Category Archives: Moon Colonization

Now that SpaceX has successfully launched two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station and Tesla has opened after a pandemic shutdown, Elon Musk is now literally aiming beyond Earths orbit and prioritizing his ultimate space dream: colonizing Mars.

In a letter to SpaceX employees over the weekend, the ambitious entrepreneur said his rocket companys focus now is Starship, the prototype-phase spacecraft thats supposed to fly up to 100 humans at a time to Mars when paired with the SpaceXs upcoming Super Heavy rocket booster.

We need to accelerate Starship progressdramatically and immediately, Musk wrote in the email, obtained by CNBC. Please consider the top SpaceX priority (apart from anything that could reduce Dragon return risk) to be Starship.

Starship is one of SpaceXs three main pillars of business; the other two are the Crew Dragon vessel, used in NASAs ISS mission, and the Starlink satellite broadband project. The reusable interplanetary spacecraft has been under development since late 2019 at SpaceXs testing site in Boca Chica, Texas.

So far, SpaceX has built five prototypes of Starship and suffered multiple setbacks. The first two prototypes, Mk1 and SN1, were destroyed during pressure tests in November 2019 and February 2020, respectively. The subsequent version, SN2, passed a pressure test in March. But the next one, SN3, collapsed during testing a month later. The latest prototype, SN4, blew up during a test in Boca Chica on May 29.

SpaceX is already working on an SN5, which is expected to be used in the next test, with plans for SN6 and SN7.

Besides Mars colonization, the Starship system (the spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster) is also intended to be used for delivering satellites to Earths orbit, long-duration spaceflight and sending humans back to the Moon, either for government scientific projects or SpaceXs own commercial lunar program.

The latter, which Musk has said could materialize as early as 2023, has secured only one customer to date: Japanese retail billionaireYusaku Maezawa, who reportedly paid a hefty deposit for the faraway vacation.

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Elon Musks Top Priority Now Is Going to Mars and the Moon - Observer

Were going to the moon. Were going to Mars. And, before you know it, well be going to the asteroid belt.

Space is back, baby. Its back in the news, back in our thoughts, and back in the culture. America, and the world, are better for it.

Over the past few years, space exploration has returned to public consciousness in ways not since the first shuttle mission in 1981, or even since Americans landed men on the moon then brought them safely back to earth in the summer of 1969.

The launch of the joint SpaceXNASA rocket on May 30 is only the latest proof of our renewed interest, and it revealed much about the future of humans in space. Te key is private industry: What used to cost the government $54,500 per kilogram of payload lifted to orbit now costs SpaceX $2,720, saving 95 percent.

Reducing cost, of course, is one of the things private industry is supposed to be good at. The most recent launch of the SpaceX Dragon module atop a Falcon rocket cost an estimated $55 million, and SpaceX founder Elon Musk claims the future cost of his reusable rockets could fall to a shockingly low $2 million per launch.

As Jonah Gottschalk noted in his reporting for The Federalist, its fair to question why the government should continue dedicating tens of billions to space when the private industry can achieve so much at astoundingly low costs.

The other thing about private industry, however, is that it eventually has to make money. Prior to colonizationwhich we are still likely decades away from achievingthe options are limited. Satellite launching and repair might provide some income. Carrying out paid experiments for scientists? Perhaps. Tourism? Highly likely. But the most probable long-term source of income from space is asteroid mining.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits nations from claiming territory beyond Earth. The moon and other celestial bodies, it notes, are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. But its easy for lawyers to argue about what these terms mean. National appropriation isnt necessarily the same as private property rights.

Space law used to be entirely academic, but now its a rising field. NASA is funding asteroid-mining research. The Colorado School of Mines now has an asteroid-mining program of study. Sen. Ted Cruz has predicted that Earths first trillionaire will be made in space.

The growing commercial space-sector helped guide the 2015 SPACE Act through Congress, which included a finders, keepers rule that allows American companies to claim the bounty they extract from celestial bodies. As a result, private equity funding for space-related start-ups massively increased. The first quarter of 2019 alone saw $1.7 billion in equity capital for space companies.

People used to see asteroid mining as a bit of a joke, says Peter Ward, author of The Consequential Frontier, a new book about space privatization. But now, Ward believes the commercial space industry is maturing to the point where its more serious.

Private industry seeks two things in asteroid mining: water and metals. The water isnt exactly a money-maker; its needed to make hydrogen fuel for return to Earth at a cost lower than lifting fuel into space. The metals, however, will prove to be the real sources of profit.

Asteroids are defined as rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of the solar system, and already 958,628 are identified and plotted. By far the largest collection is found in the asteroid belt, the ring of space rubble between Mars and Jupiter. The belt may contain as many as 1.9 million asteroids larger than a kilometer in diameter and many millions of smaller ones.

Still, although fewer in number, the near-Earth asteroids are the likeliest first targets for mining. More than 10,000 near-Earth asteroids are known, with 861 measuring more than a kilometer in diameter (and 1,409 classified as potentially hazardous, posing a threat to Earth).

The material potential is astounding. Asteroid 1986 DA, for example, is a metallic near-Earth asteroid of iron, nickel, gold, and platinum, and estimates of its value range from 6 to 7 trillion dollarsthe gross national product of a nation. Of course, at three kilometers in diameter, Asteroid 1986 DA is too large to be retrieved anytime soon. But the potential figures give some idea of just how much wealth is out there in the black of space.

