Category Archives: Mars Colonization

NASA and its partner agencies should retire the International Space Station and focus on getting astronauts to Mars instead, Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin said.

If NASA and its partner agencies are serious about putting boots on Mars in the near future, they should pull the plug on the International Space Station (ISS) at the earliest opportunity, Buzz Aldrin said.

"We must retire the ISS as soon as possible," the former Apollo 11 moonwalker said Tuesday (May 9) during a presentation at the 2017 Humans to Mars conference in Washington, D.C. "We simply cannot afford $3.5 billion a year of that cost."

Instead, Aldrin said, NASA should continue to hand over activities in low Earth orbit (LEO) to private industry partners. Indeed, the space agency has been encouraging that move by awarding contracts to companies such as SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Boeing to ferry cargo and crew to and from the ISS. [Buzz Aldrin's Visions for Mars (Video)]

Bigelow Aerospace,Axiom Spaceor other companies should build and operate LEO space stations that are independent of the ISS, he added. Ideally, the first of these commercial outposts would share key orbital parameters with the station that China plans to have up and running by the early 2020s, to encourage cooperation with the Chinese, Aldrin said.

Establishing private outposts in LEO is just the first step in Aldrin's plan for Mars colonization, which depends heavily on "cyclers" spacecraft that move continuously between two cosmic destinations, efficiently delivering people and cargo back and forth.

"The foundation of human transportation is the cycler," the 87-year-old former astronaut said. "Very rugged, so it'll last 30 years or so; no external moving parts."

Step two involves the international spaceflight community coming together to build cyclers that ply cislunar space, taking people on trips to the moon and back. Such spacecraft, and the activities they enable, would allow the construction of a crewed lunar base, where humanity could learn and test the techniques required for Mars colonization, such as how to manufacture propellant from local resources, Aldrin said.

Then would come Earth-Mars cyclers, which Aldrin described as "an evolutionary development" of the prior cyclers.

Aldrin foresees these various cycler iterations enabling a crewed mission to a near-Earth asteroid by 2020 and a Venus flyby by 2024. If all goes well, the first future Mars settlers could launch in the early 2030s, he said.

And they will be settlers, not just visitors, if Aldrin's vision comes to pass.

"Let's be certain that we've developed a sustainable plan to stay on Mars," he said. "No flags and footprints this time."

The ISS is currently funded through 2024, and officials of NASA, the Russian federal space agency and other partners have floated the possibility of extending the $100 billion outpost's life through 2028. NASA officials have repeatedly said that the ISS is a key part of the agency's "Journey to Mars" vision, which aims to get astronauts to the vicinity of the Red Planet sometime in the 2030s.

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Buzz Aldrin to NASA: Retire the International Space Station ASAP to Reach Mars - Space.com

An artists conception of the UAE colony on Mars. Image courtesy of the Dubai Government Media Office.

The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has revealed further details behind the grand vision to colonise Mars by 2117 set out by their Highnesses Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in February 2017.

Speaking to an audience at the Humans To Mars Summit held in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2017, Saeed Al Gergawi, Programme Director of the Mars 2117 Programme at the MBRSC, said, In the UAEwe believe that we are on the cusp of a new age of exploration. Theres a new space race that affects literally every human on Earth.

In the UAE, we live in a rough neighborhood, Al Gergawi added. Our neighborhood has over 100 million youth, with over 35 percent unemployment.

This high rate of youth unemployment in the region has a well-known negative impact such as radicalisation and even terrorism, Al Gergawi explained. One of the rationales for the Mars 2117 programme, however, is to turn the circumstances of young people in the Middle East into a positive impact that engages them in meaningful goals involving education in science and technology.

This is the impact were betting on, said Al Gergawi.

We want to enable the youth to play an active role in advancing the global efforts toward enhancing the Red Planet and other planetary bodies,

The Mars 2117 initiative was announced at the MBRSC facilities in Dubai by their Highnesses Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, on February 16, 2017.

