Category Archives: Moon Colonization

It is dawn at Thacker Pass. The sun rises over the Santa Rosa Mountains, and light spears through the blue-green leaves of the sagebrush that spreads out in all directions.

A herd of mule deer orbits our camp. Each evening, they meander westwards along the south-facing hillside of the Montana Mountains, browsing and grazing on the way to their evening beds. And every morning, they come out of the canyon and make their way back east, to a small canyon where they will wait out the sun.

This morning, the deer are joyful. The younger individuals run back and forth, pronking at top speed. Half the herdthe elders, I assumegraze placidly while the youngsters tear across the hillside, first one direction, then another, spinning and leaping, chasing each other. There is no predator in sight and nothing has spooked them. They are simply happy, enjoying the springtime. They have made it through the hard hungry winter. The grass is green again. The temperatures are comfortable. The sun is shining, they are with their loved ones, and the does are pregnant. Another generation stirs at Thacker Pass.

The meadowlarks are singing. They flit from sagebrush to sagebrush, varying their songs, speaking to each other and to us. Their dawn chorus awakens me every morning. A new day is born. A new spring. New nests to build, and young to raise.

The first time I heard a meadowlark singing, I fell in love. No human voice can match their whistles and warbles, their trills and scales. They are songbirds. Their world revolves around music. Foraging, mating, travel, nest-building, all accompanied by song.

Thacker Pass has its own rhythms. The cycle of morning and night: birdsong and deer moving across hillside. The cycle of weather patterns: sagebrush drinking in ephemeral rain and snow, yellow flowers emerging from soil beneath sheltering stones. The cycle of seasons: the slow grind of winter, the long sigh of spring, the stuffy stillness of summer, the building anticipation of fall. The cycle of deep time; creeks carving their way through stone, plants migrating across land. This is the pulse of life itself.

For thousands of years, people have been part of these rhythms of this place, which is called Peehee-mm-huh, Rotten Moon, in the Paiute language. An elder named Eddie Smart who grew up on the Fort McDermitt Reservation tells us stories of the history of Peehee-mm-huh. Of the seasonal rounds. Digging wild onion and wild potato in the spring. Hunting deer in the summer. Gathering firewood and medicine in the fall. And hunkering down in the winter, like everyone else, to wait for the sun to return. Different from other creatures, but not separate. Part of the whole.

I wish I were here to simply enjoy the beauty of this place; to watch the deer at play and the taste of fresh trout seasoned with wild onion. But thats not why I am here. I am here, camped on this mountainside, as I have been off and on for nearly three months, because this entire placethe pronking deer, the singing meadowlarks, their nests among the sagebrush, the yellow flowers under the boulders, the Paiute medicines, the yellow morning light on fresh spring sage, the green grass of spring emerging from the soil, all of themare under threat.

A Canadian mining company called Lithium Americas plans to turn this place into a vast open-pit lithium mine and chemical processing facility. Where once was a wild expanse of habit alive with birdsong, they plan to did a two-square mile pit 400-feet deep into the hillside. Where rabbits run and coyotes howl, they plan to bulldoze and build a sulfuric acid plant. Where now we hear the wind and the see the herd of deer, they plan heavy trucks at all hours. What was once wild, destroyed. Explosives. Bulldozers. Poisoned water. Strip mining and infrastructure, new power lines and toxic tailings waste. Razor-wire fences and 24-hour spotlights.

What kind of sick mind can imagine destroying this dance? Not just taking one deers life to feed your family, but laying waste to an entire mountainside?

Jack D. Forbes, a Renape-Lenape scholar and native community organizer, says that the mindset behind the industrial destruction that threatens Thacker Pass is not simple greed. He uses the term wetiko disease to describe a person who is mentally ill or insane, the carrier of a terribly contagious psychological disease based on an endless drive to consume. This mindset is not rare in our culture. Forbes writes that wetiko behavior and wetiko goals are regarded as the very fabric of European evolution, and drove European colonization which spread the wetiko mindset worldwide. He contrasts this with sanity or healthy normality, which involves a respect for other forms of life and other individuals.

I know of no better way to describe what threatens this place, and by extension, our entire world: people driven mad by an ideology of consumption and progress, and an economy and political system that rewards them. Why else would you destroy the planet?

Tears have been coming easily lately. Ill be walking along, or reading, or having a conversation, and suddenly Im crying. My heart lurches in my chest. I start to tremble. Its because of this place. Its because I am in love with Thacker Pass, with Peehee-mm-huh, with the deer and the antelope and the meadowlarks and the golden eagles and the pair of red-tailed hawks nesting on the cliff behind camp. And I dont know if I can stop the destruction.

Fighting a project like this is not easy. Its exhausting. I miss my fiance. I miss my home. I am tired from day after day of organizing, writing, photography, interviews, strategizing, planning. I havent been clean in a week. But I keep going, because that is what you do when youre in love. You dont abandon your loved ones.

I am asking you to become the person that Thacker Pass needs, the person that the world needs: the warrior-poet, the water protector, the inspiring leader.

There is a hard thing about falling in love. Once it happens, you are accountable to your beloved. You are responsible. Love has a way of helping us to surpass ourselves, to learn and grow and become better people. And so Im here at Thacker Pass. I need your help. This place needs your help. We cant do this alone. This is an invitation to those of you who are sitting on the sidelines. Come to Thacker Pass. Join us. Be a voice and body and mind standing against the destruction. Not just for a day. Commit to this fight (and the next, and the next).