Such big asteroids as Ceres and Vesta are too big to move, and regardless, they would probably count as celestial bodies under the Outer Space Treaty. But a smaller asteroid can certainly be moved. Its not real estate; its just a rock, law professor Glenn Reynolds observed in Popular Mechanics.

A 25-meter-wide metallic-type asteroid might hold 33,000 tons of extractable metal, including $50 million in platinum alone. A seven-meter carbonaceous-type asteroid can hold 24,000 gallons of water for generating fuel and oxygen.

John Shaw, a major general in the U.S. Space Command, insists that the United States is not going to be sending humans into space for national security purposes anytime soon. That leaves policing and trading in the hands of private industry.

No legal barriers currently stop anyone who wants to stake out and mine an asteroid with magnetic rakes, low-gravity sifters, asteroid anchors, and all the other fantastic technologies suddenly becoming feasible.Yes, its going to be the Wild West out there, a modern gold rush, just as science fiction has often imagined. But thats a good thing.

Private industry will have to operate more cheaply than the government. It will be forced, by the need for profits, to push faster out into the solar system. By harnessing the inherent positive competition of the free enterprise system with the kind of dangerous trial and error experiments that governments loathe, further private space exploration is poised to create incredible new technologies beyond our imagination.

Younger generations will be filled with purpose and inspired to join an innovative and exciting new field.In other words: Buckle up, everybody. Space is back.

Faith Bottum is an undergraduate engineering student at the South Dakota School of Mines.

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Space Exploration Is Back, And Asteroid Mining Is The Next Gold Rush - The Federalist

As the clock wound down on NASAs 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge last May, the fate ofAI SpaceFactory, a leading firm for multi-planetary architecture, fell in the hands of a lanky industrial robot. After four years and a few elimination rounds, the New York-based team was head-to-head with researchers from Pennsylvania State University, vying for a top prize of $500,000 and a chance to inspire future Martian settlements.

Nearly ten hours into the last day of competition, hundreds watched as AI Spacefactory's robotic arm dangled a circular skylight over a mud-colored, vase-like structure, lowering it slowly as if placing the roof on a house of cards. For a few seconds, the skylight seemed secure. Observers began to cheer. Then, with little warning, the skylight slipped and fell through an opening in the roof, crashing to the floor with a hollow thud.

Such a mishap would be devastating for a mission on Mars. But AI SpaceFactorys 3D-printed structure, Marsha, still impressed the NASA judges enough to earn the top prize. The firm now hopes Marsha will serve as a prototype for the first human habitats on the Red Planet.

Designed like an egg, Marshas form is both aesthetically svelte and extraterrestrially efficient. On Mars the exterior air is very thin, just one percent of the Earths atmosphere, explains David Malott, CEO and co-founder of AI SpaceFactory, who oversaw the building's design. As a result, Marsha would have to be pressurized on the inside to match Earths atmosphere; this pressure difference would cause the structure to want to pop like a balloon. The egg shape, says Malott, is meant to help keep the building from exploding.

Inside, Marsha's amenities wouldnt be much different from those inside a small townhouse, with a few sciencey exceptions. The habitat features four floors, including a kitchen, exercise room, sleep pods and a garden where astronauts might grow herbs and leafy greens. A wet and dry lab offers space for experimentation, while a docking port on the ground floor provides easy access to a rover. The structures outer layer of basalt fiber, to be sourced from Martian regolith or bioplastic recycled from astronaut trash, would be designed to protect inhabitants from cosmic rays and micrometeoroids. Save a rusty dust storm, astronauts may actually forget theyre on the Red Planet.

But not all proposed Martian habitats share Marshas sleek design. Some resemble ant hills more than eggs and employ cruder methods than 3D printing to make use of Martian materials.

Many of the concepts Ive seen look like mounds of regolith piled on top of habitats, says Metzger, our planetary science expert from before. For example, inflatable modules would be used as the habitats inner core, connected by a series of tubes that would serve as tunnels between main chambers. From above, the product would look like curvy structures, says Metzger, like something out of The Hobbit.

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Guelph

Each design method printing and piling has its own list of merits and setbacks. While piling regolith may be quicker and less prone to printer error, it would still require humans to ship the inflatable inner habitats, which would come at a cost. Piled regolith would also have to be secured in some way, perhaps through microwaving, compacting, or the addition of polymers. For Edmundson, piling is a temporary solution. Once we get into the sustainability portion of exploration, were going to need to start building our own habitats, she says.

3D printing offers more of thein-situexperience, but it can be resource intensive. What's more, 3D printing requires a precise mixture of specific elements, which will have to be as close as possible in composition to the simulated regolith used in experiments on Earth. Theres little margin for error when youre millions of miles away, and regolith minerality varies depending on its source.

Research with regolith simulants is vital for the safety of future missions, says Edmundson. That's part of the reason why I think I have job security. People are going to have to know what the differences are between the planets surface itself and the simulants they're using [on Earth]. Today there are about 10 Martian regolith simulants and a few dozen simulants for the Moon. But that number is probably going to change pretty quickly, she adds, now that we're planning to go back.

