Category Archives: Moon Colonization

We here at Muskwatch have been appalled over the last few weeks who the heck are all these people who just think they can keep stepping on Elon Musks Tesla-touching toes? Jeff Bezos wants to beat Elon to the Moon, NASA wants to conquer the Sun before SpaceX can get therethe gall. And now, a Russian billionaire by the name of Igor Ashurbeyli wants to create a space-faring nation called Asgardia before Elon can realize colony on Mars? We just wont have it.

Time for MUSKWATCH.

The space-nation of Asgardia was founded in 2016 but will have its first launch later this year. What will it be launching you ask? A ship? A habitat? No, a dang 512-GB hard drvie, and thats it. Nice. Have to try a little harder next time to beat our future dad.

Also on the show: Elon lays out his plans for Martian colonization (way cooler than just a Russian hard drive orbiting Earth pfft), car company Audi is gunning hard for Teslas cornership of the sexy electric car market, and we share our thoughts on who should play Elon in the movie currently floating around Hollywood: The Man From Tomorrow.

Muskwatchairson Nerdist.com and YouTube everyTuesday,but you can hack the planet and watch it two full days earlier onSunday if youre anAlpha subscriber. Find out how you can get 30 days free (and be 48 hours smarter than your dumb friends) right here.

What do you think of this weeks top stories? What else would you like to see us discuss onMuskwatch? Let us know in the comments below!

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MUSKWATCH: Russian Billionaire Wants to Colonize Space with ... - Nerdist

The term moonshot is sometimes invoked to denote a project so outrageously ambitious that it can only be described by comparing it to the Apollo 11 mission to land the first human on the Moon. The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative transcends the moonshot descriptor because its purpose goes far beyond the Moon. The aptly-named project seeks to travel to the nearest stars.

The brainchild of Russian-born tech entrepreneur billionaire Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Starshot was announced in April 2016 at a press conference joined by renowned physicists including Stephen Hawking and Freeman Dyson. While still early, the current vision is that thousands of wafer-sized chips attached to large, silver lightsails will be placed into Earth orbit and accelerated by the pressure of an intense Earth-based laser hitting the lightsail.

After just two minutes of being driven by the laser, the spacecraft will be traveling at one-fifth the speed of lighta thousand times faster than any macroscopic object has ever achieved.

Each craft will coast for 20 years and collect scientific data about interstellar space. Uponreachingthe planets near the Alpha Centauri star system, anthe onboard digital camera will take high-resolution pictures and send these back to Earth, providing the first glimpse of our closest planetary neighbors. In addition to scientific knowledge, we may learn whether these planets are suitable for human colonization.

The team behind Breakthrough Starshot is as impressive as the technology. The board of directors includes Milner, Hawking, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The executive director is S. Pete Worden, former director of NASA Ames Research Center. A number of prominent scientists, including Nobel and Breakthrough Laureates, are serving as advisors to the project, and Milner has promised $100 million of his own funds to begin work. He will encourage his colleagues to contribute $10 billion over the next several years for its completion.

While this endeavor may sound like science fiction, there are no known scientific obstacles to implementing it. This doesnt mean it will happen tomorrow: for Starshot to be successful, a number of advances in technologies are necessary. The organizers and advising scientists are relying upon the exponential rate of advancement to make Starshot happen within 20 years.

Here are 11 key Starshot technologies and how they are expected to advance exponentially over the next two decades.

An exoplanet is a planet outside our Solar System. While the first scientific detection of an exoplanet was only in 1988, as of May, 1 2017 there have been 3,608 confirmed detections of exoplanets in 2,702 planetary systems. While some resemble those in our Solar System, many have fascinating and bizarre features, such as rings 200 times wider than Saturns.

The reason for this deluge of discoveries? A vast improvement in telescope technology.

Just 100 years ago the worlds largest telescope was the Hooker Telescope at 2.54 meters. Today, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope consists of four large 8.2-meter diameter telescopes and is now the most productive ground-based facility in astronomy, with an average of over one peer-reviewed, published scientific paper per day.

Researchers use the VLT and a special instrument to look for rocky extrasolar planets in the habitable zone (allowing liquid water) of their host stars. In May 2016, researchers using the Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile found not just one but seven Earth-sized exoplanets in the habitable zone.

