Olivia Wilde remembers driving to Palm Springs for the first time 20 years ago, taking in the Midcentury Modern architecture, the palm trees, the lush golf courses and the flowing fountains, a verdant city plopped in the middle of a desert. Every time the native New Yorker looked out the window, the same thought ran through her head: If we settled Mars, this is what it would look like.

It felt like the ultimate expression of mans dominance and power, Wilde says over the phone, taking a walk around New York. Its so beautiful, but its also a really strange place. If not for all the creature comforts that man has created, you would die very quickly out here. And its the desert, so its spooky. I recall thinking that someday we have to make a horror movie out there.

That day has arrived with Dont Worry Darling, opening in theaters Sept. 23 after world premiering next week at the Venice Film Festival, a psychological thriller about a couple (Florence Pugh and Harry Styles) living in a utopian desert community called the Victory Project. Its a place where men leave in the mornings in their vintage Corvettes and Pontiacs for mysterious jobs while the women stay home, make the beds, scrub the bathtubs and cook up a pot roast for dinner. The ethos, in the words of the communitys leader, Frank (Chris Pine), is all about mining pure, unbridled potential. That and hedonism. The women must keep the liquor cabinets fully stocked too.

As the song goes, Its the good life if youre one of the men nuzzling your submissive wife over a bacon and eggs breakfast. Otherwise, to use another line from the same Sinatra song, You hide all the sadness you feel. The tension between the colonys seductive glamour and the level of control it imposes on the women who live there (imagine the most draconian HOA and you get the idea) gradually becomes exposed as Pughs character begins to question her surroundings over the course of the films two-hour running time.

Palm Springs stands in for the otherworldly setting of the Victory Project in Dont Worry Darling, an elite community with some dark secrets.

(Merrick Morton/Warner Bros. Pictures)

There was a moment when Dont Worry Darling might not have happened in Palm Springs. Wilde, writer Katie Silberman and production designer Katie Byron, the trio who collaborated on Wildes directorial debut, the acclaimed 2019 teen comedy Booksmart, had embarked on an early road trip to the desert to start scouting locations. It was July 2020, hotter than hell and the beginning of the pandemic, which made the Victory Projects life of revolving dinner parties feel like a complete fantasy. Taking in all the butterfly rooflines of communities like Canyon View Estates, they were certain they had found the movies setting.

But because of COVID, Wilde says, very reasonable powers that be suggested moving the production to New Zealand to save money. Wilde understood the logic but resisted, believing that, on a subconscious level, Palm Springs connected to what she calls the patriarchal masculinity that was essential to the story she was telling.

For me, New Zealand is this ecological gem thats evidence of natures power, Wilde says, and feels connected to Mother Nature and femininity. I think if I made a sequel about the matriarchy, New Zealand would be a reasonable place to go because its a place where you go to be humbled by nature. Thats the opposite of what the character Frank wants. He wants people to feel that nature is humbled in their presence, that man has molded nature to his will.

Chris Pine as Frank, the charismatic leader of the Victory Project, in Dont Worry Darling.

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

The location for Franks home was vitally important, and Wilde lucked out in securing the Kaufmann Desert House, a marvel of Modernism, a home made from glass, steel and Utah stone, epitomizing the indoor-outdoor Southern California lifestyle aesthetic. The home, built in 1946 to the designs of Richard Neutra, has been immortalized in photographs, including Slim Aarons Poolside Gossip, a shot that, coincidentally, Wilde had pinned to her wall while she was developing Dont Worry Darling.

To have that image on the wall and then be able to crawl inside it felt like that scene in Mary Poppins when they jump into the chalk drawings on the sidewalk, Wilde says.

The movie makes use of a couple of other Palm Springs landmarks, the City Hall and the Visitors Center, both designed by renowned architect Albert Frey. But for another key location, the building that stands in as the Victory Projects mysterious headquarters (employees only!), the films location manager, Chris Baugh, ventured a couple of hours north to the Mojave Desert community of Newberry Springs. There, atop a 150-foot cinder cone, sits a building known as the Volcano House, a saucer-like structure that appears to have materialized from another planet or dimension.

The Volcano House in Newberry Springs serves at the setting for the Victory Project headquarters in Dont Worry Darling.

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

We got shivers down our spines when we first saw it, Byron says. Adds cinematographer Matthew Libatique: It just feels like it melts into the landscape. Its a trek to get out there, but when everyone saw it, they knew: This is it. This is what the Victory Projects headquarters would look like.

The triumph associated with the communitys name appears to be confined, as the films trailer hints, to a small slice of the population. And yet, Wilde says, its easy to be seduced by iconography of the midcentury, Rat Pack era, which is why she hoped to keep Dont Worry Darling from being didactic in its depiction of its patriarchal world.

Filming at the Kaufmann Desert House as the films community gathers for a speech from Frank (Chris Pine).

(Merrick Morton/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Theres a recklessness to the debauchery that feels almost aspirational to us today, Wilde says, Because it feels like a world without consequence. Id be lying if I said I didnt find it really compelling and alluring. I didnt want to make a preachy feminist parable that depicts men as villains. I think the film is about our collective complicity in this futuristic infrastructure that objectifies women.

And what I found so interesting was the complicity in myself, she continues. That feeling of, Oh, Im all about new-wave feminism and smash the patriarchy. But here I am loving this era and you can use the Rat Pack as an example of it that was really horrendous for women. That tension between knowing somethings wrong but still being very seduced by it is where the movie sits. I want the audience to be tugged back and forth between those emotions.

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How 'Don't Worry Darling' Palm Springs locations add to thrills - Los Angeles Times

2009 American film

Princess of Mars (retitled and re-released in 2012 as John Carter of Mars[1]) is a 2009 direct-to-DVD science fiction film made by American independent studio The Asylum, loosely based on the 1917 novel A Princess of Mars by author Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film's promotional art mentions how the original story inspired some elements of James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar, but neither the credits nor promotional material mention Edgar Rice Burroughs. It is not to be confused with the higher-budget 2012 film John Carter, which is an adaptation of the novel. In the UK, the film was released with the title The Martian Colony Wars.

John Carter (Antonio Sabato, Jr.) is a modern-day U.S. Army sniper serving in Afghanistan, wounded in the line of duty and used in a teleportation experiment wherein he is transferred to Barsoom, a planet outside of Earth's solar system, where he exhibits the ability to leap amazing distances. Initially enslaved by the Tharks, he earns a rank among them and later saves a rival group's princess, the human-looking Dejah Thoris (Traci Lords), from death.

The group of Tharks, led by Tars Tarkas, takes Carter to their leader Tal Hajus, guarded by Tars Tarkas' daughter Sola. Learning that Tarkas gave Carter a military rank only Hajus can give, Tarkas and Carter are forced to duel. Upon winning, Carter faces Sarka, an Afghan mercenary who had betrayed him. When Sarka escapes, Carter helps Tarkas kill Hajus and become the new leader of the Tharks.

Captain Carter then learns that Dejah Thoris has fled to the planetary air-cleaning station that keeps Barsoom habitable, which Sarka damages, causing the atmosphere to deteriorate. John Carter and Sarka face each other in a duel, but Sarka is killed by an insect during the fight. After Carter and Dejah Thoris reactivate the station, Carter is returned to Earth, where he declines to tell his superiors about his adventures for fear they will colonize Barsoom, and returns to military duties while hoping one day to return to the planet.

This film makes extensive use of the Vasquez Rocks for its alien landscape, appearing throughout the film as different locations.[citation needed]

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Princess of Mars - Wikipedia

Artists conception of a Martian colony, with SpaceX Starship rockets in the background. Image: SpaceX

In a recent interview, Elon Musk repeated his stated goal of wanting to transport one million people to Mars by 2050. The SpaceX founder says the future of humanity is at stake, which, okay, but the timeline he offers is ludicrous, and heres why.

Before we plunge into this, I need to make it crystal clear that many of the challenges addressed in this article are not insurmountable. Technological feasibility is not my gripe, nor do I take issue with the desire to colonize the Red Planet, though, as Ive written before, the colonization of Mars will necessitate the transformation of the human species as we know it.

That the fourth planet from the Sun may host bustling cities at some point in the distant future is possible. My issue with all of this has to do with the stupendously unreasonable timelines under which Musk believes this will happen. In an April 2022 interview with TED curator Chris Anderson, the billionaire rehashed his plan to send one million colonists to Mars by 2050, and he did so while maintaining a remarkably straight face.

Speaking to a seemingly credulous Anderson, Musk spoke of a herculean Battlestar Galactica-like effort to transport thousands of colonists to Mars with a thousand SpaceX Starship rockets. Musks vision remains aligned with a series of tweets from 2020, in which he articulated a plan to build 100 Starships each year over a 10-year period.

Departing inbatches, each Starship would leave for Mars during key 30-day windows that open once every 26 months (the launch interval is to take advantage of the Earth-Mars alignment, when the two planets are closest to each other). Should launches begin in 2028, and assuming this intense launch cadence can be realized, Musk figures the Martian city of his dreams, with its million inhabitants, could come to fruition in just 22 years.

