Thomas Cheney
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thomascheney.bsky.social
Thomas Cheney
@thomascheney.bsky.social
2.6K followers 2K following 4.2K posts
Academic, (outer) Space Governance at Northumbria University. Legal geography and environmental humanities of space governance (space resources, planetary protection, astrobiology, settlement etc). Working on project 'Life the Ultimate Frontier'. He/him.
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thomascheney.bsky.social
good week to have added this to my collection... may have been a reason it was on such a steep discount...
photo of the cover of George C. Herring's From Colony to SUperpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776, part of the Oxford History of the United States, has two images, one a portrait of some of the American founding fathers and the other a photo of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at one of the wartime conferences
January 22, 2026 at 9:58 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Post a game you remember playing that nobody else remembers
A cartoon man leans out of the window of a big yellow dump truck with the big text reading Tonka Construction at the bottom
January 14, 2026 at 11:57 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Look at that flag!
blue flag, 10 gold stars in a sort of horseshoe shape with WEU UEO in a cross like configuration in the middle
January 14, 2026 at 9:27 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Have been seeing ads from the RAF around Red Flag 26 and honestly we should be pulling out - like if THIS doesn't spark a response from European leaders then what the fuck are we all doing...
screen shot of an article from the Guardian - text reads White House says using US military is 'always an option' for acquiring Greenland. European Leaders push back forcefully against US president's desire to seek takeover of Arctic territory. Includes a photo of President trump in front of American flags pointing.
January 7, 2026 at 8:43 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
the main christmas prep, decanting the port
December 22, 2025 at 2:57 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Strike ballot arrived @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social, easy double Yes, would be off to the postbox if i wasnt meeting with a Phd student in 20 mins. #wearetheuniversity
photo of a pink envelope from UCU containing a ballot on industrial action
December 17, 2025 at 3:20 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Oh boy...

Under a section of the new US National Security Strategy titled 'Promoting European Greatness'...

The EU really needs to be viewing the US as a hostile state

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
But this economic decline is eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure. The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.
December 5, 2025 at 1:09 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
had its issues but deserved at least a season 2
December 1, 2025 at 12:59 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
This is the sort of stuff I love finding in the archives - those dastardly French are trying to usurp the UK's place as the 3rd place country in the space race!
Typewritten text of a document: "Outer Space: Liability Convention. I see from paragraph 4 of Paris telegram No. 41 Saving of 20 May that Monsieur de Lipkowski, the junior Minister at the Quai d'Orsay, has recently said that France is the third space power. 2. Particularly in the light of this, I think that the brief for the forthcoming meeting of the Legal Sub-Committee should assemble the arguments which we can use to establish that the U.K., and not France, should be nominated as the third depositary for an eventual Liability Convention. You will remember that the question whether we should resist any attempt byt he French to secure their inclusion as the third depositary was considered earlier and our conclusion was that we should. I do not, however, believe that there was then any marshalling of arguments which could be advanced for that purpose."
November 10, 2025 at 9:45 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Here's a wacky idea - raise your graduate salaries... (From the FT's First FT newsletter)
Screenshot of text which reads: "Why it matters: Several chief executives have voiced their fears about the impact on recruitment if the minimum wage reaches pay levels for graduate positions in traditional white-collar jobs. 'Why would young people take on £45,000 of student debt if they can earn the same stacking shelves?' asked one."
November 3, 2025 at 9:10 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Always enjoy being able to make a reference to this Mr Show sketch in lectures - and when better than when discussing Project A119 the 'plan' to nuke the Moon

