Sevrun Announces New Space Ambitions

[Jacob Taren]

Ladies and Gentlemen of this fine region,

 

After the Jaihu incident, you may remember that our nation abandoned the orbital KSat program, and destroyed all constructed units, excepting one with no power supply that is on display in the Palen Military Museum.

 

Shortly after this, the remaining funds from the program were diverted to constructing a local space facility in our borders, one that's purpose would not be war, but rather exploration and commerce.

 

We wish to now announce that this project is completed, and the Harmony Space Center is now fully operational. From this place, we intend to follow a four stage program, begining with stage 1 before the end of the month.

 

1) Begin initiatives in exploration and commerce within our solar system, including use of in system probes, new communication satalites and basic shuttle missions.

 

2) After enough testing is completed, research will follow on radiation shielding and artifical gravity methods, to allow our astronauts to remain off world longer.

 

3) Once these breakthroughs are made (we are confident they will take place, but may take quite some time, perhaps even a few decades) we will examine the possibility of constructing an off world colony. Such colonies, if they prove feasable, will remove some of the strain our species population is putting on the resources of Europa, as well as possibly be staging grounds for new research lines and further exploration and colonization.

 

4) If all stages prior to this are completed to our satisfaction, and our short range probes find data to our satisfaction, we will consider off world mining initiatives. Such work would likely be dangerous, and hence why this is the absolute last step in the process.

 

We have no plans to initiate any form of weapons development in space again, barring some unforseen change in the world political or military situation (for example, if another nation were to follow our old research path and threaten us with orbital weaponry, we could certainly restart our programs quickly)

 

It could take a long time for any of this to come to pass, especially depending on how our research goes. If all proves well, we hope to rekindle the view of space as a place of hope, exploration and profit.

 

For Greed and Glory,

 

Jacob Taren

Sevrun Foreign Affairs Minister

[Meteorola]

Meteorola has no problem with this move to begin further exploration of Space by Sevrun.

 

We would like to take this time remind Europa that Meteorola's two weather monitoring oribitals remain in place. Meteorolan-Europa Terra Exploration and Observation Satellites (METEO-1 and METEO-2) are continually monitoring your nations weather, regaurdless of political disagreements.

[Byzantium Nova]

Byzantine Government is willing to participate in the space program if Sevrun agrees. We are also offering you a possibility to use our two space centers and space station for research purposes.

[Stoned Smurfs]

The SS is spending massive amount of Nuggets on orbital weapons. We feel this is only a secret way to beef up your space weapons program. We commdem this and hope Europa knows this is only a way to cause mass destruction again.

 

Televangelists flaunt their expensive cars when they attend charity events, untold millions of Nuggets are going into a new government-funded maternity leave scheme, every product goes through extensive safety-testing by the government, and billions of Nuggets are being blown on orbital weapons development.

[Jacob Taren]

To: Byzantium Nova

From: Sevrun

Subject: Joint Efforts

 

We would be most interested in pursuing this. We could definately benefit from access to your orbital facility before our own (or possibly a joint station) is prepared.

 

To: SSSS, also made public

From: Sevrun

Subject: Orbital Weaponry

 

We truly have abandoned the KSat program, and are willing to allow open inspections of our space center if you do not believe us. As we have said, there is only one, non-functional, KSat still in existance, and it is on display in a museum.

 

In fact, we extend this offer to any nation that is suspicious of our motives. Our facility is for purely scientific and comercial purposes, nothing to do with warfare.

Edited March 14, 2005 by Jacob Taren (see edit history)

[Tamurin]

TO: Sevrun

FROM: Tamurin

RE: Space program

 

Dear allies,

 

we congratulate you to your first step into the future. We wish you all the best and hope that your amibitious dreams will become real...

 

Our own space program is more or less grounded since our civil war, but we hope to relaunch it in the near future...maybe we'll meet in orbit...

 

Best wishes,

Hartman

President of the United Republic of Tamurin