Meanwhile, in space, NASAs Kepler spacecraft is designed specifically for this purpose and has already identified over 2,000 exoplanets. The James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in October, 2018, will offer unprecedented insight into whether exoplanets can support life. If these planets have atmospheres, [JWST] will be the key to unlocking their secrets, according to Doug Hudgins, Exoplanet Program Scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington.

The Starshot mothership will be launched aboard a rocket and release a thousand starships. The cost of transporting a payload using one-time-only rockets is immense, but private launch providers such as SpaceX and Blue Origin have recently demonstrated success in reusable rockets which are expected to substantially reduce the price. SpaceX has already reduced costs to around $60 million per Falcon 9 launch, and as the private space industry expands and reusable rockets become more common, this price is expected to drop even further.

Each 15-millimeter-wide Starchip must contain a vast array of sophisticated electronic devices, such as a navigation system, camera, communication laser, radioisotope battery, camera multiplexer, and camera interface. The expectation well be able to compress an entire spaceship onto a small wafer is due to exponentially decreasing sensor and chip sizes.

The first computer chips in the 1960s contained a handful of transistors. Thanks to Moores Law, we can now squeeze billions of transistors onto each chip. The first digital camera weighed 8 pounds and took 0.01 megapixel images. Now, a digital camera sensor yields high-quality 12+ megapixel color images and fits in a smartphonealong with other sensors like GPS, accelerometer, and gyroscope. And were seeing this improvement bleed into space exploration with the advent of smaller satellites providing better data.

For Starshot to succeed, we will need the chips mass to be about 0.22 grams by 2030, but if the rate of improvement continues, projections suggest this is entirely possible.

The sail must be made of a material which is highly reflective (to gain maximum momentum from the laser), minimally absorbing (so that it is not incinerated from the heat), and also very light weight (allowing quick acceleration). These three criteria areextremely constrictive and there is at present no satisfactory material.

Therequired advances may come from artificial intelligence automating and accelerating materials discovery. Such automation has advanced to the point wheremachine learning techniques can generate libraries of candidate materials by the tens of thousands, allowing engineers to identify which ones are worth pursuing and testing for specific applications.

While the Starchip will use a tiny nuclear-powered radioisotope battery for its 24-year-plus journey, we will still need conventional chemical batteries for the lasers. The lasers will need to employ tremendous energy in a short span of time, meaning that the power must be stored in nearby batteries.

Battery storage has improved at 5-8% per year, though we often dont notice this benefit because appliance power consumption has increased at a comparable rate resulting in a steady operating lifetime. If batteries continue to improve at this rate, in 20 years they should have 3 to 5 times their present capacity. Continued innovation is expected to be driven from Tesla-Solar Citys big investment in battery technology. The companies have already installed close to 55,000 batteries in Kauai to power a large portion of their infrastructure.

Thousands of high-powered lasers will be used to push the lightsail to extraordinary speeds.

Lasers have obeyed Moores Law at a nearly identical rate to integrated circuits, the cost-per-power ratio halving every 18 months. In particular, the last decade has seen a dramatic acceleration in power scaling of diode and fiber lasers, the former breaking through 10 kilowatts from a single mode fiber in 2010 and the 100-kilowatt barrier a few months later. In addition to the raw power, we will also need to make advances in combining phased array lasers.

Our ability to move quickly has...moved quickly. In 1804 the train was invented and soon thereafter produced the hitherto unheard of speed of 70 mph. The Helios 2 spacecraft eclipsed this record in 1976: at its fastest, Helios 2 was moving away from Earth at a speed of 356,040 km/h. Just 40 years later the New Horizons spacecraft achieved a heliocentric speed of almost 45 km/s or 100,000 miles per hour. Yet even at these speeds it would take a long, long time to reach Alpha Centauri at slightly more than four light years away.

While accelerating subatomic particles to nearly light speed is routine in particle accelerators, never before has this been achieved for macroscopic objects. Achieving 20% speed of light for Starshot would represent a 1000x speed increase for any human-built object.

Fundamental to computing is the ability to store information. Starshot depends on the continued decreasing cost and size of digital memory to include sufficient storage for its programs and the images taken of Alpha Centauri star system and its planets.

The cost of memory has decreased exponentially for decades: in 1970, a megabyte cost about one million dollars; its now about one-tenth of a cent. The size required for the storage has similarly decreased, from a 5-megabyte hard drive being loaded via forklift in 1956 to the current availability of 512-gigabyte USB sticks weighing a few grams.