Stand with me at Thacker Pass, with meadowlark song and the sweet scent of sage in the air, beneath the circling Golden Eagles. Stand up and say: No. You will not destroy this place.

If you are interested in joining us, visit our websiteto learn more about getting involved. And speak out on this issue. We cant save the planet by destroying it. Transitioning away from fossil fuels and fixing humanitys broken relationship with the planet will require a more critical approach.

Max Wilbert is an organizer, writer, and wilderness guide. He has been part of grassroots political work for nearly 20 years. His second book,Bright Green Lies: How The Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It, co-authored with Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith, has recently been released.

The opinions expressed above are not necessarily those of the Sierra Nevada Ally. Our newsroom remains entirely independent of our opinion page. Published opinions further public conversation to fulfill our civic responsibility to challenge authority, act independently of corporate or political influence, and invite dissent.

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Dispatches from Thacker Pass - The Song of The Meadowlark. - The Sierra Nevada Ally

Architecture on Mars: Projects for Life on the Red Planet

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February 2021 has been a historical month for Mars exploration. While humans have been exploring the red planet for well over 50 years, first landing on its surface in 1971 and then launching the first successful rover in 1997, this year has seen several firsts, namely the first time that three countries (China, United States, and the UAE) have launched three simultaneous probes.

While each expedition has different objectives, they will add to the database of information available through terrain analysis, sample collection, and other diverse research methods. Along with shedding light on the planet's many unknowns, this recent missions aim to pave the way for manned spacecraft to land on Mars, a plan that Elon Musk predicts will come to fruition in 2022.

With 3D printers, automated systems, and cutting-edge building technology, some architects have started exploring the various methods that could facilitate human colonization beyond the planet Earth.

Even NASA has launched competitions such as the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, the likes of which have played a fundamental role in exploring news technologies and methods in space exploration.

In this article, we highlight 14 project proposals--ordered chronologically-- that demonstratethe ever-growing possibility of human life on Mars.

German architectural firm ZA Architects, as a part of the Mars Colonization Project, designed an underground network of caverns for human inhabitation on the planet. By using robotic technology, the firm proposes forming large caverns in the planet's basaltic rock surface to house a basalt processing plant as well as an artificial underground glacier that would supply oxygen and water to the inhabitants.

The ICE House project was the winner or NASA's 3D Printed Habitat Challenge. The basis of the contest was to use native Martian materials, 3D printing, and SEArch and Clouds AO technology to create an ice dwelling that would protect its inhabitants from radiation. By channeling ice's ability to filter and deflect the sun's rays, ICE HOUSE prioritizes life on Mars' surface, making it a stand-out among projects that overwhelmingly opt to build underground.

Team Gamma's project won 2nd place in the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge." The design uses a semi-automated regolith fabrication system (RAM) to create a protective shield around an inflatable modular structure. The layout includes a free form deployment that yields surprising results.

LavaHive's project took home 3rd place in the 3D Printed Habitat Challenge. The design consists of a modular, 3D printed dwelling manufactured using a cutting-edge building technique called "lava casting," in which materials from space vessels are recycled and reused. The project is centered on incorporating discarded materials into new, inhabitable structures.

After presenting their project for living on the Moon, Foster & Partners followed it up with a design for a modular home built for life on Mars, which they exhibited during a contest held by NASA. The design, aptly named Mars Habitat, consists of a settlement built by pre-programmed and semi-autonomous robots. 3D printing would render robust living quarters from native Martian rocks that could house up to 4 inhabitants. The project was among the 30 finalists in the competition.

Spanish architect Alberto Villanueva, from the IDEA Architecture Office, proposes combining native Martian materials with mycelium and fungus, known for its strong structural capacity and ability to withstand extreme climates, to create a small, protective atmospheric layer to make it more hospitable to human life. He also advocates for the use of bioluminescent bacteria as a source of light on the planet.

Created by a team of engineers, scientists, and designers from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center in collaboration with BIG architectural office, this project simulates Martian conditions right here on Earth, facilitating research and testing of different building strategies to best withstand Mars' heat and radiation. The project, aptly named Mars Science City, was built using 3D printing techniques and sand from the Emirati desert.

Architects Fatima Olivieri, Efrie Friedlander, and Rolando Lopez teamed up with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), NASA, and the Teaching and Learning Research Institute (TLRI) to create a virtual city on Mars, simulating a self-sufficient habitat able to accommodate 100 people. The architects hope to receive financing for the construction of a life-size model of the city on Earth before eventually building the real thing on Mars.

The Zopherus Project, designed by Trey Lane, Corey Guidry, Tyler McKee, Mark Hendel,and Austin Williams was the winner of the 3rd phase of NASA's 3D Printed Habitat Competition." The proposal includes a autonomous robot with an internal printing chamber that creates 3D hexagonal structures within its pressurized cabin by using materials extracted from Mars' surface.The process requires no human interference.

The MARSHA prototype from AI SpaceFactory was the 2nd place winner of NASA's 3D Printed Habitat Contest. Built using 3D printing methods as well as robotics technology, the project mixes basalt from the surface of Mars with vegetable-based bioplastic to create a durable building material. MARSHA challenges the image of architecture in the space age, concentrating on highly inhabitable structures that focus on human needs.

This project was a collaboration by Hassell Studio with Eckersley O'Callaghan (EOC), and was pre-selected as one of the top ten proposals in NASA's Centennial Challenge. The design is centered on the human element of space design, which tends to focus more on maximum efficiency and output rather than comfort. It's exterior consists of a Regolith framework built by autonomous robots while the interior is made up of inflatable "pods" that contain all the necessities for life on Mars.

