Category Archives: Mars Colonization

Wade at night into the gently lapping surf at Boca Chica Beach, an undeveloped stretch of sand about 20 miles east of the Texas border town of Brownsville, and ahead youll see nothing but Gulf waters meeting skyendless, dark but for the stars and languid whitecaps. A pensive, ancient view to make you feel small and the world enormous.

Turn around and everything inverts. Beyond a smattering of working-class Latino families, gathered around bonfires and pickup trucks on the beach, looms something brimming with novelty, brightness, and ambition: the South Texas launch site for SpaceX, where one day a 400-foot rocket may leave Earth en route to Mars.

Just 1,500 feet from the waters edge, amid rolling sand dunes and acres of tidal mud flats, rises a launchpad of towering cranes and scaffolding lit up like a sports stadium. Two miles back down State Highway 4, the only road reaching this remote bit of Texas coastline, is a bustling command and production facility. Around 10 p.m. on a June evening, construction workers huddle together on a platform encircling a huge white tank, consulting in Spanish about the job at hand, their acetylene torches showering sparks into the night air. Out front, where the company has erected an illuminated sign reading Starbase, tourists arrive to take selfies. One man says he came all the way from Kentucky, hoping to get a job with SpaceX. Hes exultant. Its like 530 years ago, he says, the last time we settled a new world.

There are those in Brownsville who call SpaceXthe California-based corporation founded by Elon Musk, the worlds second-richest mana form of colonization. Brownsville is an area thats been colonized and recolonized and has done so much to benefit people who come from somewhere else but not the people from here, says Michelle Serrano, a local activist with the progressive network Voces Unidas.

Musks company, a 19-year-old concern now worth $74 billion, is a trailblazer in the field of privatized space travel. Last year, SpaceX became the first private company to carry NASA astronauts from Floridas Cape Canaveral, the traditional hub of U.S. space launches, to the International Space Station. Musk is presently feuding with fellow space entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, the worlds richest individual, over future NASA contracts. Ultimately, Musks dream is to establish human society on Mars, an enterprise for which Texas beachgoers and rare wildlife are paying the price.

About a decade ago, Musk began scouting locations for a new launch site, looking for cheap land near a body of water to catch falling rockets and relatively near the equator for aeronautic reasons. The tip of South Texas seemed to fit the bill. SpaceX began gobbling up properties near Boca Chica Beach, which runs 7 miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande to the ship channel that separates it from South Padre Island.

Musk met with county and state officials, who rushed to lure him to an area where poverty rates hover around 30 percent. The state kicked in $15 million in incentives, and Cameron County abated the companys property taxes for 10 years. In 2013, then-state Representative Ren Oliveira passed a bill allowing the county to close the beach during SpaceX launch activities, a move otherwise forbidden by Texas 62-year-old Open Beaches Act, one of the nations strongest laws protecting public beach access.

Musk seems to have imported the Silicon Valley Mantra of move fast and break things to south Texas, where federal and local officials have mostly stayed out of his way.

For years, Musk barely touched the site. Then, in 2018, a space complex began to emerge. By mid-2019, test rocket launches started. Soon, the explosions followed. At least eight times, experimental space rockets met fiery demises during testing or landing, spewing flames and metal debris into crucial shorebird habitat abutting the beach. The company bought out most residents, some under duress, of a tiny subdivision next to the new production facility. Musks public enthusiasm also helped spur gentrification in nearby Brownsville, where housing costs rose last year by 20 percent, outpacing most major Texas cities. Meanwhile, local families, who had for generations come to Boca Chica Beach whenever they pleased, found their path increasingly blocked.

Charlie Guillen, 39, has fished at Boca Chica his whole life, just like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Standing in the surf, anglers can reel in redfish, black drum, speckled trout, and whiting. Free of charge and open 24/7, Boca Chica has long been the beach for locals, Guillen says, while tourists pay for entry to the condo-riddled South Padre beach. Guillen, who runs a yearly fishing tournament at Boca Chica, used to come to the beach three or four times a week. But since SpaceX began closing the area every few days for everything from launches to equipment moving, he goes less and less.

Boca Chica is the poor mans beach, he says. Its kind of like the fajita: People used to throw that away, and when they found out the poor guy was eating something pretty good, they took it away and started charging a lot of money for it.

