Category Archives: Mars Colonization

With films likeTheMars Generation hyping up human exploration of the Red Planet and Elon Musk planning the newSpaceX Martian Palace Complex and Hotel (not really), the sci-fi dream of humans colonizing other planets is almost a reality. This panel at Silicon Valley Comic-Con, titled Journey to Mars,brought together a group ofNASA experts, including an astrobiologistand terraforming specialist,to give an idea of what settling Mars will look like.

Life on Mars?

An interesting topic that was brought up during the panel was the fact that instead of engineeringnew microbes or lifeforms (like algae or moss) to help terraform Mars, it might actually be easier to change Mars' atmosphere so that we can transplant extremophile life from Earth, especially the kinds that thrive in mountainous environments. Either way, UV radiation is one of the biggest issues for surface-level life.

The Biggest Challenges for Exploring Mars

Oneof the biggest challenges facing Mars exploration and colonization by humans (rather than Valkyrie robots or Terminators) is just communication. As the panelists explained, the distance between Earth and other planets change as they move through their orbits, meaning that keeping the signal strong is a problem. The other issue with communication is comm delayby the panelists' estimation, there's about a 22-minute delay both ways when transmissions are sent to and from Mars. When humans are on the surface, asking Mission Control to advise, that delay just isn't feasible, leaving NASA with a choice: give their explorers more freedom to act on their own, without direction, or find a faster way to communicate.

What it Would Take to Terraform Mars

With that, discussion moved to Elon Musk, who recently advocated for (potentially) nuking the Martian atmosphere in order to start warming it up and making it more habitable. One panelist admitted that Musk "has moved us closer to Mars psychologically than anything in the past 20 years," but says nuking the Martian atmosphere is a bad idea: according to NASA's estimation, detonating the combined nuclear arsenal of the U.S., former Soviet Union, and (jokingly) North Korea, it would add up to about 4 hours of Martian sunlight.

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NASA Says It Won't Follow the Prime Directive When Exploring Other Planets - Outer Places

A new method has used simulated Martian and lunar dust to 3D print flexible, tough rubber tools like these.

Amanda Morris

A new technique could allow the first humans on Mars to 3D print everything from tools to temporary housing out of a tough rubber-like material using only Martian dust.

The method could enable the first humans who set foot on the Red Planet to print the tools and housing they need to survive without having to lug all the supplies aboard their spaceship.

For places like other planets and moons, where resources are limited, people would need to use what is available on that planet in order to live, Ramille Shah, a materials scientist at Northwestern University in Illinois,said in a statement. Our 3D paints really open up the ability to print different functional or structural objects to make habitats beyond Earth. [Sending Humans to Mars: 8 Steps to Red Planet Colonization]

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Any trip to Mars would requirespaceshipsbig enough to carry much more fuel and supplies than past spacecraft could, but care packages from Mother Earth wont be enough for humans to make it on an alien planet. Almost all schemes for colonizing the Red Planet (or for colonizing the moon) require that at least some of the supplies for the expeditions come from the local environment.

One step toward that goal would be to develop a super tool that could be used to quickly manufacture any other desired tool or object, using local resources. To that end, Shah and her colleagues wanted to see what could be made with some of the most abundant material on Mars and the moon: dust. The researchers used simulated dusts based on real lunar and Martian samples. The synthetic dust contains mixtures of aluminum oxide, silicon dioxide, iron oxide and other compounds. The hard particles simulating the lunar surface often have jagged, sharp edges, while Martian simulated dust is made up of rounder, less irregular particles, according to the researchers.

The team developed a process that combines simulated lunar andMartian dustwith solvents and a biopolymer to create these extraterrestrial inks. The inks were then 3D printed into different shapes using an extruder. In the end, the objects which were composed of about 90 percent dust were tough and flexible, and could withstand the rolling, cutting and folding needed to print almost any 3D shape, Shah and her colleagues reported online March 20 in the journalScientific Reports.

We even 3D-printed interlocking bricks,similar to Legos, that can be used as building blocks, Shah said.

While rubbery materials could have their uses, as a next step, Shah and her colleague David Dunand, a materials scientist at Northwestern University, are now trying to figure out ways to heat these rubbery polymers so they harden like ceramics.

Originally published onLive Science.

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Mars colony could 3D-print stuff from Red Planet dust - CBS News

The Interplanetary Transport System (ITS),[1] formerly known as the Mars Colonial Transporter (MCT), is SpaceX's privately funded development project to design and build a system[2] of spaceflight technology and remote human settlements on Marsincluding reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft; Earth infrastructure for rapid launch and relaunch; low Earth orbit, zero-gravity propellant transfer technology; and extraterrestrial technology to enable human colonization of Mars. The technology is also envisioned to eventually support exploration missions to other locations in the Solar System including the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.[3]

Development work began in earnest before 2012 when SpaceX began design work for the large Raptor rocket engine to be used for both the ITS launch vehicle and spacecraft (ITS tanker and Interplanetary Spaceship). New rocket engine designs are typically considered one of the longest of the development subprocesses for new launch vehicles and spacecraft. By June 2016, the company publicly-announced conceptual plans[4] that included the first Mars-bound cargo flight of ITS launching no earlier than 2022, followed by the first ITS Mars flight with passengers one synodic period later in 2024,[5] following two preparatory research launches of Mars probes in 2018 and 2020 on Dragon/Falcon Heavy equipment.[6] SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled details of the system architecture at the 67th International Astronautical Congress on September 27, 2016.[7]

