Guess who won the election for Asgardia's New Head of Space Nation!

  No, not Lembit Öpik. He's just here to introduce the real winner – and, for all I know, only candidate – Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli. Dr. Igor keeps his victory address short and informative, and since I haven't been keeping up with the Asgardian Parliament, I was grateful to be brought up to date...

 While Ashurbeyli admits the "so-called panemic" has stalled Asgardia's financial development somewhat, I was excited to learn that the Space Nation now has its own currency – the "Solar" – and that the exchange of fiat currencies into Solars has been "enabled", even if "the third part of the cycle" – namely the exchange of Solars back into actual money – "has yet to be addressed." A project for the next five years then.

 The launch of a new sattelite called "Asgardia 2" is also on the agenda it seems, although what it will do, how it will do it, and how it will be launched is yet to be determined. 

 Ashurbeyli is keen too, he says, to create a new language for Asgardia, and website. 

 

An imagining, I'm guessing.

 

 But "the constitutional anchoring of Asgardia's primary mission" remains "the birth of the first human child in Space." The Head of Nation still seems really keen on this, and "on our path to achieving the goal," Ahsurbeyli announces, "we have come close to the first stage – an isolation experiment on the ground, simulating a year-long space flight involving several married couples of volunteers to conceive and give birth in conditions as close to those in orbit as possible. However," Ashurbeyli admits, "the cost of such an experiment is very high and funding has to be secured." Close then, but no cigar. Also I'm pretty sure the closest conditions to being in orbit achievable "on the ground" are forty second burts of zero gravity in a plummeting fuselage, so encouraging couples to volunteer for a whole year of that might really eat into the budget. Still, at least someone voted for him.

 I've dropped you into this video just as the Head of Parliament Lembit Öpik – himself introduced by Asgardia's "Head of Administration" and one-hundred-and-third human in space – appears to be pretending to know sign language. Oh Lembit.

 

 

"I hug all of you and every one of you."