According to agreements with federal and state regulators, SpaceX should generally give 14 days notice before closing the road to Boca Chica and do so for only 300 hours a year. But advisories posted by the county, and monitoring by the state parks agency, show the company routinely provides only a day or two heads-up. The federal Fish and Wildlife Service and an independent environmental group have calculated that SpaceX closed the highway for more than 1,000 hoursaround 42 daysin both 2019 and 2020 and is on a similar pace this year. The company also often changes plans last-minute and exceeds announced times.

Musk seems to have imported the Silicon Valley mantra of Move fast and break things to South Texas, where federal and local officials have mostly stayed out of his way. SpaceX employees have used the shoulder of State Highway 4 as a parking lot, and the two-lane road has seen a surge in traffic, potholes, and roadkill. One family is suing the company over a fatal car accident. Musks company also told federal regulators it would block lighting from reaching the beach, where it might disturb nesting sea turtles. A beach visit dispels that notion. Federal documents further state SpaceX is avoiding launches during turtle and bird nesting season, roughly March through September, which is disproved by a glance at the feds own public data or Musks Twitter feed.

In fact, Musks entire Texas project has changed from what the Federal Aviation Administration approved in 2014. Back then, SpaceX said the site would be for launching proven Falcon rockets, the ones its used to carry astronauts. That never happened, and the company is instead testing much larger experimental Starships designed for Martian travel. Hence the fires and explosions.

Musk seems to see Boca Chica as terra nullius, no mans land. Weve got a lot of land with nobody around, and so if [a rocket] blows up, its cool, he said of the area in 2018.

On a Saturday morning in June, Mary Helen Flores, a 56-year-old Brownsville native who helps run volunteer beach cleanups, pulls up to Boca Chica in her white SUV. Parked vehicles extend to the horizon in both directions; mothers sit with children in the shallow tide; seagulls and brown pelicans swarm. There was no other beach like Boca Chica on the entire Gulf Coast that you could drive on for free, stay as long as you wanted, and it was completely undeveloped, Flores says.Theres no replacing that, so I dont understand how it was just pissed away.

Mars. Elon Musk wants to go to Mars, a planet at least 34 million miles away with no breathable air and temperatures about 80 below zero. Once there, he wants to colonize it, establishing an independent human civilization. Why? To save humanity, if you take his word for it.

Either were going to become a multi-planet species and a space-faring civilization, or were going to be stuck on one planet until some eventual extinction event, Musk has said. Elsewhere, hes stated his only reason for amassing a $160 billion net worth is for this sort of astral charity: I am accumulating resources to help make life multiplanetary and extend the light of consciousness to the stars.

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Theres a certain logic to Musks claims. By burning fossil fuels and proliferating nuclear weapons, we humans have made our planet more catastrophe-prone. Plus, some hundreds of millions of years from now, the sun could grow too hot for life on Earth. Musk believes we need a fail-safe, a vision thats earned him both fans and detractors.

The advocates of Mars colonization are saying, Earth has all these problems with regard to its potential habitability for humans, which is certainly true, says Daniel Deudney, a professor of political science at John Hopkins University who wrote a recent book arguing against space colonization. But their solution is to go to an utterly lifeless, vastly inhospitable space millions of miles away and start from scratch, as opposed to saving the rainforests or preventing acidification of the ocean.

Deudney describes life on Mars as hellish: To breathe and avoid death by radiation, humans would shelter in heavily insulated domes or bunkers. Wed need to create contained, artificial ecosystems, something weve been unable to pull off on Earth. Musk says we should terraform Mars, or make it Earth-like, while NASA says thats impossible in the foreseeable future. And if we did ever establish a self-sustaining populationa huge ifDeudney believes wed come to regret it.

As space colonies became independent, Deudney argues, war would overtake the final frontier just as it does on earthly frontiers, only deadlier. Think weaponized asteroids. The space environment is intrinsically violent in ways that are completely alien to terrestrial existence, he says. Really, our future generations will curse us for having started this. Better, Deudney says, to put our limited time and money toward directly addressing threats at homethe only place in the universe that we know is conducive to complex life.

Of course, there are other uses for Musks massive reusable rockets, even if Mars colonization never takes off. Take luxury tourism. SpaceX has plans to shuttle three tourists to the International Space Station, in a rocket launched from Florida, for a price of $55 million each. Another billionaire, Richard Branson, became the first person to self-fund a brief trip to suborbital space in July, and his company has sold seats on such flights for about $250,000. For reference, the median household income in Brownsville is $39,000 a year.

