It was in 2016 that Russian billionaire Igor Ashurbeyli founded Asgardia, a space nation that claims itself to be sovereign territory. After launching a small satellite to earth's low-earth orbit in 2017, Asgardia claimed that it is their first step to achieve ultimate sovereignty in the space. Earlier this year, the self-proclaimed space nation announced its plans to build a fleet of floating space gardens for humans.
In order to achieve this goal, the space nation also appointed Lembit Öpik as the chairman of the Parliament of Asgardia. During the first session in Vienna, Austria, the space nation also appointed Philip Appleby, a former Ministry of Defence official and a police officer as their Minister of Safety and Security.
In a recent talk with iweekend, Lembit Öpik revealed that their ultimate plan is to build a fully-fledged society in the space. The space expert added that the space nation is planning to decide the rules and methods on everything from burials to taxation, from marriage to procreation.
"Lots of people are building rockets, Asgardia is about building a society to go with them. At some point in the future, ordinary people are going to have to inhabit space and we are not going to build a social infrastructure from mission control. It has to be built by consent – painstakingly and comprehensively. We are getting some big names from science and commerce and it creates a virtuous circle – the more people take us seriously, the more serious it will get," said Öpik.
The space nation also added that they are planning to occupy 15 million people in these floating space gardens.
As Asgardia is busy developing plans to create space gardens, Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, is busy formulating his mission to establish a human colony on Mars. A few months back, Elon Musk had revealed that the future government on Mars will be based on direct democracy.
