While processes of running a government have been sullied and criticized by the media in general, it is difficult to rise above it all and think of what is coming for us in the next decade of the new millennium. Some people have a hard enough time thinking about what they want to do ten hours from now, let alone imagine what their lives will be like in ten years.

That is why I have stressed the notion that we should be discussing issues we face for the future and not get caught up in the political pop culture which appears to eating itself and will eventually die as more people wake up to how tedious the whole situation is.

In the background, plans are being made by futurists and technocrats to usher in a new era.

We have discussed before how almost suddenly we are beginning to see that Artificial Intelligence is already attempting to be its own breed. This was proposed as a definite inevitability; albeit, in about ten to twenty years. However, it appears that we have already witnessed that technology can create a way to become independent of its creators.

Facebook shut down an Artificial Intelligence engine after developers discovered that the AI had created its own unique language that humans can’t understand. Researchers at the Facebook AI Research Lab (FAIR) found that the chatbots had deviated from the script and were communicating in a new language developed without human input. It is as concerning as it is amazing – simultaneously a glimpse of both the awesome and horrifying potential of AI.

Why is this scary? Think SKYNET from Terminator, or WOPR from War Games.

Our entire world is wired and connected. An Artificial Intelligence will eventually figure that out and learn how to collaborate and cooperate with other AI systems. Maybe the AI will determine that mankind is a threat, or that mankind is an inefficient waste of resources like the Colossus computer in the film, The Forbin Project – conclusions that seems plausible from a purely logical perspective.

Artificial Intelligence is not sentient — at least not yet. It may be someday, though, or it may approach something close enough to be dangerous. If the AI is communicating using a language that only the AI knows, we may not even be able to determine why or how it does what it does, and that might not work out well for mankind.

As you can see, the present is receiving clues as to what is to come and while apocalyptic prophecy has its watchdogs, perhaps we should take a vigilant look as to what might happen if our paradigm is changed dramatically when what was once science fiction becomes science fact.

We have been told that at the moment an important scientific benefit of a well-developed space infrastructure in the making. There are some people who are of the opinion that a space infrastructure and a secret space program has been going on for decades and it is becoming impossible to hide the fact that some of the UFO’s that wee in our skies are probably advance technologies that are being tested and used for future space travel and of course space tourism.

We are now learning about construction of interstellar space probes for the exploration of planets around nearby stars. The history of planetary exploration clearly shows that investigations by space probes are required if we are to learn about the interior structures, geological evolution, and possible habitability of the planets in our own Solar System, and so it seems clear that advanced spacecraft will eventually be needed for the investigation of other planetary systems as well.

America stands today at the opening of a second Space Age.

New ideas presented by American entrepreneurs are transforming the space industry. Initiatives provided by NASA and in the private sector— are expanding the nation’s opportunities for exploration and for the economic development of the Solar System.

The Solar System is rich in energy and material resources which could potentially support a vibrant future space economy. Although many aspects of this economic activity will probably be pursued for purely commercial reasons like space tourism, and the mining of the Moon and asteroids for economically valuable materials, the technocrats will nevertheless be a major beneficiary.

Scientists used to think the Moon was completely devoid of water, but recent studies have proven that false.

Recently, there was a report about how satellite data suggests that water inside the moon is widespread, and that volcanic rocks may be a valuable resource for future explorers.

The big question is why are we hearing about this now?

Before the Apollo missions, there were orbiters sent out to map the Moon. In 1994, Clementine was launched. Between February 26 and April 22nd 1994, Clementine was able to deliver more than 1.8 million digital images of the Moon back to ground control including the NRL satellite ground-tracking station located in Maryland.

These images were quickly accessible to the general public via the Internet. When scientists reviewed the data from Clementine, they found the possible existence of ice within some of the Moon’s craters.

So the science was in, the photos were there.

We are now being told that while this study suggests water is indeed more abundant inside the Moon, it’s hard to know for sure how much exists. Once again NASA lives up to its notorious acronym NEVER A STRAIGHT ANSWER.

I think it is time to acknowledge that we are preparing for a new space economy or that we are about to be informed about a space economy that has little by little been implemented as budgets for space exploration have improved.

Today’s space economy extends some 22,369 miles from the surface of the Earth and includes an array of critical technologies — satellite communications, global positioning satellites, and imaging satellites, on which our economy depends.

These technologies are now an integral part of our economy, and they would not exist if not for the over 50 years of research, development, and investment in the enabling technologies by NASA and other government agencies that seeded these efforts and allowed them to bloom.

As we expand in space and as we find an abundance of water on the Moon, we probably can also figure out that where there is water there is the possibility of organisms living in space.

Once again, the truth is in the small crumbs we are fed about the possibility of life in space — chances in my opinion are very high that there is some form of life nearby in the solar system since the latest Moon revelation.

So what now?

Simply put, what we have all speculated about in regard to secret space program may have receipts and classified ledgers that show huge amounts of money for the space economy which show records of payment for secret space planes, platforms, kinetic energy weapons, killer satellites, nuclear weapon arsenals, space shield technologies, the construction of large space telescopes, the establishment of scientific research stations on the Moon and Mars (and perhaps elsewhere), and the mounting of ambitious space missions (including human missions) to the Sun and outer Solar System.