Then, theres satellite deployment. For its budding internet service, SpaceX has launched more than 1,000 satellites into orbit, with plans to send off about 40,000 more. This swarm of reflective objects, sometimes visible to the naked eye, has already polluted astronomers space images with trails of light, like a child drawing with a highlighter. Musk is screwing astronomy with his satellites, says Nicholas Suntzeff, professor of observational astronomy at Texas A&M.

There was no other beach like Boca Chica on the entire gulf Coast Theres no replacing that, so I dont understand how it was just pissed away.

Suntzeff especially fears the potential use of satellites for corporate advertising. Next year, SpaceX plans to ferry a satellite into orbit for a company that will display images of a customers choice on the satellite in return for cryptocoin payments. The pictures will be visible only via livestream on electronic devices, but Suntzeff suspects ads will one day be seen from the ground. When you look up at the sky and instead of seeing the moon, you see Chick-Fil-A, its gonna really piss people off, he says. The sky is the heritage of all humanity and a few companies trying to make money will take that away from us.

Last, theres the long-standing overlap between space and military technologies. In the century behind us, the Nazi Wernher Von Braun invented the V-2 rocket, a long-range ballistic missile for use against the Allies that later propelled the first man-made object into space. In our current century, the American military already pays SpaceX to launch spy satellites, and the Air Force is interested in using the companys Starship to deliver large payloads all over the world.

Musk is not the first to dream of developing Boca Chica Beach. In the 1800s, a settlement called Clarksville stood where the sand meets the mouth of the Rio Grande; in the 1930s, an Army colonel from Missouri erected a small seaside resort on the beach. Both projects were ravaged by hurricanes. Musk isnt even the first rocket enthusiast to grace Boca Chica. In 1933, a skydiving exhibitionist put on a show billed as the Human Rocket, in which he leaped from a moving plane and planned to ignite fireworks with a cigar as he descended. With hundreds gathered on the beach to watch, the man vanished mid-stunt into the mist over the Gulf. Newspaper reports suggest he either drowned or fled to Mexico.

In 1954, a new bridge facilitated travel to South Padre Island, and from then on Padre became the hub for waterfront tourism and entertainment. Boca Chica was left alone to cement its identity as the poor peoples beach, free and a touch wild.

Perhaps, though, Musk will be the man to stick the landing at Boca Chica. Maybe SpaceX will avoid a serious hurricane hit, a scenario that Texas parks department has said could cause catastrophic damage. Rather than vanish in the mist, Musk might write Boca Chica into the world history books. Already, hes taken to calling the area Starbase, anddespite the fact that most of the surrounding land is owned by the state or federal governmenthe professes plans to settle a kind of company town. SpaceX has also hinted at schemes for a luxury resort.

Maybe, one day, Brownsvillians at Boca Chica will be able to stand in the shadow of a colossal Mars-bound rocket, bathed in the lights of a high-dollar hotel, watching countless satellites careen overhead like for-profit shooting stars, knowing that they were a part of history. Some locals will hold jobs at SpaceX, and a few may even be well-paid enough to buy a ride into murderous space itself. Perhaps, it will all be worth it.

Henry Garcia, a slight 55-year-old, stands in the Boca Chica surf holding his infant grandchild on a Friday evening. As the sun sets, a salty breeze erases the last of the days heat. This is where you release the stress, man, forget about everything, he says. Garcia has six more family members with him, spanning three generations, grilling chicken nearby and prepping a bonfire. Hes fed up with SpaceX disrupting the area. We want em out of here, he says. They stop us from enjoying the beach. Its all ambition.

Asked about the jobs the company brings, Garcia shrugs, then gestures across the yawning Gulf. I prefer this.

Originally posted here:
Elon Musk's SpaceX Mission Takes Flight in South Texas - The Texas Observer

September is American Month here on autoevolution, a month-long virtual celebration of all amazing things made in the grand U.S. of A. This Tesla Module Rescue, while not made in the U.S. because it doesnt even exist past its graphic representation, is a good fit because its inspired by one of the most successful, innovative and popular car brands. Its all there in the name, really.