Mars Case is a minimalist housing prototype for human inhabitance on Mars. For the design, OPEN Architecture visualized the ideal house that combines technological, architectural, and artistic perfection. It integrates electronic fixtures from Xiaomi to form a singular synthesized product. By using heat re-circulation, condensation, and other byproducts generated by each electronic gadget, the house recycles energy, water, and air in an integrated and self-contained ecosystem, minimizing the consumption of resources.

Investigating alternative materials for building the first Martian settlements, Malaysian architects Warith Zaki and Amir Amzar proposed building a settlement from bamboo, primarily for its ability to withstand the extreme conditions on the planet and ability to propagate without the help of pollinators. Not only this, bamboo could easily grow on the planet thanks to the abundance of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere, making it a likely source of food for human settlers as well.

The Nwa Project from ABIBOO Studio is the result of extensive scientific research undertaken by SONet for The Mars Society. The design consists of modular, scalable fixtures situated on a cliff, forming a self-sufficient and self-sustaining vertical city able to accommodate a million inhabitants. The cliff itself provides natural protection from the Martian atmosphere.

Link:
Architecture on Mars: Projects for Life on the Red Planet - ArchDaily

By Charly Castillo and Sruthi Suresh

From constructing space transportation technology to planning the eventual colonization of Mars, the American company SpaceX has been making breakthroughs in the aerospace industry through its innovation. Even though substantial progress has been made in the field in recent decades, new ideas are needed to revolutionize the future of aerospace. To drive the next generation of scientific advancements, it is paramount that students push schools to incorporate aerospace-related topics into their curriculums from the elementary to high school levels.

As students in New Jersey public schools, we have personally seen the lack of aerospace topics covered in science courses and believe that by discussing them, students will find interest in aerospace careers and make a difference in the industry.

Currently, the aerospace sciences are not universally covered in New Jersey school curriculum, which may deter the next generation of potential STEM professionals from choosing to study the subjects in college, and eventually enter the industry. To garner interest in space science careers, exposure to the subject must start at a young age, but in reality, education in these subjects is not common in American high schools.

According to Larry Krumenaker, Ph.D., an astronomer, educator, and discoverer of the Milky Ways only microquasar, 4% of American high schoolers took an astronomy course in 2008, which is staggeringly low compared to other science subjects. Krumenaker attributes this to increased standardized testing due to the No Child Left Behind Act, as schools have begun redirecting their focus toward tested subjects like English and math. By not introducing students to the space sciences, schools are putting their students at a significant disadvantage since some may not choose to pursue fields they dont know the basics of.

Because of their lack of aerospace education, students, regardless of their interest in aerospace concepts, miss out on non-academic skills gained in courses addressing the field, including observational and exploratory techniques. According to Abdeel Khalid, Ph.D., professor of Industrial Engineering at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, introducing subjects like aerospace engineering to students is very useful. He states: Aerospace Engineering is a discipline in which a lot of learning is done by hands on, experimental, operational, observational, and exploratory techniques. These techniques can be taught and enjoyed by students of all ages including middle and high school students.

Such skills would be useful in a multitude of fields and industries, including aerospace. The National Science Teaching Association lays out guidelines for potential aerospace education programs. Non-academically, students engage in activities that are hands-on, minds-on, and collaborative approaches to learning. The NSTA encourages teachers to discuss the economic, historical and social perspectives of the subject, along with its scientific parts, showing the multifaceted nature of aerospace science and can strengthen a students performance in other classes, too.

Some may argue that the point of high school education is to develop fundamentals, while college is to begin to specialize. However, school is also meant to spark interest and develop important critical thinking skills that are transferable to other subject areas. High schools must focus on giving students the opportunity to explore different fields and find their passions so they can have a clear path toward higher education. Implementing aerospace science curriculum in New Jersey high schools would accomplish that.

The second man on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, hails from New Jersey. But the states rich history of space exploration extends beyond its most famous astronaut and includes Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan, the first American woman to do a spacewalk; Scott Kelly, the American astronaut with longest time in orbit; Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, the astronomers who discovered echoes of the Big Bang; along with countless aerospace engineers who have contributed to the study of space.

March is STEM Month in New Jersey -- a time to reflect on the contributions of New Jersey scientists, inventors, engineers, and mathematicians, but also to look toward the future generation of STEM professionals.

It is evident just how necessary aerospace courses are for a students education. While not every high school student who takes an aerospace course will eventually pursue it as a career, students interest cannot foster without the introduction of such topics at a younger age. By encouraging their schools to cover aerospace science topics, students are taking initiative that can lead to the next generation of scientific discoveries.

Charly Castillo is a junior at Weehawken High School, prospective astrophysics major and a 2021 Governors STEM Scholar.

Sruthi Suresh is a senior at the Middlesex County Academy of Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies and is working with a Rutgers University professor to improve the security of Cyber Physical Systems, such as drones.

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Space is the future of science, so why dont we teach it in school? | Opinion - NJ.com

NASAs Artemis program will mark a significant milestone in US space flight history when it lifts off in late 2024. Not only will it be the first time that American astronauts have travelled further than LEO since the 1970s, and not only will it be the first opportunity for a female astronaut to step foot on the moon. The Artemis mission will perform the crucial groundwork needed for humanity to further explore and potentially colonize our nearest celestial neighbor as well as eventually serve as a jumping-off point in our quest to reach Mars. Given how inhospitable space is to human physiology and psychology, however, NASA and its partners will face a significant challenge in keeping their lunar colonists alive and well.