As publicly discussed, SpaceX is concentrating its resources on the transportation part of the project including a propellant plant that could be deployed on Mars to make methalox rocket propellant from local resources. However, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is championing a much larger set of long-term interplanetary settlement objectives, ones that go far beyond what SpaceX will build and that will ultimately involve many more economic actorswhether individual, company, or governmentto facilitate the settlement to build out over many decades.[8][9][10]

As early as 2007, Elon Musk stated a personal goal of eventually enabling human exploration and settlement of Mars,[11][12] although his personal public interest in Mars goes back at least to 2001.[10] Bits of additional information about the mission architecture were released in 20112015, including a 2014 statement that initial colonists would arrive at Mars no earlier than the middle of the 2020s.[13] Company plans as of mid-2016 continue to call for the arrival of the first humans on Mars no earlier than 2025.[5][14]

Musk stated in a 2011 interview that he hoped to send humans to Mars's surface within 1020 years,[12] and in late 2012 he stated that he envisioned a Mars colony of tens of thousands with the first colonists arriving no earlier than the middle of the 2020s.[13][15][16]

In October 2012, Musk articulated a high-level plan to build a second reusable rocket system with capabilities substantially beyond the Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy launch vehicles on which SpaceX had by then spent several billion US dollars.[17] This new vehicle was to be "an evolution of SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster ... much bigger [than Falcon 9]." But Musk indicated that SpaceX would not be speaking publicly about it until 2013.[13][18] In June 2013, Musk stated that he intended to hold off any potential IPO of SpaceX shares on the stock market until after the "Mars Colonial Transporter is flying regularly."[19][20]

In August 2014, media sources speculated that the initial flight test of the Raptor-driven super-heavy launch vehicle could occur as early as 2020, in order to fully test the engines under orbital spaceflight conditions; however, any colonization effort was reported to continue to be "deep into the future".[21][22]

In January 2015, Musk said that he hoped to release details of the "completely new architecture" for the system that would enable the colonization of Mars in late 2015 but those plans changed and, by December 2015, the plan to publicly release additional specifics had moved to 2016.[23] In January 2016, Musk indicated that he hoped to describe the architecture for the Mars missions with the next generation SpaceX rocket and spacecraft later in 2016, at the 67th International Astronautical Congress conference,[7] in September 2016.[24][25] Musk stated in June 2016 that the first unmanned MCT Mars flight was planned for departure in 2022, to be followed by the first manned MCT Mars flight departing in 2024.[5][6] By mid-September 2016, Musk noted that the MCT name would not continue, as the system would be able to "go well beyond Mars", and that a new name would be needed: Interplanetary Transport System (ITS).[1]

On 27 September 2016, at the 67th annual meeting of the International Astronautical Congress, Musk unveiled substantial details of the design for the transport vehiclesincluding size, construction material, number and type of engines, thrust, cargo and passenger payload capabilities, on-orbit propellant-tanker refills, representative transit times, etc.as well as a few details of portions of the Mars-side and Earth-side infrastructure that SpaceX intends to build to support the flight vehicles. In addition, Musk championed a larger systemic vision, a vision for a bottom-up emergent order of other interested partieswhether companies, individuals, or governmentsto utilize the new and radically lower-cost transport infrastructure to build up a sustainable human civilization on Mars, potentially, on numerous other locations around the Solar System, by innovating and meeting the demand that such a growing venture would occasion.[8][9]

The Interplanetary Transport System consists of a combination of several elements that are keyaccording to Muskto making long-duration beyond Earth orbit (BEO) spaceflights possible by reducing the cost per ton delivered to Mars:[26][27][28]

The super-heavy lift launch vehicle[30] for the Interplanetary Transport System will place up to 300 tonnes (660,000lb) (reusable-mode) or 550 tonnes (1,210,000lb) (expendable-mode)or carry 380 tonnes (840,000lb) of propellant on an ITS tankerto low Earth orbit.[29]

The ITS launch vehicle will be powered by the Raptor bipropellant liquid rocket engines on both stages, using exclusively densified liquid methane fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer on both stages.[29][30] The tanks will be autogenously pressurized, eliminating the need for the problematic helium gas pressurization.[29]

The ITS launch vehicle is reusable, making use of the SpaceX reusable technology that was developed during 20112016 for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.[29][2]

On all Earth-away launches, the long-duration spacecraft (tanker or spaceship) will also play a role briefly as the second stage of the launch vehicle to provide acceleration to orbital velocity, a design approach unusual in other launch vehicles.