The new project is a seed that we plant today, and we expect future generations to reap the benefits, driven by its passion to learn to unveil a new knowledge, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum said at the time. The landing of people on other planets has been a longtime dream for humans. Our aim is that the UAE will spearhead international efforts to make this dream a reality.

The Mars 2117 Project is a long term project, where our first objective is to develop our educational system so our sons will be able to lead scientific research across the various sectors. The UAE became part of a global scientific drive to explore the space, and we hope to serve humanity through this project, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan added.

The first phase of the project will focus on preparing the human cadres able to achieve scientific breakthrough to facilitate the arrival of human to the Red Planet in the next decades. The Mars 2117 Project also aims to prepare an Emiratis scientists team and to develop an international scientific consortium to speed up the research project. The project will start with an Emiratis scientific team and will be extended to include international scientists and researchers, in addition to streamline the human efforts in term of exploring and settlement of the Red Planet.

The project will also focus on developing faster means of transportation from and to the Red Planet, and come up with an integrated scientific visualization of how the settlement will look like, and how life will be there in term of food, transportation and energy among many others.

Earlier, an Emirati team of engineers, along with a group of scientists and researchers, have set a concept for the first human city on mars that will be built by robots. The plan showcased during the summit highlighted the expected lifestyle on Mars in terms of transport, power production and providing food, as well as infrastructure works and materials used for the construction of the city.

MBRSCs Al Gergawi told the Humans To Mars Summit that the Mars 2117 Programme rests on four pillars: research and development, where the UAE contributes to global efforts to colonise Mars; collaboration, where this colonization is achieved through international partnerships with other governments, universities, and research institutes; education programmes that embed a culture of discovery and exploration among young people in the Middle East; and, through education, enable young people from the region to engage and participate in global scientific efforts.

Original published at: https://spacewatchme.com/2017/05/uaes-mbrsc-reveals-details-mars-2117-colonisation-programme/

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UAE's MBRSC Reveals Further Details About Its Mars 2117 ... - SpaceWatch Middle East (press release) (subscription) (blog)

Still courtesy of Tesla/Vimeo

Elon Musk has been lauded as one of the most visionary minds in Silicon Valley. He champions electric cars, renewable energy and the colonization of Mars (dont get me started on that), and has been positioned as the modern Steve Jobs. Robert Downey Jr.s depiction of Iron Man is loosely based on Musks billionaire genius playboy archetype.

Yet for all his brilliance, he seems to have a very hard time accepting the physical limitations of geometry, and for that his employees have suffered.

Recent photos of the parking lot of the Tesla facility in Fremont, California, provide a concrete example of the result of this mindset. You may have seen these images when they went viral recently: workers vehicles crammed into the too-small factory parking lot, and cars ignoring the painted lines and filling the roads around the facility. One wonders if Musk reimburses his employees for how his failed parking lot is damaging their cars.

This isnt the first piece of evidence that Musk is geometrically challenged. Last year, Jarrett Walker critiqued his plan to move everyone out of public transit and into driverless cars as a disaster that would be fine for low-density outer suburbia and rural areas but that would not work in cities.

Why? Because space is severely limited in cities, and taking everyone out of public transit and putting them in individual self-driving pods would require vastly more space to transport the same number of people. Beyond inefficient, Musks vision would put more cars on the road and create a lot of pissed-off drivers who have to wait in traffic. The issues in the Tesla parking lot would be transplanted into major cities.

Walker blames Musks ignorance of geometry on the mindset that dominates the tech industryits marketing departments in particular, which cater to the whims of the elite. But society can never be sustainable if everyone lives like those at the top, and its pretty clear that elite lifestyles are core to the visions of Musks companies.

Teslas first car was the Roadster, an expensive sports car that sold the idea that an electric vehicle could be cool and powerful but that, at $109,000, was available to a wealthy few. Now Musk is taking electric cars to the masses (at least the upper-middle-class ones) with the $35,000 Model 3. Still, merely switching everyone from gas to electric cars would not be a sustainable solution; healthy cities require fewer cars overall, as anyone who has tried to drive in car-choked San Francisco can attest. For cities to remain good places to live, citizens need to be able to move around them efficiently, which means fewer cars and more public transit, cycling and walking.