The Tesla Module Rescue is the work of designer Victor Groten Rico for his Masters thesis. It aims to offer a solution to an increasingly widespread problem: that of offering first-aid and emergency response in a timely manner, in areas badly affected by extreme poverty, natural disasters or war conflicts. Its not a car but a mobile health camp designed for emergency remote healthcare, which rolls on tracked wheels and carries forth the Tesla overall design language and preference for minimalism.

The Tesla Module Rescue is not a real machine and it will probably never be one. Its a dream for a better, more sustainable and overall easier future, one in which people in these affected areas wont have to wait for responders to set up camp before they can get emergency aid. The idea behind it is that the Module can be shipped to land and then it can crawl on its own to its intended destination.

Once the Module arrives, it instantly becomes a permanent camp with everything needed already inside. That includes medical personnel and equipment, as well as lodging for people who might need it. Everything else can be transported on a separate convoy, and the delay wont translate into lost lives, as it is today.

The interior is described as luminous, offering comfort and space, but its also neatly thought out so that shared spaces offer plenty of privacy to occupants. It looks like Tesla and a fictional spaceships baby, with very clean lines and contrasting colors, and a massive infusion of minimalism. Aesthetic considerations aside, because they hardly matter considering its ultimate purpose, the Modules interior stands out for the smart layout of shared spaces.

One such example is the sleeping furniture, a term Rico chooses for a three-bed piece of furniture with incorporated storage and a layout that offers intimacy even at maximum occupancy. A separate command center would serve as the operations base, where meetings could be held and decisions made. It would also be the place to operate this monster machine once it had to get going again.

The Tesla Module Rescue could also work in a different scenario than the one Rico envisioned for it, if you think about it. With Tesla CEO Elon Musks determination to colonize Mars, it could serve as a mobile base once that happens, as well. Musk says the first manned missions to Mars should take place in 2025-2026, with colonization to follow suit. He still has time to ring up Rico and get the ball rolling on the Tesla Module Rescue, is what were saying.

Excerpt from:
Tesla Module Rescue Concept Is Out of This World, Gorgeous and Efficient - autoevolution

Mars Attacks has been unavailable to stream for free recently, but it returns to Netflix today, making one of Tim Burton's oddest and most interesting movies availble to a huge audience to watch for free with a subscription. The movie, which was released in1996, is a campy, violent alien invasion comedy with an all-star cast that features some Tim Burton regulars, including Batman Returns's Danny DeVito and Batman's Jack Nicholson. The movie made just about $100 million against a $70 million budget, making it a box office disappointment for Warner Bros. It also drew mixed reviews, although the 54% it has on Rotten Tomatoes is not indicative of the more generous impression of it that audiences have 25 years later.

In the film, a technologically-advanced alien race arrive on Earth, declaring they "come in peace," but when a hippie releases a dove, they incinerate it and begin slaughtering everyone in sight. The movie's lukewarm reception was likely that some of the darker humor did not sync up with expectations that were set by a colorful marketing campaign and zany promotional materials. There was plenty of off-the-wall humor, but you had to get through a lot of murder to get there.

The movie joins fellow turn-of-the-century movies like Batman Forever and Josie and the Pussycats in being lambasted at the time of release for too much camp, only to find a more appreciative audience in the internet age.

Mars Attacks is a property owned by Topps, and was created in 1962 as a series of trading cards. The creators were reportedly inspired to do so by a cover by legendary comics artist Wally Wood, from the EC series Weird Science. Topps used to publish comics themselves in the 1990s but like many other smaller publishers, folded when the market collapsed after the burst of the "collector's bubble." They presently make cards and other merchandise not only for professional sports but to maintain their other intellectual properties like Garbage Pail Kids. Both Mars Attacks and Garbage Pail Kids have been made into cult-favorite feature films.

The Mars Attacks cards form a story arc, which tell of the invasion of Earth by cruel, hideous Martians, under the command of a corrupt Martian government who conceal the fact from the Martian populace that Mars is doomed to explode and therefore proposes a colonization of Earth. The cards depict futuristic battle scenes and bizarre methods of Martian attack, torture and slaughter, as well as various Earth nations being attacked.

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This Cult-Favorite Tim Burton Movie Is Back On Streaming - ComicBook.com

The report reads: "In addition, shrimp-shaped and spiral-shaped 'worms' and oval-shaped Martian specimens with appendages similar to the pleopods of crustaceans have been observed in close proximity to the tubular structures of Endurance Crater.