The Interplanetary Spaceship is an interplanetary ship with a carbon-fiber primary structure propelled by nine Raptor engines operating on densified methane/oxygen propellants. It is 49.5m (162ft)-long, has a maximum hull diameter of 12 m, and is 17m (56ft)-diameter at its widest point, and is capable of transporting up to 450 tonnes (990,000lb) of cargo and passengers per trip to Mars, with on-orbit propellant refill before the interplanetary part of the journey.[27][29] Early flights are expected to carry mostly equipment and few people.[13]

As of September 2016, there is no name for the class of spacecraft beyond the descriptor Interplanetary Spaceship. Musk did indicate however that the first of those ships to make the Mars journey might be named Heart of Gold[1] in reference to the ship carrying the Infinite Improbability Drive, from the novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.[31] Although it was noted that the number of first-stage engines seemed to be inspired by The Answer,[32] Musk didn't allude to such a connection.

The transport capacity of the spaceship from low Earth orbit to a Mars trajectorywith a trans-Mars trajectory insertion energy gain of 6km/s (3.7mi/s) and full propellant tanksis 450 tonnes (500 tons) to Mars orbit, or 300 tonnes (330 tons) landed on the surface with retropropulsive landing. Estimated Earth-Mars transit times vary between 80150 days, depending on particular planetary alignments during the nine discrete 20202037 mission opportunities, assuming 6 km/s delta-v added at trans-Mars injection.[27]

The spaceship is designed to enter the Martian atmosphere at entry velocities in excess of 8.5 km/s and allow aerodynamic forces to provide the major part of the deceleration before the three center Raptor engines perform the final landing burn. The heat shield material protecting the ship on descent is PICA 3.0, and is reusable. Entry g-forces at Mars are expected to be 46 g's during the descent.[27] The spaceship design g-load would be 5G's nominal, but able to withstand peak loads 2 to 3 times higher without breaking up.[33]

Energy for the journey is produced by two large solar panel arrays, generating approximately 200kW of power while at the distance of Earth from the Sun, and less as the journey progresses and the Sun is farther away as the ship nears Mars.[26]:19:38

The spaceship may use a large internal water layer to help shield occupants from space radiation, and may have a cabin oxygen content that is up to two times that which is found in Earth's atmosphere.[13] The initial tests of the spaceship are not expected prior to 2020, with the ITS booster to follow only later.[14]

According to Musk, the spaceship would effectively become the first human habitat on Mars.[34]

A key feature of the system is a propellant-cargo-only tanker: the ITS tanker. Just as the spaceship, the tanker would serve as the upper stage of the ITS launch vehicle during the launch from Earth. The vehicle is designed exclusively for the launch and short-term holding of propellants to be transported to low Earth orbit for re-filling propellants in the interplanetary ships. Once on orbit, a rendezvous operation is effected with one of the Interplanetary Spaceships, plumbing connections are made, and a maximum of 380 tonnes (840,000lb) of liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants are transferred in one load to the spaceship. To fully fuel an Interplanetary Spaceship for a long-duration interplanetary flight, it is expected that up to five tankers would be required to launch from Earth, carrying and transferring a total of nearly 1,900 tonnes (4,200,000lb) of propellant to fully load the spaceship for the journey.[27]

The ITS tanker is the same physical dimensions as the Interplanetary Spacecraft: 49.5m (162ft)-long, maximum hull diameter of 12 m, and is 17m (56ft) at its widest point. It will also be powered by six vacuum-optimized Raptor engines, each producing 3.5MN (790,000lbf) thrust, and will have three lower-expansion-ratio Raptor engines for flight maneuvering and Earth-return landings.[35][29] Following completion of the on-orbit propellant offloading, the reusable tanker will reenter the Earth's atmosphere, land, and be prepared for another tanker flight.[27] The tanker could also be used for cargo missions.[citation needed]

A key part of the system Musk is conceptualizing to radically decrease the cost of spaceflight to interplanetary destinations is the placement and operation of a physical plant on Mars to handle production and storage of the propellant components necessary to launch and fly the Interplanetary Spaceships back to Earth, or perhaps to increase the mass that can be transported onward to destinations in the outer Solar System. Coupled with the Earth-orbit tank filling prior to the journey to Mars, and the fully reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft, all three elements are needed to reduce the transport cost by the multiple orders of magnitude that Musk sees as necessary to support sustainable colonization of Mars.[27]

The first Interplanetary Spaceship to Mars will carry a small propellant plant as a part of its cargo load. The plant will be expanded over multiple synods as more equipment arrives, is installed, and placed into mostly-autonomous production.[27]

The propellant plant will take advantage of the large supplies of carbon dioxide and water resources on Mars, mining the water (H2O) from subsurface ice and collecting CO2 from the atmosphere. A chemical plant will process the raw materials by means of electrolysis and the Sabatier process to produce molecular oxygen (O2) and methane (CH4), and then liquefy it to facilitate long-term storage and ultimate use.[27]

The initial launch site for the launch and rapid reuse of the ITS launch vehicle will be the SpaceX leased facility at Launch Pad 39A along the Florida space coast. While originally thought to be too small to handle the ITS launch vehicle, the final optimized size of the Raptor engine is fairly close to the physical size of the Merlin 1D, although each engine will have approximately three times the thrust. Falcon Heavy will launch from 39A with 27 Merlin engines; ITS LV will launch with 42 Raptor engines.[29]

Musk indicated on September 27, 2016 that the ITS launch vehicle would launch from more than one site. A prime candidate for the second launch site is somewhere along the south Texas coast.

