguel... "MMAcevedo, also known as Miguel, is the earliest executable image of a human brain...it was the first to be captured with sufficient fidelity that it could be run in simulation on computer hardware without succumbing to cascading errors, and rapidly crashing." qntm.org/lena
qntm.org
Lena (first draft)
A note from the author This was a very quick first draft, written in around two hours as part of my 30 More First Drafts project. You can now read the finished short story. This article is about t...
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Andrew Jones @andrewjonesspace.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Looks like Chang'e-8, related payloads, and possibly China's wider moon program, are undergoing changes. This follows a merger seeing China's human spaceflight agency, already in charge of crewed lunar efforts, take control of robotic Chang'e missions, formerly overseen by CNSA.
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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I see amateur conspiracy theorists suggesting Netanyahu *wanted* a Hamas attack to happen, to provide pretext for massive ethnic cleansing etc. There's nothing to support this. Netanyahu's first question, to his military aid, 6.29am 7 Oct, was "why are they shooting?" He was in complete shock.
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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
What is surprising in this (bombshell story) is the fact that the person who sent a secret warning message to Israel that Hamas is about to launch a war, a month before October 7, was... Yahya Sinwar.
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Dr Space Junk (Alice Gorman) @drspacejunk.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Nancy Grace Roman was head of astronomy at NASA in the 1960s. The first space telescope she launched was the Orbiting Solar Observatory 1 in 1962. 🧪 🔭
airandspace.si.edu
Satellite, OSO-1, Prototype | National Air and Space Museum
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Dr. Amber Straughn (she/her) @astraughnomer.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
IT’S HAPPENING 🚀🚀🚀 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches tomorrow, Aug 30, 7:26am EDT! Watch live on nasa.gov Go Roman!!
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 28/08/2026
The reason you want an actual humanitarian aid system and *don’t* want to force everybody to rely on online mutual aid is because online mutual aid *forces people experiencing horrific trauma* to perform on the Internet for survival.
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hakan @hatr.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
"The presence of Nvidia modules and a lack of antennas on the drones led Ukrainian air defense commanders to surmise that the weapons were guided by an autonomous A.I. system, which was confirmed on further investigation." www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/w...
nytimes.com
A Drone Killed Three Ukrainians. It Was Guided Entirely by A.I.
An attack by what Ukrainian officials said was a Russian drone with an Nvidia chip presages a dystopian future of weaponry untethered to humans.
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Taras @stellaratum.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
An important read. So much hype around the supposed size and potential of the space economy (esp. downstream) seems to miss that cost and price are two very different things, and average market price only matters if you can find a seller who's offering it.
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The Space Review @thespacereview.com · 22/08/2026
The demand for launch services is higher than ever, but the supply of rockets today is very constrained. Various factors make getting a ride to orbit today difficult and expensive, despite the promise of plummeting launch costs. www.thespacereview.com/article/5291/1
thespacereview.com
Wishing for rockets
The demand for launch services is higher than ever, but the supply of rockets today is very constrained. Jeff Foust reports on the various factors that make getting a ride to orbit today difficult…
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Benjamin McKean @blmckean.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
In retrospect, this makes it seem remarkable Bush took any hit at all for Hurricane Katrina. Trump routinely blows off disaster assistance and appears to pay no political price at all.
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MAKS 26 👀🇺🇦 @maks23.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
❗️For 11 hours now, Russia has been attacking the Odesa region, launching almost everything it can: 17 Banderol missiles, 4 Kh-59 and Kh-31, about 10 aerial bombs and ~ 70 drones
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Holger Hestermeyer @hhesterm.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This incident needs to be thoroughly investigated. If true, no public office in the EU or any member state can continue to run any microsoft products. nltimes.nl/2026/05/22/m...
nltimes.nl
Microsoft accused of leaking Dutch civil servants' names to U.S. government
Microsoft has reportedly shared the names of Dutch civil servants working for two regulatory agencies with the U.S. House of Representatives. The agencies involved include the Authority for Consumers ...
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 18/08/2026
That meant that once the court battles were over, *all the Enron employees' emails* entered the public domain as part of the court record: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_C... The "Enron Corpus" is a foundational data-set in modern computer science. 51/
en.wikipedia.org
Enron Corpus - Wikipedia
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 18/08/2026
You don't have to believe AI "art" is good (I don't), nor do you have to that AI "art" *can* be good (I don't) to understand the reason that the capital markets are putting trillions into AI is *they* believe they can fire workers and replace us with AI: pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/a... 1/
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 18/08/2026
THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN YOU SLAM A ROCKET INTO THE MOON New images just dropped from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, showing the crater formed by a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage when it hit the Moon on 5 August 2026. The new crater is 18 m across and 3 m deep.
