The ambitious dream is over

Four years ago, you couldnt go a day without hearing about Mars One. Outlets including The Washington Post, the BBC, CNN, Fox News, and many more were swept up by the projects promise of colonizing Mars, despite scientists ruthlessly and regularly pointing out its flaws. Now the false promise is over.

According to a notice from the Civil Court of the City of Basel in Switzerland picked up by the Swiss newspaper Landbote and onReddit, Mars One Ventures a British company bought by a Swiss firm in 2016 and one of two entities behind the project has been declared bankrupt as of January 15, 2019, with less than $25,000 in its accounts. The company has now been dissolved.

In truth Mars One has been quiet for a while now. Aside from the odd press release here and there, the organization and its founder Bas Lansdorp haven't said much in public in recent years, despite originally planning to launch their first robotic mission in 2020. Crewed launches were expected to soon follow.

Mars One first arrived on the scene in 2012, with the immediately eyebrow-raising proposal to send people on a one-way trip to Mars. These pioneers, being sent on regular missions, would be resupplied by cargo missions from Earth, and would live out the rest of their days on the Red Planet.

Originally the plan was to send the firsts colonists to Mars in 2023, following a number of robotic missions to deliver equipment and habitats to the surface. Questions immediately started to be raised, though. Who would build this equipment, and where would the funding for this mission come from, considering such a venture would cost in the billions of dollars?

Mars One never really explained who would build the habitats and equipment

Lansdorps answer was that Mars One would be a self-funded reality TV show, with people tuning in to presumably watch the hopeful astronauts go through training, before the fateful mission on Mars itself. The audience sizes were often compared to the Olympic Games, although failing to take into accountthat while the Olympics lasted weeks, this Mars mission would last for eternity.

The Olympic Games in Vancouver in 2010 and London in 2012 lasting only three weeks each, yielded more than $3.8 billion from broadcasting rights only, Mars One wrote on its website. Mars One offers the opportunity to take the world on the greatest exploration mission, from selecting and training the future astronauts, preparing the settlement, to the actual human landings on Mars where the settlers will start building a whole new society on another planet!

Following its arrival in 2012, Mars One went quiet for a couple of years. That was until 2015 when, following a well-publicized application process, they announced the final 100 volunteers that would be the first to train for the companys mission to Mars. These 100 people received a considerable amount of media attention, appearing on talk shows, being profiled by various newspapers, and more.

But the cracks had already started to show. In 2014, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) produced a damning report on the feasibility of the mission. Among a number of criticisms, the report noted that within about 68 days, the first settlers would suffocate and die as their habitats failed.

By most estimates, the humans would have been dead on Mars in weeks

Joseph Roche, one of the 100 finalists, laid bare some of the underhand tactics being used by the company in 2015, saying they were ripping off supporters in an effort tosell merchandise. You get points for getting through each round of the selection process and then the only way to get more points is to buy merchandise from Mars One or to donate money to them, he said, reported Medium.

And the wheels completely came off in a brutal debate with MIT in late 2015, when two researchers tore apart Lansdorps mission, pointing out flaw after flaw. If somebody was scoring this debate, giving a point for each well-supported argument, deducting a point for each weak one, and subtracting multiple points every time somebody conceded the other sides argument, then Mars One lost it hands down, The Space Review noted at the time.

In the subsequent years, Mars One repeatedly pushed back its planned date for sending humans to Mars. Its last press release of note was back in 2017, when it announced new revenue predictionsfor the mission. Aside from that and a smattering of other minor announcements, Mars One has been long gone this bankruptcy is most certainly the final nail in an already rotting coffin.

Much has been said about Mars One over the years, with some questioning whether the whole thing was a scam from the outset, or if the people behind it were simply nave about the challenges of going to Mars. Whatever the truth, the saga is over now. Heres hoping that the whole experience will not dampen excitement for an actual human mission to Mars in the future, with proper expertise and funding.

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Goodbye Mars One, The Fake Mission To Mars That Fooled The ...

As a commander of a space colony on Earth, Tarvin is one of the few people to have any experience of overseeing a Mars base. Its certainly not a Star Trek-style military environment, he says. Its a small group of highly motivated people and it really doesnt take much effort to manage them.

A government also needs all the structures that go with it. Any new society needs an economy as well as systems to maintain the habitat, provide employment, health, childcare, social care and education. In short: Mars needs bureaucrats.

4. Expand

The first Mars settlers will be living in the capsules they arrive in, perhaps augmented by a few extra capsules sent ahead and maybe some inflatable domes. But just as settlers will be utilising local resources for water, food and energy, they will also hope to use local materials to build a larger colony or even spin-off colonies.

At the very least, it would make sense to use Martian rock to bury the habitats to help shield occupants from radiation. Later, the surface could be drilled to form caves or rock could be excavated for building materials just as we build houses from stone on Earth. It might also be possible to extract useful minerals for metals or glass.

Robert Zubin, the president of the Mars Society, is one of the leading exponents of terraforming Mars transforming the planet from an airless, barren world to an oxygen-rich green and pleasant realm with a fully functioning ecosystem.

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Five steps to colonising Mars - BBC Future

The surface of Mars may be too inhospitable for colonisers, with frequent sandstorms and no protection from space radiation. Scientists are, therefore, interested in the possibility of subterranean life, exploring ways in which colonisers could set up camp in ancient lava tubes. Researchers at the University in Bologna, Italy, have now presented new findings with exciting implications for future colonisation efforts.

Lava tubes, or pyroducts, are natural tunnels formed underground by lava flowing from a volcanic source.

They are the third most common type of cave found on Earth and can run uninterrupted for tens of miles.

One of the longest known pyroduct on Earth is the 41-mile-long (65.5km) Kazumura Cave in Hawaii.

But the lava tubes are not unique to Earth and scientists have found evidence of them on the Moon as well as on Mars.

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And the conditions within are perfect to shield potential colonists from radiation, space rocks and wild temperature fluctuations.

Study coordinator Francesco Sauro said: "Lava tubes could provide stable shields from cosmic and solar radiation and micrometeorite impacts which are often happening on the surfaces of planetary bodies.

"Moreover, they have great potential for providing an environment in which temperatures do not vary from day- to night-time.

"Space agencies are now interested in planetary caves and lava tubes, as they represent a first step towards future explorations of the lunar surface - see also NASA's project Artemis - and towards finding life - past or present - in Mars subsurface".

Space agencies are now interested in planetary caves and lava tubes

Francesco Sauro, University in Bologna

Researchers at Bologna and the University of Padua have also proposed the tubes on Mars can be many times bigger than on Earth.

Whereas a typical lava tube on Earth measures between 32ft and 98ft (10m and 30m) across, a Martian tube could be 100 or 1,000 times wider.

Dr Sauro said: "We can find lava tubes on planet Earth, but also on the subsurface of the Moon and Mars according to the high-resolution pictures of lava tubes' skylights taken by interplanetary probes.

"Evidence of lava tubes was often inferred by observing linear cavities and sinuous collapse chains where the galleries cracked.

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"These collapse chains represent ideal gateways or windows for subsurface exploration.

"The morphological surface expression of lava tubes on Mars and the Moon is similar to their terrestrial counterpart.

"Speleologists thoroughly studied lava tubes on Earth in Hawaii, Canary Islands, Australia and Iceland

The researchers have explained the wider tubes through Mars' weaker gravity and the effect it has on volcanism.

Similarly, lava tubes on the Moon provide an exciting opportunity for explorers to consider.

Planetary geologist Riccardo Pozzobon said: "Tubes as wide as these can be longer than 40 kilometres, making the Moon an extraordinary target for subsurface exploration and potential settlement in the wide protected and stable environments of lava tubes.

"The latter are so big they can contain Padua's entire city centre."