Back in the Apollo mission era, the notion of constructing even a semi-permanent presence on the surface of the moon was laughable largely because the numerous lunar regolith samples collected and returned to Earth during that period were found to be dry as a bone, Rob Mueller, Senior Technologist in Advanced Projects Development at NASA said during a SXSW 2021 panel. That was the common wisdom, there is no water on the moon, and so for many years that was the assumption held in the [aerospace] community.

It wasnt until the late 90s that a neutron spectrometer aboard NASAs Lunar Prospector mission found telltale evidence of hydrogen atoms located at the moons poles, suggesting the potential presence of water ice. And it wasnt until last October that the SOPHIA mission detected water on the sunlit surface of the moon, rather than only squirrelled away in deep, dark lunar craters.

We had indications that H2O the familiar water we know might be present on the sunlit side of the Moon, Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, said at the time. Now we know it is there. This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration.

Based on this new evidence, Mueller estimates that there should be enough water ice available to launch a vehicle like the space shuttle every day for 2,000 years. So there's a lot of water on the moon. The trick is, is we have to find it, access it, and mine it, and then economically use it.

The revelation that the moon holds a cache of water which can be used to both quenchslake an astronauts thirst and power their rocket could set off a resource grab the likes of which we havent seen since the days of the forty-niner, Pete Carrato, Senior Consulting Engineer at the Bechtel Corporation, noted during the same panel discussion. So, the next gold rush to me is to the south pole of the Moon, and it's a harsh environment.

This is because the larger accumulations of water are located in permanently shadowed regions where the suns warming rays cannot reach the ice and vaporize it off the Moons surface. Problem is, the temperature in these regions hovers around a brisk 40 degrees Kelvin, which is colder than liquid nitrogen. Thats so cold that even modern mining rigs built for the Earths most extreme environments would have a hard time operating there. You get metal parts down that cold, they become almost like glass, Carrato declared.

It's also a hard vacuum on the moon, so you're going to have some really strange problems like cold welding of metals, Mueller added. If two metal surfaces are exposed to each other, they can actually bond in a hard vacuum and we've seen that before in space. It's a well known problem.

The ubiquitous, razor-sharp, potentially DNA-damaging, electrostatic dust found on the moon also poses a danger to colonists one that NASA has been grappling with since Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Schmitt came down with the first case of lunar hay fever. This dust not only clings to rovers and spacesuits, the miniscule particles worm their way into sensitive electronics, clog filters, jam zippers and freeze joints. NASA has developed a destaticfying coating to counter the dusts electrical attraction but its effectiveness at scale remains to be seen. The micrometeorites themselves, whose impacts with the surface create this dangerous dust, will also have to be taken into account when designing lunar habitats.

But unlike the Apollo era, which helped usher in the Cold War, this time the American government is not going it alone. The Artemis program is deeply coordinating its efforts alongside a host of international and commercial partners such as SpaceX, which is tasked with delivering pieces of the Lunar Gateway into orbit around the moon (for a cool $331.8 million) in 2024.

This will let us do it for a reasonable cost with arguably a return on investment but we can't do it as NASA. NASA is a government agency, the role of the government is to facilitate industry, Mueller explained. And so we're setting up the framework, the infrastructure, and all the processes, the legal framework, communications, launch sites. This is all necessary, and then private industry can come in and do what they know how to do, which is make some money and create an economically efficient system.

While partnering with other nations in this endeavor is a great way to spread the up-front costs around, it could lead to conflicts as to which member nation will get access and rights to which resources. Currently, such matters are governed by the UNs Outer Space Treaty of 1967, however its language is not entirely clear, leaving the rules open to different readings. The US interpretation is that we will not claim the land and or claim sovereignty, but we do have the right to use resources and the commercial industry has the right to use the resources, Mueller said. Whats more, the Outer Space Treaty lacks specific enforcement mechanisms and has yet to be ratified by any signatory nations, making its rules more like suggestions. The Artemis Accords similarly are guidelines rather than directives, though if enough nations sign onto it and act within its framework, he continued, over time it becomes de facto law.

Mars poses many of the same challenges in exploration and eventual colonization that the Moon does, such as deadly radiation, micrometeorite impacts and clinging dust particles not to mention the six month trip needed just to get to the former, compared to a measly three days for the latter. That vast distance also strains our ability to remotely control rovers and other teleoperated robotic systems we send to the Red Planet due to the minutes-long communication lag.

Prospective explorers and colonists will also have to contend with the wide temperature ranges that exist at each destination. On the Moon for example, the sun-ward side can be as hot as 125 Celsius while the shadowed side can drop to -175 Celsius, causing intense thermal stress on objects moving between them. Protection from galactic and solar radiation will also have to factor heavily into any decisions regarding where to settle on the surface. Shaded valleys and cliffside locations offer a higher degree of natural protection so well have to carefully consider the local topography when picking settlement sites. One potential solution to the radiation problem would be to ensconce our artificial habitats with a 3D-printed shell made from the Martian soil itself, Xavier De Kestelier, Head of Design Technology and Innovation at Hassell, noted during the panel.