There are similar problems with Musks other company, solar-system installer SolarCity. Its technology works great for large single-family homes in suburban and rural areas, but its pretty tough for city dwellers to affix solar panels to the balconies of their high-rise condos and apartments. With Tesla and SolarCity, Musk is pushing for a version of a green future that works only for rich people like him or in areas that arent densely populated. Its not a lifestyle that can be adopted by the masses.

And you could even say the same thing about SpaceX, Musks rocket company, which, according to him, will one day lead the way in colonizing Mars. Yet his vision of how the colonization of Mars could happen is predicated entirely upon the ability of rich tourists to pay their way there. Similarly, it is more of a vision of Elysium than Athens.

Essentially, as the world undergoes a rapid urbanization, Musk is pitching solutions that work only for a small (and shrinking) percentage of the population. Yet he seems either oblivious or indifferent to this fact. On the basis of his statements, it seems more like hes indifferent. Why? Tunnels.

Because Musk doesnt like sitting in traffic himself, he announced that he plans to simply bore a series of tunnelsup to 40 levels of them in some areasthat would magically fix the traffic problem. This could be seen as mere ignorance, since it has been proven time and time again that building more roads makes traffic worse, but it seems quite clear that he was mainly looking out for himself. If he ever does start boring tunnels commerciallyand I dont think he ever willyou can be absolutely certain they wont be open for everyone like public roads and highways are. And just think about the engineering that would be involved. Are we really going to build 40 levels of tunnels below our cities just so we can all drive (or be driven in) individual vehicles, or will we finally eject cars from our cities and embrace means of transit that are not only more efficient but also healthier for us? It seems like an easy decision.

Theres no denying that Musk has executed some brilliant ideas, even if hes tried to downplay how reliant his companies are on government subsidies, but his elite vision of a future based on a nostalgic revival of cookie-cutter postwar suburbs with a sustainable twist simply does not fit the trend toward dense mega-cities where personal vehicles are a wasteful luxury. Instead, solutions must be focused on improving quality of life for as many people as possible while using the smallest amount of space.

Musks evacuated-tunnel rapid-transit-system concept, Hyperloop, may be the most promising of his ideas in such a future, yet its also been criticized as a pie-in-the-sky idea that serves only to distract from the more achievable high-speed rail. Musk also hasnt even shown much personal interest in pursuing the project. Not flashy enough, or not enough subsidies? We may never know.

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For All of Elon Musk's Brilliance, He Can't Grasp This Fundamental Concept - thebolditalic

This is a series around POWER, a Motherboard 360/VR documentary about nuclear energy. Follow along here.

Comic book logic dictates that a high dose of radiation will turn you in the Hulk, Godzilla, Radioactive Man, or any number of other radiation-induced superbeings. In real life, it's more likely to be a cause of deleterious mutations than a shortcut to enhanced abilities, as shown by major ecological damage in nuclear meltdown fallout zones, like Chernobyl and Fukushima.

These contaminated regions have become a popular destination for scientists interested in the immediate and long-term impact of radiation on wildlife, which has led to the formation of intriguing niche disciplines, like radioecology and radiobiology.

Watch more on Motherboard in 360/VR: Nuclear From Above

Understanding how living organisms adapt to radiation doses has a range of applications, from medicine to conservation, but one of the most overlooked is preparation for long-duration human space missions and interplanetary colonization, both of which involve sustained exposure to higher radiation doses than what we experience on Earth's surface.

An experiment conducted on the International Space Station (ISS) last year examined this idea with the help of eight fungi species sourced from the Chernobyl exclusion zone. These strains sprung up in the wake of the 1986 meltdown, and two of them Cladosporium mouldsseem to prefer radioactive surfaces. The fungal samples were curated by a team led by Kasthuri Venkateswaran, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who goes by Venkat for short.