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Earths first o-world colonies will be built on soil - Engadget

Kevin McCann, Irish writer and flimmaker

Originally Published: May 26, 2020 1:30 p.m.

Editor's note: Kevin McCann is a writer and filmmaker from Ireland. His company Maccana Teoranta produce drama and documentary films. He is currently developing a documentary celebrating the links between Ireland and Native America featuring the story of the Choctaw Irish Famine Gift.

This month, tens of thousands of Irish people are donating to a $5 million fund-raising campaign to help the Navajo and Hopi tribes battling the Coronavirus. Irish donors see this as a long overdue payback for the gift of $170 sent by the Choctaw Tribe to Ireland during the famine. My own reason for donating was more recent. A personal experience of receiving the generosity of the Navajo people.

As an Irish writer and filmmaker interested in telling a story about Native America, I was aware of their similar history to Ireland in terms of colonization and cultural oppression but knew very little about who they are today. And so to find out more, I went on a camping adventure last October to Navajo Nation, a land reservation the same size as the Irish Republic just east of the Grand Canyon.

Before our trip, my partner Mn and I met with a Navajo filmmaker in Los Angeles named Pamela Peters. She kindly suggested people to interview and spoke of Native Americas struggle for recognition. Pamela warned us about the apprehension towards white people making films about them because of misrepresentations and skewed narratives similar to objectionable Irish stereotypes and revisionist agendas.

Our trip would coincide with the Western Navajo Fair, the last tribal festival of the year. We packed our rented car with camping gear and enough snacks for a week. We left LA at daybreak and drove east for 10 hours. At Flagstaff, Arizona (on Route 66), we filled up with gas before heading north-east. The sun set behind us as we crossed the border into the reservation at a dusty plain called Wolf Crossing. We pitched our tent at the remote Hopi Cultural Center under Octobers harvest moon.

The next day after visiting a Hopi Tribal museum and nearby crumbling villages, I discovered that I had lost our wallet. We were in a very remote area with poor phone coverage and $20 in cash. Rather than return to LA, we had faith and decided to plough on. The full tank of gas took us to Tuba City population 8,611. Our eyes lit up when we saw Hogan in majestic bright letters over the door of a hotel. As Irish people, we thought we were home and dry with that name. However, in the Navajo language, hogan means house. But all was not lost. The Western Navajo Fair hadnt started yet and they had a couple of tent spaces to rent and we had just enough to pay for a night.

The lobby computer at Hogans Hotel became a part-time office as we figured out a solution. Pamela, the Navajo filmmaker back in LA was now our only point of contact and helped to arrange interviews. Hearing our predicament, she paid for a meal for us along with a second night at the campsite. That evening, the Hogan Restaurant served a beautiful meal with traditional blue corn bread (highly recommended) before the arrival of the Navajo Council Delegate and medicine man. Mention of the name Otto Tso was greeted with smiles and nods of respect. Soon after our meal, Otto came in and sat down opposite us in the booth. He wore traditional regalia and a turquoise necklace. We ordered some tea.

Half-way through our interview, the hotel porter came over and handed the key of Room 207 to Otto. He passed it over to us. He had kindly arranged for Mn and I to stay that night in the hotel. We were happy camping and were initially reluctant to accept, but October nights in Arizona are chilly enough. We didnt take much convincing. As the interview went on, I glanced at the key and was struck by this act of kindness. This man didnt know us. He was just helping strangers in trouble.

Otto told us that he lost his mother when he was 7-years-old. A month before she died, she sat her only child down and instructed the young Otto to follow a meaningful path in life. As an adult, he joined the tribal council to serve his people.

There are 572 Native American tribes recognized by the Federal Government and Navajo is the largest, he told us, In my first term, we built a $19 million sewerage scheme on the reservation. This year, its infrastructure - building roads and fixing potholes.

Ottos eyes welled with tears when telling the Navajo story. We had seen those same tears when speaking with Pamela. In their eyes, was the hurt of the Native people. A hurt from an unhealed wound. A hurt that still allowed for compassion to strangers.

The sun is our father and the earth is our mother, Otto told us, and with a smile added I like to tell people that our backyard is the Grand Canyon.

Before leaving, I took a photo of Otto and Mn beneath a picture of a Navajo herdswoman. The next day, Otto did us a wonderful favour. I used the computer in the hotel lobby to transfer money to his bank account and he met me at the hotel to give me cash. After our comfortable night in the hotel, we had enough money to enjoy our trip and get home. We were saved.

Over the next few days, we enjoyed the Western Navajo Fair - rodeos and rollercoasters mixed with pre-dawn ritual dances and tribal gatherings. Otto invited us to his home to meet the tribal council after the parade through Tuba City. We saw no other white people while we were there.

The Choctaw tribe whose ancestors gave Ireland the gift during the famine live in Oklahoma, another 1,000 miles to the east. The love of community and wisdom in generosity seen in 1847 lives on to this day.

Right now, Navajo Nation has one of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection. I am proud to honor the kindness of Otto Tso and Pamela Peters in joining the tens of thousands of Irish donating to their fund-raising campaign.

More information about McCann and current projects can be found through his company Maccana Teoranta at http://www.maccana.ie. Supported by Screen Ireland, Kevin is producing the first movie on the 1916 Irish Rebellion. (www.therising.ie) He is also developing a documentary celebrating the links between Ireland and Native America.

