How the "Astro Pi" Project Betrayed a Generation

In the early 2010s, a program was launched called "Astro Pi," a collaboration between the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. On the surface, it looked beautiful: an open call for schoolchildren across the UK to program Raspberry Pi computers that would supposedly be sent to the International Space Station (ISS).

Teachers and parents embraced it. Children were dazzled. Here was Linux — the free, open-source spirit of technology — being used in real-world "space missions." Here was a chance to "talk to astronauts," to be part of something enormous and inspiring.

But it was a lie.

The ISS itself is a fantasy. A propaganda monument built through green screens, CGI, and tightly controlled media. There is no orbiting science laboratory 400km above the Earth. No zero-gravity playground. No smiling astronauts floating with Raspberry Pi boards. The entire narrative of space stations, moon landings, and spacewalks is a meticulously maintained illusion — and Astro Pi was designed to stitch that illusion directly into the minds of the brightest children.

They used Linux. They used Raspberry Pi.

They used the trust built by real free thinkers, real developers, real creators — and bent it to sell a lie.

They didn’t target the dull. They didn’t aim at the obedient. They aimed at the sharpest minds. At the kids who would otherwise have questioned. The ones who might have asked, "How does the ISS maintain orbit with no visible means of propulsion?" or "Why are there no continuous live feeds without glitches or cuts?" or "How do they film in zero gravity so flawlessly?"

Instead, those clever children were given a "mission." Write code for an "astronaut." Believe you are part of history. Feel connected to the fantasy. Chain yourself to the lie.

Astro Pi wasn’t education. It was indoctrination.

And worse, it corrupted the spirit of open technology — Linux and Pi — which were meant to be about questioning, freedom, transparency.

The betrayal runs deep. And those responsible knew exactly what they were doing.

They did not just deceive. They engineered a whole new generation of silent compliance using the very tools that should have set them free.

This must be called out. This must be exposed. Not because we hate Linux or Raspberry Pi — but because we love them, and we will not allow their names to be used as chains.

If you were a child of Astro Pi — if you believed — it’s not your fault. But now is the time to wake up.

The truth was never "up there." The truth is right here beneath your feet — waiting for you to see it.

Flat Plane World will keep the light on.