"On Earth, crustaceans are often observed in close proximity to tube worm colonies.

"Morphological comparisons with terrestrial tube worms and worm tubes also indicates a close similarity to the Martian tubes and the variety of 'worms' photographed on the surface of Endurance Crater."

These are very questionable claims, however, even though the paper appears to be backed by some serious institutions.

Among the paper's listed co-authors, there are researchers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, as well as the National Center for Scientific Research in France.

The researchers allege Endurance Crater may have been the perfect melting pot for life to evolve millions of years ago, as it may have once hosted briny water heated by thermal vents.

See more here:
Life on Mars: 'Worms' and 'shrimps' spotted in scientist's bizarre study of Red Planet - Daily Express

Morris Beegle

While the marijuana industry chugs along at full speed towards what many are saying is eventual federal legalization, the hemp industry has been maturing more quietly. Hemp achieved legal status with the passage of 2018s Farm Bill, though it hasnt exactly been an easy road for the cash crop since then. Oversupply and murky legislative implementation coupled with a lack of understanding and oversight at the federal and state levels have left the industry with many challenges.

This weeks Southern Hemp Expo, which runs from September 2-4 in Raleigh, NC, hopes to address some of these challenges by bringing hemp industry leaders together to talk shop and map out the future.

Morris Beegle, co-founder and President of the We Are For Better Alternatives (WAFBA) family of brands, will be speaking at the expo. Spanning education, advocacy and entertainment, Beegle engages audiences around the world through podcasts, virtual conferences and webinars, digital and print media, radio, and live events. Under the WAFBA umbrella, Beegle produces hemp-centric events including the NoCo Hemp Expo, the Southern Hemp Expo, and the Winter Hemp Summit. He also publishes the LetsTalkHemp.com media platform. WAFBA has a products division which includes Silver Mountain Hemp Guitars, maker of hand-crafted hemp guitars, cabinets and components; Tree Free Hemp Paper and Printing company; and One Planet Hemp, an online merchandise store including apparel, posters and accessories. Put simply, Beegle is a hemp-centric jack of all trades.

Ahead of this weeks expo, I checked in with Beegle to discuss the current state of the hemp industry, including his dealings with one of the plants biggest allies, Colorado governor Jared Polis. We also talked about Beegles experience with the NoCo Hemp Expo, which happened in March and was the industrys first in-person gathering since the beginning of Covid.

Morris, you produced one of the cannabis/hemp industrys first in person events in Denver in March with NoCo Hemp Expo. What was it like to bring the community together again for the first time in over a year?

NoCo7 was over 18 months in the works due to the pandemic, which more or less shut down trade shows, conferences, concerts, sporting events and large gatherings for over a year. Finally, getting the industry back together, while still trying to get past Covid-19 and various restrictions in place, was quite a challenge to say the least.

That said, it was a show for the books having thousands of hemp industry participants back together under one roof. While the enthusiasm was different than it was in the beginning of 2019 at NoCo6, there were plenty of positives to take away from the last 2 years since the hemp-derived CBD/biomass market took a substantial hit. One of the biggest positives was people really feed off of being together and in person versus interacting via Zoom or social media. There is no truly viable replacement for live in-person events because humans are social creatures.

What was the most unique hemp based product you saw showcased at NoCo and why?

I would say the Renew Sports Car; with a body made from hemp fiber that hopes to deliver carbon negative cars by 2025. This was the first production model hemp car that Renew has created, and Im really enthusiastic to see where this technology ends up in the coming years.

Any other impressions about the event, and the future of events?

People connect and engage more when together in person versus being online and virtual. Industries across the board are anxious to get back to business face to face and shaking hands, or even bumping elbows in the interim. The feedback we have received has been quite positive and I feel good about the future of live events, at least ones that are done safely and correctly. Well see more hybrid oriented events over the next 12-24 months as the world comes out of the Covid cloud where some people are just not comfortable, or able, to participate in person. Giving people the hybrid option will allow for greater numbers of participants around the globe.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis not only attended but spoke at NoCo. Tell us about that experience. How has he shown support for the hemp industry over the years?