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The Navajo gift to the Irish: A personal account of my visit to the reservation - Navajo-Hopi Observer

I once asked an acting teacher, after a few months of Shakespeare, Chekhov, Durang, Shepard, and Kushner, whether it might be possible to introduce some works by writers who werent white men. She furrowed her brow in confusion, frowned, cocked her head, and, placing both hands palm down on her desk, responded: But Mattyoure not black.

And anyway, the class wasnt about all that, it was aboutgetting better at acting and engaging with text, and these writers were masterplaywrights. Their work was universal.

Ever since then I knew what all artists of color come toknow eventually: that our white counterparts are rarely required or expected tobe familiar with work by great artists of color who came before them (with afew exceptions), but developing artists of color must know all the same work astheir white counterparts even while taking it upon themselves to stretch beyondthat.

Though I wound up performing a Nilo Cruz monologue as theculminating project in that class tomake a point, I was nevertheless over the moon for Shakespeare.

Besides a short stint as a stegosaurus in a daycamp betweenfirst and second grade, my first real experience acting was in a Shakespeareplay. In my sophomore year of high school, I was cast in the schoolsproduction of As You Like It, where Iwas cast as Charles the wrestler and Corin the old shepherd, which set me offon the long theatrical path to eventually winding up part of the CiviliansR&D group. I worked at a Shakespeare theater two summers in a row, playedparts in Midsummer and Macbeth in college (and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, forgood measure). I loved understanding Elizabethan English or, where I didnt,researching it. I loved breaking apart towering sentences for their imagery,their antithesis, their double meanings. I loved scanning lines and beating outrhythms on the table or my thigh, each irregularity a treasure, a clue, amessage from Shakespeare himself.

I had read a bunch of the plays and sonnets in various Englishclasses, too, which always produced the weird feeling Im sure is common indiaspora kids of being in two camps at once: both ownership over the text assomething youre native to (The greatest writer in the English language!) anda simultaneous foreignness. I bristled every time a teacher assertedShakespeares universality, noting that a major reason everyone getsShakespeare is that the culture that produced him and that he in turn helpedproduced was imposed on people around the world at gunpoint. Its no wonder Iwas drawn to Shakespeares own outsiders, his rare depictions of racial or religiousminorities providing a weird window into Elizabethan conceptions of race andthe other. Othello and Shylock were particularly compelling (and continue tobe, as borne out by my play TheVenetians), as characters who are often monstrous racial stereotypes on theone hand while still rendered with surprisingly human moments on the other.Human enough that it made me want to salvage pieces of them. As activist andUniversity of Arizona professor Curtis Acosta said when we spoke, thosethings were really attractive to me as someone who was just figuring out whatit really meant to be a man of color I think I was just attracted to it because of all these things Irecognized in it.

Drown My Book began in 2012 when Id readthat the Tucson Unified School District had begun removing Mexican AmericanStudies texts from classrooms and boxing them up in storage facilities incompliance with a ruling that accused ethnic studies programs of, among otherthings, advocating for the overthrow of the US government. As horrible as allthis was, I wasnt expecting Shakespeare to be part of all of this, andcertainly not on the opposite side of the law. In a news release dated January17th, 2011, TUSD Director of Communications Cara Rene lists sevenremoved books (Critical Race Theory,by Richard Delgado; 500 Years of ChicanoHistory in Pictures, edited by Elizabeth Martinez; Message to AZTLAN, by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales; Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement, byArturo Rosales; Occupied America: AHistory of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuna; Pedagogyof the Oppressed by Paulo Freire; and RethinkingColumbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow) and goes on to say:

Other books have also been falsely reported as being banned by TUSD. It has been incorrectly reported that William Shakespeares The Tempest is not allowed for instruction. Teachers may continue to use materials in their classrooms as appropriate for the course curriculum. The Tempest and other books approved for curriculum are still viable options for instructors.

When I spoke to Acosta, however, hetold me a different story. The Tempest isa difficult text to teach and discuss without touching on colonialism, slavery,and the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas. In fact, as RonaldTakaki points out in his essay, The Tempest in the Wilderness: TheRacialization of Savagery, The Tempest invitesus to view English expansion not only as imperialism but as a defining momentin the making of an English-American identity based on race. The characterCaliban the wizard Prosperos powerful, surly, supernatural, half-humanslave, born to rule the island but usurped when the Wizard arrived has beenrefigured by creators such as Aim Csaire and Jimmie Durham as a victim ofcolonization, struggling under the yoke of a foreign oppressor. In Acostashands, the inevitability of discussing these topics became a tool forillustrating certain failures of the law:

I found all my notes from all these horrible administrative meetings I had. We were trying to figure out what was legal and illegal, and I knew right away that the day of it was January 10th, I know all these dates now because I was just writing about it January 10th [] was the board meeting, and that night when we were suspended I leaned over to a colleague and said, Tomorrow Im getting Shakespeare banned. And so I went into that meeting with an agenda but also I knew that there was no other way it was gonna go because the law was so poorly written, and so obviously racist, discriminatory that if I just made the argument they would have to. Now this is the thing that changed: In the moment, the day after, there was still a shred of humanity in the administration I was dealing with at my site, and then after, they tried to cover their tracks and didnt know that we were going to release the audio. They went on full scale the district administration went on this full scale attack after I told reporter friends of mine, Yeah, I cant teach it. They told me I cant teach The Tempest. And so they went on this full scale attack all but calling me personally a liar. [] But we ended up being able to prove it because I did record it. That was the last meeting they allowed me to record. It wasnt the last meeting recorded, but it was the last meeting they allowed me to record. But thank God I did!