Once the images are taken the Starchip will send the images back to Earth for processing.

Telecommunications has advanced rapidly since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. The average internet speed in the US is currently about 11 megabits per second. The bandwidth and speed required for Starshot to send digital images over 4 light yearsor 20 trillion mileswill require taking advantage in the latest telecommunications technology.

One promising technology is Li-Fi, a wireless approach which is 100 times faster than Wi-Fi. A second is via optical fibers which now boast 1.125 terabits per second. There are even efforts in quantum telecommunications which are not just ultrafast but completely secure.

The final step in the Starshot project is to analyze the data returning from the spacecraft. To do so we must take advantage of the exponential increase in computing power, benefiting from the trillion-fold increase in computing over the 60 years.

This dramatically decreasing cost of computing has now continued due largely to the presence of cloud computing. Extrapolating into the future and taking advantage of new types of processing, such as quantum computing, we should see another thousand-fold increase in power by the time data from Starshot returns. Such extreme processing power will allow us to perform sophisticated scientific modeling and analysis of our nearest neighboring star system.

Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Pete Worden and Gregg Maryniak for suggestions and comments.

Image Credit:NASA/ESA/ESO

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Why Interstellar Travel Will Be Possible Sooner Than You Think - Singularity Hub

Representatives with Bigelow Aerospace plan to build bases on the moon.

A rocket carrying more than a dozen privately built probes touches down on the moon. The robots burst from the vehicle in a race to beam back high-definition video and other data while roving the surface of Earth's nearest natural satellite. The people of Earth watch a broadcast of the race as the rovers roam (or stall) in the lunar dust.

The motives that drove teams to send these robotic emissaries to the moon might be different ranging from inspiring a country to starting a sustainable, commercial endeavor but they have all flown the more than 200,000 miles (321,000 kilometers) to the moon, riding on a wave of commercial hopes that rest on the lunar surface.

Could this be what the start of a lunar revolution looks like 45 years after the Apollo 11 moon landing? For some of the people involved with a private race to the moon, that hypothetical scenario could become reality in a little more than a year. [Future Moon Exploration: How Humans Will Visit Luna (Infographic)]

"For the X Prize, we're going to carry multiple X Prize teams with us to the surface," said John Thornton, CEO of Astrobotic, a team competing for theGoogle Lunar X Prizeprivate moon race. "It's going to be a little bit like NASCAR on the moon, where we're going to have multiple rovers deploying. These are rovers from different nations, different X Prize teams, and we'll be competing for the biggest prize ever, streaming live from the moon You can see these HD videos coming back as the competition is unfolding, as other countries are competing with our rover."

Eighteen teams are currently competing to win up to $30 million as part of the X Prizewhich will be awarded to the first private team that successfully launches an unmanned mission to the moon and meets a set of objectives. To win the grand prize, a team needs to be the first to send video and other data back to Earth, as well as travel 1,640 feet (500 meters) on the moon by Dec. 31, 2015.

The motives behind the newest ventures to explore the moon are markedly different from earlier reasons for sending humans and equipment to the natural satellite. NASA launched the Apollo missions 45 years ago to beat the Soviet Union in the space race. Many of today's lunar entrepreneurs have different goals in mind ones that sometimes don't have anything to do with what space agencies around the globe are doing.

Some companies might be interested in lunar tourism, others have a desire to mine the moon for resources and still others see the moon as a potential second home for humanity.

"The first question is why anybody is interested in the moon," said John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. "One, it's an interesting object, but probably for many potential explorers, the most interesting thing is that it's close. It's just an offshore island, where[as] any other destination in space is weeks to months away. Any private organization, and most nations interested in going beyond low-Earth orbit, are going to be focused on first going to the moon."

Ideally, the Google Lunar X Prize competition will help to create an industry based around commercial motivations for visiting the moon, representatives for the organization have said.

While the 18 teams are all contributing to the development of commercial lunar interests, their motivations for entering the competition and explanations of what winning the prize will mean are as diverse as the international teams themselves. [See images of teams competing in the X Prize]

Bob Richards, founder of the Google Lunar X Prize team Moon Express, was involved with spaceflight ventures for years before the competition came to be. Moon Express engineers are currently in the process of testing the technology necessary to move their robotic craft around on the moon.

