[wfranzen]

There is a lot I could say here, but with this forum becoming read-only, and with no response to my last three posts I will only tie up a loose end or two.

The "Astronautics Association for Mankind" referred to by Dr. Peterson does exist. I confirmed with Vernon Woolf a few weeks ago that Dr. Peterson is on the board of directors. He (Vernon Woolf) kindly returned my call. He wouldn't give me any additional information other than the English name of the organization, but from a very brief description available on his website, this organization is a company involved in transferring technology between Russia and the United States.

There is little available on this organization on the web, but I certainly wouldn't call it the "Russian equivalent to NASA". I think that would be Roscosmos. Anyway, if you perform the following two Google searches, you will find some oblique references to the organization.

Association for Mankind

Association [Astronautics | Cosmonautics] * [Mankind | Humanity]

From this, with some effort, I was however able to determine the Russian name of the organization:

Ассоциация "КОСМОНАВТИКА ЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСТВУ"

You can search on that or simply on КОСМОНАВТИКА ЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСТВУ. The first search won't give you any insight into the organization and the second returns a lot of extraneous stuff.

There seems to be a tie between this organization and The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RANS), or Российская академия естественных наук. Please do not confuse the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences with the Russian Academy of Sciences. These are not the same organizations. This took me a lot of effort to establish. At least in some circles, RANS has had a reputation for having crackpots as members. Really, I have no way or knowing whether or not this is true, and even if this were the case, there is no evidence that this in anyway applies to Ассоциация "КОСМОНАВТИКА ЧЕЛОВЕЧЕСТВУ", which seems to have cosmonauts involved or as founding members.