According to Matteo Massironi, a professor of Structural and Planetary Geology at Padua, the lava tubes are incredibly stable because of the weaker gravity.

He said: "This means that the majority of lava tubes underneath the maria smooth plains are intact.

"The collapse chains we observed might have been caused by asteroids piercing the tube walls.

"This is what the collapse chains in Marius Hills seem to suggest.

"From the latter, we can get access to these huge underground cavities."

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Life on Mars: Scientists identify the 'extraordinary' key to colonising Mars - Daily Express

Just Visiting

Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. Professor Stephen Hawking is eager to see us search for a new planet to call home. NASA is building an engine that could take us there. But would establishing a base on the red planet really be worthwhile?

Establishing a colony on Mars is incredibly technically challenging and expensive, University of Michigans Aaron Ridley told Futurism. He argued that while the red planet is certainly scientifically interesting, the enormous costs associated with a permanent station make it unlikely, especially given that establishing a colony wouldnt be a solution to a problem like overpopulation.

We are not going to go to the moon or Mars because of population pressure, he explained. It is really because we have an innate desire to explore.

Amanda Hendrix, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, shares a similar opinion on the prospect of a permanent Martian settlement. I think it makes sense to go to Mars with humans to test technologies and to do scientific experiments a short term visit or visits, she told Futurism. I do not think it makes sense to establish a long-term human settlement on Mars, only because it is not desirable as a long-term destination due to radiation concerns.

One of the biggest obstacles standing in the path of a human colony on Mars is the price tag. Getting to Mars will be prohibitively expensive, and figuring out a method of paying for the project isnt so easy.

I think it would be a natural next step in our human exploration to visit the Moon and/or Mars, but to stay for the long term probably requires an economic justification, said Hendrix. She added that space tourism is unlikely to serve this purpose.

Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASAs Ames Research Center, maintains that the only plausible economic motivation for a Martian colony is for it to serve as a government base, downplaying the possibility of either tourism or mining operations playing that role.

The analogy here is the Antarctic bases from 1955 to about 1990, he told Futurism.During this time virtually all Antarctic bases were [government] science research bases in accordance with the Antarctic Treaty. After ~1990 tourism started to grow. Now there are tourist bases in Antarctica that are not [government] science research bases.

Settling on Mars isnt going to make anyone rich, and thats going to make it more difficult to accrue the money required for such an expensive project. Still, despite the fact that a fully-fledged colony might not be the wisest direction for a prospective space program, theres still plenty we could learn from the planet.

It seems that were more likely to establish a base on the moon before Mars. While this has its own benefits, most would agree that the red planet is more interesting even if its harder to reach.

I would agree that Mars is a much more scientifically interesting place, said Ridley, although he acknowledges that he wouldnt make a beeline for the planet. I am a big believer in baby steps, so it makes a lot of sense to try to do something on the moon, and then move on to Mars.

In terms of science, Mars is way more interesting than the moon, wrote McKay. He listed three main advantages: its similarity to Earth in terms of planetary processes and history, the possibility of life, and the potential for terraforming the planet.

If there were no other considerations to be made, most would agree that a Mars colony could be a fascinating project. However, certain endeavors need to be prioritized over others, and right now it doesnt seem like a permanent Martian settlement is the best use of our resources.

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All the Reasons Why Humans Shouldn't Colonize Mars ...

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The global gaming market could be worth over $159 billion by the end of this year,bigger than the movie and music industries combined. And unlike the devastating financial hits suffered by both film and music companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, video games use is only getting bigger during social distancing and quarantine rules. Game sales reached over $977 million in May, amore than 50 percent rise over 2019.

Gaming could well be the dominant media of the future so for those interested in taking a proactive step toward joining the industry or just creating something really cool, the training inThe Build a Strategy Game Development Bundle can jump start that charge. Regularly $1,990, its available now for only $39.99.

The package collects 10 courses that can help even first-time game creators understand what it takes to create their own gaming world and get familiar with the most popular tools for crafting those games used by todays top developers.

Packed with 12 gaming projects to challenge learners at each stage of their development, this collection lays down the basics of building your own game, no matter whether its turn-based,requires real-time strategy moves, or even hinges on multiplayer gaming.

The training begins with a full introduction to using Unity, one of the most powerful game creation engines in the world. Once students acclimate to the Unity environment, the instruction centers around those projects, offering real hands-on experience that not only embeds the training, but makes that training well, including important lessons for their own game building adventures.

Users amass skills while actually crafting games, exploring the mechanics of building a strategy game by guiding students through making their own 3D, turn-based game centered on creating and leading a Mars colony.

Training advances to encompass even trickier game development tasks, showing users how to move 3D models around the game world at will, how 3D model trees can control unit spawning, and action-based methods for creating game opponents that truly react to the gameplay through artificial intelligence tactics.

Finally, the courses lead students to their biggest challenge yet as theyre tasked with building a multiplayer strategy game that partially springs from the popular framework tool Photon.

Each step in this 10-course package retails for $199, but with this offer, the whole package is on sale forless than $4 per course, only $39.99.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners atTechBargains.com.

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Learn How To Build Your Own Strategy Based Video Game With These Online Classes - ExtremeTech

Spending a weekend in Flagstaff also means enjoying its culinary landscape. Youll find a great meal here at any time of the day and for every taste and budget, from high-end gourmet restaurants to tiny hole-in-the-wall establishments.

Here are a few of my favorites.

If you are like me and the hotels morning coffee just doesnt cut it for you, you need to try the espresso at Firecreek Coffee Company in Historic Downtown Flagstaff. And you dont have to order the espresso, either -- from the perfect cup of cappuccino to lattes and gourmet blends, youll find something to satisfy your coffee craving. Pair it with one of their fresh-baked pastries or stay for a full breakfast.

In our quest for the best pizza in town, we found Pizzicletta a few years ago. Baked from fresh ingredients, their thin, crispy dough makes one of the best Margherita pizzas Ive ever tried -- anywhere. Though pizza is their specialty, they have other Italian fare, too. And if you are in the mood for dessert, be sure to try their house-made gelato.

Youll find Pizzicletta on a corner of Phoenix Avenue in a small and unassuming brick building.

For a satisfying meal after a day of hiking in the forests around Flagstaff, dine at Brix Restaurant & Wine Bar, where youll be delighted by the farm-focused, fresh meals. Big on sustainability, Brix uses fresh ingredients from local farmers and ranchers. Youll find seasonal dishes that will delight meat lovers and vegans alike. Ask your server for recommendations.

Youll find Brix on San Francisco Street just a few blocks from downtown Flagstaff.

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9 Ways To Spend A Beautiful Fall Weekend In Flagstaff - TravelAwaits

For those who want a career in video games, theres no reason to sit around and wait. EA and Rockstar Games probably arent going to seek you out and knock on your door with a job opportunity. But if youre an indie developer with a good idea and some passion, you can create a really cool game that serves as the resume that might just bring the big boys to your doorstep.

You can jumpstart that process now, even if youve never designed your own games before, with the training in The Build a Strategy Game Development Bundle.

Across 10 courses, students are introduced to the techniques used by premium game developers as well as the cutting edge tools they use to help each creator fashion a game that is uniquely their own.

Powered by Unity, the worlds most popular game creation engine, this training walks new users through all the basics of assembling your first game, whether its turn-based, involves real-time strategy, depends on managing your resources or even centers around creating a multiplayer extravaganza, this core instruction can be invaluable to help you set the framework for your project.

While many course packages lead students through lectures and videos, this package is very hands-on, challenging learners to complete 12 standalone gaming projects, all centered around specific key learning areas.

After tackling an introduction to Unity and building games, students are quickly pressed to create their first 3D game. With that complete, they must next master the foundations of strategy game development by creating a turn-based, micro-strategy game about building and managing a colony on Mars.