Richards sees the team's participation in the X Prize competition as a way of furthering a goal he's been thinking of for years. He doesn't want this lunar landing to be a one-off experience. Instead, Richards believes that there is a market for, and interest in, bridging the gap between Earth and the rest of the solar system, starting with the moon.

"The founders of Moon Express believe in the value of the moon and its resources to life on Earth and our future in space as a space-faring, multiworld civilization and the investors do, too," Richards told Space.com. "In the long term, we're looking to develop, basically, a railway to open up the possibility of lunar resources complementing our economy here on Earth, expanding our economic sphere out to the moon."

Other teams, like Israel's SpaceIL, are more focused on the Earthly possibilities of the X Prize. The company's probe may be tiny, yet it's designed to not only get to the moon, but also inspire young Israelis back on the ground, said SpaceIL co-founder Kfir Damari.

"Today, when we look at it, our mission is to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon," Damari said. "Our vision is much, much bigger. It's to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers to develop technologies that will help humanity to research the universe We are working hard to win the competition, but the vision is much, much bigger."

Meanwhile, Astrobotic's Thornton thinks that humans should build a sustained presence on the moon. By using pits and other features that could bring people and technology below the lunar surface, humanity could extend its reach to the moon, Thornton said.

Thornton and representatives for Astrobotic see the X Prize as a way to kick-start a lunar industry.

"We'd be perfectly happy landing on the moon and placing last in the X Prize," Thornton said. "That would be fine by us. For us, the big win is to commercially land on the moon, and open up the pathway to the moon."

Other companies unaffiliated with the X Prize are even looking into building lunar bases and creating a tourism industry centered on the draw of the moon. But all this commercial interest in digging into the lunar dirt doesn't mean that nations around the world don't have a role to play in the future of spaceflight or lunar exploration.

Even representatives of companies interested in sending private crafts to the moon admit that commercial industry can't do everything right away. Sometimes, nations need to lead the way into uncharted territory.

"You won't see private companies doing science for the sake of science or doing exploration for the sake of doing exploration," Thornton said. "I think that's where the space agencies need to be leading. They need to be leading in the direction of eventual settlement of the moon and eventual settlement of Mars. That's hard. That will be a very difficult thing for commercial to do."

Private companies also might not have the funds to launch a manned mission to the lunar surface. Such a mission is at least an order of magnitude more expensive than a robotic venture, Logsdon said. [Destination Moon: The 350-Year History of Lunar Exploration (Infographic)]

"The moon is within reach of private operators operating on modest budgets, but it's also within reach of nations that are not spending an immense amount of money on space," Logsdon told Space.com.

While NASA led the way to the lunar surface in 1969, it doesn't look like the space agency will be launching any manned missions to the moon anytime soon. The U.S. agency is not planning to return astronauts to the lunar surface, instead opting to send a crew to an asteroid pulled into orbit around the moon. The new undertaking is thought to be a testing ground for an eventual crewed Mars mission.

At one point, the United States was planning to return to the moon with the Constellation Program designed to deliver astronauts back to the lunar surface but that plan was canceled in favor of the asteroid redirect mission after President Barack Obama took office.

"Personally, I think the asteroid mission was a good plan, as it had elements suitable for robotic missions and human spaceflight, and it was a new destination, with multiple milestones," said Joan Johnson-Freese, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. "The 'new' part being important, as it took the U.S. out of a potential race back to the moon, against China, which the U.S. could well lose not for lack of technical capability, but for lack of political will."

In fact, it might actually be easier for nondemocratic nations to forge the way back to the moon, Johnson-Freese said.

"While human spaceflight holds great attraction for the public in many, if not most, countries, it is very difficult to actually pursue in democracies, where people have a voice in what the government funds," Johnson-Freese told Space.com. "It is viewed as a good thing to do, but expendable when juxtaposed against government programs like housing, jobs, education and defense. Countries like China can pursue human spaceflight on its own because the government, not the people, gets to choose what it funds."

China has plans to go to the moon. The government is aiming to launch a mission to return lunar samples back to Earth sometime in 2017. In 2013, China became the third country to soft-land a robotic craft on the lunar surface. Government officials are also working on developing technology that could bring Chinese astronauts to the moon.

Russia also has lunar plans. Officials are reportedly planning to launch robotic missions to the moon starting in 2015. The private company Space Adventures is also hoping to use Russia's Soyuz rockets to take tourists on a trip around the moon for about $150 million per person, with cosmonauts leading missions.

