Category Archives: Mars Colonization

In what has to be a blow for Democratic partisans who were convinced that state Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) can single-handedly turn the Lone Star State blue in November, the Texas Democratic Party appears to be on the verge of tarnishing its reputation. According to a poll conducted by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune, the frontrunner to face likely incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in November is Kesha Rogers. She is also somewhat unhinged.

Originally flagged by HotAirs Guy Benson, the poll shows Rogers leading her nearest opponent in the race to face Cornyn, Dallas area dentist David Alameel, by 8 points outside the polls 6.04 percent margin of error.

But Democrats might be careful what they wish for

As an acolyte of perennial presidential fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche, she believes the U.S. economy is secretly controlled by a cabal of London financial institutions, wrote Dallas Morning News reporter Nick Swartsell in December. Shes paraded around Houston with a giant picture of Obama sporting a Hitler mustache and compared the Affordable Care Act to 1930s-era Nazi eugenics policies.

Thats right. Her campaign even features a video on her website comparing President Barack Obama to Narcissus and advocating for his removal from office.

SuperEgoGenocidal-NarcissistPsychosis! from Kesha for Congress on Vimeo.

Rogers has also made a central plank of her campaign platform the colonization of Mars and the funding to prepare NASA to use nuclear missiles to intercept potential earth-impacting asteroids.

The Democratic message in 2014 might be slightly undermined by a candidate who compares the leader of her party to Hitler and suggests the ACA is the successor to the legacy of Josef Mengele.

[h/t HotAir] [Photo via Michael Stravato/Texas Tribune]

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Leading Texan Democratic Senate Candidate Compares Obama to Hitler

Mars Exploration
Mars Exploration. . . . . . .mars colonization, mars human exploration, mars exploration curiosity, mars exploration timeline, mars exploration missions, mar...

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D. Garrison Golubock / MT

Cosmonaut Alexander Alexandrov explains how to use an old space suit.

Last week, theMoscow Planetarium opened its new exhibit, "I want tobe acosmonaut!" which hopes toinspire anew generation ofRussians todevote their efforts tothe nation's ailing space program.

Theexhibit itself was rather spartan when compared tothe Museum ofCosmonautics near theAll-Russia Exhibition Center, but it offered achoice selection ofinteresting artifacts fromthe history ofSoviet space exploration such as Yury Gagarin's car, aSoyuz re-entry module, andan Orlan-T space suit. Theopening even featured real cosmonauts.

However, theexhibit's interactive features are thecornerstone ofits attempt torecapture theyouth's attention. Throughout theexhibit, which has been set up inthe planetarium's "Level 9" exhibition space, wonderful film reels provided bythe Russian Federal Space Agency, or Roscosmos, are projected onthe walls. Visitors are free totry ona pair ofgloves similar tothose ona space suit, or even try their hand ata space station treadmill.

This is all apart ofthe Russia's attempts toattract new talent tohelp save thestruggling space program, which has been fighting forits life foralmost 20 years now. One ofthe major challenges it faces is recruitment. Themajority ofthe talent available is not only underpaid, but over theage of60. There is amissing generation inthe space industry, andfinding thenext generation has proven anelusive task.

But, it wasn't always this way. There was once atime where every child wanted tobe acosmonaut, space captivated theimagination ofSoviet youth, andjoining thespace program was anillustrious ambition. Thereasons were simple enough.

"Cosmonauts like Yury Gagarin andAlexei Leonov were celebrities. Star City was theplace tobe forbig parties, andthere were all sorts ofrumors about thegrand lifestyle ofthe cosmonauts, who really did lead lives ofrelative privilege andglamor. They could go places intospace but also abroad andinto thesuper-secret Soviet military-industrial complex where others simply could not," said Andrew Jenks, anexpert onSoviet space history atCalifornia State University atLong Beach

But today things are markedly different. Salaries forcosmonauts are shockingly low, "especially compared towhat anenterprising kid could get ina number ofother seemingly mundane jobs," he said.

Also, Russians do not need tobe cosmonauts tosee theworld anymore, anyone with abit ofcash tospend is free tocome andgo as they please.

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Planetarium Inspires New Cosmonauts

Peter Rakobowchuk, The Canadian Press Published Saturday, February 15, 2014 7:28AM EST

MONTREAL -- Bryan Versteeg hasn't stopped drawing ever since he got his first crayons and left marks all over the walls as a child -- all the while dreaming of someday living in space.

