In what was described as “the first protest from near space,” on Wednesday an anonymous collective of scientists and space experts launched a weather balloon to 90,000 feet with a message for Donald Trump: “LOOK AT THAT YOU SON OF A B—-.”
Dubbed Aphrodite 1, the helium-inflated weather balloon was launched by Autonomous Space Agency Network, a Phoenix-based group committed to “open-source, DIY space exploration,” according to its official site. Weighing just over a pound, Aphrodite 1 carried a GPS sensor and a video camera that recorded all two hours and twenty-six minutes of the launch.
And in direct view of the camera was an attached printout of a tweet by ASAN aimed at Trump: “LOOK AT THAT YOU SON OF A B—-.”
The message paraphrases a quote by Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell about the experience of seeing the earth from the moon: “You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.’”
Near space is the region of the atmosphere of Earth between 20 and 100 kilometers high, roughly considered the space above where commercial aircraft can fly, but below satellite orbits.
Trump has not responded to their polite request, but you can watch the whole video above.