Caliban, like Othello and Shylock, has come tooccupy a special place in my relationship to Shakespeare, but what gripped meso much about what was happening in Tucson is that this play, part of a reveredWestern canon, found itself on the side of the marginalized, an emblem used topoint out the weaknesses in the structures and impulses it once served to helpprop up.

Theresa line in Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country (the title itself areference to Hamlet), where a Klingon character insists, Youve notexperienced Shakespeare until youve read him in the original Klingon. Its ajoke, and yet

I became taken (and still am taken, and so knewimmediately which project to propose to The Civilians) with the idea of a groupof Latin students grappling directly with these contradictions, takingShakespeares words and turning them on the authorities, using the schoolscurriculum against it.

InThe Tempest, Prosperos books of arcane knowledge are his most prizedpossession, which he guards jealously and devotes himself to entirely; inTucson, books had been torn from classrooms because of the ideas they held andhoarded away in warehouses. The title, Drown My Book, came to meimmediately, and Ive stuck with it. Its from Prosperos last speech, where hethrows away his magic staff and library, pledging never to use them again: Anddeeper than did ever plummet sound / Ill drown my book.

In her play UneTempte, Csaire turned Caliban into arevolutionary; the students in my play would use The Tempest as arevolutionary tool.

DurhamsCaliban Codex shows us a Calibanobsessed with trying to figure out what his own fact looks like, having neverseen a reflection and only knowing what Prospero tells him about himself; mycharacters, accustomed to not seeing themselves reflected in other parts of thesyllabus, would use a canonical text to fight to keep the one mirror theydbeen given.

Ratherthan bend and compartmentalize themselves, as so many young people are forcedto (as I was forced to in that acting class) the characters in my play wouldbend Shakespeare to serve them.

Maybethats what we should mean when we say that Shakespeare is universal: not anappeal to bland relatability, but instead that the sheer reach of Shakespearesinfluence over how we understand stories and the written word now means that hecan be enlisted by anyone to serve new purposes.

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Civilians' R&D In Process: DROWN MY BOOK - Extended Play

Many ask, what is the point of space exploration? It costs a lot of time and resources, to do just what? Look at stars? Why venture up there, when we have so many problems down here? Why dedicate such a monumental amount of money that could be spent on the poor? It just doesnt make sense.

But space exploration represents so much: the future of the species. We human have spent our history toiling, warring, and innovating to make life on our planet better. But we often forget the immense size and scale of the actual universe and that even on the scale of our solar system, we are living on an insignificant speck of dust.

Morbidly enough, it would not take very much to wipe us out erasing everything we worked so hard to build. Take a meteor, for instance: In one fell swoop, one wiped out the dinosaurs just one of many cosmic bullets that could eliminate life on Earth. The age-old saying, Dont put all of your eggs in one basket applies here. Moving on to other planets branches us out and plants humanitys literal footprint in the infinite. We can prevail, if our home planet suffers a major extinction event.

SHARED DESTINY

The future often envisions human colonization of other planets, because sci-fi writers and scientists alike realize that space is, indeed, our future. There is a unique desire in the hearts of all of us, to go out and explore. In the endearing words of President John F. Kennedy, Why climb the highest mountain? Why, 50 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Simply, because we are a remarkably ambitious species, in that our desire to explore takes us far from home. We are destined to depart in pursuit of knowledge, to advance our story and establish our legacy in the cosmos.

Also, space is a remarkable unifying force. The need to explore is not limited to any one nationality, religion, or ideology. Its a constant in our shared history. When Columbus set sail to the new world, curiosity drove him. When Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay became the first to summit Everest, the spirit of adventure soared. Just as when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to leave boot marks on the moon. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon (amidst the U.S.-U.S.S.R. cold war) the world did not say an American or Neil and Buzz landed on the moon, it said WE landed on the moon! A collective human triumph had occurred.

Further travel to the stars is vastly expensive; our pursuit of Mars requires help from all quarters. For instance, the life support for those future astronauts is provided by the ESA (European Space Agency), not NASA. The current International Space Station is was a herculean effort with help from many nations, and as a result, all countries are welcome.

COUNTLESS BENEFITS

Spaceflight takes place far above where borders are recognizable, mostly to conduct research that benefits everyone. One orbiting Earth satellite uses reflected light to accurately measure soil around the world and predict droughts, to prevent food shortages. The data is open to use, in order to benefit humanity. Likewise, Hubble, Kepler, Gaia, Voyager and countless other probes provide knowledge for all citizens, not just Americans.

Dont forget the spillover technologies. Do you need glasses? Well, NASA developed the material for modern lenses, for use in the Space Shuttles windows. Have you ever used a handheld (cordless) drill? NASA created the first one for use on the lunar surface. The list goes on and on.