Next, the projects advance into more critical game development skills, from understanding how to set up 3D models as units that can be selected and moved to various points clicked on a map, to starting 3D model trees that can be used to control unit spawning to how to script units to attack and damage enemies using a state machine.

That state machine is driven by AI, so the training also explains how to create crafty opponents to push your players. With all the training secure, students face their ultimate test: the creation of a multiplayer, turn-based strategy game using both Unity and Photon, a free popular networking framework.

Regularly priced at $199 per course, the entire 10-course collection is available now for just $39.99, less than $4 per course.

Prices are subject to change.

Do you have your stay-at-home essentials? Here are some you may have missed.

Graham Clark, the 17-year-old Florida boy accused of pulling off the big Twitter hack, pled not guilty to charges on Tuesday. During the security breach, top accounts including Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk were taken over to push a bitcoin scam.

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The aluminum can is a great invention. And for 60 years, it and its crafty little addition, the pull tab, have made transporting and drinking all of our favorite beers, soft drinks and other beverages about 1,000 percent easier. Of course, evolution continues and even an innovation as awesome as the aluminum can is []

Its tempting for many young professionals to assume that because theyve spent most of their lives posting links to Facebook or pushing selfies to Instagram that they have the skills needed to be a digital marketer. Creating compelling content is certainly important, but if youre not up to speed on search engine optimization (SEO), how []

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Creating your own video games isnt impossible this training can get you on the path - Boing Boing

Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett in Lovecraft Country, and H.P. Lovecraft.Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by HBO and Lucius B. Truesdell.

Just how much Lovecraft can be found in Lovecraft Country, the new HBO series based on the 2016 novel of the same title by Matt Ruff? Explicitly, not all that much, despite an opening fantasy sequence in which a monstrous, tentacled being who is very clearly Cthulhu, the most familiar (anddare I say it?beloved) of Lovecrafts elder gods, is walloped to icky smithereens by Jackie Robinson, in a scene that surely would have driven Lovecraft himself mad with indignation. Yet Lovecraft Country, a label Ruff never defines but that seems to arch over the whole of the United States, fits the series thematically even as it sets up expectations that may disappoint some fans of the influential horror author. The series, developed by showrunner Misha Green (who co-created the 2016 historical series Underground), soon resolves itself into a supernatural soap opera, but its primary subjectlife as a Black person struggling under the weight of systemic American racismremains acutely pertinent to Lovecrafts work.

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The racism of Howard Phillips Lovecraft was extreme even for its time, and like Ruffs novel, the series quotes from a particularly vile poem Lovecraft wrote in 1912, one with the title On the Creation of Ns that only gets more racist from there. The Black novelist N.K. Jemisin has argued persuasively that Lovecrafts racism is central to the horror he aimed to convey in his work: a cosmic, existential dread combined with profound physical disgust. An exemplary quote from the story The Lurking Fear captures it: I felt the strangling tendrils of a cancerous horror whose roots reached into illimitable pasts and fathomless abysms of the night that broods beyond timethe tendrils and the cancer, and the great dark emptiness between the stars. The typical Lovecraft protagonist pursues some lonely, arcane scholarly quest until he collides with the terrible secret that humanity is an irrelevant speck in a universe presided over by vast, repulsive, powerful entities that our minds cannot even comprehend. This revelation is frequently linked to the discovery of a degenerate community of worshippers, people whose humanity has been contaminated with alien bloodfish men being a particular favorite. Lovecrafts published and private writing exhibits the same revulsion toward people of color that his characters lavish on the mongrel mer-tribes of his fiction.

With his novel, Ruff inverts this perspective. Set in the 1950s, Lovecraft Country depicts the family and friends of Atticus Turner (related to Nat Turner, who led a slave rebellion in 1831, and played by Jonathan Majors in the series) and their run-ins with a secret society of rich white occultists calling themselves the Order of the Ancient Dawn. A leader of this group captures Atticus because he is descended from its founder, who impregnated one of his slaves. With the founders blood, the mage plans to conduct a ritual that will make him immortal and restore the hierarchical social order that he sees as threatened by a changing world. While Atticus escapes the sorcerers New England compound and returns to his native Chicago, he and the people hes closest to continue to have their lives and fates manipulated by the cult as its members jockey for supreme power.

Ruffs book is in part a valentine to Black nerdery and the ability of readers of color to find wonder and transcendence in a genre that rarely included a place for them. Atticus and his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance), who publishes The Safe Negro Travelers Guide, a Green Bookstyle manual of establishments where Black motorists can eat and sleep while on the road in Jim Crowera America, share a love of pulp fiction. This dismays Atticus irascible father, Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams), who points out that Atticus problematic fave, Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series, features a hero, John Carter, who was a Confederate officer before becoming a warlord on Mars. Stories are like people, George tells Atticus, in a line echoed in the HBO pilot. Loving them doesnt make them perfect. You try to cherish their virtues and overlook their flaws. The flaws are still there, though. They do disappoint me sometimes. Sometimes they stab me in the heart.

Ruffs book is in part a valentine to the ability of readers of color to find wonder and transcendence in a genre that rarely included a place forthem.

Or you find a way to retell them. Lovecraft Country is really a series of linked stories in which Atticus and the people in his orbit each engage with a pulp fiction trope inflected by the dilemmas of the racial caste system. Atticus must confront the fact that his Black ancestor was raped by his white ancestor. His childhood friend Letitia (Jurnee Smollett) buys a haunted house in a white neighborhood that does not want to be integrated. His aunt Hippolyta (Aunjanue Ellis), a thwarted would-be astronomer, stumbles upon a device that enables interstellar travel, where she finds a colony whose only surviving member, another Black woman, has no interest in returning to a home planet plagued by hatred and inequality. A team of buddies retrieves a forbidden book from a secret vault inside a museum to trade for the stolen accounting book in which one of their ancestors detailed the precise amount of reparations owed to her by the family who enslaved her. Letitias sister Ruby (Wunmi Mosaku) meets a man who supplies her with a potion that temporarily changes her into a white woman.

Some of these stories echo Lovecraft tales. Lovecrafts The Dreams in the Witch House becomes Lovecraft Countrys Dreams of the Which House, for example, but the storyline is entirely transformed from that of a student plagued by the ghost of a 17th century witch in a cursed house that is eventually razed to the triumphant battle of a young woman to secure her place in the world. The TV series changes the story even further, until all that remains of Lovecraft is the pun in the storys title.

In one terrifying scene, Atticus and company are detained by a rural sheriff who intends to blame them for a string of local robberies and then shoot them in the backs for a fictional escape attempt. This plan gets interrupted by monsters who devour the white men. In the book and the series, these creatures are identified as shoggoths, beings that once served Lovecrafts elder gods. But Lovecrafts shoggoths are not lithe, pouncing, velociraptorlike predators with infectious bites, like those in the series. Rather, theyre amoeboid blobs that periodically shout Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! for reasons unknown. At any rate, the racist sheriff and his grinning thugs are far scarier than pretty much anything Lovecraft ever cooked up (except perhaps for Brown Jenkin, a malevolent rat-shaped demon with a human face and hands). Contrary to the authors assertions, its often the littleand the human-scaledthings that inspire the most fear.

The aficionado will scour HBOs version of Lovecraft Country in vain for knowing and clever references to Lovecrafts mythos, but the series does preserve something of the novels original notion: that for Atticus and those close to him, people simply trying to survive in a highly imperfect world and who are treated as pawns by the powerful white characters, theres no need to look to the far reaches of the universe or the depths of the ocean to find unfathomable, senseless, gibbering evil. Its all around them, and it flourished in H.P Lovecrafts heart. Ruffs novel ends with the collected Black characters responding to a magician who warns that if they cross him, No matter where you go, youll never be safe! They laugh, right in his face.