Read More: Chernobyl Microbes Are Heading to the International Space Station

"The radiation seen at Chernobyl is high, but this black fungi popped up first [after the meltdown] compared even to the bacteria," Venkat told me over the phone. "That is how we selected those fungi, from such a radiation-rich environment. These fungi persisted due to some sort of protein-coding and biomolecule information that protect against the radiation level."

Would ingesting such a hardy mould give one radioactive superpowers? Not quiteor more accurately, not yet. The eventual goal of Venkat's research is to develop a fungi-based "sunblock" for outer space radiation that could be used to protect humans from the harmful effects of long-term exposure. The fungi was returned to Earth just a few months ago, so the results are preliminary, but Venkat and his colleagues are eager to pursue the research further.

"We have to take all the precautions before building a human habitation on Mars and beyond," he told me.

Watch Motherboard's six-part POWER series in 360/VR here.

In addition to helping humans become more radiation-resistant, studying the wildlife in fallout regions can also yield insight into engineering crops that can survive the radiation environment beyond Earthespecially highly irradiated worlds like those in the Jupiter system.

Cladosporium mould. Image: Medmyco

The Chernobyl exclusion zone is significantly more radioactive than the interior of proposed long-duration spacecraft, which makes it a bad direct analogy to outer space. But the ways in which crops develop tolerance to contaminated environments is rich with clues about surviving sustained doses of cosmic radiation.

"Radiation-resistant genes can be incorporated into yeast cells that produce beer so that humans are willing to go to spacethey will have a better beer to drink," Venkat said, as one example.

Fallout zones are also useful testbeds for studying astrobiological questions about the search for aliens on other worlds, and the origins of life on our own planet. Flax crops grown at Chernobyl in the decades since the meltdown have demonstrated increasing resistance to contamination, for instance, leading some researchers to wonder if their genes are a kind of vestigial time capsule to the dawn of life on Earth.

"My favorite speculation is that when life on Earth was evolving, radioactivity was much more present on Earth's surface than is today," Martin Hajduch, a senior scientist at the Slovak Academy of Sciences' Institute of Plant Genetics and Biotechnology, said of his research into Chernobyl flax. "And so the plants are somehow 'remembering' it, [which is] what helped them to adapt in Chernobyl's radioactive area."

In this way, the world's worst nuclear disasters, which have threatened the health of our planet, may now help us understand our origins on Earth, and learn to survive the harsh conditions beyond it.

Subscribe to Science Solved It, Motherboard's new show about the greatest mysteries that were solved by science.

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Radiation-Resistant Mutants at Chernobyl Pave the Way for Life on Mars - Motherboard

When I first spoke with Gene Giacomelli, he was overlooking an earthbound vineyard.

Wine tasting that afternoon in Californias Napa Valley, Giacomellis first mission was to visit his son, a viticulturist. But the plant scientist claimed his weekend would also be spent conducting important scientific research. "Of course, some day, were going to be bottling wine on another planet," he said from his perch in the back of a pickup truck.

For more than a decade, Giacomelli has overseen a project with the National Science Foundation to grow food on Antarctica, which NASA and others see as a fitting facsimile of what life might be like on the moon and Mars. While the public goal of the project is to better understand how farming would work in outer space, Giacomelli also hopes to improve farming here on Earth. Turns out, these goals may soon converge. If humankind can be convinced its too soon to abandon this planet for the next, developments in farming for Mars could come home to roost in Napa Valleyand around the country.

As just about everyone already knows, this planet is currently experiencing some pretty unprecedented challenges. So much so that Stephen Hawking claimed this week that we only have 100 years to get humans set up elsewhere in the galaxy or our entire species will face extinction. His statement is rather dubious, but it's true that our future looks pretty bleak.

Take California. Until this winter, the state had been suffocated by drought for years. The lack of rainwater led to an overuse of groundwater reservoirs on agricultural lands. Now, the states fertile inland valley is actually sinkingas fast 2 feet per yearas the water table deflates like a perforated balloon beneath the surface. And while the drought was temporarily abated by a recent snowstorm, by most estimates it's soon to return. Quite frankly, the state's future looks a lot like modern Mars.