He still remembers that sketch books and drawing pencils were the predominant gifts on his fifth and sixth birthdays.

So began the career of the 38-year-old Calgary space artist who's becoming known for his futuristic out-of-this-world illustrations.

"I've always been seeking out the future of engineering," Versteeg said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Over the years, he has been inspired by magazines like Popular Science, which he collected during the 1980s and 90s. The monthly magazine has been well known for its concept drawings of flying cars and interplanetary spaceships.

"It's a great way to look into the future," he added.

Warp forward to Versteeg's recent illustrations of what a human habitat on Mars would eventually look like. His Mars One conceptual designs have appeared in thousands of articles on the Internet.

Versteeg started working on the Martian space habitat after he was approached by the founders of the Mars One Foundation, which is planning a one-way mission to the red planet.

In December, the non-profit organization selected 75 Canadians to enter the second round of the mission's selection process. The 43 Canadian women and 32 men were among 1,058 candidates selected.

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Calgary artist behind illustrations of would-be Mars One habitats

If Lt. Heidi Beemer has her way, she'll die on Mars.

Not anytime soon, mind you. The 25-year-old Virginia Beach native wants a long life, but she wants to live it out as a colonist on the red planet.

In December, Beemer got a little closer to that dream when she made the first cut of an international effort to start sending humans on a one-way trip to Mars beginning in 2024. As envisioned by Mars One, a nonprofit group based in the Netherlands, four colonists would arrive every two years after that, building a permanent settlement.

"It will be lonely for eight years, nine years," Beemer said in a phone interview from Kentucky, where she's stationed at Fort Campbell. She's applying for the mission outside of her Army service. "But as the colony grows, there will be a new community. Jamestown that's something that throughout my entire life was, 'Hey, these people came, they left their families behind, they left everything that they knew to set up a new life, to push the frontiers.' If no one is willing to make those sacrifices, we'll never do it."

Mars One estimates it will cost $6 billion for that first trip, and $4 billion for each subsequent one. Founders hope to fund them through public and private donations.

Semi-finalists will begin interviews in the spring, Beemer said, and the next round of cuts will be announced in mid-summer.

Beemer credits her father, a Navy veteran, for her lifelong desire to be an astronaut.

"I first really got interested in Mars in, I guess, '97 when the (Pathfinder) rover first landed on Mars," Beemer said. "My dad gave me a newspaper article, and I thought it was the coolest thing."

She wavered a bit in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated while re-entering the atmosphere, killing all its crew.

"I thought, 'Oh, man, I really don't want to die,'" Beemer said. "'So I want to work for NASA and help other people get into space.'"

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Mars One: Va Beach woman makes first round of cuts for ...

Dusty Space Cloud

This image shows the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy in infrared light as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions, and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. In the instruments' combined data, this nearby dwarf galaxy looks like a fiery, circular explosion. Rather than fire, however, those ribbons are actually giant ripples of dust spanning tens or hundreds of light-years. Significant fields of star formation are noticeable in the center, just left of center and at right. The brightest center-left region is called 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula, for its appearance in visible light.

This enhanced-color image shows sand dunes trapped in an impact crater in Noachis Terra, Mars. Dunes and sand ripples of various shapes and sizes display the natural beauty created by physical processes. The area covered in the image is about six-tenths of a mile (1 kilometer) across. Sand dunes are among the most widespread wind-formed features on Mars. Their distribution and shapes are affected by changes in wind direction and wind strength. Patterns of dune erosion and deposition provide insight into the sedimentary history of the surrounding terrain.

This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are discussing whether the circular structure that covers most of this image originated by a collision with another asteroid, or by internal processes early in the asteroid's history. Images in higher resolution from Dawn's lowered orbit might help answer that question. The image was recorded with the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft from a distance of about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers). The image resolution is about 260 meters per pixel.

This undated photo shows a classic type 1a supernova remnant. Researchers Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess of the United States and US-Australian Brian Schmidt won the 2011 Nobel Physics Prize on October 4, 2011 for their research on supernovae.

A quartet of Saturn's moons, from tiny to huge, surround and are embedded within the planet's rings in this Cassini composition. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is in the background of the image, and the moon's north polar hood is clearly visible. See PIA08137 to learn more about that feature on Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across). Next, the wispy terrain on the trailing hemisphere of Dione (698 miles, or 1,123 kilometers across) can be seen on that moon which appears just above the rings at the center of the image. See PIA10560 and PIA06163 to learn more about Dione's wisps. Saturn's small moon Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers across) orbits beyond the rings on the right of the image. Finally, Pan (17 miles, or 28 kilometers across) can be seen in the Encke Gap of the A ring on the left of the image. The image was taken in visible blue light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Sept. 17, 2011. The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 27 degrees. Image scale is 8 miles (13 kilometers) per pixel on Dione.