Governor Polis has been a longtime champion of cannabis and hemp policy and advocacy, not only on the state level here in Colorado, but on the national front as a congressman for 10 years before becoming governor. He has spoken numerous times at our NoCo Hemp Expos and has really stood up for the vast benefits and positives of both hemp and cannabis legalization while consistently pointing out the negative consequences of prohibition and the war on drugs that have wreaked havoc on human society.

Ive seen you champion the Hemp Revolution. What is that exactly? And, why is hemp so important to the future of humanity?

In my opinion, the Hemp Revolution began with the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer. Since its original release in 1985, the movement around the plant and all that it can do for humanity has blossomed like a rich, aromatic, terpene and trichome heavy cannabis flower. And since the 2014 Farm Bill opened up hemp pilot programs across the United States and the 2018 Farm Bill fully legalized hemp at the federal level, the enthusiasm and innovation around all that hemp can do has skyrocketed.

The plant has brought together all sides of the political spectrum, which we know is an anomaly in today's landscape of left versus right versus centrist. After more than a year of a global pandemic and the glaring environmental and food system problems that exist throughout the world, it has become clear that bold solutions are needed to change the course of human activities so that we have a planet that can sustain our species for centuries and millennia to come.

One of those solutions, and a very important one, is hemp. Not only because of its ability to help heal the earth as an organic and regeneratively grown agricultural crop, but because of the thousands of products that can be made from it. And beyond that, there is a platform that now exists to not only talk about hemp, but to talk about many other alternatives that are better environmental options and are needed to make change so that humanity can continue.

Whats one thing someone reading this interview can do to honor our planet?

Make a personal commitment to becoming a better steward of the planet. Take responsibility for your own impact. Get involved with an organization or multiple organizations that have a mission to improve the environment of the Earth as its the only planet we have. While Elon Musk directs his resources to colonize and terraform Mars, my resources which currently, are substantially less than Elons are directed towards saving what we have right here and right now. Im looking for an army of leaders and advocates to join WAFBA in this mission.

Lets talk about rock n roll for a minute. Youre a big fan of music, used to work in music, and have bridged your past experiences in music with your current role in the hemp industry with your hemp guitar company Silver Mountain Hemp. Hows the hemp guitar scene going? And what else are you doing to infuse rock n roll into WAFBA?

Over the last 4-5 years, slow and steady progress on the hemp guitars, amps and cabinets has been made. Lots of prototypes and R&D to this point, but weve finally got things down where we are now able to take orders on-demand through our Silver Mountain Hemp Custom Shop. We have multiple color options, pickup configurations and 2 different HempCaster body styles including the V1 and V2. In addition, we have hemp amps, combo amps and cabinets and are now ready for maximum volume at all times!

We also infuse a heavy dose of rock n roll energy into WAFBA with our merchandise line at One Planet Hemp including our NoCo7 Rise Up Hemp and Destroy hat. We incorporate live music and independent artists and creators as often as possible with our events, and we are venturing into promoting local, regional and national concerts and live music whenever possible. I liken the WAFBA approach to creating a Lollapalooza type energy within the hemp and cannabis space.

Whats next for WAFBAs network of events in 2021, and how can people stay informed about the hemp industry, future of sustainability?

Our next big event is the 3rd Annual Southern Hemp Expo (SHE3), which we are moving from Nashville to Raleigh, NC at the beginning of September. We will be at the convention center there, and we are expecting this event to be bigger than NoCo Hemp Expo 2021 as the pandemic should hopefully be much more under control by the end of summer.

Other events we are organizing or partnering with include:

Check out our community event site at http://www.hempevents.org for additional hemp and cannabis events from around the world.

Stay informed on hemp industry news, events, lifestyle, education and more at http://www.letstalkhemp.com a media platform dedicated to helping humanity survive and thrive and helping the planet heal.

Excerpt from:
Southern Hemp Expo Takes Place In Raleigh This Week - Forbes

NASA is planning on returning to the moon one day and when they do, the goal is to colonize it and build a community, which is absolutely fascinating. The future of space travel is exciting and NASA has released a video that explains why they are returning to the moon after all these years.

The video, which was narrated by Drew Barrymore, came with the following note:

The Artemis missions will build a community on the Moon, driving a new lunar economy and inspiring a new generation. Narrator Drew Barrymore and NASA team members explain why returning to the Moon is the natural next step in human exploration, and how the lessons learned from Artemis will pave the way to Mars and beyond. As NASA prepares to launch the Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket on the uncrewed Artemis I mission around the Moon, weve already begun to take the next step.