As of March 2014[update], no launch site had yet been selected for the super-heavy lift rocket and the then-named "Mars Colonial Transporter." SpaceX indicated at the time that their leased facility in Florida at Launch Pad 39A would not be large enough to accommodate the vehicle as it was understood conceptually in 2014, and that therefore a new site would need to be built in order to launch the >10-meter diameter rocket.[36]

In September 2014, Elon Musk indicated that the first person to go to another planet could possibly launch from the SpaceX South Texas Launch Site,[37] but did not indicate at the time what launch vehicle might be used to carry humans to orbit.

Musk has indicated that the earliest SpaceX-sponsored missions would have a smaller crew and use much of the pressurized space for cargo. The first cargo mission of the Interplanetary Spaceship would be named "Heart of Gold" and would be loaded with equipment to build the propellant plant.[33]

The first crewed Mars mission would be expected to have approximately 12 people, with the primary goal to "build out and troubleshoot the propellant plant and Mars Base Alpha power system" as well as a" rudimentary base." In the event of an emergency, the spaceship would be able to return to Earth without having to wait a full 26 months for the next synodic period.[33]

Before any people are transported to Mars, some number of cargo missions would be undertaken first in order to transport the requisite equipment, habitats and supplies.[38] Equipment that would accompany the early groups would include "machines to produce fertilizer, methane and oxygen from Mars' atmospheric nitrogen and carbon dioxide and the planet's subsurface water ice" as well as construction materials to build transparent domes for crop growth.[13]

The early concepts for "green living space" habitats include glass panes with a carbon-fiber-frame geodesic domes, and "a lot of miner/tunneling droids [for building] out a huge amount of pressurized space for industrial operations." But these are merely conceptual and not a detailed design plan.[33]

SpaceX the company is concentrating its resources on the transportation part of the overall ITS project as well as an autonomous propellant plant that could be deployed on Mars to produce methane and oxygen rocket propellants from local resources. If built, and if planned objectives are achieved, then the transport cost of getting material and people to space, and across interplanetary space, will be reduced by several orders of magnitude. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is championing a much larger set of long-term interplanetary settlement objectives, ones that take advantage of these lower costs to go far beyond what the company SpaceX will build and that will ultimately involve many more economic actorswhether individual, company, or governmentto build out the settlement over many decades.[8][9]

In addition to explicit SpaceX plans and concepts for a transportation system and early missions, Musk has personally been a very public exponent of a large systemic vision for building a sustainable human presence on Mars over the very long term, a vision well beyond what his company or he personally can effect. The growth of such a system over decades cannot be planned in every detail, but is rather a complex adaptive system that will come about only as others make their own independent choices as to how they might, or might not, connect with the broader "system" of an incipient (and later, growing) Mars settlement. Musk sees the new and radically lower-cost transport infrastructure facilitating the build up of a bottom-up economic order of other interested partieswhether companies, individuals, or governmentswho will innovate and supply the demand that such a growing venture would occasion.[8][9]

While the initial SpaceX Mars settlement would start very small, with an initial group of about a dozen people,[33] with time, Musk hopes that such an outpost would grow into something much larger and become self-sustaining, at least 1 million people. According to Musk,

Even at a million people youre assuming an incredible amount of productivity per person, because you would need to recreate the entire industrial base on Mars. You would need to mine and refine all of these different materials, in a much more difficult environment than Earth. There would be no trees growing. There would be no oxygen or nitrogen that are just there. No oil.

Excluding organic growth, if you could take 100 people at a time, you would need 10,000 trips to get to a million people. But you would also need a lot of cargo to support those people. In fact, your cargo to person ratio is going to be quite high. It would probably be 10 cargo trips for every human trip, so more like 100,000 trips. And were talking 100,000 trips of a giant spaceship.[39]

Musk expects that the journeys would require 80 to 150 days of transit time,[40] with an average trip time to Mars of approximately 115 days (for the nine synodic periods occurring between 2020 and 2037).[27] In 2012, Musk stated an aspirational price goal for such a trip might be on the order of US$500,000 per person,[13] but in 2016 he mentioned that long-term costs might become as low as US$200,000.[40]

As of September 2016[update], the complex project has financial commitments only from SpaceX and Musk's personal capital. The Washington Post pointed out that "The [US] government doesn't have the budget for Mars colonization. Thus, the private sector would have to see Mars as an attractive business environment. Musk is willing to pour his wealth into the project" but it will not be enough to build the colony he envisions.[41]

The overview presentation on the Interplanetary Transport System given by Musk on 27 September 2016 included concept slides outlining missions to the Saturnian moon Enceladus, the Jovian moon Europa, Kuiper belt objects, a fuel depot on Pluto and even the uses to take payloads to the Oort Cloud.[29] "Musk said ... the system can open up the entire Solar System to people. If fuel depots based on this design were put on asteroids or other areas around the Solar System, people could go anywhere they wanted just by planet or moon hopping. 'The goal of SpaceX is to build the transport system ... Once that transport system is built, then there is a tremendous opportunity for anyone that wants to go to Mars to create something new or build a new planet.'"[10] Outer planet trips would likely require propellant refills at Mars, and perhaps other locations in the outer Solar System.[40]

