PHASE ONE: LAUNCH 23/04/95
THE ASSOCIATION OF AUTONOMOUS ASTRONAUTS LAUNCH THEIR INDEPENDENT, COMMUNITY-BASED SPACE EXPLORATION PROGRAMME.
The days of this society are numbered. It's reasons and it's merits have been weighed in the balance and found wanting; it's inhabitants are divided into two parties, one of which wants to build their own spaceships and leave this society behind.
The Association of Autonomous Astronauts (AAA) will launch its independent, community-based space exploration programme on St. Georges Day, April 23rd 1995, in the grounds of Windsor Castle. It was here that King George III had supervised the first balloon experiments in England, thus ushering in the modern age of space exploration. Autonomous Astronauts will assemble at the Copper Horse, a bronze sculpture of the aforementioned monarch on horseback with his hand pointed skyward.
This occasion will also mark Phase One of the AAA's Five Year Plan for establishing a world-wide network of local, community-based AAA groups dedicated to building their own spaceships.
AAA Mission Statements include these declarations: technology is developed by the military and intelligence agencies as a means of controlling their monopoly on space exploration; economic austerity is manufactured by the state to prevent the working class building their own spaceships; governments are incapable of organising successful space exploration programmes. WHAT WE NEED TODAY IS AN INDEPENDENT SPACE EXPLORATION PROGRAMME, ONE THAT IS NOT RESTRICTED BY MILITARY, SCIENTIFIC OR CORPORATE INTERESTS. An independent space exploration programme represents the struggle for emancipatory applications of technology.
There is a great field of people around the AAA who are somehow ready for space travel but who aren't trying to do it. People project their hopes on the AAA or write a letter asking how they can join. It isn't like that; it's about forming a group yourself.
PHASE TWO:
INFORMATION WAR DECLARED 23/04/96
FROM THE ASSOCIATION OF AUTONOMOUS ASTRONAUTS [OFFICIALLY RELEASED AT 00.33 hrs 23/4/96]
The Association of Autonomous Astronauts move into the second phase of their Five Year Plan for establishing a world-wide network of local, community-based AAA groups dedicated to building their own spaceships.
Whilst spaceships must enter the earth's atmosphere at an angle of 33 degrees to avoid burn-out, the Association of Autonomous Astronauts desires only to leave this society behind. At 00.33 hrs on April 23rd 1996, on the first anniversary of the official launch of our independent space exploration programme, the Association of Autonomous Astronauts declares Information War against state controlled and government funded space agencies throughout the universe.
The Information War declared by the Association of Autonomous Astronauts threatens the twilight world of the technological elites. This Information War is the force which can create new concepts of space and of space travel. This Information War is an assault on the current state, military and corporate manipulation of individuals and communities. This Information War will attack all institutions and organisations which construct places and events for the seizure of, not just our own dreams of space travel, but also the appropriation of the entire history of human space exploration.
The greatest evolutionary idea concerning space travel is the decision to reconstruct current attitudes to space exploration in accordance with the needs of Autonomous Astronauts and a world-wide network of local, community-based groups dedicated to building their own spaceships. The autonomy of space travel can be discovered, thus bringing the realisation of life understood as space exploration, which contains its entire meaning within itself.
DEATH TO GOVERNMENT SPACE AGENCIES EVERYWHERE. ALL POWER TO THE ASSOCIATION OF AUTONOMOUS ASTRONAUTS!
DREAMTIME IS UPON US!
PHASE THREE: DREAMTIME DECLARATION 23/04/97
The Association of Autonomous Astronauts move into the third phase of their Five Year Plan for establishing a world-wide network of local, community-based AAA groups dedicated to building their own spaceships.
On April 23rd 1997, on the second anniversary of the official launch of our independent space exploration programme, the Association of Autonomous Astronauts declares that the Dreamtime is upon us.
The Dreamtime is a transversalist concept which defines the AAA's total opposition to all other existing space programmes.
The Dreamtime is concerned with the possibilities that open up when we form autonomous communities in outer space.
The Dreamtime is a collective process and begins the moment anyone opens their mind to the possibilities of independent space exploration.
AAA groups across the globe are experimenting with new forms of psycho-social interaction and creating prototypes for a community-based zero-gravity architecture.
The Dreamtime allows Autonomous Astronauts to wander through space, to experiment with new possibilities in space and time, to experience a new sexuality at zero gravity and to arrive at new concepts of space exploration.
The Dreamtime will be a decisive moment in evolution as the AAA seeks to propel humanity into outer space.
Phase Four:
CONSOLIDATION DECLARED 23/04/98
Message Transmitted from the Bologna Intergalactic Conference, April 18-19 1998 from the Association of Autonomous Astronauts
The Association of Autonomous Astronauts move into the fourth phase of their Five Year Plan for establishing a world-wide network of local, community-based AAA groups dedicated to building their own spaceships.
This phase is described as the CONSOLIDATION, during which Autonomous Astronauts examine the achievements that they have made so far and prepare for the final push into the year 2000.
The AAA has conducted a highly successful and meticulously planned campaign against the state, corporate and military monopoly of space exploration. Autonomous Astronauts now require a period of intense reflection, time to gather themselves together and analyse all that has happened to them. This important phase of consolidation marks a critical moment in the Five Year Plan, the point at which AAA groups decide how they will proceed into the final stage of the AAA's evolutionary project.
The Bologna Intergalactic Conference will bring together AAA delegates from around the world to present reports from their local, community-based space exploration groups. The conference will also expose local communities in Bologna to the possibilities that open up when we form autonomous communities in outer space. Moving in several directions at once, the AAA has declared, 'Only those who attempt the impossible will achieve the absurd'.
Phase Five:
THE FINAL PUSH 23/04/99
The Association of Autonomous Astronauts move into the fifth and final phase of their Five Year Plan for establishing a world-wide network of local, community-based AAA groups dedicated to building their own spaceships.
On April 23rd 1999, on the fifth anniversary of the official launch of our independent space exploration programme, the Association of Autonomous Astronauts declares that the FINAL PUSH into the year 2000 has begun.
This final push begins with the results from our previous period of consolidation. These results include: confirmation that social interaction and a sense of humour is more important than the technical problems of constructing space ships; verification that experimentation is a complete activity within itself; on-going documentation of the possibilities for getting lost in the media as well as in space.
This final push will reinforce an examination of our own activities and a critique of the false division between inner and outer space - a division that has even been maintained by certain AAA groups. The AAA must now collectively acknowledge that by removing any distinction between inner and outer space we have demanded an exploration of multiple spaces that are all connected with and constantly affect each other.
This final push will confirm that there is no point going into space with the baggage that weighs us down on planet earth. We do not anticipate a clean break from this world - it is not a case of simply going somewhere else. The AAA's activities are prototypes for life in space; they exist as tendencies towards subversion, co-operation and joyful living.
This final push recognises that the most significant aspect of the impending Christian Millennium is the fact that the year 2000 marks the end game to the AAA's Five Year Plan. Whilst the state will use Millennium propaganda to re-invigorate capitalist culture, the AAA's final push will build the necessary foundations for the future historification of independent and community-based space travel. Autonomous Astronauts will develop their own self-historification projects, and the emerging contradictions will ensure that the AAA will not be reduced to any single mythology.
SEE YOU IN SPACE