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Lovecraft Country and HP Lovecraft's racism: how the HBO series and the novel it's based on reappropriate the author's work. - Slate

New ultraviolet observations of the Red Planet highlight complex circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere, including eerily regular nightglow pulses invisible to the unaided eye.

The Martian atmosphere, when viewed through ultraviolet light, is very busy, but only at night, and only during certain seasons, as new research shows. These pulsing and glowing atmospheric effects arent fully understood, but their presence reminds us that Mars has a really complicated atmosphere.

The new study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics, was made possible by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument on NASAs MAVEN spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Mars since 2014. UVS provides a completely new lens with which to observe the Red Planet, revealing previously unseen circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere.

The new paper, led by Nick Schneider from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, analysed data gathered by the UVS instrument over the course of two consecutive Martian years (a year on Mars is equal to 687 days on Earth). By studying Mars in ultraviolet light, the researchers were able to visualise the effects of global-scale winds and waves high up in the Martian atmosphere.

MAVENs images offer our first global insights into atmospheric motions in Mars middle atmosphere, a critical region where air currents carry gases between the lowest and highest layers, explained Schneider in a NASA press release.

These psychedelicactions, known as atmospheric tides, form from a recombination of nitrogen and oxygen atoms in Mars nightside mesosphere the middle layer between the stratosphere and thermosphere. By viewing Mars in UV light, the scientists were able to visualise changes in wind patterns across the different seasons, which influence the atmospheric nightglows. These planet-encircling waves are also influenced by solar heat and topographical disturbances caused by Marss massive volcanoes, according to the research.

Indeed, the mountainous volcanic regions on Mars are known to produce some really fascinating and freaky phenomena, including a massive elongated cloud that reappears like clockwork above Arsia Mons, a 19 kilometre high volcano located near the Martian equator.

Like clockwork, a strange cloud has returned high above the Martian surface. This long, thin cloud was spotted on July 17 and 19 by the Visual Monitoring Camera (VMC) attached to Mars Express, a satellite thats been in orbit around Mars since 2004. These images were made possible owing to...

MAVENs main discoveries of atmosphere loss and climate change show the importance of these vast circulation patterns that transport atmospheric gases around the globe and from the surface to the edge of space, explained LASP scientist and study co-author Sonal Jain in the press release.

Interestingly, the atmospheric pulses happen exactly three times each night, but only during the spring and fall. The scientists also documented inexplicable waves and spirals above the winter polar regions, along with some unusually bright spots seen over the winter poles.

In these bright areas, gases are thrust downwards by vertical winds, causing them to enter into regions with higher atmospheric density. This serves to accelerate chemical reactions responsible for nitric oxide, which power the ultraviolet glow, according to the NASA press release. The UV emissions occur predominantly at altitudes reaching 40 miles (64 kilometers) above the surface, with some patches appearing as large as 600 miles (965 kilometers) in diameter.

These emissions are not to be confused with Marss eerie green glow a visible hue caused by the Suns rays exciting oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere. To a human observer on the Martian ground, these nightly spectacles would be invisible. In future, a possible fun activity for colonists would be to watch these nightglows with UV goggles, in a sky-watching pastime roughly analogous to viewing the Northern Lights on Earth. This would apparently be quite the spectacle, as these bright patches zip across the Martian night sky at speeds reaching 180 mph (290 kph).

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At Night, the Martian Sky Pulses and Glows When Viewed in Ultraviolet Light - Gizmodo Australia

By Cami Mondeaux

The United Arab Emirates successfully launched its Hope Probe to Mars this month in its quest to complete the countrys first interplanetary journey, which would also be a first for the Arab world.

The UAE wont be alone on the Red Planet. Its launch is the first of three missions to Mars this summer, with China launching its very first Mars rover on July 23 and the U.S. set to follow with its own rover launch in the days ahead.

It marks a new phase in the escalating U.S.-China rivalry, with Mars being a prime focus in the space race because of its potential for sustaining human life.

For the UAE, however, the mission is part of its longstanding efforts to diversify its oil-driven economy and inspire future generations to continue the countrys momentum in space innovation. It also propels the UAE into an elite club of nations with the know-how and resources to engage in deep space exploration.

The UAE launch served as the first step in the International Space Stations goal to accomplish a human-inhabited colony on Mars by 2117. The Hope Probe will orbit Mars to collect data about the planets atmosphere and weather.

The 174-foot rocket took off from Japans Tanegashima Space Center at 6:58 a.m. local time on July 20 (5:58 p.m. EDT on July 19). The take-off was rescheduled three times because of weather delays, officially taking off five days after its original launch date.

This is a historic moment for UAE. Its an inspiring project, said UAE Space Agency Director General Mohammed Al Ahbabi during a virtual watch party hosted by the UAE Embassy just prior to the launch. We are using this project to inspire, to educate, to train our young people not only in the UAE, but across our region.

After a seven-month journey, the Hope Probe (called Al Amal in Arabic) is scheduled to reach its destination on Mars at the beginning of 2021 which also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the creation of the UAE. The robot will be the first of its kind to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere, answering key questions about the loss of oxygen and hydrogen gases over the span of one year.

These findings will provide the information and data needed for a future mission to the Red Planet with humans rather than technology.

The probe will spend one Martian year orbiting the planet roughly two years on Earth before returning.

Aside from the new scientific breakthroughs the project aims to achieve, UAE scientists said the country seeks to ignite passion in young people for future innovations in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math, while also urging cooperation across the world.

This is a project we are trying to use to inspire the young people and also to provide a good image of our part of the world, Al Ahbabi said. UAE is trying its best to expand tolerance, advanced technology and try to set a motive for the region and this project is in line with that.

The Hope Probe launch comes just days before similar missions spearheaded by China and U.S. take off, with the two nations rovers landing on Mars around the same time in 2021. The UAE launch, however, comes from a younger space agency that was only founded in 2014. The country also expects to launch a mission to the Moon in 2022.

It sends a very strong message to the Arab youth that if the UAE is able to reach Mars in less than 50 years, they could do much more, Omran Sharaf, the UAE Mars project manager, told the Associated Press.

The UAE mission was designed to transfer interplanetary knowledge to future scientists and engineers while increasing diversity in its space ranks. That includes increasing the number of women and minorities on staff, adding to a program that is already comprised of 80% women.

During the UAE virtual watch party, Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba invited Heyam Al Blooshi and Hoor Al Mazmi two young women who extensively worked on the launch to share their experiences. The women said they hope to see to future missions arise from their work, and they commended the global cooperation and partnerships that were needed for the UAE mission to succeed.

Otaiba said moments like these are critical for children to watch, as space missions require unity over division. Space is something that transcends political parties, he said.

Everything is polarized, the ambassador said. What this does is it gives you ammunition and the spirit to find this sense of collaboration. People, especially young people, need to grow up thinking and understanding the power of working together to accomplish greater things. I think this is exactly what this program does.

Space can be a connector to bring together nations across the world, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who also spoke at the watch party. If space can unite the U.S. and Russia which disagree on several terrestrial fronts missions like these are critical to inspire future cooperation.

People want hope, Bridenstine said. And this mission, I think, is a perfect example of that.

Cami Mondeaux is an editorial intern for The Washington Diplomat.

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UAE Hopes to Inspire Next Generation with Arab World's First Mission to Mars - The Washington Diplomat

The surface of Mars may be too inhospitable for colonisers, with frequent sandstorms and no protection from space radiation. Scientists are, therefore, interested in the possibility of subterranean life, exploring ways in which colonisers could set up camp in ancient lava tubes. Researchers at the University in Bologna, Italy, have now presented new findings with exciting implications for future colonisation efforts.