The fourth planet has no known sources of ready water, and regular dust storms engulf large swaths of the planet. To terraform it, we'd need nuclear weapons or artificially-stimulated global warming. Even then, these processes could take as long as 100,000 years to make the planet even close to habitable. California may be drying up, but it still provides our nation with everything from almonds and avocados, while growing even the sturdiest cactusa plant known for being the exact opposite of high maintenanceis difficult to imagine in Mar's Borealis basin.

And yet, many seem to have given up on Californias pernicious problems, while holding onto Mars as an innovators playground. With the right guy and a good plan, the narrative seems to go, our nearest neighbor will be habitable shortly. Self-appointed space colonization poster boy Elon Musk is actively testing space radiation-resistant jumpsuits and rockets meant to take us to Mars. NASA and the European Space Agency have joined him in the craze, running their own lunar greenhouses and new rovers through the ringer.

Amidst the horror and hoopla, a question is begging to be asked: If we believe we can feed a small colony of human beings with food grown on an inhospitable, waterless, and oxygen-free wasteland, why can't we find ways to keep farming going on the planet we already know? Put more glibly, what's really the difference between living sustainably on Mars today or in California in 100 years?

Its not exactly a technological barrier. If someone says getting to Mars is, at the present moment, easier than improving the planet we're already on, they're probably lying. Besides, the lofty goals of off-Earthers like Musk have only been bolstered by real and relatively recent technological breakthroughs on this planet. When you do look outward you come up with a lot of innovations, as we have in the space program, says NASAs former historian Steven Dick. In the 1990s, LED lights were patented for plant growth and have allowed farmers to grow more and larger plants in less space and time. The development of hydroponic techniqueswhere plants are grown without soilis allowing astronauts on the International Space Station to grow their own salad mix in zero gravity.

Giacomelli and his team have incorporated these and other innovations into their design of a proposed closed loop lunar greenhouse. In theory, astronauts could grow half of the food they need each day and generate all of the water they need to drink and oxygen they need to breathe while living on Mars. Think of it as a biological robot, Giacomelli says of his system, which he imagines would be an 18 by 8 foot cylinder, about the size of a backyard swimming pool. An astronauts urine would be cleaned and processed and fed to plants. The plants would grow hydroponically and be fed by LED lights powered by solar panels, or even a portable nuclear reactor. As the plants grow, they would produce humidity, which would be extracted and condensed into drinking water. The cycle would repeat over and over. Youll keep the plants alive and theyll keep you alive, Giacomelli says.

But after years spent refining the idea, Giacomellis prototype remains just thata proof of concept, not a real, mean green-making machine. Though we could use the system here and now, the will to implement the technology on Earth seems limited to Giacomelli himself. He says the system will likely remain a figment until NASA or some other agency pens its charter to Mars.

Other space-y farm ventures have experienced similar skepticism from earthlings. When Dickson Despommier first proposed the idea of a vertical farm, people were certainly intrigued. But they considered it more of a science project than a viable agricultural revolution. They thought farming was such a natural thing to do that, How could you put that into a building? Despommier says. They dont think about the Dust Bowl, they dont think about crop failure, about drought in California, about pests and locusts and birds eating the seeds. We neglect to think of all of the unnatural things weve already done, he argues, and the great challenges nature continues to pose.

In the intervening decades, vertical farmingwhich involves densely stacking crops in enclosed spaces and using hydroponic and LED techniques to grow themhas failed to revolutionize farming. But it is an increasingly important part of a slowly diversifying agricultural sector. There are about 100 farms in operation in the United States today, Despommier says, and many more dotting the globe. Simple greenhouses that rely on sunlight and traditional fertilizers have been adopted more widely, with more than 230 million square feet of greenhouse production domestically. Though still dependent on natural forces like light, greenhouses are a necessary link in the evolution of farming, allowing once-seasonal crops like tomatoes to be grown year round.