Maintaining the crews physical and mental health on these increasingly long-duration missions will be of paramount importance and will have to be accomplished without help from home. The further we travel from Earth, the medical models that we might need and the psychological pressures on the crew will be different, Beth Healey, Head of Emergency Clinic at Hpital Du Valais, said. Each member of the crew will be called upon to serve in multiple roles beyond their individual specialties during the mission.

Should we manage to surmount these challenges, however, the rewards will be substantial. It's very difficult to live in space, Mueller said in a separate panel discussion at SXSW 2021. The good news is that there are a lot of resources in our solar system and beyond, there's almost an infinite amount of resources compared to what we have on Earth. These include everything from water, atmospheric gases, volatiles and rare metals to the crews own trash waste to energy. If you have sunlight, then you have access to energy, he continued. Humanity has already shown that its capable of inhabiting some of the most inhospitable areas of the Earth, such Concordia Station in Antarctica. With continued diligence, research and international cooperation, the stars themselves could soon come within our reach.

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What it will take for humans to colonize the Moon and Mars - Engadget

Seattles food scene boasts a huge range of Filipino foods, from the high-end tasting menu of Archipelago to the classic lunch counter of Oriental Mart in the Pike Place Market.

Hawaiian cuisine, too, comes in many forms from plate lunch chain L &L Hawaiian Barbecue to local gem Kona Kitchen. But few restaurants in the area serve the food of any the islands that sit in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the Philippines, such as Guam, Samoa and Fiji.

Proximity to neighboring islands and the history of colonization throughout the region means that none of these cuisines live in isolation they have long adapted their own cuisines to the ingredients and influences arriving on their shores, often out of necessity.

While a smattering of deli-style counters and stores from South Seattle down to Tacoma offer typical Samoan food, the chefs at three local food trucks have found a new way to bring the flavors of their cuisine to Seattle: by refracting it through the lens of that quintessential American dish, the taco.

The owners of a Renton-based catering and restaurant group knew they needed to change things up to get through the pandemic. Combining the cuisines of their heritage, the owners came up with their own fusion of the foods of Mexico and Guam and started serving it from a truck mostly parked in front of the Yankee Grill, one of their other businesses. The name fuses Spanish and Chamorro, just like the food, and means more spice, which is not only about the food itself, but in the way they bring inspiration from their various homelands together into one kitchen.

Ms Pika

Now they roam all over the city and suburbs, serving Taconadas. Their signature dish takes the framework of a classic street taco, but using an empanada dough to make the tortillas, which they fill with Chamorro flavors like chicken kelaguen (a chopped chicken salad). They also make rice bowls with Spam or bulgogi, a burger served with kim chi and an egg, and a fiesta plate with hulihuli chicken, seasoned red rice, macaroni salad and pickled papaya.

Ed Leota and Ron Manning have operated the Taste of Samoa Manapua Bakery from their Tacoma storefront since 2017, serving a wide variety of Samoan foods. But when the pandemic interrupted the move to a new location, they had to form a back-up plan: take to the road, serving their unique Samoan taco creation.

Corned beef, charsiu and turkey tail tacos from Taste of Samoa Manapua Bakery

Starting this month, the duo reopened in their new, mobile form. Instead of a tortilla, they flatten the dough used to make their signature manapua and fill them with Samoan-style corned beef called povi masima and turkey phat (tail). The truck also serves a rotating selection of other dishes, like Samoan-style lamb curry, as well as the bakerys pineapple half-moon pies.

Taking their name from the Fijian word for three, these three brothers weave three elements of their heritage Indo-Fijian, Native Fijian and the Pacific Northwest into a taco stand. Once in regular rotation at farmers markets and events, theyve been just recently ramping back up with regular Friday and Saturday pop-ups at Georgetowns Machine House Brewing and Sundays at Tacomas Point Ruston Farmers Markets.

Tolu Modern Fijian

Tolu uses poori, a fried flatbread, in place of a tortilla, making for hearty tacos even before they drop in the chicken and potato curry and top it with tamarind chutney and pico de gallo. They also offer spicy soup and rice bowls, and occasionally add additional curry options including lamb or squash and everyone should keep their fingers crossed that they bring back some of the hits from earlier menus like the passionfruit cheesecake.

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Find the flavors of the Pacific Islands (in taco form) at these 3 Seattle-area food trucks - seattlepi.com

The Gateway Foundations Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC), a manufacturing firm centered on the colonization of space, recently revealed new details about its ambitious Voyager Station which is set to be the worlds first commercial space station operating with artificial gravity. It will circle Earth every 90 minutes.

The project is a multi-phase endeavor in need of funding to come to fruition. The company is selling stakes to private investors at $0.25 a share until April 1, 2021. Assembly is scheduled to begin around 2025 and finish by 2027.

Tim Alatorre, a Gateway Foundation executive team member and one of the stations designers, said:

We havent seen an explosion of commercial activity in space. The cost has been about $8,000 per kilogram [$3,600 per lb.] for a long time. But with the Falcon 9, you can do it for less than $2,000. And as Starship comes online, it will only cost a few hundred dollars. (These were references to SpaceX launchers the companys workhorse Falcon 9 rocket and its Starship Mars vehicle, which is in development.)

OACs team of skilled NASA veterans, engineers, architects, and pilots are working on the design. It will be a space hotel in low Earth orbit. The ring structure will rotate fast enough to generate moon-like levels of artificial gravity for occupants.

The station will be for vacationers who want to experience off-Earth living and astronauts, scientists, educators, and staff. If realized, it will be the biggest human-made structure in space, accommodating up to 400 people.

