Welcome to Asgardia, the first nation in space!

Image courtesy: Facebook

Dream of becoming a space citizen? Here’s your chance.

Scientists have launched the first new space nation. And anyone can become a citizen of it. A citizen of Asgardia!

Nation Asgardia aims to save human kind once and forever. As a citizen you will be offered protection from intergalactic threats and shields from dangerous space asteroids.

In a first of its kind, people behind the creation of this space nation in hope of dawning a new age of space era.

In the humblest of beginnings the country would send its first satellite into space in 2017. Agardia hopes to “open up access to space for commerce, science and peoples of all countries on earth”.

Following the footsteps of Elon Musk and his grand plan of space travel to Mars, these scientists launched the concept of Asgardia in Paris earlier this week. This nation of the skies was named after the celestial empire of Norse God Odin.

The idea was conceived by Igor Ashurbeyli, who leads the Aerospace International Research Center in Vienna and is chairman of UNESCO’s science of space committee. But Asgardia was created in consultation with “globally renowned scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and legal experts”, according to those behind it.

The country is hoping to become a fully recognised country, said Dr Ashburbeyli. And when it does so it will be able to promote values central to scientists, he claimed.

“Asgardia is a fully-fledged and independent nation, and a future member of the United Nations – with all the attributes this status entails,” he said in a statement. “The essence of Asgardia is Peace in Space, and the prevention of Earth’s conflicts being transferred into space.

“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,” he added.

The country will grant citizenship to any human being.

Image courtesy: asgardia.space/citizenship
Image courtesy: asgardia.space/citizenship

“Any human living on Earth can become a citizen of Asgardia,” the site’s citizenship page reads. It includes a link to a form to join the country, which is done just by handing over your first name, last name, email and country.

Asgardia also proposed to change the idea of the nation state. This new nation hopes to create a new framework for how space activities are regulated and owned, changing who’s responsible for what goes on there and how it can be governed.

Doing that should help make sure that the future of space is peaceful and done for the benefit of humankind, rather than forcing a new kind of race to colonise parts of space and push warfare that’s happening on earth up and out of our atmosphere.

“An appropriate and unique global space legal regime is indispensable for governing outer space in order to ensure it is explored on a sustainable basis for exclusively peaceful purposes and to the benefit of all humanity, including future generations living on planet earth and in outer space,” said Ram Jakhu, the director of the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill University in Montreal.

“The development of foundational principles of such a legal regime ought to take place at the same time as technological progress is being made.”

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