Thats partly because the produce from a greenhouse is equal to outdoor agriculture in cost, but vertical farming and other space-age techniques are still priceythough no longer prohibitively so. Daniel Schubert, a space farm expert with the German Space Agency, has conducted two studies to analyze this persistent economic gap. Five years ago, he found that growing organic matter with hydroponics and LED lights cost $12.80 more per kilo than traditional farming in the German countryside. This was disappointing, but he predictedand has come to provethe price would even out as the tools of the trade became more widely available and farmers became more efficient in this new medium. Last fall, a new study revealed the current cost is just $3.20 more per kilo, and likely to continue to drop. He thinks this shows technology designed for the far reaches of space can be implemented in our own neighborhood.

In addition to these breakthroughs, there are a million other earthbound farming innovations currently underway. In Italy, researchers are testing the watersliterallyto see if underwater farming is actually viable. Monsanto and other researchers are working on developing salt and drought resistant seeds.

Despite this upward trend for alternative agricultural methods, things still seem to be moving faster on Musks drafting table for Mars than they are on the ground in California. Dangerous disruptions to Earths ancient equilibriums, meanwhile, are occurring at a faster pace than ever. In the next century, California is likely to become even more resistant to our current practices unless past carbon emissions are reabsorbed and future footprints reduced. And Mars is likely to remain inhospitable, even if a manned mission finally breaches its thin and dusty atmosphere.

Dick, the space historian, is right that we are pushed to innovate when we think about whats new and next. But I can't be the only one who feels a little dry and deflatedlike the chalky space ice cream we sampled as kidswhen faced with the prospect of giving up on this planet in pursuit of another one. Maybe we should reflect on what colonizing almost every inch of Earth has done to the planet before we head off to next one. And maybe what we need to discover isn't the promise of a new planet, but the resolve to rectify the mistakes weve already made.

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Learning to farm on Mars could actually save agriculture on Earth - Popular Science

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By Andrew Follett

Building structures on Mars for future astronauts to live and work in could be much easier than scientists previously believed, according to a new study.

University of California-San Diego scientists were able to create sturdy bricks out of simulated Martian soil without using an adhesive. In fact, making small bricks on Mars was easier than doing so on Earth, researchers wrote in their study.

Experts on Mars colonization think this could be a huge breakthrough.

The question of whether an environment is habitable or not is only partially a function of the nature of the environment itself, Dr. Robert Zubrin, who helped design plans for NASAs manned mission to Mars and wrote the The Case For Mars, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. It is also a function of the ingenuity of the would-be settler.

Researchers scooped soil into into a rubber case, then compacted it. Iron oxide in the faux Martian soil seemingly caused the bricks to stick together without adhesive, according to the study. The ability to use native soils in construction could greatly simplify a long-term manned mission to Mars.

Other researchers have shown how we can make fuel, oxygen, food, plastics, and even steel on Mars, Zubrin said. These folks have shown a way to make bricks, providing another excellent addition to the Martian settlers tool kit. It is work like this that will help make the Red Planet a new home for humanity.

Zubrin said its easier to maintain a human settlement on Mars than it would be to colonize the moon or other celestial bodies.

Unlike the Moon, Mars has all the raw materials both the elements of life, including hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, as well as the elements of industry we need, but it is human inventiveness that transforms these raw materials into useful resources, Zubrin said.

bricksmarsMartian soil

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Study: You Can Easily Make Bricks On Mars, And That's A Big Deal - The Libertarian Republic

Beau Willimon, who created Netflixs House of Cards, is heading over to Hulu for his next project.

Hulu has given a straight-to-series order to The First, a drama set in the near future about the first human mission to Mars. The series exploresthe challenges of taking the first steps toward interplanetary colonization.

Willimon created and wrote The First and will serve as executive producer, alongside his producing partner Jordan Tappis. The duos company Westward Productions will produce and own the show, which will be co-financed by Hulu, Channel 4 and IMG.