Alatorre said:

Microgravity is just brutal on our bodies. We need artificial gravity a mechanism to give us a dosage of gravity to give us the ability to live long-term in space.

The ring will feature amenities similar to what youd find in a cruise ship, such as viewing lounges, themed restaurants, bars, concert venues, movie theaters, libraries, gyms, and a health spa. It will support 24 integrated habitation modules and have functional showers and toilets.

Tom Spilker, OACs chief technology officer and VP of engineering and space systems design, said:

We dont want the Voyager experience to be like being in an attack submarine in combat, so were [building] for comfort. Its a bit smaller than the length of the U.S. Capitol building.

Despite the seemingly endless list of luxury amenities, there will also be airlocks for visitors. So anyone who can afford a space hotel can go on a private spacewalk, where the only thing between you and the universe is a faceplate.

The first phase of construction will be a small-scale prototype station and a free-flying microgravity facility to test the concept. When its time to assemble the actual Voyager Station, OAC will employ a Structure Truss Assembly Robot (STAR) to fabricate the frame in orbit. The company is developing a robotic observation drone for remote monitoring via a virtual reality headset.

Alatorre said:

Its going to be our eyes on the job site. The observer drone operates in a support function. It can perch on existing craft. It can also be fully reusable and can fly and have a free-flight mode on extended missions.

OAC envisions there being Voyager modules for government and private companies to conduct lunar training missions and beyond. The station would also serve as a launchpad from where entrepreneurs can base their space on tourist activities.

Originally posted here:
Space Hotel With Artificial Gravity To Be Operational By 2027 - Intelligent Living

In the Antarctic, ice was once regarded merely as a barrier to exploration. But late 20th century research has determined that the continent is vital to global health, not only because massive melting of its ice fields and glaciers could raise sea levels by up to 200 feet, but because the frigid Antarctic regulates much of the planets climate, making it habitable for modern civilization. The history of its waters and ice tells us much about what has happened in the past and what could happen in our future.

A pair of recent books put past and present in important context. They feature two explorers who had a profound impact on the settlement of the Pacific Northwest, and who led history-shaping expeditions to the icy kingdoms of the polar regions. The history of their work is newly relevant, as climate change has become a widely recognized existential crisis.

Captain Cook Rediscovered: Voyaging to the Icy Latitudes (University of British Columbia Press) by David L. Nicandri attempts to rescue the reputation of the famous British sea captain and explorer, James Cook, whose legacy has been battered by the reevaluation of colonialism and Cooks impact on Indigenous peoples. Nicandri is the former head of the Washington State Historical Society and author of books on Lewis and Clark.

As the leader of three major global expedition voyages, Cook was one of the first to probe the depths of the icy southern latitudes. He set a record for reaching the southernmost latitude south of the Antarctic Circle in 1774. Cook later came to the Pacific Northwest in search of the fabled Northwest Passage, a supposed open water link through the Northern Hemisphere that connected the Atlantic with the Pacific. In the process, he helped extensively map little-known regions of the perimeter of North America, from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, up the British Columbia coast, following Alaskas perimeter and the Aleutian Islands all the way to Siberia.

Nicandri makes the case for the importance of Cooks polar probing as an overlooked aspect of his contested legacy. He argues that historians have adopted what he calls a palm-tree paradigm, favoring the stories of Cooks first contacts in Polynesia and his death in Hawaii over many of his other geographic contributions, particularly in the polar regions. Historians, Nicandri argues, have been seduced by enchanting island venues. Cooks fraught anthropological encounters have trumped arguably more important accomplishments. That the polar zones are lightly inhabited and infrequently visited should not make them less relevant to the study of Cook," Nicandri writes. "Given the current global climate crisis, the opposite could be true.

Nicandri concludes that Cooks skill at reading the terrain from a ship, of scoping the waters for clues and of closely observing the icy barriers helped produce an observational legacy of enormous value. His vision wasnt perfect he missed the mouth of Columbia River in his voyage up the West Coast, for example but Nicandri points out that Cook wasnt instructed to look for the Northwest Passage that far south anyway. At that point he was mission-focused on the north.

Nicandri sees Cook not simply as an avatar of empire, but as one of the Age of Enlightenment. The world Cook observed and recorded with scientific fastidiousness led the way to new geographies and unparalleled global connections.

In Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of its Ice (Princeton University Press), author Gillen DArcy Wood, a professor of environmental humanities at the University of Illinois Urbana-Campaign, looks at explorations that occurred in the first half of the 19th century by the British, French and Americans after Cooks southern voyages.

These Victorian era explorers, it's true, may have been looking for new commercial whaling grounds or sources of fur seals. But they were also spurred by reports of imagined islands, phantom coastlines and a desire to draw accurate maps of the region. And they wanted to know: Could the wall of ice be hiding habitable and arable land?

The Arctic has long fascinated explorers intrigued by the mysteries of the earth's poles. (Smithsonian)

In America at the time, the public was gripped by the popular crackpot Hollow Earth theory promulgated by a man named John Cleves Symmes. He traveled the country lecturing on his conviction that the world was a series of concentric spheres, one within the other, housing rich and possibly inhabited lands. Entrances to this wonderland and the idea, by the way, that inspired Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland were at the north and south poles. The Earth was like a large bead with an inviting interior. The prospect rallied the American public in favor of finding the truth of Terra Australis Incognita. Thus, a nautical expedition was dispatched, in part to get answers. The voyage was led by a young U.S. Navy lieutenant, Charles Wilkes.