Lava tubes, or pyroducts, are natural tunnels formed underground by lava flowing from a volcanic source.

They are the third most common type of cave found on Earth and can run uninterrupted for tens of miles.

One of the longest known pyroduct on Earth is the 41-mile-long (65.5km) Kazumura Cave in Hawaii.

But the lava tubes are not unique to Earth and scientists have found evidence of them on the Moon as well as on Mars.

READ MORE:US officials investigate mysterious UFO sighting above Denver

And the conditions within are perfect to shield potential colonists from radiation, space rocks and wild temperature fluctuations.

Study coordinator Francesco Sauro said: "Lava tubes could provide stable shields from cosmic and solar radiation and micrometeorite impacts which are often happening on the surfaces of planetary bodies.

"Moreover, they have great potential for providing an environment in which temperatures do not vary from day- to night-time.

"Space agencies are now interested in planetary caves and lava tubes, as they represent a first step towards future explorations of the lunar surface - see also NASA's project Artemis - and towards finding life - past or present - in Mars subsurface".

Space agencies are now interested in planetary caves and lava tubes

Francesco Sauro, University in Bologna

Researchers at Bologna and the University of Padua have also proposed the tubes on Mars can be many times bigger than on Earth.

Whereas a typical lava tube on Earth measures between 32ft and 98ft (10m and 30m) across, a Martian tube could be 100 or 1,000 times wider.

Dr Sauro said: "We can find lava tubes on planet Earth, but also on the subsurface of the Moon and Mars according to the high-resolution pictures of lava tubes' skylights taken by interplanetary probes.

"Evidence of lava tubes was often inferred by observing linear cavities and sinuous collapse chains where the galleries cracked.

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"These collapse chains represent ideal gateways or windows for subsurface exploration.

"The morphological surface expression of lava tubes on Mars and the Moon is similar to their terrestrial counterpart.

"Speleologists thoroughly studied lava tubes on Earth in Hawaii, Canary Islands, Australia and Iceland

The researchers have explained the wider tubes through Mars' weaker gravity and the effect it has on volcanism.

Similarly, lava tubes on the Moon provide an exciting opportunity for explorers to consider.

Planetary geologist Riccardo Pozzobon said: "Tubes as wide as these can be longer than 40 kilometres, making the Moon an extraordinary target for subsurface exploration and potential settlement in the wide protected and stable environments of lava tubes.

"The latter are so big they can contain Padua's entire city centre."

According to Matteo Massironi, a professor of Structural and Planetary Geology at Padua, the lava tubes are incredibly stable because of the weaker gravity.

He said: "This means that the majority of lava tubes underneath the maria smooth plains are intact.

"The collapse chains we observed might have been caused by asteroids piercing the tube walls.

"This is what the collapse chains in Marius Hills seem to suggest.

"From the latter, we can get access to these huge underground cavities."

Continued here:

Life on Mars: Lava tubes could be key to Mars colony - 'Extraordinary for settlement' - Daily Express

New ultraviolet observations of the Red Planet highlight complex circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere, including eerily regular nightglow pulses invisible to the unaided eye.

The Martian atmosphere, when viewed through ultraviolet light, is very busy, but only at night, and only during certain seasons, as new research shows. These pulsing and glowing atmospheric effects arent fully understood, but their presence reminds us that Mars has a really complicated atmosphere.

The new study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics, was made possible by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument on NASAs MAVEN spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Mars since 2014. UVS provides a completely new lens with which to observe the Red Planet, revealing previously unseen circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere.

The new paper, led by Nick Schneider from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, analysed data gathered by the UVS instrument over the course of two consecutive Martian years (a year on Mars is equal to 687 days on Earth). By studying Mars in ultraviolet light, the researchers were able to visualise the effects of global-scale winds and waves high up in the Martian atmosphere.

MAVENs images offer our first global insights into atmospheric motions in Mars middle atmosphere, a critical region where air currents carry gases between the lowest and highest layers, explained Schneider in a NASA press release.

The nightglow as seen at the northern polar region. The cause of the spiral shape remains a mystery. Image: NASA/MAVEN/Goddard Space Flight Centre/CU/LASP

These psychedelicactions, known as atmospheric tides, form from a recombination of nitrogen and oxygen atoms in Mars nightside mesosphere the middle layer between the stratosphere and thermosphere. By viewing Mars in UV light, the scientists were able to visualise changes in wind patterns across the different seasons, which influence the atmospheric nightglows. These planet-encircling waves are also influenced by solar heat and topographical disturbances caused by Marss massive volcanoes, according to the research.

Indeed, the mountainous volcanic regions on Mars are known to produce some really fascinating and freaky phenomena, including a massive elongated cloud that reappears like clockwork above Arsia Mons, a 12.4-mile-high (20-kilometre) volcano located near the Martian equator.

MAVENs main discoveries of atmosphere loss and climate change show the importance of these vast circulation patterns that transport atmospheric gases around the globe and from the surface to the edge of space, explained LASP scientist and study co-author Sonal Jain in the press release.

Interestingly, the atmospheric pulses happen exactly three times each night, but only during the spring and fall. The scientists also documented inexplicable waves and spirals above the winter polar regions, along with some unusually bright spots seen over the winter poles.

Infographic explaining the nightglow phenomenon. Image: NASA/MAVEN/Goddard Space Flight Centre/CU/LASP

In these bright areas, gases are thrust downwards by vertical winds, causing them to enter into regions with higher atmospheric density. This serves to accelerate chemical reactions responsible for nitric oxide, which power the ultraviolet glow, according to the NASA press release. The UV emissions occur predominantly at altitudes reaching 40 miles (64 kilometres) above the surface, with some patches appearing as large as 600 miles (965 kilometres) in diameter.

These emissions are not to be confused with Marss eerie green glow a visible hue caused by the Suns rays exciting oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere. To a human observer on the Martian ground, these nightly spectacles would be invisible. In future, a possible fun activity for colonists would be to watch these nightglows with UV goggles, in a sky-watching pastime roughly analogous to viewing the Northern Lights on Earth. This would apparently be quite the spectacle, as these bright patches zip across the Martian night sky at speeds reaching 180 mph (290 kph).

Featured image: NASA/MAVEN/Goddard Space Flight Centre/CU/LASP

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At Night, the Martian Sky Pulses and Glows When Viewed in Ultraviolet Light - Gizmodo UK

Emperor penguins

Researchers have discovered 11 penguin colonies in Antarctica increasing the number of colonies known about by 20 per cent. Satellite images revealed distinctive stains on the ice from droppings. The discovery was hailed as exciting and Philip Trathan, of the British Antarctic Survey, said the region needs to be closely monitored in light of climate change.

The 96-year-old, who has lived through childhood poverty, war and, most recently, the coronavirus pandemic, sailed through an exam that makes him Italys oldest university graduate. Last week, the former railway worker stepped forward to receive his diploma and laurel wreath, applauded by his family, teachers and fellow students more than 70 years his junior. Mr Paterno said he struggled a little with the video calls that replaced classroom teaching during the coronavirus shutdown, but he was not put off by the disease itself after the war and everything else he had been through in life.

Plans to build a 6.5-acre park in Manchester were revealed this week following concerns about access to open space during the coronavirus lockdown. Mayfield Park will be Manchesters first city-centre park in more than a century. The Government said it will contribute 23m to help transform the area between Piccadilly Station and Mancunian Way.

BP has pledged to almost halve its oil and gas production within a decade and shift its focus to renewable energy as the company reinvents itself to survive in a greener future.

Despite the lack of a music festival season, retailers say that shoppers have been busy buying tents, sleeping bags and cooking equipment. Many staples have sold out, as part of the UK staycation boom.