Its a story about the human spirit, said Willimon. About our indomitable need to reach for unknown horizons. About people working toward the greatest pioneering achievement in human history. And about the cost of that vision, the danger and sacrifice emotional, psychological, and physical thats required to achieve it. How ordinary, imperfect people band together and overcome a myriad of obstacles to grasp the extraordinary.

Getting into business with Hulu is an interesting move for Willimon, who departed his own show, House of Cards, ahead of its fifth season, which is set to debut later this month. Debuting in 2013 before original streaming content and platforms were the norm, House of Cards marked the first original series for Netflix, and Willimon cemented his place in TV history.

Along with announcing The First, Hulu also greenlit Marvels Runaways today at its Upfront presentation.

The First is set to go into production later this year, and is slated to premiere in 2018.

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'The First': Hulu Greenlights Mars Series From Beau Willimon | Variety - Variety

A team of NASA-funded researchers from UC San Diego, and led by structural engineer Yu Qiao, made the surprising discovery using simulated Martian soil -- that's dirt from Earth which has nearly the same physical and chemical properties. They found that by compressing the simulant under high pressure, it readily created blocks stronger than steel-reinforced concrete.

This isn't the first time that researchers have attempted to create building materials from native resources on alien worlds. Last year, a team from Northwestern University figured out that you could create concrete by mixing Martian soil with molten sulphur. Qi's own team had previously sought to make bricks from lunar soil material, managing to reduce the amount of binder needed from 15 percent of the final weight to just 3 percent, before turning their attention to the red stuff.

Interestingly, it's the red stuff itself (specifically, iron oxide) that enables Martian soil's compression trick. Iron oxide cracks and shears easily when crushed and its resulting surfaces tend to be angular and flat. When those broad surfaces are subsequently smashed together with sufficient force, they form strong bonds that don't require a binding agent.

While the research team still needs to confirm that the soil property holds up on the macro level (they only made very small bricks during this experiment), Qi figures that if it does, future manned missions to Mars could use soil as the source material for additive manufacturing efforts. And why not? We've already done it with other alien metals.

The rest is here:
Mars-like soil makes super strong bricks when compressed - Engadget

A starship captains most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.James T. Kirk

Though it is held sacred and the world of Star Trek, NASA may not adhere to the Prime Directive concerning human activity on Mars.

On a panel titled Journey to Mars at this past weekends Silicon Valley Comic-Con, a NASA terraforming expert explained that their mission on the planet would be in opposition to the Prime Directive, according to a recap of the event on Outer Places.

According to Memory Alphas definition, the Prime Directive is embodiment of one of Starfleets most important ethical principles: noninterference with other cultures and civilizations. At its core was the philosophical concept that covered personnel should refrain from interfering in the natural, unassisted, development of societies, even if such interference was well-intentioned.

We should try to make [Mars] a planet that is rich and diverse in life, the NASA representative stated. When asked by an attendee about the Prime Directive, he continued, saying that in order to accomplish this, life would need to be brought to the planet, regardless of the fact whether or not it already exists there.

Any life there, according to the expert, would only be in a microbial state, if it exists at all.

The panel explored other aspects of a potential Mars colonization effort, including the difficulties of communicating with astronauts on the planet.

The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous. Jean-Luc Picard

According to the panelists, there would be a roughly 22 minute communication delay both ways. This would be even after signal strength issues caused by Earths and Mars orbital movement are addressed. In lieu of a faster communication method, which they arent entirely ruling out, NASA would have to give colonists more a greater amount of freedom to act on their own accord than current astronauts are afforded.

They later explored parts of the recent SpaceX plan to colonize Mars. While they admitted that last years announcement by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has moved us closer to Mars psychologically than anything in the past 20 years, they advised against one aspect of his plan, which involves nuking the planet as a way to heat the its surface to a more habitable temperature. By NASAs estimation, the heat of the combined arsenals of various nuclear powers, including the U.S. and Russia, would only amount to about four hours of Martian sunlight.

