As you read about their contributions and unfailing sacrifices throughout their lives, you would agree that what they have done are worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, and they have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the last several years.

It is time not only to abandon the Nuclear Employment Guidance strategy putting China as the main nuclear threat. It is time for the U.S. and the world to focus their energy to work on the many important problems facing the world. It is time to see in what ways China can work collaborately with the U.S. to solve the many complex problems facing the world.

Let’s focus our attention on another important problem facing the U.S. This is related to two American astronauts who are currently stranded in the International Space Station (ISS).

Important U.S. Space Program

The U.S. has a very important space program called Starliner with two astronaults (Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams) who are temporarily stranded in space. The 15-foot-wide Boeing-made space capsule Starliner was launched, atop an Atlas V rocket, on June 6, 2024. But the spaceship has encountered some problems, including three helium leaks, including one leak that was known before flight, and two new ones after the spaceship was launched. Besides these leaks, the crew also had to troubleshoot failed control thrusters, though the crew was able to successfully dock the Starliner spaceship with the International Space Station (ISS). Being a Boeing-made spaceship, the Starliner was thought to provide a new way to get crews to and from the ISS. Witmore and Williams’ mission was supposed to last a mere eight days when they would test out aspects of Starliner and see how it operates with a human crew in space. However, due to complications experienced with Starliner, the two astronaults have to stay in the ISS much longer (Ref. 3).

With the technical problems facing the Starliner, NASA has been thinking of finding another method to bring the two stranded astronaults home to earth. So one method is to use the SpaceX, which is a private spaceflight company founded by Elon Musk. But SpaceX also has experienced failures and problems. A Falcon 9 rocket to launch SpaceX exploded on the launch pad in 2016, and in July a Falcon 9 rocket experienced a liquid oxygen leak and deployed its satellites in the wrong orbit. However, SpaceX also has more than 300 successful Falcon 9 flights to its credit.

NASA says that there is no rush to bring Wilmore and Williams home. The current plan is to launch another SpaceX to the ISS and bring Witmore and Williams home to earth. This is currrently scheduled for February 2025.

A Potential U.S.-China Collaborated Space Venture

Just for contingency planning, if the above plan to bring home Wilmore and Williams runs into more problems in the future, since China also has a space program (Tiangong space station) which is planning a national record 100 orbital launches in 2024. (Refs. 4 and 5). It would be a great collaborative effort for the U.S. and China to jointly launch a spaceship to the ISS to bring home the two U.S. astronauts Butch Whilmore and Suni Williams. Although China has many tasks for its space program (that is why it is planning about a 100 space launches in the next year or so), it should be a great effort for the U.S. and China to collaborrate on this highly valuable humanitarian effort. Who knows what could follow, and the icy relationship between the U.S. and China could thaw and give rise to more fruitful joint ventures to improve the world.

References

[1] David E. Sanger, “Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat,” the New York Times, 8/20/2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/us/politics/biden-nuclear-china-russia.html.

[2] See, video broadcasts by various foreigners who have lived and worked in China for many years, e.g., from American Cyrus Jannsen, Australian/British Jerry Grey, Columbian Fernando Munez Bernal, and many others. Their video broadcasts on China can easily be found in the web.

[3] See, e.g., Marcia Dunn, “Who are the two NASA astronauts stranded at the Intenational Space Station?”, https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/national-international/who-are-the-two-nasa-astronauts-stranded-at-the-international-space-station/3370766/?os=..&ref=app#:~:text=The%20two%20astronauts%20who%20will%20spend%20extra%20time,and%20when%20%E2%80%94%20they%20would%20return%20to%20Earth.

[4] Astronauts Stranded in Space: How They’ll Be Rescued in 2025″, CNET, Sept. 5, 2024: https://www.cnet.com/science/astronauts-stranded-in-space-how-theyll-be-rescued-in-2025/.

[5] Andrew Jones, Space News, “China’s 2024 space plans include 100 launches and moon sample return mission,” February 26, 2024: https://spacenews.com/chinas-2024-space-plans-include-100-launches-and-moon-sample-return-mission/.

Almost a year ago on September 16, 2023, I suffered a stroke affecting my left leg and left arm. Although it was not from a major stroke, it did affect my mobility and my stability, affecting the distance I could walk, the amount of time I could spend doing Taiji, and the time to take a break before I can continue. I want to give an update on the progress in the recovering process, especailly during the last 3 months. Let me summarize the results so far.

Current Situation

• After about 6 months of physical therapy (from Sept 2023 to beginning of March 2024) at the Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, it was decided to take a break from the physical therapy treatment to see how my body would perform
• I also had acupuncture treatment by a local acupuncturist for about two months in this 6 month period.  Usually the acupuncture treatment should commence within 20 days of the stroke.  Since my acupunctural treatment didn’t begin until more than a month after my stroke, we were not expecting a lot of progress from this treatment.
• After the physical therapy (PT) ended in March 2024, I did continue to do some of the  PT exercises at home, but not extensively until around June/July 2024.
• Because I have Sleep Apnea, which occasinally causes me to stop breathing temporarily during my sleep. To solve this problem I have to use a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine with a mask to push air into my lungs during my sleep. About 10 years ago, doctors invented a method to replace the CPAP machine to automatically move air into a patient’s lungs. Inspire Surgery inserts a small battery in the patient’s chest to provide power to operate automatically a very tiny hook inserted in the patient’s throat area to make the patient’s tongue to open up to allow air to go down the passage way into the lungs. On 6/27/2024, I had this Inspire Surgery done by the pulmonologist Dr. Vishaal Patel.
• To allow time for my body to recover from this Inspire Surgery, the results of my Inspire Surgery was activated on 8/7/2024 by my regular pulmonologist Dr. Adrian Pristas. So now this automatic device has been implemented and activated in my body.  I will wait till the next couple of months to see whether the Inspire device in my body will operate efficiently and as designed.  I plan to update this information in my next update in Dec. 2024.

In the meantime, I want to give an update on an assessment of the results of my Physical Therapy (PT) exercises (such as walking on threadmills, various stretching exercises) I have been doing at home in the last couple of months.

Status Update

1. The PT exercises on the threadmill have definitely increased my stamina so that I can maintain the threadmill exercises for up to 30 minutes at a time.  However, I still drag my left foot on the ground, especially after I get a little tired.  I have to constantly remind me to raise my left foot (especially the front part of my left foot) to be above the ground. I should keep this in mind even if I need to slow down the exercise.
2. To increase my bending and stretching, I need to do more stretching of raising my left or right foot while lying on the floor on my tummy and raising the left foot or right foot backward and up toward the front.
3. I need to do more of all kinds of stretching to make me more flexible.
4. I need to do more pushups to restore some of the strengths that I have lost.
5. I need to do more of the Taiji exercises to restore my flexibility, my stability, and my stamina.

I don’t know how much of my previous flexibility, stability, strengths, and stamina I can restore in the next 6-12 months, but I am looking forward to making progress.

In the last several months I have also been doing Sleep Therapy (ST) exercises once a week to increase my memory. ST provides exercises that try to associate various other entities (e.g., activities, names of projects or people that may be related to the current names). Sometimes, I have the tendency of temporarily forgetting the names of people I see and whose names I used to know. Such loss of memory may be just due to age. We will take a pause from my ST after I return from the Asia trip.