Efforts to restore British native populations have been given a boost of nearly 1.2m to recreate habitat for the shellfish around the coasts. The Zoological Society of London, and partners Blue Marine Foundation and British Marine, have been awarded 1,180,000 by the Peoples Postcode Lottery.

A three-year-old British boy has become the youngest person to reach the summit of a 10,000ft mountain, while his seven-year-old sister became the youngest person to climb the mountain unaided. Jackson Houlding, the son of professional climber Leo Houlding, and his sister Freya, made it to the top of Piz Badile in the Alps on the border of Switzerland and Italy. Mr Houlding said: My daughter climbed it all by herself, all the way, including all the hiking and everything it was very impressive.

A prototype of the companys next-generation Starship has successfully flown to an altitude of 150m, paving the way for a craft capable of carrying humans to the Moon and Mars. The uncrewed test vehicle, which the company hopes to use one day to colonise Mars, rose up on a plume of exhaust before deploying its landing legs and touching down softly.

The detectorist is toasting success after discovering a hoard of silver English Civil War-era coins worth at least 100,000 in a field owned by his local pub in Suffolk. It comes after a decade-long search for treasure which has taken him around the globe. To make sure the haul was not pilfered, he stayed up for three nights to deter any so-called nighthawks.

The first really effective treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) could be available within five years after researchers raised hopes that they had discovered the holy grail of MS therapy. Scientists have identified a natural mechanism in the body that could be boosted with an existing diabetes drug to protect against the nerve damage at the centre of the disease. This would not only halt progression of MS but may partially reverse it as well. At the moment, treatments help to alleviate the symptoms of relapsing remitting MS, the milder, more common form of the disease although these do little to slow its progression.

The 85-year-old widow was reunited with her long-lost wedding ring after hundreds of people turned online detective. The gold band was found in a plant pot by tour guide Debbie Davidson when she took up gardening to pass the time during lockdown in Edinburgh. She shared her find on social media, where users tracked down Alices daughter, who shared the news with her mother.

Britains pubs and restaurants enjoyed their busiest Monday of the year following the launch of the Governments Eat Out to Help Out scheme. Chancellor Rishi Sunaks initiative allows diners 50 per cent off meals Monday to Wednesday in August at partaking restaurants, with a 10 cap per head on the discount. The restaurant-booking platform Opentable said there was a 10 per cent jump in the number of diners on Monday compared with the same day last year.

Read more:

From emperor penguins to 96-year-old graduates, here's the good news this week - iNews

Ultraviolet Nightglow of Marss amosphere.Image: NASA/MAVEN/Goddard Space Flight Center/CU/LASP

New ultraviolet observations of the Red Planet highlight complex circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere, including eerily regular nightglow pulses invisible to the unaided eye.

The Martian atmosphere, when viewed through ultraviolet light, is very busy, but only at night, and only during certain seasons, as new research shows. These pulsing and glowing atmospheric effects arent fully understood, but their presence reminds us that Mars has a really complicated atmosphere.

The new study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics, was made possible by the Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument on NASAs MAVEN spacecraft, which has been in orbit around Mars since 2014. UVS provides a completely new lens with which to observe the Red Planet, revealing previously unseen circulation patterns in the Martian atmosphere.

The new paper, led by Nick Schneider from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado, analyzed data gathered by the UVS instrument over the course of two consecutive Martian years (a year on Mars is equal to 687 days on Earth). By studying Mars in ultraviolet light, the researchers were able to visualize the effects of global-scale winds and waves high up in the Martian atmosphere.

MAVENs images offer our first global insights into atmospheric motions in Mars middle atmosphere, a critical region where air currents carry gases between the lowest and highest layers, explained Schneider in a NASA press release.

G/O Media may get a commission

These psychedelicactions, known as atmospheric tides, form from a recombination of nitrogen and oxygen atoms in Mars nightside mesospherethe middle layer between the stratosphere and thermosphere. By viewing Mars in UV light, the scientists were able to visualize changes in wind patterns across the different seasons, which influence the atmospheric nightglows. These planet-encircling waves are also influenced by solar heat and topographical disturbances caused by Marss massive volcanoes, according to the research.

Indeed, the mountainous volcanic regions on Mars are known to produce some really fascinating and freaky phenomena, including a massive elongated cloud that reappears like clockwork above Arsia Mons, a 12.4-mile-high (20-kilometer) volcano located near the Martian equator.

MAVENs main discoveries of atmosphere loss and climate change show the importance of these vast circulation patterns that transport atmospheric gases around the globe and from the surface to the edge of space, explained LASP scientist and study co-author Sonal Jain in the press release.

Interestingly, the atmospheric pulses happen exactly three times each night, but only during the spring and fall. The scientists also documented inexplicable waves and spirals above the winter polar regions, along with some unusually bright spots seen over the winter poles.

In these bright areas, gases are thrust downwards by vertical winds, causing them to enter into regions with higher atmospheric density. This serves to accelerate chemical reactions responsible for nitric oxide, which power the ultraviolet glow, according to the NASA press release. The UV emissions occur predominantly at altitudes reaching 40 miles (64 kilometers) above the surface, with some patches appearing as large as 600 miles (965 kilometers) in diameter.

These emissions are not to be confused with Marss eerie green glowa visible hue caused by the Suns rays exciting oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere. To a human observer on the Martian ground, these nightly spectacles would be invisible. In future, a possible fun activity for colonists would be to watch these nightglows with UV goggles, in a sky-watching pastime roughly analogous to viewing the Northern Lights on Earth. This would apparently be quite the spectacle, as these bright patches zip across the Martian night sky at speeds reaching 180 mph (290 kph).

Read more:

At Night, the Martian Sky Pulses and Glows When Viewed in Ultraviolet Light - Gizmodo

In Mars Colony: Frontier you can learn the hard way what life would be like if you were stranded on the red planet. In this open-world simulator, you assume the role of an astronaut who has been sent on a mission to Mars only to have turmoil on Earth extend your stay indefinitely. Cut off from supplies from home, the colony must fend for itself against starvation, illness, radiation storms, and the inevitable death of irreplaceable machinery.

Players can either play alone, on a dedicated server, or run their own for others to join both online and LAN. Multiplayer mode can handle up to eight players on four teams to compete for control over all of the resources Mars has to offer. The dynamic economy reacts to current supply and demand, paving the way for one player or team to come out on top. Four career paths allow for players to either specialize in one aspect of survival or become a jack of all trades.

Features: - Campaign Mode - Sandbox Mode - Single player - Multiplayer with up to 8 players - Play over LAN or Online - Dedicated servers - Custom player-built bases - Dynamic player-driven economy - Contract missions - Dynamic weather and random events - Drivable rovers - Programmable cargo bots - Multiple career paths

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Mars Colony: Frontier on Steam

What might it take to feed a million people on Mars? Lab-grown meat, tunnel-grown crops and cricket farms, a new study finds.

When it comes to plans for crewed missions to Mars, NASA typically assumes round trips with only brief stopovers on the Red Planet. However, commercial space companies have emerged with the goal of colonizing outer space, with SpaceX specifically aiming to develop a civilization on Mars.

The most practical strategy for long stays on Mars involves living off resources that already exist on the Red Planet instead of relying on resupply ships from Earth. The five major consumable resources that researchers identified Martian settlements would need include energy, water, oxygen, construction material and food, and the first four are potentially abundant on Mars.

Related: Incredible Technology: How to Live on Mars

For instance, solar power, likely supplemented with nuclear-fission reactors, can help provide energy for would-be Martians. Ice and hydrated minerals on Mars are sources of water. Carbon dioxide can get converted into oxygen. Finally, Martian soil can be readily made into bricks for building supplies.

