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From the Association of Autonomous Astronauts on their action on J18 in London

From the second issue of the Space 1999 daily newsletter.

(Images of the protest also available.)

I arrived at yesterday's rendez vous point to find several Autonomous Astronauts from all across Europe already waiting. A handful of police were also present, and they seemed to get very over-excited when I produced some Space 1999 propaganda. One of them gingerly approached me and asked for a copy of the programme (so, obviously a high degree of briefing!). When he got one, the whole police contingent went down into the tube station to read it all thoroughly.

When they returned, we headed off to Berkeley Square for the protest proper, police in tow. Space Suits were donned, and banners handed out with the slogan 'Stop Star Wars - military out of space'. We arrived at our target, Lockheed Martin, and started handing out leaflets and so on. A delegation (led by a 2.5 year old Inner City AAA member) headed for the reception area to hand over our demands. Unfortunately this seemed to cause a certain amount of agitation amongst the police and the heavies lurking by the entrance. This part of the protest was being broadcast live on BBC Radio Scotland via our mobile phone.

Our letter to Lockheed (suggesting they hand over their resources to the AAA and stop building weapons) was eventually handed in to reception. No response has been received at the time of going to press.

We stayed outside for a while and handed out our leaflets. The response was generally very good, with a few conversations being struck up with passersby and even some people who work in the same building as Lockheed Martin. Even the most hard-faced office workers had to agree that we'd be much better off playing football in outer space than using it as a new arena for weapons testing.

After the protest, we headed into the City to check out the embers of the other J18 events.

All in all, a good day out, and proof positive that community based space exploration is on the up.

Space 1999: London June 18-27 1999
http://www.deepdisc.com/space1999/


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