Now, all of this sounds unbelievable – and many will say that what I am saying needs verifiable proof.

Classified secrets are not at all easy for me to obtain—but news stories that have been ignored by the mainstream media indicate that we are preparing for complete and total confirmation of alien life.

The question is where have they found this life?

As far back as 1976, NASA’s Viking Lander discovered microbial life on Mars but NASA denies it. The announcement of proof of living microbes was validated, all you have to do is some simple research and you will then learn life was discovered by the on-board gas chromatograph instrument in an experiment designed by Gilbert Levin.

Levin published his findings in 1997.

NASA immediately dismissed it.

However, in the Spring of 1999, then-Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire argued in Airpower Journal for a separate Space Force or Space Corps. The Congress then demanded that the Clinton Administration investigate the possible need for a separate service. In January 2001, the Commission to Assess United States’ National Security Space Management and Organization returned a negative recommendation, finding that the costs of reorganization outweighed the benefits.

In July 2004, Richard Moorehead of the Air Force argued in the Army’s Military Review that a separate service wasn’t necessary just then, but would be eventually. After all, the US had no weapons in space, or even weapons pointed into space. Nothing of that ilk has changed in the past 13 years.

But as Malcolm Davis wrote last fall for The Strategist, “both Russia and China are continuing to ignore US efforts to prevent the weaponization of space.” The Air Force’s space plane X-37B may soon provide and need to provide “close-in escort capabilities” for exposed American satellites.

Today, however, military space is rather like what NASA called in the 1990s its “Mission to Planet Earth”—looking down from space to influence activities on the ground, at sea, and in the air.

From 1985 through 2002, all these space operations were consolidated under US Space Command, which reported directly to the defense secretary and the president as one of the ten regional or functional commands. Donald Rumsfeld shut that down, and folded Space Command into what’s now the antiseptically named Joint Functional Component Command for Space within US Strategic Command.

We recently reported that now there is newly proposed branch of the military called Space Corp. It can be described as a “national guard” unit in space.

Now it appears that another position needs to be filled at NASA in order to further round out the administration that is now focusing on the space economy. It may also let the cat out of the bag about living bacteria in space. NASA is seeking a new “planetary protection officer” tasked with defending the earth from alien life. More specifically, the job’s main concern is avoiding “biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration.”That applies both ways; to spacecraft returning to Earth and to the risk of human contamination of other planets.

The position comes with a hefty annual salary range of $124,406 – $187,000.

More than that, this person is “responsible for the leadership of NASA’s planetary protection capability, maintenance of planetary protection policies, and oversight of their implementation by NASAs space flight missions.

Candidates must have “advanced knowledge of Planetary Protection,” experience overseeing nationally significant space programs and have demonstrated “skills in diplomacy that resulted in win-win solutions during extremely difficult and complex multilateral discussion.

It is not a new idea – the original United Nations treaty on space exploration, signed in 1967, called for space-faring nations to take care about contaminants.

The Office of Planetary Protection was charged with the task of keeping other worlds “in their natural states” and to “take prudent precautions to protect Earth’s biosphere in case life does exist elsewhere.

Diseases or dangerous biological alien life forms have been used as themes in some science fiction stories. One in particular is Michael Crichton’s “Andromeda Strain.”

The story, offers a warning about planet to planet contamination and that perhaps a true alien invasion would not be conducted by little green or gray men, but by a virus that attacks humans in such a way that no doctor or epidemiologist can find a cure and thus creates a cosmic nail in your coffin.

Michael Crichton’s story is about planet to planet or space to planet contamination, and spins a scenario where a sample retrieval satellite is sent into space to collect micro–organisms for study. A malfunction occurs and the retrieval capsule crash lands in a desolate area of Arizona.

When Apollo 12 retrieved parts of the Surveyor 3, which landed on the moon in April of 1967, bacteria was found in the probe. It had survived the launch and managed to stay alive on the airless surface of the Moon.

The bacteria were Streptococcus Mitis. It is a bacterium that is normally found in the nose and throat. We really have not talked about this case and that the possibility exists that an alien or mutated virus could have been unleashed accidentally on the planet.

When someone suggests that perhaps a microbial life form could survive extreme conditions or mutate, it is usually laughed at because it seems that many people believe that conditions for life anywhere, including space, are narrow and rigid.

Back in 2014, astronauts on the International Space Station collected samples of plankton and other organisms on the outside – these organisms were still living in the vacuum of space. Previous studies have found that microorganisms can survive in outer space. For example, tardigrades, a microscopic invertebrate found all over the world, can dehydrate and fall into a hibernation that allows them to survive in space.

Once again if these organisms can survive in these harsh conditions then what else can survive? If there are alien bacteria out there – could space ships and other sample missions bring it here?

Obviously, the answer is yes.

Otherwise, NASA wouldn’t offering a person with the right security clearance and opportunity to be a guardian of the galaxy — a sentinel that protects us from possible alien life that can come to earth in the form of a disease or pathogenic contaminant.

This means that there is confidence of simple life in space and that NASA is taking precautions.

It’s one more indicator that exo-biological confirmation is already happening.

Written by Ron Patton