Though NASA officials are not planning to forge a way back to the moon, it doesn't mean that scientists and engineers at the agency have lost interest in the moon.

NASA recently launched the Lunar CATALYST program, designed to help private companies interested in going to the moon. CATALYST (short for Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown) is a program that provides unfunded NASA support for a select group of private companies that want to pave a way to the lunar surface.

Though NASA will not provide funds for the three companies selected for Lunar CATALYST, officials will give Moon Express, Astrobotic and Masten Space Systems use of NASA facilities and technology.

"From a commercial standpoint, we have seen, in this agency and across the federal government, a look at ways to work with the commercial sector," said NASA's Nantel Suzuki, robotic lunar lander program executive. "Public-private partnerships are being examined in new ways."

NASA has successfully partnered with private companies before. Two private organizations are currently flying robotic missions to the International Space Station for the agency. NASA is also partnering with companies to create a ferry service to the space station that could begin flying as early as 2017.

The CATALYST program doesn't necessarily have the same goal as NASA's other commercial partnerships, however, Suzuki added.

"If we look at the moon, we don't have an anchor guarantee of any kind nothing like an International Space Station that will be orbiting and requiring a steady supply of cargo over X-number of years," Suzuki told Space.com. "We don't have that on the moon, so it doesn't really make sense to have the analogous service contracts at this time something akin to the CRS station cargo supply."

One spaceflight veteran thinks that NASA's role should be to facilitate the growth of other nations that want to fly people to the moon. Apollo 11 astronaut and second man on the moon Buzz Aldrin thinks that the United States should help other countries get off-world.

"Let's try doing something that doesn't compete with prestige-seeking nations sending their citizens to kick up dust on the moon," Aldrin said during a Google Hangout with Space.com earlier this month. The United States should help other nations by placing robotic probes on the moon that can be used to explore and aid other nations' lunar ambitions, Aldrin added.

It has been more than four decades since the first men landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. Test your memory of the moon landing with this quiz.

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Apollo Quiz: Test Your Moon Landing Memory

It has been more than four decades since the first men landed on the moon on July 20, 1969. Test your memory of the moon landing with this quiz.

It's also possible that countries could use the moon as a jumping-off point to access other parts of the solar system, like Mars.

By building up and mining the moon, groups could be able to extract material that can be used to fuel rockets and bring people farther into space than ever before, said Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, a company aiming to develop the capability to land a base on the moon.

"I see the moon as a tremendous resupply asset for going to Mars, for going anyplace else," Bigelow said. "Because even though you may have depots on the way to Mars and Mars is anywhere from 50 million to 140 million miles [80 million to 225 million km] away from Earth you're going to have to have way stations in between, places where people get special supplies, extra help, if they need it on the way to and from [Mars]." [21 Most Marvelous Moon Missions]

The moon could also act as a proving ground for future missions to other places in the solar system.

"The moon is kind of the mother of all locations for which you can really have a sizable operation scattered over the surface in a lot of different areas," Bigelow added. "This doesn't just involve the United States. We're going to have multiple nations involved in lunar operations."

The Bigelow Aerospace plan hinges on the idea that private companies and nations will be interested in having a base on the moon. Those groups could contract Bigelow to build a base and fly it to the lunar surface, where they can then mine, experiment and settle on the moon.

Different companies and countries could have specific bases built by Bigelow and designed to fit their needs.

"Bigelow will eventually need a sizable astronaut corps," Bigelow said. "These men and women will be working in activities additional to flight operations, such as perfecting spacecraft hardware, assisting our clients, providing information to members of Congress and their staff, working with NASA and assisting Bigelow's eventual plans for commercial lunar bases, which we hope can be a reality in about 10 years." [See photos of Bigelow Aerospace's ideas for lunar bases]

Another company, Golden Spike, also plans to help launch people to the moon. At first, officials with the company plan to provide interested nations with the capability to launch their astronauts on a round trip to the lunar surface for $1.5 billion per flight instead of starting from scratch.

"It's basically an opportunity for any foreign nation to have their own people travel to the moon to explore, to excite their population, to create motivations for STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] education, or any other purpose they like," Alan Stern, CEO and president of Golden Spike, told Space.com. "The offer is a much safer, a much quicker and a much less expensive alternative to developing their own lunar program."

The company plans to use existing, tested technology to fly astronauts to the lunar surface. Representatives with Golden Spike plan to buy rockets and capsules like those already in development for NASA's commercial crew program for the lunar missions. According to Stern, Golden Spike should be ready to fly the first missions in six to seven years.