The extensive development and manufacture of much of the space transport technology has been to date (through 2016), and is being, privately funded by SpaceX. The entire project is even possible only as a result of SpaceX multi-faceted approach focusing on the reduction of launch costs.[29]

As of 2016[update], SpaceX is expending "a few tens of millions of dollars annually on development of the Mars transport concept, which amounts to well under 5 percent of the companys total expenses",[40] but expects that figure to rise to some US$300 million per year by around 2018. The cost of all work leading up to the first Mars launch is expected to be "on the order of US$10 billion"[40] and SpaceX expects to expend that much before it generates any transport revenue.[9]

Musk indicated in September 2016 that the full build-out of the Mars colonialization plans will likely be funded by both private and public funds. The speed of commercially available Mars transport for both cargo and humans will be driven, in large part, by market demand as well as constrained by the technology development and development funding.[9][40]

Elon Musk has said that there is no expectation of receiving NASA contracts for any of the ITS system work. He also indicated that such contracts, if received, would be good.[42]

In September 2016, Musk presented the following high-level, forward-looking, fabrication cost projections, given a set of assumptions. Those assumptions include: Cost of propellant: US$168/tonne; Launch site costs: US$200,000/launch; Discount rate: 5%; Cargo delivered: 450 tonne per single Interplanetary Spaceship; and full reuse. All assumptions are about a single mission once thousands of launches and hundreds of flights to Mars are a realistic prospect. They do not apply to costs for the much smaller number of early missions envisioned for the 2020s. Given these assumptions, Musk presented the following long-term mission cost projections:[31][27]

Calculated result: total average cost (based on the life cycle of the system, included costs of the initial fabrication, propellant, maintenance and company's amortization) of one Interplanetary Spaceship transported to Mars: US$62 million; or less than US$140,000 cost per tonne of mass transported to Mars.

SpaceX plans to fly its earliest missions to Mars using its Falcon Heavy launch vehicle prior to the completion, and first launch, of any ITS vehicle. Later missions utilizing ITS technologythe ITS launch vehicle and Interplanetary Spaceship with on-orbit propellant refill via ITS tankerwould begin no earlier than 2022. The company is planning for launches of research spacecraft to Mars using Falcon Heavy launch vehicles and specialized modified Dragon spacecraft. Due to planetary alignment in the inner Solar System, the launches are typically limited to a window of approximately every 26 months. Originally (in June 2016), the first launch was planned for Spring 2018, with an announced intent to launch again in every Mars launch window thereafter. In February 2017, however, the first launch to Mars was pushed back to 2020.[43] The early missions will collect essential data to refine the design of the ITS, and better select landing locations based on the availability of extraterrestrial resources such as water and building materials.[6]

The original tentative mission manifest (now outdated) included two Falcon Heavy missions to Mars prior to the first possible flight of an ITS to Mars in 2022:[6]

As of February 2017[update], the first launch is planned for 2020 and it's unclear whether the overall schedule is kept intact, but pushed back by 26 months, or if other adjustments will be made.

Italics indicate unflown vehicles and future missions or sites. denotes failed missions, destroyed vehicles and abandoned sites.

Read more here:
Interplanetary Transport System - Wikipedia

The future of space travel is no longer limited to NASA, private citizens like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are exploring space travel as well.

With more people working on advancing the technology of space travel its not much of a surprise that genetic engineering would be considered, especially with plans for longer missions like the mission to Mars.

Read: Blue Origin Rocket: Jeff Bezos Says No Bathroom Breaks Allowed On Flights To Space

NASA is planning on sending humans to Mars sometime in the next 20 to 30 years, a plan thats already underway. The mission is set to be a one-way trip, but what information NASA gathers from the trip could help researchers learn how to better prepare humans for future trips.

A member of the department of Physiology and Biophysics at Cornell, Christopher Mason, is creating a plan for human space travel, according to MIT Technology Review. Mason has a 500-year plan for the colonization of Mars that includes genetic engineering to alter humans to better live on Mars. But Mason is still trying to figure out which parts of DNA can be altered and which shouldnt be touched.

NASA has only ventured into this type of research in studying twins, one here on Earth and one in space. The research is set to be released later in 2017 and will detail the differences NASA discovers between the genetically identical men exposed to different environments for a full year. NASA calls the research a stepping stone towards long duration space exploration such as journeys to Mars.

Mason hopes to find a way to make humans more resistant to radiation, according to MIT Tech Review. The conditions both in space and on other planets like Mars that lack the atmosphere Earth has are enough to harm and kill humans as is, even with protective gear.

Genetic editing is already in the works, but for health purposes like eliminating a dangerous disease from the genes of an embryo, not for creating babies for space travel or designer babies. The industry has also been wrapped up in legal battles with the patent battle over CRISPR technology.

Astronauts are already a rare people who can keep calm in situations most people wouldnt be able to, solve problems quickly and have the physical and mental capacity to handle and process space travel and exploration. All traits that can be hard to come by in one person, thats why its so hard to become an astronaut, at least for now.