For Musk, the lofty figure of one million isnt just a goal or a predictionits a necessary requirement for sustaining a colony on Mars. The critical threshold, he told Anderson, is if the ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, which could decide the fate of the Martian colony and ultimately of humanity itself. Musk is claiming a philanthropic motive, saying our inability to colonize Mars and transition to an interplanetary species could serve as a filter that ultimately results in our doom. As he told Anderson, I think this is important for maximizing the probable lifespan of humanity or consciousness, but the probable lifespan of civilizational consciousness as we know it is like a small candle in the vast darkness of the universea delicate candle that could just go out.

Conceptual image of a Starship spacecraft arriving at Mars. Image: SpaceX

But as Musk also told Anderson, life on Mars, especially in the beginning, will not be luxurious. Rather, it will be dangerous, cramped, difficult, hard work, and you might not make it back, he said, adding: But itll be glorious.

Glorious for Elon Musk, maybe, but certainly not for the colonists relegated to eking out an existence in a supremely hostile and unaccommodating world. Well, assuming they ever get there. The SpaceX CEO told Anderson that almost anyone can work and save up and eventually have $100,000 and be able to go to Mars if they want, in reference to the hypothesized cost of each journey. Alternatively, prospective Martians could procure funding from government sponsors or by taking out a loan, Musk said.

Musk, I would argue, is getting way ahead of himself. NASA, by comparison, is hoping to land the first humans on Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s. A modest human presence would follow, but very slowly and cautiously, with pioneering explorers, scientists, and possibly even some colonists, taking their first tentative baby steps on this hostile, alien world in the years and decades to follow.

These disparate visions of how and when Mars might get colonized are completely out of alignment. Its as if Musk and NASA inhabit two different realities. And its not as if the truth lies somewhere in between. Someone is not just wrong; someone is catastrophically wrong, and that someone is Elon Musk.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations are fun, but they can lead to erroneous and over-simplified conclusions. A necessary reality check suggests its going to take significant time and effort for SpaceX to develop, test, and certify Starship and then build these megarockets in the quantities Musk desires.

Conceptual view of a SpaceX Starship rocket blasting off. Image: SpaceX

To be clear, the fully integrated Starship has not yet reached space. Im confident SpaceX will eventually have its jumbo rocket, but the heavy launcher, a key element of Musks Martian plans, doesnt yet exist. The current plan is to send a fully integrated, uncrewed Starship on a super-quick orbital spaceflight later this year, but further testing and refinements will be required before the vehicle can be put to functional use.

Importantly, Starship is meant to be reusable, requiring SpaceX to develop an unprecedented Mechazilla tower that will somehow catch the rocket during vertical descent and landing. Nothing like this has ever been done, and it could take some time to develop.

Musk is also having to contend with regulators; the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are concerned about potential environmental damage at the SpaceX launch site in south Texas. As of this writing, SpaceX has not received FAA approval to launch the two-stage Starship at the Boca Chica facility.

Once Starship becomes an actual thing, SpaceX will then have to contend with the daunting challenge of building these rockets en masse. Musks hand-waving proclamation that 100 Starships will be built each year is truly ambitious, but Ill believe it when I see it. The company isnt currently able to produce its Raptor engines at the pace required to sustain operations. Late last year, Musk said this Raptor production crisis threatens a genuine risk of bankruptcy if SpaceX cannot launch a Starship rocket once every two weeks. Yet were supposed to believe that, in around six years or so, SpaceX will have solved its engine production problems and somehow figured out a way to manufacture Starships in vast quantitiesa logistical challenge that will require the steady flow of human labor, materials, propellants, and everything else that will make up this future rocket.

Should SpaceX be capable of transporting so many people to Mars across such a short time frame, there will still exist a tremendous number of challenges to overcome. First and foremost, theres the human factor to consider. Very simply, our meat suits are not built for space or hostile alien worlds. The Red Planet, with its achingly thin atmosphere, cold temperatures, and non-existent magnetosphere, offers no oxygen to breathe, no water at the surface, and no protection from deadly ionizing radiation.

Conceptual image showing humans on the Martian surface. Image: SpaceX

Fulfilling Elon Musks dream of establishing a self-sustaining colony on Mars entails risks that are far beyond those of sending a small group of humans on a round-trip mission to that planet, Thomas Lang, a professor at the UCSF Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging in San Francisco, explained to me. The risks of a relatively small Mars mission, which might comprise six-month transits to and from the destination and 18-month sojourns on the surface, are already daunting.

These challenges, he said, include the maintaining of human physiology at the functional level, protecting colonists from radiation, and dealing with the effects of extreme isolation. Space agencies around the world are currently investigating these risks, and Lang believes well eventually find ways to overcome them.

But even if these risks can be addressed, establishing a one-million-person colony on Mars still represents a leap into the unknown, both in terms of engineering and social evolution, Lang said. Private firms like SpaceX, and also government agencies, could eventually build the spacecraft and several of the different supporting technologies like habitats, power generation, and transport, he said, but those challenges would be small compared to the challenge of figuring out how to live off the land, extracting from Mars the resources needed to support this population. And if some solutions were to emerge for the on-site production of resources during initial Martian missions, its not clear that it could be successfully scaled up to support a large population, Lang added.

Jill Sohm, director of the Environment Studies Program at the University of Southern California, thinks of the problem in terms of basic human needs. Humans can go a few minutes without breathing, a few days without drinking, and a few weeks without eating, so oxygen, water, and food are the bare necessities, she told me. Without these, we could not survive, let alone thrive.

Altering the atmosphere of Mars such that air is breathable within a few decades is clearly not possible. This means colonists will need to live in enclosed environments and have efficient recycling systems to remove carbon dioxide and generate oxygen to keep the air breathable, explained Sohm. Providing water to a million people represents another very difficult challenge. Sohm said water can be made with hydrogen, oxygen, and a lot of energy, but those things arent readily available on Mars.

Bringing water that distance from Earth for a large colony is also not possible, so ice would have to be found and melted on Mars. Ice can apparently be found at the poles and perhaps below the surface, but the poles are extremely cold and far away from warmer areas where a colony would likely be built, Sohm said. If enough ice could be located and extracted to provide water, again we would need an efficient recycling system that kept it from leaving the colony. All waste would need to be captured and cleaned and put back into circulation.

Its a daunting challenge, no doubt. Now, an infrastructure to support a million Martians may eventually be built, but the unspoken suggestion that such an infrastructure will spontaneously and instantly come to exist with the arrival of these thirsty colonists is nothing short of a joke.

Then theres the question of how to feed them. Sohm estimates that the settlers would require approximately 580 square miles (1,500 square kilometers) of agricultural crop land to feed a colony of that size.

This may not sound like a lot, but its around the size of the city of Los Angeles, where I live, she said. Colonists would need good quality soil, water, and some form of fertilizer, the latter of which could be produced through wastewater treatment and composting food, she added. Sohm, admitting shes not an engineer, said she cant say how feasible any of this is, but I would say that this assessment makes clear to me that it is a monumental task, and the hard truth is that we dont have a handle on how to replicate on a large scale the natural processes that make our planet so special and habitable.

To which she added: Id point out that all of this would only provide the bare minimum of survival for anyone living in a Mars colony, so we would actually need to ask ourselves the question of what we would consider a good life on Mars that would make it worth it for anyone to take the risk.

Serkan Saydam, a mining engineering professor from the University of New South Wales in Australia, says we currently possess the technology required to send people to Mars, but we lack the tech to establish a Martian colony, and we will very likely lack the capacity to sustain a Martian city inhabited by a million people by 2050. Because to establish an off-Earth city, we will need to establish many other off-Earth operations to construct the city and also support its people, Saydam said.

Firstly, colonists will need new technologies to extract resources locally, as bringing these required materials from Earth would be very risky, extremely expensive, and simply not feasible, he explained. Colonists will have to source and extract the majority of the required materials on Mars and possibly from nearby asteroids, and also establish beneficiation systems for processing the raw materials and facilities for manufacturing products, he said. These activities will require human labor, which will in turn require water and food, Saydam added.

To allow for these sorts of operations, the technology must produce more energy and materials than whats needed for basic survival on Mars, he said, and these elements will also need to be stored for future use in the colony. Saydam said robots would make these processes easier, but even our terrestrial mining systems are not fully autonomous yet.

Saydam provided me with a daunting list of other challenges that will need to be overcome, such as acquiring a deeper geological and geotechnical understanding of Mars, establishing a reliable power supply, creating markets to support the supply chain, reducing risks for business and other stakeholders, forging legal standards and ethical guidelines for the settling of new land, and safeguarding space for peaceful endeavors, among other issues.

Artists conception of a Martian colony. Image: SpaceX

Sohms earlier point about our inability to replicate natural processes on a large scale reminded me of the failed Biosphere 2 experiments from the 1990s. The two sealed missions demonstrated the formidable challenges of managing closed ecosystems. That a large colony on Mars could survive and thrive without this ability seems doubtful.