If doubting exploration in light of so many earthly problems, realize these same questions have been asked throughout history. Those who sailed the seas invented the compass; the sextant was created in 1731 to navigate the vast ocean separating Europe and the new world. Without exploration, the United States wouldnt even exist. Nobody truly knows what untold fortunes, nations, technologies and histories may lie ahead for us, in space.

Finally, when we feel inspired, we look up up to our future, our possibilities not down to the ground. Our future is not where we have been, it is where we are going. Its as if some force is trying to show us the way. The stars are not mere specks of light in the sky, but invitations to come see what they have to offer. For the sake of all who have come before us, and all who will come after, it is time to unify, collaborate, innovate and establish our permanent footprint in the sky for the benefit of all.Were on the brink of something truly magnificent, where humanity dances among the stars we have gazed upon, in awe, for so many centuries.

Continued here:
WHY WE EXPLORE SPACE - The Advocate

A lot of focus over the past 12 months has been on NASA's journey to Mars. But a group of space experts, including leading NASA scientists, has now produced a special journal edition that details how we could establish a human colony on the Moon in the next seven years - all for US$10 billion.

Although that's pretty awesome, the goal isn't really the Moon itself - from an exploratory point of view, most scientists have bigger targets in sight. But the lessons we'll learn and the technology we'll develop building a human base outside of Earth will eventually be the key to colonising Mars, and other planets, according to the experts.

"My interest is not the Moon. To me the Moon is as dull as a ball of concrete," NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay, who edited the special, open-access issue ofNew Spacejournal, told Sarah Fecht over at Popular Science. "But we're not going to have a research base on Mars until we can learn how to do it on the Moon first. The Moon provides a blueprint to Mars."

The journal articles came out of a workshop held back in August 2014, when some of the greatest minds in space research and business were brought together to explore and develop low-cost options for building a human settlement on the Moon.

We haven't gone back to the Moon since 1972 simply because of how expensive it is - the Apollo program that put the first humans on the lunar surface would have cost US$150 billion by today's standards, Fecht reports. And with a budget of US$19.3 billion for the whole of 2016, NASA hasn't been able to consider the Moon as well as Mars.

But thanks to new technology, it no longer has to be that way.

"The US could lead a return of humans to the surface of the Moon within a period of 5-7 years from authority to proceed at an estimated total cost of about $10 billion (30 percent)," conclude NASA'sAlexandra HallandNextGen Space's Charles Millerin one of the papers.

As Jurica Dujmovic notes for MarketWatch, that's cheaper than one US aircraft carrier.

"The big takeaway,"McKay toldPopular Science,"is that new technologies, some of which have nothing to do with space - like self-driving cars and waste-recycling toilets - are going to be incredibly useful in space, and are driving down the cost of a moon base to the point where it might be easy to do."

NASA

According to the research papers, the lunar base would house around 10 people for stays of up to a year at first - and could eventually grow to a self-sufficient settlement of 100 within a decade.

They'd get to the Moon on SpaceX's soon-to-be-launched Falcon Heavy, and while they'd have to take quite a lot of equipment on the first trip, 3D printing could be used to produce pretty much everything else once they get there.

The colony would most likely be established on the outer rim of one of the Moon's poles, which receive more sunlight than the rest of the surface, so would help keep solar-powered equipment running. As Marketwatch reports:

"Furthermore, all that energy could provide power for robots that would excavate large amounts of ice detected within the craters. Water gathered that way could then be used for life support, as well as for providing oxygen, or it could be processed into rocket fuel, which would be sold or stored for refuelling space crafts."

The astronauts would probably live in the something similar to Bigelow Aeropsace's inflatable habitat, the researchers write, which is radiation resistant and would allow for a range of living areas, as well as easy storing and transport.

It could also provide protected habitats for basic crops, which would be fertilised with the help of a toilet that recycles human waste into energy, clean water, and nutrients, such as the Gates Foundation-funded blue toilet.

BigelowAerospace

The rest of the food and supplies for 10 people that couldn't be grown and 3D printed on the Moon could be shipped by SpaceX for less than US$350 million per yearusing the reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

It all sounds amazing, but the elephant in the room is the fact that the US$10 million establishment cost is more than NASA's existing space flight budget of US$3-4 billion per year. But assuming setting up the colony is a flat fee, it's definitely still affordable and could run alongside plans to Mars, the scientists write.

And things could get even cheaper if commercial service providers are involved, which would then beprime position to sell propellant from the Moon's orbit to NASA and any other space agencies trying to get humans to Mars.

All of the papers in the special edition of New Spaceare freely available online for you to peruse and use to plan your future in space. Get dreaming, because it's closer than you think.

"It is time to go back to this Moon, this time to stay," concludes the journal's preface. "and funding is no longer the main hurdle."

Read the original post:
NASA Scientists Say We Could Colonise The Moon by 2022 ...

Stuck on the moon with no lunar base? Just take a whiz and youre in biz!

An international team of researchers have proposed that NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Chinas space organization build their future structures out of lunar soil and urea yes, pee. Turns out, the bodily fluid is a pretty effective binding agent for concrete.