In comparison, there is no food naturally available on Mars, and there is no easy way to create it from any raw materials on the Red Planet using, say, a simple chemical reactor, the researchers said.

"Food is probably going to be the hardest thing to make locally on Mars, and you can't just import it all if you want to have a self-sufficient settlement," study lead author Kevin Cannon, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, told Space.com.

Given this challenge, the scientists wanted to see what it might take to reach the radical goal of producing enough food on Mars to feed 1 million people.

"We were working with a lot of people who wanted to grow plants in the simulated Mars soils we create, and this led us to look at what research was being done in terms of producing food for future human missions to the moon or Mars," Cannon said. "It turns out most of the focus has been on very low-calorie vegetables, and the latest innovations in alternative protein sources were not being considered. We asked the question: Instead of a short NASA-style mission to Mars, what would it take to feed a city of 1 million people, like what SpaceX is imagining?"

The researchers noted that raising farm animals for dairy and meat would not be practical on Mars in the near term because of the challenges of shipping them across space. At the same time, they noted that most people do not want to go completely vegetarian. The solution? Insect farms and lab-grown meat, they suggested.

Insect farms are well-suited for Martian cuisine, as they provide a lot of calories per unit land while using relatively minor amounts of water and feed, the researchers said. Crickets in particular are one of the more promising examples of edible insects, with cricket flour potentially incorporated and hidden in many different recipes, they noted.

"Bugs are the way to go, if people can get over the gross factor," Cannon said.

For those who do not fancy insects, "cellular agriculture" that is, food derived from cells grown in lab dishes could help people on Mars eat a somewhat more familiar diet, the researchers said. Everything from algae to meat and fish to cow-less milk and chicken-less eggs are now possible, they said. The large amounts of money that investors have poured into refining such technology has already driven down the costs of a cultured meat burger from $325,000 to $11 per patty in two years, they added.

Related: How Living on Mars Could Challenge Colonists (Infographic)

When it comes to crops, concept art of Martian settlements usually features greenhouses, but those may not prove practical, the researchers said. Because Mars is so far from the sun, even on the' equator, where sunlight is strongest, the amount of light plants would receive would be similar to what they get in Alaska. Moreover, although greenhouses are made of clear window panes, these still typically absorb 50 to 70 percent of light on Earth, and may block even more on Mars, since a stronger material is likely needed to support a heated, pressurized interior, given how the air on the Red Planet is much colder and thinner than on Earth.

Instead, tunnels lit with high-strength LEDs are likely needed to grow plants on Mars, supplemented with sunlight collected and piped down through fiber-optic cables, the researchers said. Soilless farming involving hydroponic or aeroponic systems is possible, but those strategies would require more mass shipped to Mars in the form of trays, pumps and reservoirs, they said. In addition, soil-based farming may be more robust against plant disease, but inorganic Martian dirt would require significant research and treatment to convert it to a living soil that could support plant growth, the researchers added.

Previous research suggested a number of crops may prove especially practical when it comes to feeding Martian colonists, such as wheat, corn, soybeans, peanuts and sweet potatoes. Genetic modification could also make plants more useful in a variety of ways for Martians for example, by consuming more carbon dioxide and boosting productivity.

"Almost all research to date has focused on growing plants to feed astronauts, but plants take up a ton of space, and on another planet, that means building large indoor factories that need to be pressurized, heated and lighted," Cannon said. "If you want to feed a large population on another planet, you have to move away from the idea of watery vegetables and really think about the tremendous amounts of energy, water and raw materials needed to produce enough calories."

To see what it might take to feed a Martian city of 1 million people, the researchers modeled a population that grew from immigration as well as through a birth rate of 10 per 1,000 people per Earth year, a rate typical of developed nations on Earth. All in all, they assumed about 6,900 crewed ships were needed to deliver about 1 million immigrants to Mars over the course of a century, with about 340,000 people born on Mars during that time.

The scientists calculated the number of calories each person would need, and modeled land use given a diet that included wheat, corn, sweet potatoes, crickets and lab-grown chicken. They found that a Martian colony of 1 million people could achieve self-sufficiency in terms of food within 100 years, relying on about 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) worth of tunnels about 12 feet (3.6 meters) wide, which could be stacked vertically.

Related: Space Food Photos: What Astronauts Eat in Orbit

However, these colonists would need massive amounts of food imported in the interim, carried on nearly 54,000 cargo shipments. The scientists noted there were a variety of strategies that could be used to significantly reduce the amount of imported food, such as increasing the rate of farm construction on Mars.

Future research on how to best feed Martians should focus on boosting crop productivity, working out the most efficient and palatable insect species, improving the flavor and texture of cultured meat, improving the efficiency of the LED lighting used to grow crops, and developing automated methods for rapidly building pressurized, shielded areas to house farms, the researchers said.

"The obvious criticism is that this is science fiction human missions to Mars are decades away, so why bother working on this topic now?" Cannon said. "Anyone who thinks along these lines needs to take a serious look at what SpaceX is doing they are already building and testing prototypes of the ships that will send the first settlers to Mars."

It's time to "work out how to make it happen," he added.

The researchers said research on how to feed Martians could also help feed people on Earth.

"The constraints imposed by Mars a cold, thin atmosphere force you to produce food in ways that are actually more sustainable and ethical than what's done on Earth with current factory-farming practices," Cannon said. "So, switching to a 'Martian diet' can help our planet." The scientists created a website, http://eatlikeamartian.org, which gives some information on how to do just that.

Cannon and study senior author Daniel Britt at the University of Central Florida detailed their findings online Aug. 30 in the journal New Space.

Editor's note: The original version of this story mistakenly referred to Kevin Cannon as Keith Cannon.

Follow Charles Q. Choi on Twitter @cqchoi. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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How to Feed a Mars Colony of 1 Million People | Space

Astronauts should be protected from dangerous radiation in deep space by using a hybrid of metal and melanin the skin pigment that colours human beings hair, eyes, and bodies.

Research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society suggest a new material called selenomelanin, which has never been found to exist in nature, could block lethal x-rays from harming spacegoers.

Given the increased interest in space travel, and the general need for lightweight, multifunctional and radioprotective biomaterials, we've become excited about the potential of melanin, said Northwestern Universitys Nathan Gianneschi in a statement.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Melanin containing selenium would offer better protection than other forms of melanin [and] this as-yet undiscovered melanin may very well exist in nature so we skipped the discovery part and decided to make it ourselves.

Melanin, specifically a form of melanin called pheomelanin, was used to create this new material.

Pheomelanin compound contains sulphur, and gives human beings red and auburn hair, as well as red lips. It also absorbs x-rays particularly effectively.

Researchers used pheomelanin as a base, swapping out the element sulphur with the metal element selenium, which is very close to sulphur on the periodic table and is known for its role in preventing cancer in organisms.

By swapping these elements the researchers created selenomelanin. This new biomaterial then received a dose of radiation which would be lethal to humans.

The researchers also directed a dose into synthetic pheomelanin and eumelanin the pigment in black and brown hair as well as cells with no protective melanin.

The scientists found that only the cells with selenomelanin exhibited a normal cell cycle. Moreover, further testing using bacteria found that selenomelanin can be created organically, leading to the hypothesis that it may already exist through evolution but has yet to be discovered.

It is possible that such a material could be applied to an astronauts skin, in the same way we apply suncream on Earth, to protect against radiation, or could be used as a layer over other materials.

The harm that X-rays can cause in space cannot be underestimated. Nasas Twin Study - where astronaut Scott Kelley spent three years in space and had his DNA compared to his twin brother on Earth showed damage to his genetic makeup from his time in orbit.

It is hypothesised that an astronaut on a Mars mission could receive 700 times more radiation than on Earth. It is expected that 110 people will need to be sent to Mars to start a colony, with scientists predicting that we will land on Mars within the next two decades.