Originally posted here:
Are Genetically Modified Astronauts Key To Colonizing Mars? - International Business Times

There will be life on Mars in the future, if you ask Philip Metzgerand that life will be us.

Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Florida who co-founded the NASA Kennedy Space Centers Swamp Work Laboratory, is confident humans could colonize the Red Planet. Not that it would happen tomorrow. Mars should not be a space race despite NASAs aim to blast astronauts there by 2030 and companies like SpaceX looking to make Mars travel and possibly colonization lucrative.

I dont think theres really a viable case for colonizing Mars until after we get a supply chain established, Metzger said recently as a speaker in Sustainable Expansion: Reaching Mars and Beyond panel at the New Space Age Conference at MIT. "Just like email and, later, Facebook were killer apps that made the internet economically viable, so there will be particular uses of space that will make the space industry economically viable.

If theres an app for everything, apparently theres also an app for Mars.

You probably dont have an icon on your phone for propellant mining unless you just traveled several decades backward through time with your iPhone 70, but that is the first killer app Metzger believes is vital to sustaining a colony on Mars. He imagines using a spacecraft to excavate the rocky material of an asteroid and then extract chemically bound water molecules as both potential fuel and a way of sustaining the water supply on an otherwise arid planet. To turn H2O into high-powered jet fuel, the craft would transfer it to an orbiting depot that would split the molecules, then drop it off on a space tug that would inject the fuel into a satellite as an ultimate boost. This is much more convenient than conventional satellites that take forever to get into orbit and waste astronomical amounts of time and money.

3-D printing makes the next killer app sound even more sci-fi. Seen as a solution for the overwhelming demand for internet that constantly increases, enormous internet antennas would be 3D-printed from some of that metal ore previously mined from asteroids (see the supply chain starting to form?). Earth internet satellites are never in sync with our planets spin. This would make it almost impossible to hand data off to satellites coming in from behind to transfer that data to Mars. The antennas would remain in a geostationary orbit, each positioned over one particular location and spinning at the same rate as Earth. Fiber optics and low-earth satellites would route high-priority requests, while your favorite streaming TV series and anything else less urgent would reach you via geosynchronous satellites.

Even if humans were to inhabit a Martian city not unlike those in Ray Bradburys The Martian Chronicles, wewould still need an influx of sustainable energy. Computers devour energy so fast that they could leave us devoid of energy by the time a Mars-bound rocket is ready to launch. Beaming solar power to Earth would solve that problem by tapping the never-ending (at least for the next 5 billion years) energy of the sun through an orbiting array of mirrors dreamed up by former NASA scientist John Mankins. The only negative is that someone would have to find the trillions of dollars to build such a thing on Earth and launch itunless the contraption could be manufactured entirely in space.

Metzger is confident about the viability of this massive interplanetary project. He foresees a future where infrastructure and industries will gradually make their way into the anti-gravity zone and build a consistent space-based economy in which production outside Earths atmosphere is the norm. Meaning, we would save an incredible amount of money by eliminating the need to launch things.

The more industry there is in space, he said optimistically, the easier it will be to build spacecraft to colonize Mars.

(via Seeker)

See the article here:
This is how we could (really) colonize Mars - Syfy Wire | SyfyWire - Blastr

A group of researchers carried out a simulation of a mission to Mars and found that astronauts who consumed large quantities of salt retained more water than astronauts who didnt consume more salt.

The study was published April 17 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and showed that astronauts eating salty foods werent as thirsty as their colleagues who didnt consume salt. Scientists believe that the Mars scenario sets the perfect example, as astronauts who travel to space on long journeys need to know in advance how much water theyre going to need.

To conduct the study, researchers took two groups of ten male volunteers, who endured two simulated flights to Mars inside a mock spaceship. The first group stayed for 105 days, and the second groups journey lasted over 205 days. Volunteers were given almost the same food, but the food contained different levels of salt over several weeks.

When they ate more salt, they urinated more, which didnt come as a surprise for scientists. The researchers believe that salt grabbed water in the human body and dragged it into urine, resulting in feelings of dehydration and thirst in the process. However, they found that the astronauts urinated more not as a result of drinking more water, but because of the extra salt activates a mechanism to conserve water in the kidneys.

The team took their findings and applied them to a mouse study that found the process of preserving water in the kidneys takes a lot of energy and makes you hungrier. These results, aligned with the simulation flights results that proved astronauts on a salty diet complained that they were hungry, concluded that a salty diet makes you more hungry, not thirstier. They believe that most people confuse hunger for thirst, so the results arent far from reality.

Scientists add that results dont mean people should eat enormous quantities of salt. However, sodium-rich foods arent necessarily bad for people. According to Mens Health, a 2014 study found that too little sodium in your diet can lead to adverse health effects, such as the rise in heart rates and diabetes. Researchers of that study recommended between 2,645 and 4,945 milligrams of salt per day, as opposed to the American Heart Associations limit of 1,500 milligrams per day.

Other studies have found that too much salt can lead to feeling less full if youre consuming it, which leads to people consuming more calories. The new study says that while salt intake doesnt make you thirsty, salt-driven changes in energy metabolism may link high salt diets with several health adverse problems like diabetes, osteoporosis, and increased cardiovascular and neurovascular disease risk.