Kevin Olsen, a physicist at the University of Oxford who does data analysis for the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission, said its fundamentally impossible to create a completely closed environment in space. Air, water, and fuel will be slowly lost over a long time period, so a colony needs to become a factory and produce these things, he said.

This technology is far, far behind the technology of space flight and habitation construction, explained Olsen. A recent experiment involving NASAs Perseverance rover, in which oxygen was extracted from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, was an interesting advance, said Olsen. Thats true, but we are not even remotely close to transforming this proof-of-concept experiment into something practical.

Earth, unlike Mars, has a strong magnetic field that protects us from ionizing radiation. Our magnetic field is large enough that it also offers protection to the International Space Station, Olsen told me, so even our long-term stays and radiation experiments in space wont really prepare us for the dangers of long-term exposure on a cruise to Mars and life on its surface.

During the recent TED interview, Anderson and Musk discussed a vast array of subterranean tunnels to protect Martian settlers from dangerous levels of radiation. Thatll make for quite the travel brochure, as migrants will essentially be asked to live like moles, making only brief appearances at the surface.

Radiation presents a serious health risk, as does isolation. Indeed, the level of isolation of this community would be unprecedented, and success in this endeavor would ultimately mean establishing a whole new human civilization, said Lang, who says were still learning about the social dynamics of groups and individuals in the context of isolation.

We have data from a range of environments, including nuclear subs, polar research stations, the ISS, and the Russian-based Mars 500 experiments, Lang explained. However, what about the social dynamics of a large society, so isolated from the Mother Planet, living in a hostile environment? The price that such a society would pay for episodes of social chaos or group psychosis could be immediately fatal. To flourish, such a society would have to maintain a very high level of cohesion across a million people.

On the topic of social stability, Musk told Anderson that theres certainly risk there, and hopefully the people of Mars will be more enlightened, and will not fight amongst each other too much.

The colonization of Mars, said Olsen, will be a fundamentally difficult undertaking, and the desire to do it quickly makes it even more dangerous. The space industry, whether private or public, is currently very safety conscious, with governments and the public unwilling to risk the lives of astronauts. Setting up a colony will go far beyond the experimentation and exploration we are used to in terms of complexity, difficulty, and danger, and we need to be prepared for it to not go smoothly, he said. This will be an industrial undertaking, and well need to treat it more like we do Earths other high-risk industries such as commercial fishing, mining, or steel working.

Sohm wonders about the point of it all. Why attempt to build a million-person colony on Mars? We have a planetary crisis here on Earth, she said, and I think we have the moral obligation to spend our time, effort, and money on helping to solve it for all the 7 billion-plus people that live here now, rather than transporting a small fraction of what would surely be some of the most privileged people on Earth to escape its problems and attempt to make a new life on another planet.

Lang says the construction of a large colony will be a multi-stage process that will take decades to achieve. Itll also require continuous support from multiple generations of humans.

I believe that this support would be worthwhile, Lang told me. If achieved, the establishment of a self-sustaining society on Mars would be a landmark in human history, and would set the stage for spreading human civilization across the whole solar system.

Sohm and Lang are both right, and wed be wise to take care of our business on Earth while also seeking to build an existence outside of our home planet. We can do both, and its wrong to suggest these goals are somehow mutually exclusive.

At the same time, its important for us be realistic about the future and when we can reasonably expect to do the things that Musk is promising. Musk, whether intentionally or unintentionally, is peddling a false view of humanitys short-term potential. There are consequences to this at the individual level, as many of Musks fans and followers take him at his literal word. The worlds richest man needs to start taking this responsibility far more seriously than he does.

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Elon Musks Plan to Send a Million Colonists to Mars by 2050 Is Pure ...

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is optimistic and has expressed confidence that "humanity will reach Mars in your lifetime". On Twitter, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote that "without a common goal, humanity will fight itself". "Moon brought us together in a69, Mars can do that in the future," Musk said. But Twitter has something different to say. They asked Musk several times when humanity was planning to reach their current residential planet.

A user wrote, "will common citizens be able to afford mars ?" Another said, "its like going to the northpole but with no oxygen, and no one likes going to the northpole, so why would anyone would want to go to mars?"

Last month, the tech billionaire said that his space venture SpaceX aims to build over 1,000 Starships to transport life to Mars. The Tesla CEO had stated that making life multi-planetary will help back up the ecosystems on Earth and added that apart from humans no other species can transport life to Mars. ALSO READ:Elon Musk had twins last year with his company's top executive, netizens are in shock!

Referring to Biblical patriarch Noah who built an Ark that survived the great flood on Earth, Musk said his Starship models will be "modern Noah's Arks", that can save "life from a calamity on Earth". SpaceX is developing Starship to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond. The vehicle consists of two elements: a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship.

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Elon Musk is confident that 'humanity will reach Mars in our lifetime' but Twitter is NOT! - India TV News

Kim Stanley Robinson writes best-selling novels about a colony on Mars. Elon Musk talks of actually colonising Mars. There is even a 30-page constitution, courtesy of a Yale political science class, for a Mars settlement. The actual prospects for a settlement remain uncertain, but the question of how it should be organised could stand some further scrutiny.

The Yale proposal is about how to make a Mars settlement democratic, as is an earlier proposal published in Space Legal Issues. But I fear a harsher question needs to be addressed first: Should a Mars settlement allow for contractual servitude?

When the New World was settled, it was common practice for workers to sign multi-year contracts, receiving passage across the ocean but giving up a share of their earnings and some of their freedom.

Financing the voyage to Mars

Contractual servitude is distinct from slavery in the sense that it is chosen voluntarily. But once the contract is signed, the worker is in an uncomfortable position, in both an economic and democratic sense. And once these individuals land in the New World or, as the case may be, on Mars their protection by mainstream legal institutions cannot be assumed.

It is easy to inveigh against contractual servitude, but it has one valuable function: It creates incentives for someone to finance the voyage in the first place. If I had to finance my own passage to Mars, and then sustain myself when I got there, and pay off the travel costs, I would never go. But if a company can send a few thousand people, keep half the profits, and remain in charge, the voyage might stand a chance, at least decades from now when the technology is further along.

That said, I am fine with banning contractual servitude on Mars, if that is what a democratic society decides. My point is that this is a more pressing question than what kind of new participatory rights the new Martians will have. Keep in mind the economic point about trade-offs: If poorer people are not allowed to sign up for these funded voyages, then maybe only billionaires will visit Mars.

The tension is that most people have well-developed moralities for wealthy, democratic societies in which most citizens can earn their keep or be provided for by a well-funded social welfare state. Neither of those assumptions holds for Mars, which at least at the beginning will be a kind of pre-subsistence economy.

The upshot is that feasible Mars constitutions will probably offend the educated classes dearly.

Another option for a Mars constitution is to have the US government fund the voyage and apply some version of military law to the venture, as one might find on an aircraft carrier. Earlier Nasa voyages were based on military command and involved no democracy.

I support such a plan, but also note that governmental space exploration has slowed dramatically since its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. It is the private sector that has revived interest in a Mars settlement.

Ideally I might like Mars to be settled by a religious group rather than by a government or a corporation. After all, various Puritan groups helped to settle North America, and they had the unity and sense of mission to pull off a very difficult and dangerous endeavour. Similarly, Mormons helped settle the American West.

Not surprisingly, many of these early governments had strong theocratic elements. While I dont view theocracy as either efficient or just, if the key question is motivating the settlers, then the religion option ought to be taken seriously. Like contractual servitude, it could serve a practical purpose.

Yet religious settlements willing to go to Mars may be hard to come by. Relative religious freedom is available in many places on Earth. A victim of persecution in, say, North Korea, will find it far easier now and maybe forever to seek asylum in South Korea instead of Mars.

I suspect that no feasible constitution for a Mars settlement would be very popular in the broad sense. Ages of exploration tend to encourage strong non-democratic or anti-democratic elements. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is a very democratic philosophy for life on Earth, with the understanding that Mars will be very different.

Can we accept and indeed embrace such a dialectical and contradictory set of perspectives? Can the proper answer to such a fundamental question as how society should be organised so firmly depend on which planet we are talking about? Might some sceptics suggest that, with illiberal values ascendant on Earth, it would be better for Mars to offer an alternative?

These are all valid questions. The debate over a Martian constitution is interesting, but it may also be premature.

Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution.