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Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
One thing that’s always bothered me about the “lab leak” theory, is how many of its proponents shift back and forth from “bioweapon” to “unethical science” (gain of function) to “negligent science” (leak of naturally occurring virus) to adapt to different debates and for max political effect.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Cancel culture, properly understood, is an internet-era phenomenon where professional and social media fixate on a relative unknown and blow something out of proportion, turning that person into a public hate object, subjected to mass harassment, leading to bigger and worse than whatever they did.
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Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
It has always been clear that most "gender-critical" proposals only work in the context of a society that has completely purged trans people from public life; the only distinction is between those who understand what they were demanding and those who successfully lied to themselves.
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 15/08/2026
It's me, a Telegraph columnist, taking a break screaming bloody murder about fairness in the women's sports I wouldn't be caught dead watching to wax lyrical about academic integrity in sociology, a field I consider to be fake, at institutions I consider to be communist indoctrination centers.
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People's Government of the Pelargir Commune 🇺🇦🇱🇹🇵🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @dov.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Note the terminology by the way! "Genocide of the Soviet people", like in the bad old days, they're doing erasure of the ethnic particularity of the Holocaust!
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Aric Toler @aric.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
A detailed breakdown of Trump's "great escape" on a catering truck, from Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman, @jamie-leventhal.bsky.social, Simon Ducroquet, Yuliya Parshina-Kottas, and me. Free gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/u...
nytimes.com
See How Trump’s Secret Air Force One Swap Unfolded (Gift Article)
The extraordinary subterfuge was aimed at protecting an American president who has been in Iran’s cross hairs for years.
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Taras @stellaratum.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Every so often one learns of a whole new category of problem that we were previously blissfully unaware of
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Taras @stellaratum.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Small 🇸🇪 election update for intl followers. First, some truly inspiring words from Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson ahead of an election that is looking increasingly likely to boot him back into the opposition: "Ulf is absolutely not the worst PM we've ever had." www.svd.se/a/8pXROE/jim...
svd.se
Åkesson: ”S paradgren – Goebbels våta dröm”
Jimmie Åkesson tycker att Moderaterna är ängsliga – men SD-ledaren har ändå svårt att förstå varför partiet inte lyfter. ”Ulf är absolut inte den sämsta statsministern vi har haft”, säger han.
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Robert Farley @drfarls.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Sweden revamps its intelligence community www.economist.com/europe/2026/...
economist.com
Sweden is launching its own MI6
Memories of a big mistake still spook Europe’s spies
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
There is simply no ambiguity in what Elon Musk is arguing and endorsing here.
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David Burbach 🇺🇸 @dburbach.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
There was a lot of talk about future drone warfare when I was a RAND fellow 30 years ago, but degrading civilian morale by singeing an adversary's mail order dildo supply was not something that came up
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Jack Kennedy @jackkennedy.ie · 26/07/2026
Before Berlin Pride was targeted by a horrific vehicle attack yesterday, there were numerous incidents of police brutalising participants in peaceful Pride demonstrations
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SpaceNews @spacenewsinc.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
NASA and ESA facilities avoid major damage from wildfires in Spain Key ground stations in Spain operated by NASA and the European Space Agency have avoided serious damage from major wildfires in the country....
spacenews.com
NASA and ESA facilities avoid major damage from wildfires in Spain
Key ground stations in Spain operated by NASA and the European Space Agency have avoided serious damage from major wildfires in the country.
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Andrew Parsonson @andrewparsonson.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
My latest for SpaceNews. The EU has decided to delay the release of some Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery over the Gulf of Oman by 24 hours. The decision was made following a request from the US. spacenews.com/eu-delays-re...
spacenews.com
EU delays release of Copernicus imagery over Gulf of Oman
EU delays release of Copernicus imagery over Gulf of Oman
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Gerry Doyle @mgerrydoyle.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
they say it was unveiled on tuesday but 🎶guess who wrote about it mondaaaaay🎶 www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Ukraine Dronemaker Says New Long-Range Weapon Seeing Combat Test
SkyFall, the Ukrainian defense technology company, has developed a long-range strike weapon that is being tested in operations against Russia, as Kyiv steps up a campaign that has caused severe logist...