Source: Mens Health

Originally posted here:
A Mars simulation reveals salt makes you hungry, not thirsty - Pulse Headlines

Dont blame science. Science didnt do anything wrong, because science cant do anything.

Science is just an idea, a way of studying things that has proven remarkably effective and helpful. But all too often, when humans misuse or misrepresent science, science ends up getting the blame.

Ive been surprised this past month while promoting the upcoming Marches for Science (including the one in Portland) at how many Mainers are angry at science for a wide range of societal problems, from factory closings and job losses to environmental regulations, erosion of morality, and the opioid crisis.

Were not just angry at products of science (such as automation, birth control, and narcotics), or just angry at the companies that make and market those products, but angry at science itself. And many of those who are not angry at science dismiss its importance.

This is crazy. America was built on science, just as much as it was built on freedom and liberty and pioneering spirit. Other countries envy us because of what we have accomplished through science and scientific thinking from putting man on the moon, to developing the internet and smart phones, and new ways of farming that protect us from famine.

Science was a big part of what made America great and will be necessary if we hope to Make America Great Again. And yet a growing anti-science movement seems to have taken over politics in this country, especially but not exclusively the Republican Party, culminating last year in the election of an anti-science president to go along with Maines science-dismissive governor, Paul LePage, who has described himself as Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular.

This is sad because science not only is not the problem, but science can provide guidance toward solutions if we use it. Because science works. And not just for scientists.

Scientific thinking and methods were developed to provide protection against human reasoning errors we all face: confirmation bias, availability and representativeness heuristics, and cognitive dissonance, among others. Tendencies that get us by most of the time, but still and all too often lead us into emotional reasoning and decisions we later end up regretting.

I understand that science can be frustrating not just difficult to put into practice, but often giving us answers we dont like. And there are plenty of questions science cant answer, like which is more immoral: permitting abortion or taking away a womans right to choose? But even then, science can provide information to inform the decisions we make about such issues information thats much better than just going with our gut.

Yes, science has become political. (To those scientists who have objected to the March for Science on April 22, Im sorry, but its too late for that.) But science doesnt have to be partisan. Science is not owned by any political party, and pro-science voters can decide to whether a candidates commitment to science (or not) is more important than whether they are Republican, Democrat or independent. And if enough of us did that, wouldnt that make an important point?

So, on April 22, I will be marching for science, because I believe in science and believe science needs supporters in the current anti-science climate. And I hope you will join me. If you do, there are a lot of Marches for Science to choose from more than 400 around the world and four here in Maine. Ill be at the march in Portland, which starts at 10 a.m. at City Hall (you can also march in Orono, Sanford, or Machias). If you do, take your kids. They are our future, so its important they learn that science is important, too.

Gordon Street is aclinical psychologist in Raymond, and a former newspaper reporter.

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Forecaster Forum: Science isn't the problem - The Forecaster

A new method has used simulated Martian and lunar dust to 3D print flexible, tough rubber tools. The method could one day be used by Martian colonists to print their own tools using local materials on the Red Planet.

A new technique could allow the first humans on Mars to 3D print everything from tools to temporary housing out of a tough rubber-like material using only Martian dust.

The method could enable the first humans who set foot on the Red Planet to print the tools and housing they need to survive without having to lug all the supplies aboard their spaceship.

"For places like other planets and moons, where resources are limited, people would need to use what is available on that planet in order to live," Ramille Shah, a materials scientist at Northwestern University in Illinois, said in a statement. "Our 3D paints really open up the ability to print different functional or structural objects to make habitats beyond Earth." [Sending Humans to Mars: 8 Steps to Red Planet Colonization]

Any trip to Mars would require spaceships big enough to carry much more fuel and supplies than past spacecraft could, but care packages from Mother Earth won't be enough for humans to make it on an alien planet. Almost all schemes for colonizing the Red Planet (or for colonizing the moon) require that at least some of the supplies for the expeditions come from the local environment.

One step toward that goal would be to develop a supertool that could be used to quickly manufacture any other desired tool or object, using local resources. To that end, Shah and her colleagues wanted to see what could be made with some of the most abundant material on Mars and the moon: dust. The researchers used simulated dusts based on real lunar and Martian samples. The synthetic dust contains mixtures of aluminum oxide, silicon dioxide, iron oxide and other compounds. The hard particles simulating the lunar surface often have jagged, sharp edges, while Martian simulated dust is made up of rounder, less irregular particles, according to the researchers.

The team developed a process that combines simulated lunar and Martian dust with solvents and a biopolymer to create these extraterrestrial inks. The inks were then 3D printed into different shapes using an extruder. In the end, the objects which were composed of about 90 percent dust were tough and flexible, and could withstand the rolling, cutting and folding needed to print almost any 3D shape, Shah and her colleagues reported online March 20 in the journal Scientific Reports.

"We even 3D-printed interlocking bricks, similar to Legos, that can be used as building blocks," Shah said.

While rubbery materials could have their uses, as a next step, Shah and her colleague David Dunand, a materials scientist at Northwestern University, are now trying to figure out ways to heat these rubbery polymers so they harden like ceramics.

Originally published on Live Science.