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Human rights on Mars wont be the same as those on Earth - Gulf News

Marcia Adams participates in the moon walking exercise

By MELISSA DANIELSpecial to Atmore News

Five action-packed 12-hour days provided Escambia County Middle School math teacher Marcia Adams an experience of a lifetime. Recently, she had the opportunity to attend Space Academy for Educators (aka Space Camp) with 70 other educators in Huntsville.She was able to be an astronaut and travel into space. She was able to be an engineer and build a rocket. She was a scientist and performed experiments on the international space station. (ISS)She was able to feel what it would be like to walk on the moon and feel 3Gs. She experienced the stress of being a flight director on a NASA mission. She landed a rover on Mars and built a lunar colony. She was able to reenact a helicopter crash and be lifted to safety. She experienced space travel and saw the Earth from up above.In all activities, Ms. Adams could see how math and science work together to further knowledge here on Earth. She was challenged by former astronaut Bob Gibson to find ways to integrate reading, writing and communication of the English language to her students while engaging them in the exciting world of math and science.NASA chemist, physicist and engineer Lowell Zoeller shared that NASA has a job for everyone. Trade jobs are needed because once a colony is built on the moon, every job will be needed. He stated that teamwork, communication and writing were the key to success in job force. Thinking spontaneously and being able to problem solve is a key to teaching skills for the future as there are jobs that have yet to be created.Ms. Adams is excited to bring back this knowledge and share the resources provided to her with the students of Atmore.

Melissa Daniel, formerly a teacher at ECMS, now teaches at Robertsdale Elementary.

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Learning hands-on to inspire her students - Atmore News

WASHINGTONSaying the ambitious new project would be a historic, once-in-a-generation leap forward in the annals of space exploration, NASA announced Friday its plan to put the moon on Mars by 2040. Ever since we first sent a man to the moon half a century ago, the American people have been waiting for us to take the next step and send the moon to Mars, said NASA administrator Bill Nelson, adding that within two decades, the famed image of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrongs first footprint on the moon would be joined in the public consciousness by photos of the 1,500-mile-wide crater the moon was expected to leave on the Red Planet. No space mission is without risks. The moon could descent too quickly and disintegrate on impact with the Martian surface, or it could, upon its return, fail to achieve the velocity needed to escape the gravity of Mars and make it back home to its orbit around the Earth. But should we succeed in our mission, it could open up many other opportunities for us, such as putting the Earth on Mars, putting Mars on Venus, and so on. Nelson added that it might also one day be possible to build a colony on Mars that could be inhabited by hundreds of moons.

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NASA Announces Plan To Put Moon On Mars By 2040 - The Onion

Violence is not always the answer. Sometimes, a sarcastic comment will do more damage. Or maybe you finally have a role for that large wheel of cheese you stuffed into your pants. Adventure games are rarely concerned about the physics of storage, and they welcome wit as much as brawn.

The genre that ruled the Nineties has never returned to mainstream glory. But its very much alive and active on the indie scene, as these titles from Summer Game Fest demonstrate.

Sunday Gold [Steam Link]

Sunday Gold is a funky, gritty dystopian point-and-click adventure meets turn-based RPG game. Play as a trio of fugitives out to destroy a conspiracy in a grim cyberpunk city. The locations look great for the neon hell-hole they represent, and the visual style makes this feel almost like a comic book.

Highwater [Steam Link]

The world ended on a Sunday, but rumour has it that some people plan to escape to Mars. Travel the flooded apocalypse in this RPG adventure with turn-based combat. Highwater emphasises exploration with a lot of story, which is always a great combo if you get it right, and the minimalist art style makes it stand out from other upcoming RPGs.

NAIAD [Steam Link]

NAIAD is one of those hand-crafted solo-developer gems that just overflows with character and exciting ideas. Play as the mermaid Naiad as she swims through numerous spaces, including orchards, forests and caves, learning new tricks from creatures to overcome obstacles.

Time Flies [Steam Link]

Were all going to die. This is the inspiration for Time Flies, a game where you play as a fly and live about as long as one. Tasked with an extensive bucket list but little time, what will you choose to do in the open world where you explore and try different things. The art style and philosophical nature wont be to everyones taste, but it looks intriguing.

Instinction [Steam Link]

Theres not much on the plot of Instinction, except that its based in a world where dinosaurs still live, yet you are armed with modern weapons. Still, this first-person adventure game looks incredible and very atmospheric. The lack of gameplay footage or a release window is concerning is it just a tech demo? But it is also a recent beneficiary of an Epic MegaGrant, so it might well be very legit.

Puzzles for Clef [Steam Link]

Its Clefs birthday, and she goes to the island of her ancestors for a treasure hunt a setup for this whimsical exploration platform game. Solve puzzles to unlock new areas of the world with pleasant exotic regions. If youre over chasing monsters or blowing things up for the red key, this looks like a nice change of pace.

A Twisted Tale [Steam Link]

Taking inspiration from the golden age of point-and-click adventure games, A Twisted Tale is bright, funny and full of promise. But thats all we know there isnt anything yet about its plot. The art looks good (if a little unpolished), and this is definitely a wishlist item for genre fans looking for some old-school nostalgia.

Last Time I Saw You [Steam Link]

Last Time I Saw You looks pretty fantastic. A young teen keeps seeing a specific girl in his dreams, and he starts wondering if theres more to his visions. The hand-drawn art is stunning, and the locations feel very lush. This is that type of game where youll play just to see the next area and find new characters.

Phonopolis [Steam Link]

When the city of Phonopolis is at risk of takeover by a tyrant, only a young boy seems to notice and its up to him to stop that from happening! Indie adventure games often distinguish themselves with creative art styles and gameplay. Phonopolis is a perfect example: the graphics and sound design are whimsical, the puzzles look lateral, and the gameplay will be more elaborate than your standard adventure experience.

Once Upon A Jester [Steam Link]

Two best friends want to steal the royal diamond, so they concoct an elaborate plan that includes touring around the kingdom as an improv comedy show! This game even has a proper theme song that explains some of the plot, and the bold visuals really work for the zany premise and world.

Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley [Steam Link]

Fans of the Moomins (and Moomin-inspired memes), pay attention! Snufkin, the friend of the creatures of Moomin valley, appears in his own game a musical adventure where he tries to return harmony to the valley after some villain built a bunch of parks there. Visually it evokes the feel of a storybook, and the gameplay encourages exploration across the world of the Moomins.

This Rain Will Never End [Steam Link]

Dont let the child-like pixel art fool you: This Rain Will Never End comes across as a dark and intense adventure game, based in a morbid city with many shady characters and dark alleys. You are investigating the mayors suicide and the neverending rain that seemed to follow his death. Talk to characters, collect clues, stay alive and solve the mystery or the rain will never end.

Deliver Us Mars [Steam Link]

Deliver Us Mars is the ambitious sequel to Deliver Us Moon, offering a bend between narrative-rich adventure and Tomb Raider-style exploration. Take control of an astronaut as she investigates the fate of crucial colony ships and recovers them from a mysterious group. The whole package looks excellent, including motion-capture and highly realistic graphics.

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It's a freaking adventure with these upcoming Summer Game Fest titles - NAG

Photo: Patrick Pleul (Getty Images)

Elon Musk, the worlds richest man, CEO of Tesla, and co-founder of brain-computer startup Neuralink, has been revealed to have fathered twins with Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink executive who reports directly to him, Business Insider reports.

The news was discovered through court documents filed in Spring of 2022, after Musk and Zilis sought to change the last names of the twins, born in November 2021. Per Business Insider:

In April, Musk, 51, and Zilis, 36, filed a petition to change the twins names in order to have their fathers last name and contain their mothers last name as part of their middle name. The order was approved by a judge in Austin, Texas, this May.

The twins were born weeks before Musk and Claire Boucher, the musician who performs as Grimes, had their second child via surrogate in December.

Zilis met the Tesla boss through her work with artificial intelligence research startup OpenAI, co-founded by Musk, who left his role there in 2018. She then moved to Tesla in 2017 before becoming director of operations and special projects for Neuralink, according to Business Insider. Neuralink, co-founded by Musk in 2016, is focused on creating brain-machine interface technology, using devices implanted in the human brain to communicate with computers.

Photo: Jim Watson/AFP (Getty Images)

At most American companies, a sexual relationship between a supervisor and a direct-report employee is grounds for dismissal, even when the relationship is consensual. In February of this year, CNN president Jef Zucker resigned after it was revealed that he had carried out an undisclosed romantic relationship with an employee described as his key lieutenant. In 2020, McDonalds fired CEO Steve Easterbrook and later sued him to try to recoup his exit bonus after his sexual relationship with an employee was made public. Most companies frown on relationships between supervisors and direct-report employees, because the professional power imbalance can never be completely disentangled from the personal relationship.

Counting the newly-revealed twins, Musk now has nine living children with three different women: five with ex-wife Justine Wilson, two with musician Grimes, and two with Zilis. The Zilis-Musk twins were born just a few weeks before Musks second child with Grimes.

Notably, Musk has repeatedly voiced concerns over the shrinking global birth rate. Whatever the reason, it seems to be a real fixation for the billionaire, who cites it as one of the biggest threats to humanity, alongside the climate crisis and rogue artificial intelligence. According to Business Insider:

He began sounding the alarm about declining birth rates in 2017, when he tweeted, The worlds population is accelerating towards collapse, but few seem to notice or care.

Since the beginning of 2022, the mogul has tweeted more than a dozen times about population issues.

