I am gonna take a wild guess and say that Putin never read Cicero. However, as a trained intelligence officer I am sure that he came across a quote of General Sun Tzu, who stated that “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” The supreme art may have eluded Russia’s political leadership. It has not eluded the satellite community.
The conflicting collision of business and moral life are always most evident in times like this. Last week I did a Podcast with Hall of Fame reporter Peter B. De Selding who, as he has done for nearly three decades, had spent the night poring over earnings reports. He reported, no shock, that the industry was thriving. War is good for the space and satellite industry. It is the nature of the beast. Mercifully, our industry is also good for wars. Its ability to monitor and support humanitarian efforts, keep essential communications and data on migrations and refugee patterns flowing are critical to the success of battered places. In this instance the battered place Twe are supporting is a fledgling democracy where nearly 10% of its population has been dislocated.
In many ways we perform an angelic function from above, coordinating relief agencies’ efforts, enabling learning by reconnecting schools and all the while ensuring that military leaders can work on some version of Sun Tzu’s “supreme art” and either maintain or restore the peace.
As satellites have become the “indispensable technology” as SSPI claims, it gives me pause wondering what else is up above miraculously pushing David to meet Goliath with a sack full of chutzpah, as Ukraine’s one-man slingshot Zelensky is doing.
Luminous Angels Spotted Over Kyiv
As the skies lit-up from Russian cruise missile attacks and the plumed flaring of Javelin missiles, Kyiv’s Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk
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| The Kyiv city flag features the image of St. Michael the Archangel. |
reported that people were reporting and posting to Twitter sightings of “luminous angels” above the city! (https://tinyurl.com/ynssewf4)
In our industry we call these “launch plumes,” but that is not what the Archbishop said people were experiencing or seeing.
Communities of faith are at a disadvantage to explain just how a miracle gets to be that. Evidence of the involvement of The Ineffable might well be influencing the battle in non-linear ways. Whatever it is, the surprising retreat of a mighty army from the battlefield or the conquest of one’s own medical chart and prognosis proves that there simply are things that we are ignorant of but which for sure we experience.
Satellites, like symbols, icons and images of ancient cultures are powerful totems for hope. In the bloodied but unbowed communities of virtue in Ukraine they have been helping to reinforce resilience. Whatever it is they are seeing, people see images of their own valor and this is broadcast worldwide by satellites and amplified in flocks of social media. This has triggered behavior which has throughout time, as Sebastian Junger wrote in last month’s Vanity Fair, uprooted and pushed unbeatable enemies from the doorstep. https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/sebastian-junger
But “luminous angels?”
Let’s connect some dots.
St. Michael is the patron saint of Kyiv. The city flag has its image adorning it. A beautiful gold statue of the “archangel” stands guard over the city. The Ukranians adopted this biblical icon as the patron of hunting and as the protector of the City. I know a little about this. I happen to have been baptized beneath a statue of St. Michael and survived 9/11 and major brain surgery in 2002 thanks, the old Italian women in my hometown assured me, thanks to their prayers to St. Michael. Before my surgery they sent me a medallion with the same image as the one in Kyiv. So far, so good.
Trust me, the patron of the city is helpful to the deserving but no “angel” to the wicked. He is a ferocious character who comes with a sword and, I presume nowadays, a machine gun or two. He may also be armed with transponders and Starlink phased array dishes. Who am I to say?
I can say that the battling people in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson have become a testament to Winston Churchill’s insistence that courage “is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.”
Luminous or geostationary, something has emerged in the skies and on the ground. A type of Springtime for free people and those with core inner substance everywhere. https://youtu.be/M-x-ujiB-oE
Satellites are there with them. It is a mark of industry pride that satellite operators and service companies like Ultisat, Iridium, Hawkeye 360 and Maxar are protectors.
Perhaps future Ukranians will see satellites as that luminous intervention that made the difference and will make them worthy of lore. I do not doubt it. I am not smart or clever enough to doubt that what we have seen in these past 35 days has been a miracle!
I am smart enough to know this industry’s capabilities. I know about St. Michael. I read Cicero.
And I hope for a good outcome.
The Business of Space
As the industry continues to expand what we have found is that the need to attract and retain talent is essential if companies like Planet, Hawkeye 360 and Maxar are to stay on mission in peace or war. I was proud to have helped initiate a new online learning tool, with the collaboration of GVF and SatProf called “Space Business Qualified” (SBQ). This amazing program is designed to teach executives and employees what they need to know about the business of space. It will teach those who want to glean information for a range of purposes and also certify employees as space business qualified. SBQ follows along GVF’s technical training programs and combines it with SSPI’s comprehensive knowledge of the industry, and how it ensures a better “satellite” world. The business of space is not an area that people are trained to understand, yet it is essential to understand.
For more information visit: www.SpaceIQ.org and check out the new video at: https://youtu.be/PmNTc3ubjcw
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Lou Zacharilla is the Director of Innovation and Development of the Space and Satellite Professionals International (SSPI). He can be reached at: LZacharilla@sspi.org