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
No, No, no. Look, are there lessons to learn from this debacle? Sure. Drone warfare, mag depth, etc. But the solution here is not 'yet more tactical excellence or tech.' It is 'the president asked the impossible of the military and they should have said so.' www.theatlantic.com/internationa...
theatlantic.com
The War Is Lost. Now Fix What It Broke.
America has to rethink how it moves resources, fights wars, and deters adversaries.
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NBC News @nbcnews.com · 23/07/2026
LATEST: Iran-backed Houthi militants say they have struck two tankers in the Red Sea, risking another bottleneck that could further disrupt global energy supplies.
nbcnews.com
Oil tankers attacked as Iran threatens to turn second trade route into a ‘Gate of Tears’
Iran-backed Houthi militants said Thursday they had struck two tankers in the Red Sea, risking another bottleneck that could further disrupt global energy supplies, spike prices and heap domestic poli...
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SpaceNews @spacenewsinc.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Poland commits $745 million to EU’s IRIS² constellation project WARSAW, Poland — The Polish government has agreed to invest around $745 million in the development of the planned IRIS² multi-orbit satellite internet constellation with the European Union....
spacenews.com
Poland commits $745 million to EU’s IRIS² constellation project
WARSAW, Poland — The Polish government has agreed to invest around $745 million in the development of the planned IRIS² multi-orbit satellite internet constellation with the European Union. The money will go toward financing six medium Earth orbit (MEO) satellites and six low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. “Participation in this project marks a new chapter in Poland's security. Poland will finance the construction of several satellites, totaling 2.8 billion Polish złoty (656 million euros; $740 million),” the Polish Space Agency announced.
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Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
There's gonna be a new PM. What he needs is an op-ed telling him what to do, of which there's no doubt a lamentable absence. Here's the time-hallowed method for creating one: 1. Set out the problem cleanly, as if the PM had literally no idea that growth, the cost of living and deficit matter. 1/
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 14/07/2026
Incredible Wall Street Journal reporting on how this war succeeded in making the Iranian people rise up…to support hardliners within the regime. Secular women showing up to rallies to change “We are the soldiers of Seyyed Mojtaba,” things of that nature. www.wsj.com/world/middle...
The U.S. and mediators say any attempt by Iranian diplomats to find an understanding on the administration of the strait are being sabotaged by hard-liners. Iranian diplomats have told mediators they would like to find a compromise but their hands are tied.
They are under pressure in the streets as well. In regime-managed funeral ceremonies for Khamenei's burial last week, massive crowds unfurled giant banners that read "kill Trump." President Masoud Pezeshkian, a
moderate, was greeted by chants of "Death to the normalizers" and "Death to the traitors."A 40-year-old female teacher, who had joined the anti-hijab protests in 2022 and subsequently stopped wearing the veil, said she recently participated in a pro-regime rally in Tehran.
"I saw many girls whose clothing would previously have been reprimanded by the government—unveiled, wearing blouses and pants, with manicured nails," she said. They were waving the Iranian flag. The women were joined by male university students sporting tattoos and T-shirts, Western attire frowned upon by the regime. They chanted,
"We are the soldiers of Seyyed Mojtaba," using an honorific title, she said.Last week, a 34-year-old Tehran-based startup entrepreneur who had long opposed
the regime posted a picture of himself proudly posing in uniform after joining the military.
He was beaten so badly by security forces during the 2022 protests he couldn't move for days. He was tear gassed during the January protests and waited hopefully for the war, thinking the regime was about to be toppled.But he changed his mind after his uncle's house in Tehran was destroyed in the early days of the war and after scrambling to reach his ex-girlfriend who worked at a civilian ministry near a targeted location. She survived.
"America had made an excuse to support human rights," he said. Then, "they said that a civilization was going to be destroyed, not a regime."
The regime came into the conflict in a weak position. Protests sparked in December by the pressures of a deepening economic crisis spiraled into calls to topple the system. Polls consistently showed no more than 20% of Iranians supported clerical rule.
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SpaceNews @spacenewsinc.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
U.K. government preparing to release new space strategy The British government is preparing to release a new space strategy that will provide a “whole-of-government” approach for space in the country....
spacenews.com
U.K. government preparing to release new space strategy
The British government is preparing to release a new space strategy that will provide a “whole-of-government” approach for space in the country.
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Taras @stellaratum.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Space-Based Solar Power is a super exciting prospect for the future of energy, but it sucks that this lazy "just use a mirror lol" architecture is likely going to be the general public's first exposure to the concept, possiblty polarising them against less irresponsible iterations
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