More here:

Suncream made of skin pigment will help shield astronauts from lethal x-ray radiation, scientists suggest - The Independent

With space beckoning as the next engine of economic growth worldwide, an alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India (known as the Quads) in the exploration and exploitation of the mineral resources and economic opportunities in space makes sense. With China becoming increasingly aggressive towards its neighbors, its burgeoning space exploration of the Moon threatens to extend its ability to achieve military dominance to a level never seen before. The race that appears to be developing to exploit the riches of the Moon, and ultimately the asteroid belt that is between Mars and Jupiter, can be the defining moment of world history.

If the world could come to an agreement to work with one another to develop the mineral wealth of our solar system, the future of the human race would be bright with promise. With China exhibiting behavior reminiscent of Genghis Khan, if she is allowed to achieve military mastery of near-Earth space, the human race would be doomed to a period of darkness that none could foresee ending.

Chinas Push into Space

The Chinese space program began in earnest in 2003 when Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei became the first Chinese national to orbit the Earth. Since then the Chinese have begun an aggressive drive to become the dominant space power in the solar system.

The primary focus of the Chinese space effort is currently concentrated on the Moon. The official name of the Chinese Moon mission is known as the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program or CLEP. CLEP is also known as the Change Project, after the Chinese Moon goddess, Change. The CLEP is a series of automated missions to the Moon which culminated in the launch of Change 4, which landed on the Moon on January 3, 2019. Change 4 consists of a lander, a rover with a dedicated orbiter called the Queqiao, which was placed in a halo orbit near the Earth-Moon L2 point to facilitate communication with Change 4. The rover is solar-powered, perfectly suited for the far side of the Moon. The rover communicates with the lander, and the lander communicates with the orbiter, the orbiter than communicates with the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center located in a suburb northwest of Beijing.

The mission of Change 4 is to begin mapping the soil (called regolith) on the far side of the Moon to identify concentrations of helium-3, which provides a critical fuel element for a functioning fusion reactor (called a tokamak).

The conclusion of the CLEP will be the landing of a crewed spacecraft onto the surface of the Moon. This is currently scheduled to be accomplished in 2029 or 2030. The latest push from China is a Mars launch which took place on the 23rd of July 2020. Called the Tianwen-1, the mission carried a lander, a rover, and an orbiter.

The Advantage of an Alliance Between the Quads

The first advantage of a space exploration and exploitation alliance would be to reduce the staggering costs of the construction of a space dock to facilitate the construction of inter-planetary vehicles (IPVs). Aside from the initial construction and operations of IPVs, each member of the Quad states bring advantages that complement each other and would lead to a successful race to Mars, and the establishment of the support facilities that will be necessary for the successful mining of the asteroid belt.

The United States: The United States has the most experience in space flight. The U.S. also has the advanced technological base necessary for the advanced avionics that will form the backbone for the construction of a space dock, as well as the construction of the IPVs that would be necessary for the transport of the human passengers, crew, and machinery for the construction of the buildings necessary for human habitation. The signing of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 effectively removed NASA from the launch portion of space exploration. SpaceX and Blue Origin are now the largest space launch businesses in the United States, so this would have to be contracted out to them for U.S. participation.

India: India already has a fledgling space industry and has some experience in launching satellites into low earth orbit. India attempted a Moon launch which arrived at the Moon, but the lander and rover crashed upon trying to land on the far side of the Moon. Indias biggest advantage in a partnership with the Quads is the cost of goods sold. While India has a highly educated workforce, the sunk costs and labor costs in the space industry are much less expensive in India than in the other member states of the Quads.

Australia: A tremendous amount of steel will be necessary for the construction of the space dock. Australia has the natural resources needed to provide for the manufacture of the steel that will be necessary.

Japan: The use of automation and robotics will be key to the successful construction of the space dock and for the construction of the IPVs that will transport the future colonists of Mars, as well as the engineers, miners, and associated support personnel. Since it will be difficult to support life during the construction of the space dock, robots, and automated machinery will be crucial in the successful outcome of the finalization of the space dock.

If the Quads can unite and work together to develop the new space economy based on the rule of law, and offer economic opportunity for all, a new era of prosperity for the human race would dawn. And the riches of space would warm the cold face of the Earth and bring about an end to want and hunger among humanity.

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A Space Alliance Between the Quads: The United States, Japan, Australia, and India - International Policy Digest

One of the challenges of prolonged presence on the moon or the surface of another planet, such as Mars, is finding the power needed to make human life possible. NASA is reportedly considering building nuclear power plants that will work on the moon and Mars. On Friday, NASA put out a request for ideas from the private sector on how nuclear power could be used outside the Earth in the future.

All ideas submitted from the private sector will be reviewed by the Idaho National Laboratory, which is a nuclear research facility in eastern Idaho, the Energy Department, and NASA will evaluate all submitted ideas for the reactor. NASA says that small nuclear reactors can provide all the power capability needed for space exploration missions.

An industry technical meeting will be held in August to discuss the expectations for the program. The meeting will be conducted by The Energy Department, NASA, and Battelle Energy Alliance. The latter is the contractor that manages the Idaho National Laboratory.

The plan is dual phased with the first to develop a reactor design. The second is to build a test reactor along with a second reactor to be sent to the moon. The program also requires the development of a flight system and lander that can transport the reactor to the moon.

NASA wants the reactor, flight system, and lander ready to launch by the end of 2026. The reactor is required to generate an uninterrupted energy output of at least 10 kilowatts and weighs less than 7,700 pounds. It also has to run for at least ten years and be mostly autonomous. Ten kilowatts isnt much power; the average home in the US uses 11,000 kilowatt-hours per year of electricity. NASA has stated that it would likely take multiple linked reactors to meet power demands on the moon or Mars.

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Nuclear power plants could power colonies on the Moon and Mars - SlashGear

Elon Musk is one of the richest people on the planet with a net worth estimated to be in the region of $69 billion.

But the tech innovator who founded PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX says hes thinking about becoming homeless.

Hes put two of his mansions up for sale, tweeting in May: I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house.

He added that he would devote his life to Mars and Earth and said he didnt need any more money because possessions just weigh you down.

Now in a wide-ranging New York Times interview he said: I guess well just rent a place somewhere

I just have all these houses but nobody is using them, he said.

I use them infrequently. In the Bay Area, for example from 2002 to 2017, I never owned a house and I was there half the week so I would either sleep at the factory or in a friends spare bedroom or on a couch or in a hotel.

"I did that for 15 years.

Musk joked he could always crash with his fellow billionaires Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google.

He says he used to enjoy sofa-surfing with his Silicon Valley pals.

He told the New York Times: It was actually, in retrospect, kind of good because you end up rotating through friends houses and you catch up with them and stay in contact, whereas these days, I have been staying in this strange Gatsby-like house, what I call the haunted mansion, and its a bit bleak, to be totally frank.

The house itself is beautiful but, you know, its like Wayne Manor without Alfred.

Musks focus is increasingly on building a self-sustaining city on Mars, which he says will require 1,000 spacecraft launches a year.

He predicts that the Mars habitat, which will be protected by a huge anti-radiation dome, will have an outdoorsy, fun atmosphere."

He told the Third Row Tesla podcast that there should be a direct democracy on Mars with the inhabitants making decisions for themselves rather than being ruled from Earth.

Musk also says there ought be simpler laws on Mars than there are on Earth.

Food for his first Mars city will be grown on solar-powered hydroponic farms, but Musk says he will probably die before the colony is completely self-sustaining but, he says, Id like to at least be around to see a bunch of ships land on Mars.

See the article here:

Elon Musk selling LA homes and dreams of move to 'self-sustaining' Mars colony - Daily Star