Combining almost opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, this composite image of the Herschel in far-infrared and XMM-Newton's X-ray images obtained January 20, 2012, shows how the hot young stars detected by the X-ray observations are sculpting and interacting with the surrounding ultra-cool gas and dust, which, at only a few degrees above absolute zero, is the critical material for star formation itself. Both wavelengths would be blocked by Earth's atmosphere, so are critical to our understanding of the lifecycle of stars . (AFP / Getty Images)

Resembling looming rain clouds on a stormy day, dark lanes of dust crisscross the giant elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. Hubble's panchromatic vision, stretching from ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, reveals the vibrant glow of young, blue star clusters and a glimpse into regions normally obscured by the dust. (NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage)

A bubbling cauldron of star birth is highlighted in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Infrared light that we can't see with our eyes has been color-coded, such that the shortest wavelengths are shown in blue and the longest in red. The middle wavelength range is green. Massive stars have blown bubbles, or cavities, in the dust and gas--a violent process that triggers both the death and birth of stars. The brightest, yellow-white regions are warm centers of star formation. The green shows tendrils of dust, and red indicates other types of dust that may be cooler, in addition to ionized gas from nearby massive stars.

This composite image shows the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151. X-rays (blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are combined with optical data (yellow) showing positively charged hydrogen (H II) from observations with the 1-meter Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on La Palma. The red ring shows neutral hydrogen detected by radio observations with the NSF's Very Large Array. This neutral hydrogen is part of a structure near the center of NGC 4151 that has been distorted by gravitational interactions with the rest of the galaxy, and includes material falling towards the center of the galaxy. The yellow blobs around the red ellipse are regions where star formation has recently occurred. (NASA / CXC / CfA / J. Wang)

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Mars Colony-Scale Rockets 'Could Be Ready In 10 Years ...

MARS COLONY VIDEO: https://vimeo.com/85216764

Chapter One: Rendezvous

Ten billion dollars might not change the course of human history, but it was worth a try. When five aging billionaires formed the Cartel, they all agreed humanitys past was a muddle, a vast bloody wasteland, with only a few bright moments of inspiration. Ideologies came and went. Philosophy was ignored by most people of the 20th and 21st centuries. Most of our great art was produced within civilizations of soldiers. Religions came and went, often competing with obsessive, yet entirely rational, forms of materialistic hedonism. Humanitys self-definition needed some work, and that work was not being done on Earth.

Over a decade, the Cartel bought everything required to send one-hundred-seventy-five people, with one giant leap of faith, to colonize Mars. In 2014, three ships left Earth to rendezvous ten thousand miles past the Moon. Here twenty agile astronauts transformed thirty modules to create one unified ship, the Erasmus. Eight meters high in most places, eighty meters wide and eight hundred meters in length, this ship would transport the colonists, and remain in orbit around Mars. Just in case someone wanted to come back.

Many of the crew had no intention of coming back. They signed-on for a fifteen year tour-of-duty. The crew was carefully chosen from nearly 200,000 applicants. The Cartel wanted scientists who were also artists, and technicians who were also poets. Two composers and a novelist also made the final cut. Scientific exploration was only a small part of the mission. The primary mission was to invent a new form of civilization. Of course, the Cartel had some ideas about what that civilization might look like, but they kept most of those ideas to themselves. They wanted, and expected creative action from the crew of the Erasmus.

The rendezvous was complete, only when the entire crew settled-in and began to discuss their diverse views of what the word civilization meant. It was more than a good meal for everyone. More than indoor plumbing. More than endless entertainment. More than science and more than art. It was definitely more than all the computer and biotech advances of the past fifty years. The people obsessed with those advances, were not looking for civilization, they were looking practical solutions, or simply looking to make some money. Those many advances happened side-by-side with a decline in personal freedom, and an increase in economic desperation for millions of citizens.

On the Erasmus, there was a rendezvous of minds, the best minds the Cartel could find. These were the brightest, most creative and well-adjusted bunch of nerds available for space travel. Free of economic pressure, free from the influence or demands of any government, free from all society except the society they would create, it was hoped these one-hundred-seventy-five colonists would look into themselves, and look at their knowledge of human history, then rendezvous to invent something new.

