alternatehistory.com
McCain Administration- Autumn 2016
Autumn 2016
"Wonder what we are gonna find on an asteroid?"
"The Caribbean needs our help!
"Why would there be a cyberattack on Dyn...?"
Election season may be dominating the news coverage, but they were certainly not the only worthwhile news going on. For a select portion of people, some excitement came in the form of the OSIRIS-REx mission. Short for "Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer", the purporse of the spacecraft and its mission was to study asteroids by landing on one and taking a sample so it can be returned to Earth for analysis. The material returned is expected to enable scientists to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, its initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life on Earth. According to the calculations, the spacecraft would not return to Earth until 2023. For the most part, the project went off with relatively little fanfare though it did briefly revive attention into space exploration, which has seen a renaissance of sorts within pop culture media thanks to the revival of film franchises such as Star Trek and Star Wars along with new television shows such as the dueling animated "cosmic comedies" or "cosmedies" in Rick & Morty and The Orville. While there have been some slight cuts in NASA or rather the gradual allocation of resources toward more security-oriented purposes, this was an encouraging sign that NASA as still moving forward. At the same time, it was a bitter reminder on how the McCain administration cancelled the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs back in his first tenure as President.
Model of OSIRIS-REx space shuttle
Of course, the importance of satellite imagery, atmospheric modeling and calculations regarding remained vital and new evidence came in the devastating storm known as Hurricane Matthew. The first Category 5 hurricane since Hurricane Felix back in 2007, Hurricane Matthew caused catastrophic damage throughout the Caribbean and would lead to a near-humanitarian crisis in Haiti. There would even be widespread devastation in the southeastern United States. The deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Stan in 2005, Matthew was the thirteenth named storm, fifth hurricane and second major hurricane of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season. It compunded greater damage onto the islands of the sea, especially the Bahamas, who were still recovering from Joaquin from the previous year. While the storm had been able to be tracked and advancements made since the Gore Administration have been made to help predict and prepare for powerful storms, it still meant that the damages done were large-scale and recovery was difficult. While thousands of people went in to assist and millions of dollars went to rebuild, it did lead to alot of concerns in the future, especially for Haiti, which was teetering on the edge of even greater problems. Notably, Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders urged for greater involvement in rebuilding, including opening up relations with Cuba once more.
Hurricane Matthew at peak strength in the Caribbean Sea | October 1, 2016
Besides storms and space, there was always plenty of trouble that could be connected by politics. One of the stranger examples a series of cyberattacks that rendered several sites inaccessible for a bit of time. However, this one was a domestic affair, even if it was supposedly done for international purposes. Specifcially, it was a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks) in October. Their commonality was that all of the targeed system were operated by Domain Name System (DNS) provider Dyn. The attack caused major Internet platforms and services such as, but not limited to Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, Spotify, The New York Times, BBC News, and PayPal to be unavailable to large groups of users in Europe and North America. The denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were accomplished through numerous DNS lookup requests from tens of millions of IP addresses, which are believed to have been executed through a botnet consisting of many Internet-connected devices, i.e. printers, IP cameras, residential gateways and baby monitors, all that would've been infected with the Mirai malware. According to newsite Politico, the hacktivist groups SpainSquad, Anonymous, and New World Hackers claimed responsibility for the attack in retaliation against Ecuador's rescinding Internet access to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, at their embassy in London, where he had been granted asylum. However, the claim was never verified and even WikiLeaks themselves had this to say: "Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point."
map of internet outages in Europe and North America caused by the Dyn cyberattack
"Wonder what we are gonna find on an asteroid?"
"The Caribbean needs our help!
"Why would there be a cyberattack on Dyn...?"
Election season may be dominating the news coverage, but they were certainly not the only worthwhile news going on. For a select portion of people, some excitement came in the form of the OSIRIS-REx mission. Short for "Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer", the purporse of the spacecraft and its mission was to study asteroids by landing on one and taking a sample so it can be returned to Earth for analysis. The material returned is expected to enable scientists to learn more about the formation and evolution of the Solar System, its initial stages of planet formation, and the source of organic compounds that led to the formation of life on Earth. According to the calculations, the spacecraft would not return to Earth until 2023. For the most part, the project went off with relatively little fanfare though it did briefly revive attention into space exploration, which has seen a renaissance of sorts within pop culture media thanks to the revival of film franchises such as Star Trek and Star Wars along with new television shows such as the dueling animated "cosmic comedies" or "cosmedies" in Rick & Morty and The Orville. While there have been some slight cuts in NASA or rather the gradual allocation of resources toward more security-oriented purposes, this was an encouraging sign that NASA as still moving forward. At the same time, it was a bitter reminder on how the McCain administration cancelled the Space Shuttle and Constellation programs back in his first tenure as President.
Model of OSIRIS-REx space shuttle
Of course, the importance of satellite imagery, atmospheric modeling and calculations regarding remained vital and new evidence came in the devastating storm known as Hurricane Matthew. The first Category 5 hurricane since Hurricane Felix back in 2007, Hurricane Matthew caused catastrophic damage throughout the Caribbean and would lead to a near-humanitarian crisis in Haiti. There would even be widespread devastation in the southeastern United States. The deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Stan in 2005, Matthew was the thirteenth named storm, fifth hurricane and second major hurricane of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season. It compunded greater damage onto the islands of the sea, especially the Bahamas, who were still recovering from Joaquin from the previous year. While the storm had been able to be tracked and advancements made since the Gore Administration have been made to help predict and prepare for powerful storms, it still meant that the damages done were large-scale and recovery was difficult. While thousands of people went in to assist and millions of dollars went to rebuild, it did lead to alot of concerns in the future, especially for Haiti, which was teetering on the edge of even greater problems. Notably, Democrat candidate Bernie Sanders urged for greater involvement in rebuilding, including opening up relations with Cuba once more.
Hurricane Matthew at peak strength in the Caribbean Sea | October 1, 2016
Besides storms and space, there was always plenty of trouble that could be connected by politics. One of the stranger examples a series of cyberattacks that rendered several sites inaccessible for a bit of time. However, this one was a domestic affair, even if it was supposedly done for international purposes. Specifcially, it was a series of distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS attacks) in October. Their commonality was that all of the targeed system were operated by Domain Name System (DNS) provider Dyn. The attack caused major Internet platforms and services such as, but not limited to Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, Spotify, The New York Times, BBC News, and PayPal to be unavailable to large groups of users in Europe and North America. The denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were accomplished through numerous DNS lookup requests from tens of millions of IP addresses, which are believed to have been executed through a botnet consisting of many Internet-connected devices, i.e. printers, IP cameras, residential gateways and baby monitors, all that would've been infected with the Mirai malware. According to newsite Politico, the hacktivist groups SpainSquad, Anonymous, and New World Hackers claimed responsibility for the attack in retaliation against Ecuador's rescinding Internet access to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, at their embassy in London, where he had been granted asylum. However, the claim was never verified and even WikiLeaks themselves had this to say: "Mr. Assange is still alive and WikiLeaks is still publishing. We ask supporters to stop taking down the US internet. You proved your point."
map of internet outages in Europe and North America caused by the Dyn cyberattack
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