Watch the video and let us know what your thoughts are on the future of NASA and their plans to return to the moon.

Originally posted here:
NASA Shares Video Explaining Why We Are Returning To The Moon To Colonize It GeekTyrant - GeekTyrant

Aug 22 Full Moon

Mon Aug 23, 2021 RAY BRADBURY AND MARS

The science fiction and fantasy writer Ray Bradbury was born on August 22nd, 1920. He began his career by writing short stories for pulp magazines such as Weird Tales, Planet Stories and Galaxy Science Fiction. He also wrote, Fahrenheit 451, R is for Rocket, and The Golden Apples of the Sun. His book, The Martian Chronicles, came out in 1950; it was a series of related short stories about the colonization of the planet Mars, something which is very much in the news these days. Bradbury envisioned terraforming Mars, also being discussed lately. While building pressure domes and living underground on Mars is perhaps achievable, trying to restore a viable Martian atmosphere is still well beyond our current technology, and at the moment, Mars itself is also out of sight, as its behind the sun, on the opposite side of the solar system from where we are. Well, like Bradbury, we can dream!

Tue Aug 24, 2021 THE PLUTO VOTE

Fifteen years ago today, in the year 2006, members of the International Astronomical Union, or the IAU, voted Pluto out of the planet club. At the time the IAU had about 10,000 astronomers as members, but on the last day of their conference in Prague, only 424 of them participated in the voting. Thats a little over 4 percent turnout for the vote, and yes, you had to be in the room to vote no absentee ballots. Does this sound like scientists arent any different from your average politician? Yes it does. And thats because scientists are people too, and therefore can be just as mean, stubborn and stupid as anybody else on the planet. Members of the American Astronomical Society werent happy about the vote. Neither was Alan Stern, the principal scientist who oversaw the successful New Horizons mission to Pluto that took place in 2015, revealing an incredible world with nitrogen ice plains and great water ice mountains.

Wed Aug 25, 2021 ORION AFTER MIDNIGHT

Orion the Hunter has been absent from our evening skies for a couple of months now. If you want to find him tonight, youll have to go out long after midnight. He rises out of the east around 3 am, and climbs up into the southeastern sky as dawn approaches. If youd rather see Orion during the evening hours, then youll have to wait until October, and even then it wont be just after sunset, but in the late evening. As the year and the seasons progress, the earths revolution carries us around the sun: stars behind the sun cannot be seen until the earth takes us a little farther along the orbital path, which changes the suns position against the background of stars. This summers evening skies feature such constellations as Libra the Scales, Scorpius the Scorpion, Sagittarius the Archer, Hercules, (one of the ancient worlds greatest heroes,) Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, Lyra the Harp, Aquila the Eagle and Cygnus the Swan.

Thu Aug 26, 2021 THE CRAB NEBULA

On the night of August 28th in the year 1758, the Crab Nebula was discovered with a telescope. The nebula's discoverer, Charles Messier of France, thought at first that it was a comet, which when seen far out in space, resembles a small fuzzy splotch of light. But unlike comets, this fuzzy object didn't move against the starry background. Hour after hour, night after night, the thing refused to budge. Disappointed in his failure to find a new comet, Messier catalogued this object as Messier #1, or M-1, and from then on, whenever he saw it, he quickly moved on to more promising candidates. But when bigger and better telescopes were invented, other astronomers found that M-1, the Crab Nebula, is more impressive than any comet: it is the exploded remains of a star that went supernova. Tonight M-1 can be found, with a telescope, low in the east northeast, a little after 1 AM, behind the forward horn tip of Taurus the Bull.

Fri Aug 27, 2021 KRAKATOA

On August 27, 1883, the volcano known as Krakatoa exploded, creating the loudest sound ever heard in recorded history. Australians, nearly 3,000 miles away, heard it. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives, either directly from the heat of the blast of from falling debris, or from the resulting tsunami activity. Shock waves from the event traveled around the world, and volcanic ash blanketed thousands of miles of the earth. The ash and the explosive gases from the eruption sailed high up into the atmosphere, and for the next year, the earths average temperature dropped by over a couple of degrees Fahrenheit. It also resulted in months of spectacular, colorful sunsets across the planet. Dozens of years later, the shattered remnants of Krakatoa grew a new mountain, named Anak Krakatau, the child of Krakatoa. In December 2018, the child erupted, and more tsunamis caused still more death and devastation throughout Indonesia.