MARS EXPEDITION MUSIC: http://marsexpedition.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-the-colonization-of-mars

Chapter Two: The Love Lounge

The two places aboard the Erasmus most conducive to the conversation are the dining hall and the love lounge.In both places strangers meet, to start friendships, to discuss the details of their lives and their mission. I prefer the love lounge. Two birds with one stone, as the saying goes. One afternoon, I sat near a lovely black girl, her long hair in tight ringlets, flowing over naked shoulders, framing an intelligent face. Her perfect smile proved a childhood of excellent dental care.

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MARS COLONY: Chapter One and Two | MARS EXPEDITION

Let #39;s Play Kerbal Space Program - Career Day16 - Mars colonization - Ep25 - NOELonPC
Day sixteen of a multiweek adventure! Kerbal Space Program .22 has launched and with it, comes CAREER MODE!!! you start with basic rocketry parts, and thru v...

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Let's Play Kerbal Space Program - Career Day16 - Mars colonization - Ep25 - NOELonPC - Video

Recently, a not-for-profit organization known as Mars One released the list of 1,058 applicants who could be selected for colonization on Mars. Over 200,000 applications were said to have been received by the organization, which aims to "establish human life on Martian soil."

"We're extremely appreciative and impressed with the sheer number of people who submitted their applications," Mars One co-founder Bas Lansdorp was quoted as saying in a press release.

But researchers in a new study said that human body is yet not ready for life in space. They are concerned about the long-term health effects space can have on astronauts.

A typical human being is about 60 percent water, and in the free fall of space, the body's fluids float upward, into the chest and the head. Legs atrophy, faces puff, and pressure inside the skull rises.

"Your head actually feels bloated," said Mark E. Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut who flew on four space shuttle missions. "It kind of feels like you would feel if you hung upside down for a couple of minutes."

The human body did not evolve to live in space. And how that alien environment changes the body is not a simple problem, nor is it easily solved.

Some problems, like the brittling of bone, may have been overcome already. Others have been identified - for example, astronauts have trouble eating and sleeping enough - and NASA is working to understand and solve them.

The lack of gravity is also said to negatively affect the body's neurovestibular system, leaving astronauts with a weakened ability to, literally, determine which way is up. Dizziness is also an issue, according to those who have endured it.

The biggest hurdle remains radiation. Without the protective cocoon of Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, astronauts receive substantially higher doses of radiation, heightening the chances that they will die of cancer.

At the Johnson Space Center here, the home base for NASA's human spaceflight program, scientists probably have until the 2030s to dissect these problems before the agency sends astronauts to Mars - a mission that would take about 2.5 years, or nearly six times the current standard tour of duty on the space station.

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Human body not ready for life in space

Mars Digital Elevation Model by Kevin Gill on flickr

Ethan Siegel calls Mars the obvious first step in our journey to the stars and part of our dreams for reaching out into the Universe. Last year thousands of people applied to join Mars One, a proposed colonization effort slash reality show that plans to put humans on the red planet in 2023. But unless Mars One wants to achieve ratings by broadcasting the death of its crew, it may want to cool its jets. Ethan says that without some heretofore unknown, top secret-technology, theres no hope for safely landing a capsule-full of sensitive meatbags (aka bachelors 1 through 3) on the surface. Launching from Earth is not likely to be a problem, nor traveling for nine months to the second-nearest planet in the solar system. But since Mars lacks a robust atmosphere, theres very little drag to help decelerate a landing craft in a survivable manner. If humanity is serious about maximizing its reach in time and space, we might focus on sustaining our life on Earth first, and stranding photogenic pilgrims on a dead planet later.

Meanwhile, NASA continues to investigate the mysterious lump that turned up under Opportunitys nose on January 8th. Many commentators likened the object to a jelly doughnut, while Stephen Colbert dealt a blow to interplanetary peace by taking a bite out of an irresistible Martian ambassador. Although NASA explains that its a rock, most likely kicked up by the rovers maneuvering, PZ Myers reports that a chronic discoverer of life on Mars has declared it to be a fungus and legally impelled NASA to investigate further. But NASA already knows theres a lot of science to be done; they say we could be seeing the underside of a rock that hasnt been exposed to the atmosphere for billions of years. Opportunity also made headlines last week with evidence of flowing water and hospitable conditions in Mars distant past. So although Mars may be dead, and a dead-end for human settlers, theres still a strong possibility that it was once alive.

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The Dead Planet [Page 3.14]