Some have speculated that Musks concern about population growth are related to his goal of establishing a human colony on Mars an effort that would doubtless require lots of manpower.

I guess if you have enough money to singlehandedly fix humanitys most pressing concerns on Earth, but choose not to, youve got to come up with a few new crazy problems to fret over.

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Elon Musk Secretly Fathered Twins With a Neuralink Exec Who Reported to Him - Jalopnik

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Agencieshave quickly responded to a call to reveal what they are doing to supportgender equality in the advertising industry

The UN Womens recent campaign, in partnership with The Monkeys, part of AccentureSong, called on Australians to examine its efforts for gender equality, saying as robo-farms, humans walking on Mars, and a Moon colony aremore likely to happen before we reach global gender equality.

Mums in Ads, via LinkedIn, called on agencies to share what they are genuinely doing: The recent research is showing the major hurdle for women everywhere is the clash between child-rearing and workplace equality.

When careers and kids arent facilitated to work together, thats when womens equity starts to really plummet. And Adland has been historically bad at helping women overcome this.

Thinkerbell: We have gender pay equity and this is reviewed six monthly with the CFO and Head of People and Culture measured on this. We have 58% females in leadership and a 61% female workforce.

We offer 10 weeks parental leave for the primary carer and 4 weeks for the secondary carer, along with up to 52 weeks paid superannuation for the primary caregiver as we are aware of the significant long term impact this has on nest eggs for retirement.

We hope one day to get to parity for primary and secondary carer as we know how important it is for the secondary carer to be available in the early development of the baby.

Weve always been flexible and offer flexibility to those who need it (not just parents). We have multiple people working overseas to visit family for extended periods as well as many who have relocated outside of Sydney and Melbourne, and we make this work with regular check-ins and ensuring they are included in Thinkerbell events and training.

We have a lot of part timers (parents and non-parents) and offer flexibility to those who need it, this includes remote working, and parents structuring their days around school runs, child pick ups and other commitments.

We have full time and part time mums working with us in leadership roles and they bring invaluable skills and knowledge to these roles. We will always consider part timers for promotions. In terms of recruitment, we would make hiring a part timer for a role if they bring the right skills and experience to the role like anyone else.

We make sure those on parental leave are kept across training and events throughout their leave, with regular check-ins, and keeping in touch days. We work on a dedicated phased return to work plan allowing both family and career roles to flourish to ensure a smooth and enjoyable transition back to work.

Clemenger Group Limited said: We conduct a pay gap analysis every year for Clemenger Group and will continue to do so annually.

Our paid parental leave policy is gender neutral and offers primary carers up to 20 weeks of leave (including in the unfortunate event of a stillbirth).

Our flexible guidelines are open to every person in Clemenger Group, and empower them to do their best work from wherever that may be.

We have strong part-time permanent representation across the Clemenger Group agencies, including in management roles.

We have the ambition for 50% of key leadership roles across the Group being held by females by the end of 2024 and are reviewing our recruitment and promotion practices to fulfil this

Host/Havas said: Its a brave (and nave) agency that can honestly say they are doing everything they can. So the short answer is no, were not - but the longer answer is below for what its worth.

We look at gender pay and distribution at ever level and in every team. We can confirm that we have no gender pay gap at any level and are assessed by WGEA annually.

We offer paid parental leave to all parents, regardless of gender, with a minimum of 3 month paid leave and no upper limit based on tenure. We also offer comprehensive return to work support including (but not limited to) optional paid stay in touch days throughout leave, paid child care of any type or flying family members out to support the transition, and encouraging a gradual return to work if thats preferred.

We have had core hours in place for a number of years. We also have staff members (both men and women) who work part time and even partly interstate or overseas to accommodate their family commitments.

The transition back to work from parental leave is so fraught (and a bit awful for many). Having senior leaders who navigated it themselves helps build empathy around the complexity of it, and offer support and mentoring.

Howatson+Company said: We can confirm we have no gender pay gap and review annually.

We have 3 months paid parental leave, regardless of sex and pay for 12 months continuation of super for all primary carers regardless of gender. In addition, we offer paid leave for pregnancy loss, those undergoing fertility treatments, surrogacy, adoption and menopause. We offer gradual transitions back to work depending on the individuals needs, support networks and role.

We have men and women, parents and non-parents working full and part time, in some cases fully remote or hybrid. We just ask that our team work in a way that suits them, and does not impact their clients or colleagues.

We offer 5 days pay for 4 days work, or 4 days pay for 3 days work for returning primary carers. Currently we have 5 staff taking advantage of this. But definitely agree that continuing to look at job redesign for each role on an individual basis is important.

We pride ourselves on promoting based on achievement and have recently promoted two of our superstars about to go on parental leave.

We support gradual transitions back to work (per question 2) and each carer (primary or secondary) has a one on one with another parent before and after leave to help them ask any questions around how they might best come back to work and adjust their working arrangements if needed.

We offer each individual a training budget, and many of the team have moved into new roles in the agency with support from the team e.g. from EA/office management to finance, from account management to strategy.

Communicado said: 50% of our team are part time mums including 70% our leadership team and 100% of the owners of the company. We have adapted roles to suit (whether that be 2 to 4 days or entirely remote) and we support parents doing work in the hours that they can. This isnt limited to new mums, we have always supported parents at all stages of parenting, for example those trying to get pregnant as well as parents to teens and late teens, particularly during the crucial VCE stage.

We feel paid parental leave is challenging for smaller predominantly female businesses and we acknowledge more needs to be done here in addition to a broader industry solution to make it more achievable for us to offer more.

Overall, we celebrate flexible working arrangements for everyone (even prior to the pandemic) which includes 100% remote work, team members that have made the sea change interstate, or the hybrid working model.

Bullfrog said: While we at Bullfrog certainly don't claim to have it 100% perfect, we are extremely proud of our transparent People Policy, which includes: 6 months' paid Parental Leave including super, 'Leap Allowances' for personal development, Holiday Exchanges and much more see the CB comments for more details.

DDB Remedy Australia said: [We} are continually working on and improving support for all our parents with 3 months paid leave and a non-gendered parental leave policy.

Importantly we support smooth transitions back into the work place with part time and flexible hours as well as job share options.

We support our parents at all stages of the caregiving journey via Circle In - a parenting platform which supports family-inclusive workplaces and helps create a culture that supports caregivers.

There is more to be done of course and we look forward to being inspired by our team and indeed the rest of the industry.

Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au

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Agencies respond to gender inequality in the industry - AdNews

With the current condition of our planet right now, escaping to the Moon is looking more and more attractive. WriterPeter Ocko(Lodge 49)is clearly feeling it too, as evidenced by his latest creation, the AMC+ series, Moonhaven. The drama starsEmma McDonald(Queens of Mystery),Joe Manganiello(True Blood),Kadeem Hardison(Black Monday), andDominic Monaghan(Lost) as a cast of characters who all end up in the Moon-based utopian community in our near(ish) future. Although the community is meant to be a tactile think tank working to find solutions to save humanity on the doomed Earth, McDonald'sBella Sway discovers a lot of secrets going on inside this slice of space "heaven".

Of course, moon-based cinematic stories go all the way back toGeorges Mlis's 1902 film,A Trip to the Moon. But, they've certainly gotten more complicated and compelling in the last 120 years. With the premiere of Moonhaven today, July 7, on AMC+, SYFY WIRE got inspired to dig up some other choice, Moon-centric, sci-fi stories that are worth your exploration.

For All Mankind is in the midst of its third season on Apple TV+ and the Moon has been central to all three seasons of its storytelling. The series poses an alternative scenario for the Soviet/U.S. space race, where the U.S.S.R. actually beat the United States in the race to land on the Moon which creates a cascade of history-changing events. Along with some great "what if" riffs on geopolitical outcomes and scientific advancements led by a more global space race, For All Mankind also tells great personal stories about the astronauts, scientists, civil servants, and NASA members who are behind the advancements that drive the seasons. Earth's Moon is a central player to it all, as an initial goal and then as a lunar outpost for several countries looking to conquer Mars next. A high water mark in Moon/space episodic storytelling on TV.

Away (2020) only lasted one season on Netflix but theHilary Swankstarring drama uses the Moon as the literal launching pad for NASA's mission to Mars expedition. Taking a more soapy/family drama angle to its storytelling, Away focuses on the astronauts who leave their families behind as they break new boundaries in space exploration. For the moon fans, there's some cool lunar set pieces in the early episodes as it helps prep the astronauts for their longer mission. If you like family dramas like This is Us and Parenthood mashed together with your space stories, then this might be the perfect series for you.

Director Duncan Jones' first film Moon garnered both audience and critical acclaim when it debuted in 2009. It stars Sam Rockwell asSam Bell, an alternative fuel miner heading a solitary three-year project on the dark side of the Moon. Separated from his family and humans for the whole mission, Bell's only companion is an A.I. namedGERTY (Kevin Spacey), and let's just say that relationship hasn't left him in the best headspace. Go into this one pure if you can because there are a lot of great twists and turns coming 'atcha as Bell inches closer to his impending return home date.