Though any colonization effort on Mars would be a long ways away, its important to start brainstorming now, so that fewer hurdles remain when that time comes.

What do you think? Should we adhere to a Prime Directive similar to Starfleet when exploring other planets? Tell us in the comments below.

You can follow Andrew on Twitter @acardi.

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NASA Experts Say They Won't Follow Star Trek's 'Prime Directive' When Exploring Other Planets - TrekNews.net

When some of the smartest people alive today insist we need to begin colonizing other worlds, you tend to believe them. When science fiction fans hear those words, we begin to salivate at the possibilities.

National Geographic cannily appeals to both audiences with their hybrid miniseries Mars, which mixes todays science with tomorrows fiction by positing what the actual colonization of the planet, a mere 140 million miles away, might look like. Yeah, we got a glimpse of that in the adaptation of Andrew Weirs The Martian, but this goes further and shows more of the risks involved.

The miniseries, out now from 20th Century Home Entertainment, is a captivating piece of work if unevenly assembled. You get all the usual suspects weighing in why and how we might get there including Space X guru Elon Musk and the ubiquitous Neil deGrasse Tyson. Accompanied by a Greek chorus of NASA scientists and engineers, we get a frim grounding on where we are today and what it will take (including how much and how long) to reach Mars and stay there.

With the firm guiding hand of Brian Grazer and Ron Howard who took us to the edge of space with the gripping Apollo 13 the fictional sections are visually interesting and feel like they could possibly happen over the next hundred years. The most fictional part of the story may be the notion that countries around the world can put aside their partisan issues in order to partner for such a project. Given the expertise and money required, its unlikely any one country can mount such a mission. Of course, its equally unlikely we can all come together fast enough to actually do it on the timetable envision by the likes of Stephen Hawking. That this story takes place in 2033 may be the most fantastic concept of all.

With a nice nod to Greek myth, the Daedalus is sent to Mars and we follow the crew, led by Ben Sawyer (Ben Cotton). The crew and their personal issues are far less interesting than the real science employed to get them there, which is a shame. After all, one reason America was captivated by the Mercury program was the canny PR done to turn the Mercury Seven into instant heroes, their every move followed by an eager public.

Obviously this was intended to be a utopian or dystopic view of life on other worlds, but the hazards and problems encountered are therefore representative, but also almost predictable, spoiling some of the dramatic satisfaction the fictional sections intended.

The sets and tech look fabulous as one would expect from the channel and production team. Watched as an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1, it looks great on the home screen accompanied by a serviceable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix.

The miniseries does boast a rather impressive physical (and/or CGI) production, with decently realistic sequences set on board the Daedalus and, later, on Mars itself. The fictional elements look has obviously been highly influenced by The Martian (as can clearly be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review), with some individual shots looking like they in fact could have been lifted directly from the film. But again and again its the current day scientists and explorers who provide the most riveting information. As odd as it might sound, this is one miniseries that might have benefitted from a kind of reverse seamless branching, where viewers could choose to skip the fictional parts and stick to the facts and only to the facts.

The three-disc Blu-ray set comes with a handful of extras, starting with Making Mars (47:17) which does a fine job recounting how the mockumentary was made. Theres Before Mars A Prequel (33:00) which offers up some welcome backstory for the dramatic portion. Theres the brief Before Mars Behind the Scenes (2:28); Getting to Mars (13:51); Living on Mars (10:26); More Mars (10:29); Behind the Scenes (14:38); and, Cast and Crew Interviews (25:06). Taken as a whole, the extras greatly expands our understanding of the nearby world, the difficulties in getting there, and how we might extend our stay. Additionally, the behind-the-scenes interviews with the production crew shows the meticulous detail that one expects from National Geographic.

Robert Greenberger is best known to comics fans as the editor of Who's Who In The DC Universe, Suicide Squad, and Doom Patrol. He's written and edited several Star Trek novels and is the author of The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. He's known for his work as an editor for Comics Scene, Starlog, and Weekly World News, as well as holding executive positions at both Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

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REVIEW: Mars - Comicmix.com