Sept. 1—President Lula da Silva, since returning to office January 1, had not said much about reviving Brazil’s space and next-to-nothing about its nuclear programs. Then, in the midst of the BRICS summit, India landed on the moon.
In his weekly “Conversation with the President” broadcast Tuesday, Aug. 29, Lula reported he had asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi how India had achieved this feat, since Brazil had started building its Alcantara Launch Center with big plans for its space program around the same time India began launching rockets. Alcantara and Brazil’s space program exist, but barely, and India is on the Moon. Lula was totally bowled over by Modi’s answer, and intends to do something about it:
“I spoke to President Modi, the Prime Minister of India, and congratulated him on the rocket launch. They started launching rockets at the time Brazil was building its space base. Okay? Brazil, since it didn’t have the necessary investment, is where it’s at, and [it] didn’t go any further. What he told me was exceptional. They have 100 schools—100 schools!—where kids are studying and making rockets. And these rockets will all be launched into space by the students themselves. I was amazed! I was amazed, because it’s not 1 school, it’s 100 schools, because they invest a lot in science, they invest a lot. And this is something we need to do here in Brazil, because we also have many, many, many, many people who are geniuses, we just need to give them the opportunity to flourish.”
Before Lula exploded into that enthusiastic report, he had referenced the decision announced in early August to establish a second campus of the national Aeronautics Technology Institute (ITA), in the northeastern state of Ceará. Ceará is one of Brazil’s poorest states, but its public university is top-notch and its students—who come from both inside and outside the state—currently make up 40% of the students at ITA’s campus in the state of São Paulo. The Brazilian Air Force-run ITA is a national treasure as one of the country’s most advanced science and technology research and engineering centers. Lula announced: “The way for us to reward the state of Ceará is to bring an extension of ITA there, so that we can train geniuses.”
Lula da Silva’s genuine enthusiasm for exploring the universe and developing genius is a lesson in how the deadly British imperial “green” fraud can be outflanked and will be defeated.