In the event of global disaster, there has been some discussion of colonization of the moon. However, the monumental effort poses a number of logistical issues, such as how to get building materials to the desolate, dusty wasteland that is the moons surface. Study authors note that transporting just 0.45 kilograms (just under a pound) of cargo to space costs about $10,000.

Urine, however costs $0.

Engineers from Norway, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy, whose findings were recently published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, showed that incorporating urea into a concrete blend could make the mixture more pliant and thus easier to handle under the moons harsh conditions.

To make the geopolymer concrete that will be used on the moon, the idea is to use what is there: regolith (loose material from the moons surface) and the water from the ice present in some areas, said study author Ramn Pamies, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (Murcia).

In his statement, he added, with this study we have seen that a waste product, such as the urine of the personnel who occupy the moon bases, could also be used. The two main components of this body fluid are water and urea, a molecule that allows the hydrogen bonds to be broken and, therefore, reduces the viscosities of many aqueous mixtures.

To test out the pee theory, the researchers used a material supplied by the ESA, which is similar to the moon dirt, or regolith, along with urea and various other plasticizers to 3D print mud cylinders for testing under various conditions. They revealed that the samples made with urea supported more weight and kept their shape better compared to the others.

They also held up when exposed to ultra high and low temperatures.

Scientists admitted that there is the problem of how an astronaut would be expected to separate the urea, which is ammonia and carbon dioxide, from the rest of the stuff in pee, including mostly water, expelled nutrients and other compounds.

We have not yet investigated how the urea would be extracted from the urine, said researcher from the Netherlands Anna-Lena Kjniksen.

However, she added, Perhaps its other components could also be used to form the geopolymer concrete. The actual water in the urine could be used for the mixture, together with that which can be obtained on the Moon, or a combination of both.

In other words, no, they did not use their own pee to conduct these experiments. They concluded that more research is needed.

Read the original:
Astronauts could use their own urine to build moon bases: study - New York Post

In episodes 7 and 8 of "Cosmos: Possible Worlds," host Neil deGrasse Tyson explores themes of science as an instrument of hope and tenacity, and as a means by which the human race can realize its true potential.

Episode 7, titled "Search for Intelligent Life," focuses specifically on first contact and the search for intelligent life in the vastness of the cosmos. Are humans ready to make first contact with other intelligent beings? Is our technology even sophisticated enough to detect communication signals from another world?

Seeking an answer, Tyson introduces us to China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, or FAST, as it's more commonly known. FAST is the largest radio telescope on Earth and can detect radio waves across the universe.

Related: 20 sci-fi movies and TV shows to binge watch on Netflix right now

Tyson points out that we've only had the technology to detect radio signals for a little over a century, making FAST a truly monumental achievement. FAST has already detected a number of pulsars or compact stellar corpses and will continue to search for gravitational waves and signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, among other data it collects.

However, there's an intricate global communications network hidden here on Earth that we've only just become aware of. Tyson turns our attention to a "hidden matrix the creation of an enduring collaboration among fungi, plants, bacteria and animals." He's referring to the mycelium, a complex network of threadlike filaments that forms the functional structure of a fungus and extends to other species, such as trees. These hauntingly beautiful hyphae, or the branching filaments that make up the mycelium, illustrated in the show by special effects to interweave in the soil beneath our feet, reveal the forests' complex and interlinked nature.

"Who are we to search for alien intelligence when we can't even recognize or respect the consciousness all around us, or even beneath our feet," Tyson says, strolling through the forest on top of the soil that's protecting the mycelium beneath his feet. Still, conversations with different worlds, Tyson says, will be done in the language of science.

"The symbolic language of the scientist, mathematician and engineer avoid those things that are lost in translation from one culture to another," Tyson says, explaining that this type of language is more precise and less open to misinterpretation. If we find extraterrestrial intelligent life, will we be communicating with them in a language that resembles a computer programming language, built on the binary code?

Humans have actually already made "first contact" with other intelligent life that communicates through equations and a symbolic language, Tyson points out: bees. Insects in general have played an instrumental role in the development of the natural world, mostly by spreading pollen. Each grain of pollen has been"sculpted differently by evolution each a novel strategy for survival, sharpened by vast expanses of time, " Tyson says.

Insects are as much a part of the Earth's history as the earth itself; The "great Ordovician biodiversity event," when our world began to change as plants and insects left the sea and began to make the land their home, occurred approximately 480 million years ago (or Dec. 20 on Tyson's "cosmic calendar," where the Big Bang marks New Year's Day). The world Tyson describes is an alien one; giant mushrooms tower over trees that only grew a few feet tall, and insects ruled the skies, undisturbed by other winged creatures.

It was Austrian ethologist Karl von Frisch who unlocked the secrets of bee behavior in the early 20th century. "For thousands of years, bees have been symbols of mindless industry shackled to the dreary roles assigned to them by nature," says Tyson, but von Frisch found in his studies that bees lead much more complex lives. They communicate through mathematical equations expressed in their movements, appearing to the untrained eye to be little more than a waggle, but in reality can be an incredibly accurate set of coordinates to a food source meters away.

Tyson calls this a "first contact story" because bees and humans evolved on very different trajectories, and yet both species risked everything and chose the unknown; it's as if there were an unwritten code common to bees and human beings driving those ambitions. This echoes the work of legendary scientist Charles Darwin, who realized if all life is related, certain philosophical implications had to follow. Darwin realized we are "surrounded by other ways of being alive and conscious," Tyson says, and that science had the potential to expand our capacity for empathy and compassion.

