SatEng

While you may be right about the make up of the conservative party members, it is surprising that Penny Mordaunt - a centrist - is leading with the membership vote

The right wing like to classify everything as "woke" even where that is not appropriate - as in this story But of course they do not call out the right wing "woke-ism" - renaming slavery as "Involuntary Relocation" or lies as "alternate facts" Right-wing woke-ism at its worst

Yes, they were visa exempt by air and stopped at Suvarhnabhumi. I think I may have just got an over-zealous immigration officer but then had to argue the case with her superior who let me through but said "technically you are illegal, you need a proper visa" I point this out because I think the OP was using a combination of land and air entries and he may hit the same problems

Actually Dr Jack the answer is yes, they are now querying back-to back tourist visas. I did one extension and then two trips (for work) to Singapore for a few days at the end of May and June and they stopped me at immigration to say I have too many tourist trips and need a full visa. Took me about an hour to talk my way through this So you may be unlucky if you have a "vigilant" immigration officer - it seems the continuous border runs are not now allowed

The two satellites are for remote sensing - agriculture, forestry, urban planning, maritime etc. Not just for show these are working satellites

The original definition of the program was done in 2013 under the Yingluck government - it was agreed but the government fell shortly afterwards - it took another 5 years to get the military government to fully back the program and get through the processes and the contracts were signed in 2018 - so one of the few Thai programs that has been supported by "both sides"

there are in fact two satellites - one built by Airbus in France and one by SSTL (Surrey satellites) in the UK. As part of the conditions for the satellite contract a team of Thai engineers from GISTDA - in total around 60 people - have been in France and particularly in the UK to take part in the design, integration and testing of the satellites - they have been there for around 18 months and were trained in all aspects of the spacecraft development and manufacture as a "technology transfer" package. This is to prepare them to be able to make their own satellites in Thailand in the future. There are also 10 processing centres for the data from the satellites including agriculture, forestry, urban planning, water management, border and maritime security etc. Over 800 personnel from different government ministries and organisations have been trained in Thailand to use the processing centres and software - making this one of the largest training programs ever achieved in this industry anywhere in the world Many more will be trained during the 10-year lifetime of the satellites in-orbit

Total B**l<deleted> There are no Americans working on the THEOS-2 program - the two satellites are made by European companies (Airbus and SSTL) and the program was defined by a British falang working in Thailand. The contract for the satellites and the ground segments was definitely not corrupted, although some people on the Thai side did try some tricks. It was probably the cleanest contract that Thailand has ever signed for a high-tech investment. There are some other parts of the Thai space industry - mostly the Thai companies, that are less than honest but not on this program. You - or your fictitious informer - are making things up