Yes, the astronauts don't actually make it to the Moon in Ron Howard's now-classic dramatization of the Apollo 13 mission, but the whole goal is to get there so let's not split hairs. Apollo 13 stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Paxton playing the crew of NASA's doomed return mission to the Moon. When their mission experiences early failures, the film shifts into a thriller about how theMission Control scientists and the trio orbiting the Earth feverishly problem solve how to get their lifeboat back to Earth safely. From the cinematography to the performances, Apollo 13 still holds up as a breathtaking watch that gets micro nerdy with its portrayal of science and history.

After the success of Apollo 13, Ron Howard and Tom Hanks reunited to produce this12-part miniseries that uses the docuseries format to tell the story of the Apollo program which ran from the 1960s to the early 1970s. Mixing actor dramatizations and actual era footage, From the Earth to the Moon is all about NASA taking to heart John F. Kennedy's mandate to have a U.S. astronaut be the first to walk on the Moon. Compelling and exhaustive, this will give the Moon geeks a whole lot of context and history about how we got to Neil Armstrong's walk on the Moon.

For those looking for some lighter fare,Aardman Animation first introduced the world to Wallace and Gromit in the classic short, A Grand Day Out. The Academy Award-nominated claymation classic finds the two cheese-loving roomies building a rocket to get them to the Moon for a top-up of some choice fromage. Once there, they meet a coin-operated robot who yearns to return to Earth with them. Hilarious, silly yet heartfelt, the majority of the story takes place on the Moon so you get your fill of the lunar landscape and some stellar laughs.

The Minions are still having their moment at the current box office, and that's amazing because it's been 12 years since the whole franchise kicked off in 2010 with Despicable Me. Many may not remember that the mission at the heart of that film is supervillain Gru's plan to steal the Moon as the ultimate flex against his baddie competition. Looking to shrink the Moon for easier yoinking, Gru (Steve Carrell) and his Minions spend the film looking up at the big orb until they actually achieve their crazy plan... and then quickly discover that the shrinking is temporary. Let's just say the gravitation pull is not good. As the strong start to the beloved ongoing franchise and a celebration of the Moon, this one is a fun adventure for families.

You can stream lots of great sci-fi right here on Peacock.

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7 great shows or movies about the Moon to watch after 'Moonhaven' - Syfy

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In Jeff Bezos' vision of the future, people will be born in space colonies and visit Earth on vacation.

Bezos discussed space, Blue Origin's plans, and the relationship between space exploration and saving Earth during a conversation Wednesday at the 2021 Ignatius Forum in Washington, DC.

During the interview, the Amazon and Blue Origin founder expanded on his idea for space colonies: floating habitats that mimic Earth's weather and gravitational pull. The floating, spinning cylinders would be able to hold as many as 1 million people and have "rivers and forests and wildlife," he said.

"Over centuries, many people will be born in space. It will be their first home," Bezos said. "They will be born on these colonies, live on these colonies. Then, they'll visit Earth the way you would visit, you know, Yellowstone National Park."

Bezos first mentioned the idea of building space colonies as far back as his valedictorian speech at his high-school graduation, and he said Wednesday that he believed space colonies were a better option than trying to restart life on another planet.

"Even if you were to terraform Mars or do something very dramatic like that which could be very, very challenging, by the way even if you were to do that, that is, at most, a doubling of Earth," Bezos said. "Then you're going from 10 billion people to 20 billion people."

How to establish life outside Earth is a major point of contention between Bezos and Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Musk has said the main goal of his rocket company is to "colonize Mars," and Bezos' reference to terraforming appears to be an indirect jab at him. Musk has endorsed the straight-from-science-fiction idea, in which the planet would need to be transformed using nuclear weapons to make it habitable for humans (NASA has since said this wouldn't work).

For his part, Musk tweeted in 2019 that Bezos' plan wouldn't work, either, because you'd need to "transport vast amounts of mass from planets/moons/asteroids."

"Would be like trying to build the USA in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," he said.

More here:

Jeff Bezos predicts humans will be born in space on floating colonies - Business Insider

Hot on the heels of the first mindblowing trailer we saw just one month ago, come a second equally-as-amazing trailer for the third and final season of "Lost in Space."

If you haven't watched Netflix's "Lost in Space," already then go and do so immediately. Tell your barista that half-soy, non-fat double-blended pumpkin spice latte is To Go, scurry home and switch on Netflix. You'll thank us later.

The show is a reimagining of the pioneering sci-fi series of the same name that aired on black-and-white TV screens across America in 1965. That show came from the imagination of Irwin Allen and showrunner Zack Estrin has reworked this in the same manner Ron D. Moore did to Glen A. Larson's 1978 "Battlestar Galactica." It's been updated, reimagined, regendered, tweaked and fine-tuned and the end result has been one of the finest sci-fi shows on TV in recent years.

At the end of the second season, which aired 2019, we saw an entire ship of robots attack and board the Resolute mother ship, with more incoming to retrieve the alien engine. Maureen (Molly Parker) and Don (Ignacio Serricchio) manage to trap them, while Judy (Taylor Russell) leads a mission to send the Resolute's 97 children to the Alpha Centauri colony in a Jupiter landing ship using the alien engine, piloted by the Robot.

The Jupiter carrying the children escapes through a rift in space, but the human-made radar signature that the Robot followed has led the ship to an unknown star system. There they find the Fortuna, a ship that had vanished nearly 20 years earlier and was commanded by Grant Kelly, Judy's biological father.

Related: The best sci-fi movies and TV shows to stream on Netflix in November

Unlike the first trailer, this time we get to see much more of the Robinson family and the dilemmas they face. We also see the binary star system close to where the Resolute is located, with one star colored blue and the other fiery red almost opposite in nature all of which connects underlying themes throughout the show: the robot's two expressions, fire and water, love and hate, right and wrong and so on. While the second season wasn't quite as good as the first, we still expect great things from this suburb sci-fi.

According to the official synopsis from Netflix, "In the third and final season of Lost in Space, the stakes are higher than ever and the Robinson familys survival instincts will be put to the ultimate test. After a year of being trapped on a mysterious planet, Judy, Penny, Will and the Robot must lead the 97 young Colonists in a harrowing evacuation but not before secrets are unearthed that will change their lives forever. Meanwhile John and Maureen with Don at their side must battle overwhelming odds as they try to reunite with their kids. The Robinsons will have to grapple with the emotional challenge of not just being lost but being separated from the ones they love as they face the greatest alien threat yet."

The cast also includes Toby Stephens (John Robinson), Mina Sundwall (Penny Robinson) and Parker Posey as Dr. Smith.

Seasons 1 and 2 of "Lost in Space" are currently available on Netflix and Season 3 will be available in its entirety on Wednesday, Dec 1. "Lost in Space" is only available on the subscription service Netflix. Subscriptions start at $8.99 a month.

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New 'Lost in Space' Season 3 trailer shows the entire Space Family Robinson in danger - Space.com

The 3D printed model of New Prague adds on to a series of international research projects known as the Global Moon Village concept. The imaginary colony features residential modules containing laboratories, greenhouses, landing ramps and a solar farm, all of which are the results of conceptual research into how a future space colony may operate.

Next to it stands LUNIAQ a lunar rover for four astronauts that was inspired by the designs of koda cars, but its technology is based on real NASA space vehicle concepts.

Both the vehicle and village can be found in the Virtuplex hall in Prague and were designed by Czech architect Tom Rousek, who has been focusing on designing structures for use in space for several years now. Visitors to the hall can also put on VR goggles and get a feel for what it is like to walk on the moon.

Czech Space Week|Photo: Michaela hov, TK

The exhibit is part of a much wider Czech Space Week programme that has been running since Monday. In it, the public has the opportunity to learn more about the universe and the latest developments in space related research through presentations held by leading experts in the field. The event is set to close next Saturday with a special Space Film Concert, performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra in the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

Aside from educational events, this years Czech Space Week also drew some of the heavyweights of the European space programme. Among them was the Head of the Innovation and Ventures Office of the European Space Agency Frank Salzgeber.

Speaking about the work of the agencys Business Incubation Centre in Prague, which is helping aspiring Czech startups hoping to break into the space business, Mr Salzgeber mentioned InsightART, a company which uses cosmic detector technology as an art verification tool.

It might not bring 5,000 jobs, but I think it is something where you will lead the world in a certain area and people will look to the city of Prague for that.

Czech Space Week also saw networking among scientists. A special conference looking into how the EUs Copernicus environmental monitoring system could be used to help fulfil the unions Green Deal commitments was held at Charles University.

Czech Space Week is organised by CzechInvest and the Ministry of Transport in cooperation with several organisations, including the European Space Education Resource Office and the Czech Academy of Sciences.

See the article here:

Prague moon colony and koda lunar rover on show at Czech Space Week - Radio Prague

ELON Musk's plan to move mankind to Mars could end up with "Martian" children suffering an array of mutations such as "green" skin, brittle bones and poor eyesight.