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTJ3...
Two men white men, one, a balding man wearing black rimmed glasses stands in front of a podium, he is wearing a long sleeve blue shirt, with another man stood behind him in a short sleeve white shirt. They are stood in front of a NASA logo as this is meant to be a NASA press conference (it is a scene from a comedy show) and on the screen the text reads, as a quote from the show "America can, should, must, and will blow up the Moon."
October 30, 2025 at 9:15 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
13 years ago today this little creature entered my life, bit bigger and a tad creakier but theyve been an excellent 13 years, hopefully have a good few more to come
October 17, 2025 at 11:22 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
lol... (been reading up on the Committee on the Present Danger: China because of Greg Autry, and oh boy as if that book wasn't unhinged enough) and does the graphic imply that MAGA is a sockpuppet of China?
Webinar - Civil War 2.0: Xi's Plan for Finishing Off the USA? Hosted by the Committee on the Present Danger: China
October 14, 2025 at 2:17 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Ok stupid question but don't the Republicans control both houses of congress and the presidency? How weak ass pathetic do you have to be to let the opposition party shut down the government?
Federal Government Shutdown - Due to the Democrat led shutdown, website updates will be limited until full operations resume
October 14, 2025 at 1:53 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
ERC Starter Grant submitted - usually manage to maintain a degree of emotional detachment from grant applications (because I won't get the funding) but I'm proud of and excited by this one so will be hard when it doesn't get funded.
Screenshot of text, first line, in bold: ERC Starting Grant 2026; second line, also in bold: Part B1; third line, not in bold: May Legal Worlds: The Legal Geography of Life Beyond Earth and the Constructions of Nature/Natures [there is just one Nature in the text but with an s in a paracentesis to indicate the dual and different use of the words]; the fourth is the acronym which is LIFE squared meaning Legal Implications of Extraterrestrial Life.
October 13, 2025 at 7:58 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Despite everything, 1112 words today! #writinggoals
Screenshot of text that reads Space Expansionism and the American Empire
September 12, 2025 at 2:57 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
will stop ranting...
four panel cartoon from phdcomics, the main character a white woman with black hair is depicted as doing normal day to day things, sleeping, eating, and riding her bike in the final panel she is at a computer - in the first three panels she has a though bubble saying "I should be writing" the last panel had the title "you should be writing" to which our main character responds in exasperation "I know", the tag line for the comic is "this message brought to you by that manuscript you're supposed to be writing"
September 12, 2025 at 11:09 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Brandy and Cleo send their love
September 9, 2025 at 4:55 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
jesus Labour must be desperate
September 6, 2025 at 4:57 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
not new from the Trump admin either - this has been my go to for talking about Manifest Density in space since Trump 1 - they used to be a teeny bit more subtle
the back of Donald Trump and Mike Pence looking at the launch of a SpaceX rocket (I think it was Crew Dragon 1) with the text Destiny: Salute to America
July 24, 2025 at 1:44 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
working on my ERC starter grant bid so of course I've spent most of the day working on my presentation for next week
Powerpoint slide - the background is a a computer rendering of a scene from the movie Silent Running, the background image is Saturn in the darkness of space with three space ships in the foreground, these are large long structures which look like girders, they have clusters of domes with much greenery in them as they are essentially greenhouses in space. The text of the slide reads "Outer Space as 'Nature? An Environmental Humanities/Legal Geography Approach to Space Governance or How Mining, Terraforming and Extraterrestrials Fit Together" with my details listed in the bottom left corner - Dr Thomas Cheney, Vice Chancellors Research Fellow, Space Law, Northumbria University, thomas.e.l.cheney@northumbria.ac.uk and my bluesky handle "thomascheney.bsky.social' the Northumbria University Law School Logo is in the bottom corner it is the university shield which has two castles a gear and a book on it with the worlds Northumbria University Newcastle Law School next to it.
July 18, 2025 at 1:51 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
can anyone recommend a simple explainer on 'the digital pound'? Several students have written about it and basically I'm not getting how this is different from what i've got now, I basically never use cash, 99% of my pounds are digital? is it simply that they'll be on a BoE computer and not Lloyds?
Text reads: A digital pounds would be like a digital form of cash - a banknote for the digital era. Like banknotes, it would be issued directly by the Bank of England. You could hold your digital pounds in a digital wallet and spend them in shops or online. A digital pound would be denominated in sterling and its value would be stable, just like banknotes. £10 in digital pounds would always have the same value as a £10 banknote.
June 6, 2025 at 8:32 AM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Latest Better World Books Haul, going to need to win the lottery tomorrow so I have a place to put the ever growing horde...
A stack of secondhand books, on the top is Mary Midgley's Animals and why they matter, then Philosophy, Technology, and the Environment edited by David Kaplan, then Oelschlaeger's The Idea of Wilderness, Carolyn Merchant's Reinventing Eden and Worster's Nature's Economy (Second Edition)
June 5, 2025 at 2:23 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Come on linkedin at least claim something believable
Linkedin notification which says You have oneo f the most-viewed profiles. Add verification to boost trust.
May 29, 2025 at 4:16 PM
thomascheney.bsky.social
Final proofs sent off - hopefully out before the end of the year! Genuinely very proud of this piece, think it might be the best thing I've written so far
photo of the title page of a book chapter, reads "Chapter 18. Non-use of Space: Reconsidering Article I of the Outer Space Treaty and the Useability of Space Resources" by Thomas Cheney
May 23, 2025 at 10:42 AM