The rest is here:
The First Mars Colony Could Be 3D Printed From Red Planet Dust - Live Science

The UAE has launched an ambitious space program aimed at sending a probe to Mars by 2021 and settling the Red Planet by 2117. The kingdoms rulers see the hi-tech venture as a sign of hope and inspiration for the entire Arab world.

Until recently, only a handful of leading world powers funded and promoted space exploration programs, including the US, Russia, China, Japan and the EU. Other nations, especially those in the Middle East, have long been excluded from global scientific mainstream, but now the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has joined the race.

READ MORE: Well settle Mars by 2117: UAE enters race to put humans on Red Planet (PHOTOS)

On Wednesday, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, prime minister of the UAE and emir of Dubai, and Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, inaugurated the national space program at the Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC), local media reported.

Part of the ambitious, far-fetched program is the construction of a first-of-its-kind scientific city that would imitate the atmosphere and other conditions on Mars, including zero gravity, according to Khaleej Times. The new facility is also to include a museum of Mars and specialized laboratories.

The national space program should give boost to the UAEs Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) an ambitious project aimed at making the kingdom the first Arab country to reach Mars by 2021. In February of this year, the UAEs prime minister said that the EMM is also studying the possibility building the first inhabitable human settlement on Mars within the next 100 years, settling the Red Planet by 2117.

Aside from the long-term projects, the UAEs space program will train astronauts from the Emirates and the Arab world for prospective Mars missions.

Our national Space program constitutes a solid ground to create Emirati human resources specialized in space science, and aims to rehabilitate a generation that will be able to add to human knowledge, Sheikh al-Maktoum said at the opening ceremony

He added that the UAE will send its first astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) within the next few years, becoming the fastest and more capable country to face such a challenge.

The countrys scientists are already working on the Mars Hope, an indigenous spacecraft orbiter which is to study the Red Planets atmosphere and climate. The mission, expected to be launched in the summer of 2020 and reach Mars in seven to nine months, will study how the lower and upper layers of the atmosphere interact with each other, according to the official website.

Major scientific powerhouses are also planning space missions that should reach Mars by 2020. ExoMars, a joint Russia-EU astrobiology project, includes landing a rover on the Martian surface to search for signs of past and present life on the planet. NASAs Mars 2020 is intended to assess its past habitability, as well as seek for accessible geological materials, while the 2020 Chinese Mars mission will demonstrate Beijings technological capacity.

SpaceX, led by exuberant Elon Musk, also wants to send its Dragon 2 capsule to the Red Planet by 2020 to blaze the way for Musks mind-boggling plans to colonize Mars. Musk, an avid entrepreneur and innovator, believes that settling the Red Planet is the best way for the humankind to survive if an asteroid, global warming, or a super volcano destroys civilization.

It is yet unclear if the UAE, an oil-rich but tiny country, can catch up. Some officials have indicated that the space program is more of political than scientific importance.

His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid al-Maktoum mentioned on several occasions that this mission is not about reaching Mars, the Mars missions project manager, Omran Sharaf, told Gulf News.

Its beyond that Its about taking the whole [Arab] region and making them [Arabs] active in generating knowledge, he said.

Read more:
UAE launches space program to boost colonization of Mars by 2021 - RT

The MAVEN space probe has been inspecting Mars upper atmosphere for about a year and a half now, and in that time its helped NASA researchers learn important insights about the red planet. Now MAVEN which stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution has revealed that Mars atmosphere contains charged metal atoms (aka ions) just like the atmosphere on Earth.

The metal comes from small meteoroids that rain down constantly upon Mars. First, the meteoroids vaporize. Then charged particles within the atmosphere pull some metal atoms away and transform them into charged atoms.

The neat thing about metal ions is that they can be used to understand motion in the ionosphere layer of the atmosphere. Winds and electric fields move these ions far from their origin point. Since the ions have a long lifetime, researchers can use them to deduce how movement is occurring within the ionosphere over an extended period of time.

Earths atmosphere also contains metal ions. If any news about Mars makes you immediately ask, What does this mean for the prospect of future human colonization of Mars, weve got bad news for you.

It amounts to very little, unfortunately. Thats the professional opinion of Joe Grebowsky of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center and one of the authors of the study.

One effect, and here I am exaggerating, could be long distance radio communication between points on the surface, Gebowksy said. The anomalous metal layers we saw have features akin to complex Sporadic E ionosphere layers that in the past created problems with long-distance radio communication. This was done because communication was done by reflecting radio signals off the ionosphere and the complex sporadic layers screwed things up. But with current use of satellite communications, this is unlikely a big worry for surface communication.

NASA researchers suspect that metal ions may exist in the atmospheres of every planet in our solar system, because radio signals emitted by roaming spacecraft are sometimes blocked as they pass through planets atmospheres.

However, this discovery is the first direct detection of the permanent presence of metal ions in the ionosphere of a planet other than Earth, Grebowsky says.

Up next for MAVEN: another year and a half of scientific research about Mars, and then six years as a telecommunications orbiter, before it finally runs out of fuel.

Photos via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Flickr / Kevin M. Gill

Excerpt from:
NASA's Maven Probe Has Found Metal in Mars Atmosphere - Inverse