Building on those themes of compassion and ambition, episode 8, "The Sacrifice of Cassini," chronicles tales of sacrifice and reveals the little-seen sentimentality and emotion that often accompany our greatest scientific endeavors. The episode honors the efforts and sacrifices of scientists Giovanni Cassini, Galileo Galilei, Christiaan Huygens, and Alexander Shargei, among others.

The episode opens with Tyson's recap of the Cassini-Huygens mission, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency that launched Oct. 15, 1997. The spacecraft would embark on an epic voyage that would last more than two decades and culminate in a final, fatal mission of self-destruction by flying itself into Saturn's atmosphere in 2017.

Spacecraft sent to the outermost regions of our solar system, like Cassini, have brought back valuable data. Researchers are especially interested in any information about the mysterious ringed planets, which puzzled early planetary scientists like Galileo. These ring systems have been notoriously difficult to detect; Galileo's early research on Saturn had him believe the planet had two symmetrical moons, which we now know to be Saturn's rings. What would Galileo say if he could see Saturn as we see it now through the eyes of powerful scientific instruments?

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft and Cassini also sent back valuable data about the atmospheres and other physical properties of our cosmic neighbors, like the elusive Uranus. Without Voyager 2, we wouldn't know about the planet's long summers and winters, or that while Uranus doesn't generate any internal heat and the outer edges of its atmosphere is hotter than 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 degrees Celsius), Uranus also has the coldest clouds in the solar system, nearly 400 degrees Fahrenheit (240 degrees Celsius) below zero.

Interestingly, as Tyson reviews Giovanni Cassini's early life in what is now Italy, he notes that the Italian scientist began his career as an astrologer; a pseudoscientist. Louis XIV of France, the "Sun King," who would be the first monarch to recognize the power of science and the opportunities it afforded national security, would play a pivotal role in Cassini's career development. It was Louis XIV, who established the Paris Observatory a scientific powerhouse and who gave Cassini the tools he needed to pursue his research.

Cassini's observations of Saturn and its moons would have an enduring effect on the scientific world among his other accomplishments, like having discovered Jupiter's Great Red Spot (independently from Robert Hooke) and having calculated the length of a day on Mars; he was only off by 3 minutes.

Cassini's work on Saturn also greatly furthered human beings' knowledge on the planet at the time; he was the first to know Saturn's rings were composed of natural satellites orbiting the planet, and that there were gaps between them. Decades later, a bus-size 12,000-lb. (5,400 kilograms) spacecraft, sent on a years-long voyage to that same celestial body, would be named in his memory.

The scientists who worked closely with the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, some of them since the very beginning, undoubtedly became emotional as it completed its final mission, as did spectators around the world who witnessed its final moments.

The probe's travails, however, cannot compare to the pain and tragedy of scientist and visionary Oleksandr Shargei, a forgotten pioneer of spaceflight. Shargei was orphaned at a young age and, while studying engineering at a university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was drafted to the army to serve the Russian Empire in World War I. After the Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks overthrew the government, he changed his name to Yuri Kondratyuk out of fear for his life.

In 1926, Kondratyuk self-published a manuscript on rocket motion and space colonization, which would end up capturing the attention of an engineer working on the Apollo program, John Houbolt, decades later. Houbolt's updating of Kondratyuk's theories convinced NASA to select the lunar orbit rendezvous flight plan for Apollo, and to win the Space Race.

Seeing footage from Apollo 11 in the episode elicits a sentimental feeling as it dawns on us that we're witnessing Kondratyuk's dreams become reality, and that his dreams are still coming true to this day; even the Cassini mission used gravity assist maneuvers, also conceived by Kondratyuk, to explore the Saturn system.

The final scene of the episode is of Kondratyuk's childhood home a place where he endured much tragedy in his early years, and sought refuge in physics books. It was also here that Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong made a pilgrimage after his historic flight to the moon, to honor the man who made that voyage possible.

"There are all kinds of stories in the struggle to understand the cosmos," Tyson reflects. "Sometimes your dreams die with you, but sometimes the scientists of another age pick them up and take them to the moon, and far beyond."

"Cosmos" airs on the National Geographic channel on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT and will be reprised on the Fox television network this summer.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Original post:
Cosmos: Possible Worlds' brings the search for E.T. down to Earth - Space.com

Photo byBriana TozouronUnsplash

This morning, a Belgian couple was arrested for selling airline tickets to The Moon. They allegedly sold the tickets on the street for 99,99 to hundreds of people and promised that each ticket reserved the passenger a first-class seat.

Bart, one of the arrested, explained to Belgian newspaper Het Eerste Nieuws he didnt do anything wrong: For less than 100 a bargain I take these passengers to higher spheres, I really do not understand the fuzz. My first-class flying saucer was ready for boarding! Besides, our on-time performance is one of the highest in the industry.

Bart now risks a heavy fine for deliberate deception of passengers. During a further house search, the police found back the money, fake airline tickets and a baby alligator.

Affected passengers can always file a complaint via this link.

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The rest is here:
Belgian couple arrested for selling airline tickets to The Moon - Aviation24.be