From 1838 to 1842, the Wilkes-led U.S. Exploring Expedition spanned the globe on a scientific mission to seek knowledge and territorial discoveries. In the course of that voyage, Wilkes explored the treacherous Antarctic and is largely credited with discovering enough land some 1,500 miles of ice-bound coastline to declare Antarctica a continent, rather than a mere island or remote peninsula.

While Wilkes was sailing the world, the Oregon country opened to the mass migration of American settlers the first wagon train on the Oregon Trail left in 1836 to counter British claims in the region. After the Wilkes expeditions Southern sojourn, his ships sailed here to more thoroughly map Puget Sound and scope out the interior of the Columbia River country in what is now Eastern Washington. A party was also sent by land from the vicinity of present-day Portland to California. All of this was part of solidifying a U.S. presence and to conduct a more detailed survey of region.

Americas ambitions, not unlike Britains, were globally expansive. Mapping the planet and studying it served economic interests, colonization and human knowledge. The ships sent abroad were filled with specialists in botany, astronomy, geology and other scientific disciplines. The expensive effort to learn more about the globe and its flora and fauna was an expression of international strength, ambition and naval capabilities. Only large powers could afford to take such risks. Today, nations do the same thing, making technological statements by sending probes to the moon or Mars. So do our planets billionaires, like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. The subject of colonization openly rides on the heels of these missions. Are other planets habitable? Who will they belong to? What is the lay of the land? Cook and Wilkes would be familiar with these questions.

The risks of exploration were great for Cook, Wilkes and others. Wood also recounts the expeditions of British explorer James Ross and the Frenchman, Dumont dUrville. Crews in wooden sailing ships braved unimaginably massive ice mountains and frigid winds, huge stretches of ocean uncharted, a continent undiscovered. They had relatively few instruments with which to understand what they were looking at: mirages that threw up images of ice sculptures that resembled cliffs or even cities, tricks of light, the aurora australis and frozen seas that defied then-current theories that sea water could not freeze. Was it so strange that open seawater might connect the Atlantic and Pacific at the poles? Or that a hole at the end of the earth might lead to more wonders inside the planet? The otherworldliness of the cold regions invited intense speculation.

We are finally coming to understand the real global importance of the polar regions. Antarcticas significance did not lie in that it was a continent to settle or a gateway to earths interior, but rather in its ability to unlock an understanding of the world. That is why we have spent more than two centuries researching it in cooperation with scientists around the world. Locked beneath the polar ice are the secrets to the mechanisms that help run and regulate the planet, and have done so for millions of years. We didnt colonize the ends of the world, but realized instead that these remote wastes dictate our future survival

Wood offers examples by interspersing in his book 20th century discoveries, such as drilling for core samples in the ice and the seabed to see what Antarctica was like when there was no ice. Or trying to assess the speed and consequences of a warming or cooling climate through the lens of past shifts, including eras when carbon in the atmosphere was at or near todays high levels. [T]he business of Antarctic data collection is an empire unto itself, a vast domain, Wood writes. Though Victorians retreated in awe from the ice continent, stymied in their efforts to make landing and claim the pole, they are its true founders as an object of knowledge.

Both books are full of adventure and hardship stories of people at sea in strange and often harsh conditions. But they also carry lessons about the importance of obtaining knowledge to understand better our blue marble of ice and fire, what makes it tick and how, like adventurers, we are caught up in a survival story ourselves.

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Two Northwest explorers helped us understand the Earth's poles - Crosscut

Colombian researcher Lauren Flor-Torres in front of an image of the M42 (The Orion Nebula) taken ... [+] with Celestron EdgeHD 8" SCT Telescope (property of Astronomys department at University of Guanajuato) by Faiber Rosas in February 2020.

Colombian researcher Lauren Flor-Torres is not only using robotic telescopes to study distant stars that have had planets detected around them, she's also helping other Colombians, especially women and girls, see a path for themselves in astronomy.

"In planetary science you can only understand exoplanets if you understand their host stars," Flor-Torres said, adding that both planets and their host stars formed around the same time.

In pursuit of understanding these goals, Flor-Torres, who is now a lecturer at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, did her masters degree on a statistical analysis of the characteristics of exoplanets based on NASA databases before doing a PhD at the University of Guanajuato, in central Mexico.

"In my PhD I used data for stars with planets obtained with the 1-meter robotic telescope TIGRE in Guanajuato to study how we can connect the formation of the planets to the formation of their stars," she said, "My work showed that we can use smaller telescopes in an optimal way (we do not need a giant telescope) to determine and study the physical parameters of planet host-stars."

Flor-Torres grew up in Cali, Colombia, within a very close-knit family and says that there were two formative moments in her journey to becoming someone who looks at the stars for a living.

As an undergraduate student, she had the the opportunity to go on a field trip with Colombian-born researcher Adriana Ocampo, who is now a program executive at NASA and their Venus lead scientist.

"During this trip she told me all about her research, which fascinated me and at this moment, I decided," she said, I want to be a researcher like her."

The second formative experience for Flor-Torres came during her first semester as a master student when, as part of the course, students went to do observations at Mexico's National Astronomical Observatory in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir mountain range in Baja California state.

"However, just a few days before the trip I hurt my foot badly and had to use a splint and crutches," she said, adding that her teacher told her she couldn't go, due to the long journey and difficult mountain roads.