The SpaceX mogul insists he will move to Mars and believes humans need to colonise our neighbouring planet to become a "multi-planet species".

3

However, experts warn that it's not just the perilous 140 million mile journey which would be dangerous - humans on Mars would endure the most brutal living conditions imaginable.

But it's the children of Martian settlers who would undergo the most drastic of changes.

It comes as SpaceX successfully launched four astronauts to the International Space Station as part of the Crew-3 mission.

According to Rice University biologist Scott Solomon, these evolutionary changes would happen much quicker than they would on Earth because of the vast changes in lifestyle, gravity and radiation.

Firstly, Mars is smaller than Earth and it has 38 per cent less gravity.

It also lacks a global magnetic field, a thick atmosphere and a protective ozone layer.

This means Mars gets battered by space radiation, UV light, charged particles from the sun and cosmic rays.

And this would cause higher mutation rates in the DNA of humans living there, the scientist says in his book Future Humans.

He says that the skin tone of settlers would likely change to help them cope with the radiation.

This would mean darker skin and possibly in a tone we have never seen before.

Solomon says: Perhaps in the face of this high radiation, we might evolve some new type of skin pigment to help us deal with that radiation.

Maybe we get our own green men

Maybe we get our own green men.

Solomon believes humans on Mars would be more near-sighted as they would only live in their small communities and would no longer need to see far.

He cites cavefish living in deep trenches that have gone blind because they no longer need vision.

Studies have also shown that children who spend more time indoors become more near-sighted.

But that's not all. Humans would also develop brittle bones and weaker muslces, the expert says.

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He writes: "Science fiction has often portrayed Martians or aliens coming from Mars as being tall and lanky and thin."

Weaker bones due to the lack of gravity could also cause a woman pelvis to break during childbirth.

Another study by scientists Eneko Axpe and Eric Appel claims that half of astronauts travelling to Mars would develop Osteoporosis - a health condition which makes bones weaker and easier to fracture.

In fact, NASA scientists are trying to figure out how to deal with space weightlessness and its impact on the density of bones and muscles.

Modern astronauts have to exercise for around two hours per day in space t prevent this from happening.

Appel said: "A lot of people focus on the technological challenges of getting to Mars, or the psychological challenges of being in a spacecraft for 1,000 days, but not necessarily the fact that your bones decay.

"Can people even make it, or will they be jello by the time they get there?"

Meanwhile, Solomons also believes humans on the Red Planet would lose their immune system fairly quickly because they would be living in a sterile environment.

This is because the settlers would have no need for a body capable of fighting off germs.

These changes could mean that humans are forced to splinter from their Martian cousins as physical contact such as sexual intercourse could be lethal for the "little green men."

The biologist also reckons Martian kids living in Musk's colony would see evolutionary changes in maybe one generation or two.

He said: "Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage there is to having a certain mutation.

"If a mutation pops up for people living on Mars, and it gives them a 50-per cent survival advantage, thats a huge advantage, right?

"And that means that those individuals are going to be passing those genes on at a much higher rate than they otherwise would have.

3

In a message to Musk and other billionaires keen on making the move to Mars, the Amazon founder and the world's second richest man Jeff Bezos issued a stark warning.

The Amazon founder said: "My friends who want to move to Mars? I say do me a favour:

"Go live on the top of Mount Everest for a year first and see if you like it, because it's a garden paradise compared to Mars."

Musk has long spoken about his dream of colonising Mars - with his vision of mankind's first city on the Red Planet by around 2050.

SpaceX's current goal is to send the first uncrewed version of his massive Starship vessel to 2024.

And the billionaire remains confident that the first humans will land on Mars by 2026.

He hopes that within his lifetime he will be able to transport around one million people to live on Mars.

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Kids born on Mars after Elon Musks SpaceX missions would have brittle bones, weak eyesight and green ski... - The Sun

A freshly discovered train-sized rock that tags along with Earth as a constant companion orbiting the Sun is most likely a fragment of the Moon resulting from an ancient lunar impact.

469219 Kamo'oalewa discovered by observers in Hawaii in 2016 is about 41 metres in diameter and orbits the Sun in a trajectory not dissimilar from our own blue planet.

Although the nearest of Earth's quasi-satellites (don't worry, it's minimum orbital intersection distance* with Earth is five million km), very little is known about the rock's origins owing to its tiny size and habit of dwelling in the darkness of space.

Yet scientists working on a University of Arizona-led project have been able to shed some light on the question. Their analysis of rays reflected from the surface of the space rock observed using the Large Binocular Telescope in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona, and the Lowell Discovery Telescope in the Coconino National Forest near Happy Jack, Arizona, strongly suggest it may have lunar origins.

Graduate student Benjamin Sharkey and the team showed Kamo'oalewa has a red reflectance spectrum, very similar to that of minerals on the Moon's surface.

"This spectrum is indicative of a silicate-based composition, but with reddening beyond what is typically seen amongst asteroids in the inner solar system. We compare the spectrum to those of several material analogs and conclude that the best match is with lunar-like silicates. This interpretation implies extensive space weathering and raises the prospect that Kamo'oalewa could comprise lunar material," states the paper published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

Although the paper concedes that the conclusion is speculative, it seems more likely than other possibilities.

Kamo'oalewa might have been captured in its Earth-like orbit from the general population of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), but its "eccentricity and inclination are, however, rather atypical of such captured co-orbital states found in numerical simulations," the paper says.

Alternatively, it could originate from an as-yet-undiscovered population of Earth's Trojan asteroids, another group of solar system objects. It is an idea that could be tested with more observations of that system.

That leaves the possibility that Kamo'oalewa originates in the Earth-Moon system, perhaps coming from debris spewed out of an impact on the lunar surface. It could even have come from a tidal or rotational break up of another NEO.

An origin within the Earth-Moon system is also supported by the object's low relative velocity as it approaches Earth, being much lower than other NEOs.

Kamo'oalewa's name originates from the Hawaiian words for fragment and oscillate. It sort of seems to orbit Earth yet doesn't. It orbits the Sun, but oscillates around the earth as its constant companion owing to a slightly different orbital period (366 days) and the inclination of its orbit compared with Earth's, as this handy animation shows.

* While Kamo'oalewa's MOID is 5 million km, in real terms, that means it gets no closer than 14.5 million km from Earth.

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Earth's wobbly companion is probably the result of a lunar impact, reckon space boffins - The Register

Local Author Joanna Fitzpatrick has always written about courageous women who live life on their own terms. When she discovered that her great-aunt belonged to a community of female artists who lived and painted in Carmel in the 1920s, she found the perfect inspiration for her next novel, a murder mystery set in Carmel called The Artist Colony.

Fitzpatrick knew she wanted the novel to be a juicy whodunit. But the project became more personal when she decided to use the life of her aunt, Ada Belle Champlin, as inspiration.

I couldnt just write a mystery, Fitzpatrick said. It was too deep.

A landscape painting by Champlin first drew Fitzpatrick to the Central Coast. It featured a small country road in Carmel lined with eucalyptus trees. The piece was hanging in Fitzpatricks home on the East Coast for years before it inspired her to move to Carmel Valley. Thats when she began to investigate the life of her great-aunt, which led her to a cottage in Carmel known as the Sketch Box the same cottage where Champlin lived and painted a century ago.

Dylan Music / KAZU News

The Sketch Box is where much of the action takes place in The Artist Colony. Belinda Vidor, another female artist, now lives in the space.

She let me into her home and we became immediate friends, Fitzpatrick said of Vidor. I think Ada Belles spirit was there with us.

The Artist Colony begins with its lead character, Sarah, traveling to Carmel after receiving the news that her sisters body was found washed up on the beach. Was it a suicide as the authorities said? Or had she been murdered? Thats what Sarah intends to find out from the remaining group of women artists, including Rosie McCann, the warm and comforting innkeeper, and Sirena, a feisty young painter with a secretive past.

A community of women artists painting together was uncommon in the 1920s. Through the lens of Central Coast history, The Artist Colony examines the roles of women a century ago, and how the creative women of Carmels artist colony defied those roles.

All of Fitzpatricks books are about women who face difficult circumstances but manage to persevere and achieve great things. Her first novel was based on the life of modernist author Katharine Mansfield, part of the English writing scene known as the Bloomsbury Group, which also included Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence. Mansfield struggled in the 1920s, when very few women got published in a male-dominated industry.

Her next book, The Drummers Widow, was written as a way for Fitzpatrick to deal with her own grief and worry as her musician husband battled cancer. Fortunately, he survived his illness.

Fitzpatrick will host a book signing event at the Pacific Grove Art Center Dec.12 at noon. The event will feature live 1920s-style jazz and a presentation called Giving Voice to Monterey Artists.

Also appearing at the event will be the painting of the Carmel Valley eucalyptus trees by Champlin the inspiration for Fitzgerald to move to the Central Coast and write The Artist Colony.

More information about Fitzpatrick and her books can be found at https://www.joannafitzpatrick.com/.