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Skywatch for the week of August 23, 2021 - WQCS

When the commercial space firms Dragon spacecraft launches Saturday, it will be loaded with experiments dedicated to probing everything from bone and eye health to the dexterity of robots.

SpaceX is targeting Saturday for the launch of its next resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), and it plans to have some fascinating scientific experiments in tow.

When the commercial space firms Dragon spacecraft launches along with its Falcon rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the United States, it will be loaded with research projects dedicated to exploring everything from astronauts bone and eye health to the dexterity of robots and how plants handle stress, NASA announced ahead of the launch.

It will also include an experiment dedicated plant growth, ant colonization, and the brine shrimp lifecycle designed by a group of Girl Scouts from central Florida, the US space agency confirmed.

It is the 23rd resupply mission to the ISS carried out by Elon Musks SpaceX, and its launch is targeted for 3:37am local time (07:37 GMT) on Saturday.

One experiment will use metabolites created as byproducts during winemaking to see whether substances such as antioxidants formed when food is broken down might protect bones during spaceflight, according to NASA.

Another experiment sponsored by the European Space Agency, the European Astronaut Centre and the German Aerospace Centers Institute of Space Medicine will use a small device to take images of the retinas of astronauts eyes to check them for spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS).

The condition is thought to be associated with long-duration exposure to microgravity and affects more than two-thirds of astronauts, principal investigator Juergen Drescher said in the press release.

Currently, visual problems that may manifest from SANS are mitigated by providing glasses or contact lenses to crew members, Drescher explained. Multi-year missions to Mars may worsen these symptoms, and there is a need for a mobile device for retinal image diagnostics.

That technology could eventually be used both in space and here on Earth, he added.

An experiment from space robotics startup Gitai Japan Inc will test out the dexterity and manoeuvrability of a robotic arm inside the Bishop Airlock, a pressurised environment.

Gitais Chief Technology Officer Toyotaka Kozuki said in the press release that the robot could provide an inexpensive and safer source of labor in space, opening the door to the true commercialization of space. On Earth, it could be used to help in disaster relief efforts or nuclear emergencies where sending in humans to help could be dangerous.

Additional experiments on Saturdays mission include an investigation aimed at testing the strength of materials such as concrete, 3D printed polymers, fibreglass composites and more in space and a study on how to help plants handle microgravity stress in space.

NASA said the Dragon spacecraft will also carry supplies and hardware for the crew currently based at the ISS.

In addition to serving as a taxi service to the ISS, SpaceX has scored a number of major NASA contracts recently, including one to help explore Jupiters fourth-largest moon, Europa.

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Robot, plants to blast off on upcoming SpaceX mission to ISS - Al Jazeera English

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What's In a Place Name? One History or Another - TheTyee.ca

When news of China becoming the second nation after the United States to land a rover on Mars reached us, some were quick to slam what is otherwise a tremendous achievement for a country that is relatively new to this whole space exploration thing. And others wished the small Chinese rover all the worst, betting it wont be long until it breaks down.

For all intents and purposes, the Zhurong is now a few days past its expected demise date. But just a few days seem to be enough for the Chinese to dream about exploring Mars further, now that theyre there and have a working machine on the surface.

In the time it spent on the planet, the rover recorded according to CNSA about 10 GB of data about the planet, and covered a distance of roughly 900 meters (2,953 feet), completing all of its tasks in the process. Those numbers will likely increase, as the things operators here on Earth will now point it at an ancient coastal area of Utopia Planitia.

Come mid-September, the rover will be put to sleep until late October due to the anticipated disruption of its communications with Earth caused by solar electromagnetic radiation. After that, it is expected to resume normal operations.

Since the exploration of the Red Planet began, humans landed six rovers on the planet, five of which belong to the United States. No matter how you feel about it, more nations achieving the same can do nothing but advance our common goals, which are in the mid-term the discovery of signs of life there, and in the longer term the colonization of the planet.

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Chinese Zhurong Rover Is Killing It on Mars, Exceeds Life Expectancy and Keeps Going - autoevolution