"Desperate not to lose the opportunity of going to a professional observatory for the first time, I argued with my teacher and succeeded in convincing him that I could do this trip, she said, adding that she got to work with a 2-meter professional telescope for the first time and saw Milky Way with her own eyes.

"I've never regretted it, it was quite a journey... it didn't bother that my foot was frozen because I was so happy just being there," she said.

The role of Colombian women in the space sciences was recently highlighted when NASA's Perseverance Rover landed on Mars in mid-February.

And who was a key part of the team that made it happen? Colombian Diana Trujillo, who, like Flor-Torres, is also from Cali, Colombia.

To make sure that there are even more Colombians, especially women and girls, interested in astronomy, Flor-Torres has been instrumental in the creation of two projects. The first is GAAM (Grupo de Astronoma y Astrofsica Macondo), which aims to strengthen research collaborations and outcomes in astronomy, particularly in Cali, Colombia.

The other is CHIA (Colombianas Haciendo Investigacin en Astrociencias) which is led by female astronomy researchers.

CHIA also the name of the goddess of the Moon, in the Chibcha language, once spoken by an ancient civilization in the central highlands of what is now modern Colombia.

"The aim of CHIA is to give more visibility to the work that many Colombian women do in Space Science around the world and to show young girls that science in Colombia is also for women," she said, "We not only want to encourage them to follow the scientific path, but also to make them realize that women capable of critical thinking can play an important role in our society."

Colombian researcher Lauren Flor-Torres on TIGRE telescope at Guanajuato, Mexico - January 2017.

Flor-Torres is part of an increasing number of female astronomers in Latin America. Another example is astrophysicist KristhellLopez, one of just two female astrophysicists from Guatemala, a country with a long history of astronomy before Spanish colonization.

She studies mysterious signals called ULXs (Ultraluminous X-ray sources), that might turn out to be mid-sized black holes.

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This Colombian Searches For The Secrets Of Stars With Exoplanets - Forbes

A dazzling carved relief of the golden eagle has been discovered in the heart of the capital of the Aztec Empire.

Archeologists from Mexicos National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) discovered the relief carved into the volcanic rock walls of the Templo Mayor, the central temple in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, which is now Mexico City. Its estimated the carved slab was part of the areas floor and used during the rule of Motecuhzoma Ilhuicamina ruling between 1440 and 1469 CE.

The relief was originally discovered in February 2020 during ongoing excavations at the temple's ruins, but has since been subjected to further research thats dug out its significance and deeper meaning.

Almost 70 similar pieces have been discovered in the Templo Mayor, but this is the largest found yet, measuring over 1 meter (3.3 feet) by 70 centimeters (27.6 inches). Along with its size, its significance is also underscored by its location within the temple complex. It was found in the central axis that crosses the chapel of Huitzilopochtli, the god of war and the Sun, and the monumental sculpture of the goddess Coyolxauhqu, the goddess of the Moon or Milky Way.

This floor is unique in the entire Templo Mayor as it contains bas-reliefs that allude to the dual conception of the building. On the south side, where we are exploring, there are elements like this eagle, linked to the mythical cycle of the birth of Huitzilopochtli; while to the north, the bas-reliefs located earlier the first in 1900 by Leopoldo Batres, and the later by the PTM and the Urban Archeology Program (PAU) contain representations associated with Tlloc, the water cycle and the regeneration of corn, Rodolfo Aguilar Tapia, an archaeologist from the INAH's Templo Mayor Project, explains in a statement.

"It is a very beautiful piece that shows the great secrets that the Templo Mayor of Mexico Tenochtitln has yet to reveal to us," commented Alejandra Frausto Guerrero, head of Secretariat of Culture of Mexico

As this relief clearly shows, the Aztecs had a deep cultural connection to the golden eagle. Within the city of Teotihuacan, archeologists have previously unearthed the bones of eagles, which were likely kept as captive animals and perhaps used in sacrifices to the Gods. The Aztec army also featured a special class of infantry soldiers known as the Eagle warriors who adorned themselves with eagle feathers and eagle head-shaped headgear.

Last month, archeologists at the INAH unearthed the grim story from the Spanish colonization of Mexico in the remains of an Aztec-allied town. Using their new archeological evidence and pre-existing historical accounts, they believe their discovery shows the site where women and children were slaughtered and mutilated by Spanish colonialists. The brutal attack was most likely an act of revenge after a troupe of the colonialists and their allies were cannibalized in the previous month.

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Giant Eagle Artwork Discovered In The Heart Of Aztec Capital - IFLScience

Published Jan. 27 at 12:05 pm

(L) Pter Szijjrt, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary and (R) Dmytro Kuleba, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine met to discuss the relationships between the two countries including the protection of rights of the Hungarian national minority in Kyiv on Feb. 7, 2020.

Photo by kmu.gov.ua

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba said that he would discuss with Minister of Foreign Economy and Foreign Affairs of Hungary Peter Szijjarto, who is on a working visit to Ukraine, how to develop trust in relations between Ukraine and Hungary, move forward in the spirit of mutual respect and good neighborliness.

I am glad to welcome Minister of Foreign Economy and Foreign Affairs of Hungary Peter Szijjarto during his visit to Ukraine at my invitation. Lets talk frankly about how to develop trust in relations between Ukraine and Hungary, move forward in a spirit of mutual respect and good neighborliness, Kuleba wrote on Twitter on Jan. 27.

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Szijjarto arrives on working visit in Kyiv | KyivPost - Ukraine's Global Voice - Kyiv Post