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'The Artist Colony' celebrates the mysterious Carmel women who painted outside the lines. - 90.3 KAZU

On election day, voters in ward number 3, will go for a candidate who resolves the ever-increasing parking problem, works towards improving sanitation levels and upgrading the sewage system.

After the reorganisation of wards, most areas of the erstwhile ward 19, are now the constituents of the Ward 3. It includes Sector 26, Sector 26-E, EWS Colony, Bapu Dham Colony Phase 1, 2 and 3, Police Line (Sector 26) and Madrasi Colony (Sector 26). Transport area has been excluded from the new ward.

At the centre of the ward is one of the oldest clusters of housing created for economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society the Bapu Dham Colony phases 1, 2 and 3. Created more than 40 years ago, the colony has expanded over the year in different phases. The area came into limelight last year when it became the citys epicentre of Covid pandemic.

At the time of its inception, in fact even a decade ago, nobody visualised that people would face car parking problems. Even the planners didnt earmark parking space in EWS housing. But now the situation has changed dramatically --for the worse, said Harish Kumar, a local resident who runs a taxi.

Residents complain the community parking space in the community centre is not enough. It only provides space for 30-40 cars, and so most of the cars are parked either on the roadside or in small parks and there is no space left even for emergency vehicles to reach the interiors of the area, say residents.

An older problem for the area is the sewerage system. The sewerage system was recently re-laid. But in areas like phase 2 and 3, the sewage overflows and leakages still remain. Either the MC didnt complete the job systematically or the material used was substandard, said Prakash Singh, a resident who works in a factory in Baddi.

Health infrastructure also needs improvements in the area, say residents. Akash Shankar, an engineer and social activist, said, There is a dispensary in the mandi but for the large population of the area, it is inadequate. A health centre with better facility is required here.

A visit to the area indicates roads in most areas and outer parks are in relatively good shape. Though residents inform that these improvements have happened only in the last four or five months. The general sanitation and garbage collection system, say residents, leave much to be desired. Yogesh Arora, running a wholesale business in vegetable and fruits, says, MC garbage vans do come but the numbers are highly inadequate. People end up dumping their garbage in the open. Cleanliness should also be done more comprehensively in the area.

In the last elections, Dalip Sharma won as an independent candidate though later he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Yanki Kaliya, from opposition Congress party and a resident of Madrasi Colony, said, There is space available for additional parking but nothing was done on this. No major projects have come up. Other colonies have new community centres, sports complex, etc but here we have nothing.

Sharma, said, We have resolved most of the issues related to roads, sewage, parks and sanitation in the last five years. On the parking problems, he said, Earlier, there was no such problem, it has cropped up only recently. We will provide solution to it too.

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Chandigarh: Substandard living conditions irk voters of ward 3 - Hindustan Times

Elon Musk is the worlds richest man and the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Hes also one more thing: Mars colonization enthusiast. Elon Musk will not stop tweeting about Mars and how humanity should move from Earth to the Red planet. Elon Musk has mentioned his plans of taking humans to Mars for a while, and it appears his agenda isnt stopping anytime soon. Musk has always been very vocal about his Martian ambitions - Elon Musk had mentioned his plans of taking humans to Mars for a while and has even set a timeline for it. Musk who had mentioned colonizing Mars several times, also announced that he wants to make his own laws on the red planet. But what do we really know about Musks plans on a self-sustaining civilization on the planet?

In February this year, for the first time ever, Musk specifically mentioned a time-line to get humans on the red planet. Five and a half years," Musk had said. While thats not a hard deadline, Musk listed a number of caveats theres a raft of technological advances that must be made in the intervening years. The important thing is that we establish Mars as a self-sustaining civilization," he had said. The strange thing is the deadline may be a little ambitious, as even USAs leading space agency, NASA, had a much more different date, one which is seven years after Musks time. The first humans arent due to arrive on a NASA funded rocket until at least 2033.

Is Musks plan of getting humans to Mars by 2026 too ambitious?

Humans could make the journey if technology allows, and - if they physically survive it. Some of the known risks of space travel arent simple or minor: Along with space sickness, there is radiation high-energy subatomic particles that will pass through an astronauts skin, damaging cells inside and out. Space travellers bones and muscles also can weaken as those body parts no longer have to constantly work against gravity. Blood and other fluids from the lower parts of the body can accumulate in upper body parts, including around the brain. Another side effect: Astronauts may suffer hearing loss.

The question on why Mars specifically, and not another planet has been the centre of many compelling arguments by scientists over the years. A 2017 report in Astronomy explored how, The atmosphere of Mars is mostly carbon dioxide, the surface of the planet is too cold to sustain human life, and the planets gravity is a mere 38% of Earths. Plus, the atmosphere on Mars is equivalent to about 1% of the Earths atmosphere at sea level." Thats not all. Mars temperatures may not be suited for humans either. The average temperatures of Mars oscillate sbetween 35 C to -143 C. The average temperature on the planet surface too is -63 C. How do you warm the planet up? Musk has suggested - terraforming or in his own terms, nuking Mars.

Terraforming or terraformation, which literally means Earth-shaping is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable by Earth-like life. How does Musk plan on terraforming it though? In 2015, Musk had suggested nuking the poles.

Elon Musk explained that we could terraform Mars by exploding nuclear bombs over its polar caps. He had said that the radiation wouldnt be an issue since the explosion would be in space over the poles, but the heat release would vaporize the frozen carbon dioxide to greenhouse warm the planet and melt the water ice. In the follow-up comments to explain his stance, he added other things he had in mind. Musk said his idea was to create two tiny pulsing suns" over the regions. Theyre really above the planet, theyre not on the planet," Musk said at an event for Solar City in New York Citys Times Square this morning. Every few moments, he wants to send a large fusion bomb over the poles, to create small blinking suns. A lot of people dont appreciate that our Sun is a large fusion explosion," he had said, reported The Verge in 2015.

Musks Nuke Mars agenda also had t-shirts. Musk had designed T-shirts to promote his idea to drop nuclear weapons on Mars. Musk revealed the theory of nuking Mars recently which, according to him, will transform the exterior of the planet liveable for human beings. The billionaire CEO was also spotted wearing the T-shirt in his appearance on Saturday Night Live in May this year.

The short answer - no. The more complicated answer hes going, but maybe not first. In an interview with Kara Swisher at the Code Conference 2021 Elon Musk described his space plans, which included a self-sustaining city on Mars, and a base on the Moon for those who want to go there." While Musk, doesnt have immediate plans, and at the interview mentioned, My goal is not to send myself up. My goal is to open up space to humanity and become a multiplanet species," he did add, that Ill go up at some point."

In the February interview where he mentioned a dateline, he was also asked if he would allow his children to go to Mars on a future rocket trip. He had responded if were talking about the third or fourth set of landings on Mars Id be ok with that, adding that so far none of them are jumping to go to Mars.

A November 2020 report in The Independent had found that SpaceX will not be recognising any international law on Mars and will instead follow a set of self-governing principles that will be laid down during the Martian settlement. Elon Musk appears to have very subtly slipped in a clause into the terms of agreement of Starlink satellite broadband services that SpaceX will make its own set of rules on Mars. The Starlink terms of the agreement reads: For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship, or other colonisation spacecraft, the parties recognise Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement. The Independent report also added that this future colony created by SpaceX would likely use constellations of Starlink satellites orbiting the planet to provide internet connection. Elon Musks SpaceX has already launched more than 800 satellites with the aim of offering broadband internet globally. The Declaration of the Rights and Responsibilities of Humanity in the Universe, however, mentions that space would be considered free, by all, for all, and to all.

SpaceXs website Mission to Mars explains it with a quote by Musk. You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great - and thats what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. Its about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I cant think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars."

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What Do We Really Know About Elon Musk's Plans of Mars 'Self-Sustaining Civilization'? - News18

So, your motto when it comes to many things is, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? You swear by this school of thought, even when it comes to everyday technology, like your smartphone?

You're probably not going to like this, then.

Depending on what carrier you have, you may need to ditch that old 3G by the end of next year.

According to the fact checkers at News Center Maine, many national smartphone carriers who operate in Maine are planning to "sunset" their 3G networks. When that happens, your old 3G phone (and some older 4G phones) will no longer function. They will no longer be able to text, make calls, or access the internet.

They are planning to discontinue the older network in order to make room on the spectrum for 5G access.

When will this happen? At least one provider is planning to shutdown their 3G network on January 1st, 2022. Many others will discontinue allowing the use of 3G by December of 2022. Get more details about when your provider will be ditching the old 3G network by clicking HERE.

Now, if you don't want to upgrade to the newest phone, it is okay. An older 4G phone will work fine - there is no need to drop a massive chunk of cash on a brand new 5G 'droid or iPhone.

How many users will be affected? According to some estimates, about 9% of phones are still using the old 3G network.

So, are you going to be affected by the sunet?

Want to see what people in the past thought life would be like today? Watch these films.

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Thousands Of Mainers Will Need To Upgrade Their Phones In 2022 - b985.fm