Golden Spike could also eventually provide flights for private organizations like Bigelow who needs to get people up to the lunar surface safely, Stern said.

A utopian view of future moon exploration in which different nations, scientists and private companies can harmoniously work side by side might not be immediately probable, however. It's possible that conflicts could erupt on the moon, just as they do on Earth.

"If we look at our history, the human being did not have a very pristine history of peaceful coexistence," Bigelow said. "So we had better wise up. We had better start to change our behavior here, and we cannot export, off of Earth, the same irresponsible behavior that we not only are conducting today on this planet, but have conducted for millennia. As human beings, our record is absolutely terrible. I think we owe a responsibility to space exploration, space existence of an entirely different level of attitude and respect."

Countries and private organizations alike will also need to set up rules and regulations governing exactly who lays claim to any particular plot of land on the moon. As it stands now, no country can "own" a part of a celestial body according to a United Nations treaty introduced in 1967 and eventually signed by 128 nations.

No matter what the future of lunar exploration holds, the Google Lunar X Prize moon race will be televised. Officials with the competition have announced that they are partnering with the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel to cover the race from testing to the landing, so that Earthlings can catch every minute of the new lunar action.

Follow Miriam Kramer @mirikramer and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookand Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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The Future of Moon Exploration, Lunar Colonies and Humanity

Like many other ambitious people, Elon Musk wants humanity to become a multi-planetary civilization. Hes made no secret of his dream of sending colonists to Mars during his lifetime, but now,his vision is becoming a bit less abstract and a bit more concrete.

Musk, pictured talking at the International Astronautic Congress 2016 event. Image credits: Elon Musk/SpaceX.

Mr. Musks view, as it often is the case, is audacious. But he wants to make the audacious possible and even more than that, he wants to make it common.

I want to make Mars seem possible to do in our lifetimes, said Musk in his presentation (you can watch a replay of the talk here). I want anyone to go if they want to.

Of course, when we can barely scrape the resources for any manned mission to Mars, colonization seems outside the realm of possibility. But then again, many of the things Musk did seemed the same way, initially. We now have cheap, reusable rocketswhich go a long way towards making space flight more accessible. Hes making space tourism a reality by sending people to the Moon, and hes also planning to revolutionize trains which have remained largely unchanged for almost a century. Why should Mars be any different?

The first question is: why Mars?

An artistic depiction of a Mars colonist. Image credits: Elon Musk/SpaceX.

Many people believe humanitys future is looking increasingly dire. With overpopulation and climate change, our planets resources are more and more strained, and at one point, they might simply be insufficient. I mean, were using them unsustainably today, so theyre technically not efficient even now, but this is expected to become more and more of a problem as time moves on.

So if we have to go somewhere, why not go for the Moon? Its closer and weve been there before, so it should be easier.

Well, Musk argues, the Moon doesnt really count as a planet. Itdoesnt have any atmosphere whatsoever, its relatively poor in resources, and its gravity is six times weaker than that of the Earth (compared to Mars, which is just three times smaller). Furthermore, going on the Moon doesnt really make you a multi-planet civilization.

I think it is challenging to become multi-planetary on the moon because it is much smaller than a planet, Musk wrote. It does not have any atmosphere. It is not as resource-rich as Mars. It has got a 28-day day, whereas the Mars day is 24.5 hours. In general, Mars is far better-suited to ultimately to scale up to be a self-sustaining civilization.

So far, the main thing Musk has done in terms of space exploration is to reduce costs by a lot. But theres still a long way to go before we get down to a realistic figure. Musk says that with an Apollo-style approach, youd end up with an optimistic cost of about $10 billion per person. You cant build a civilization with that price tag. In fact, hes aiming for $200,000 the median cost of a house in the US. Of course, its still not clear how were going to get there.

It is a bit tricky because we have to figure out how to improve the cost of trips to Mars by five million percent, Musk cheekily commented.

He can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk? Image credits: Elon Musk/SpaceX.

Step by step, the price is steadily going down. Were not nearly close to a colony trip to Mars, but the progress is happening at a remarkable place. Still, big challenges still remain. First, wed have to deal with rocket reusability and there is significant, concrete progress in this direction. Sure, youd need different kind of rockets than the ones currently in use, but youd mostly apply the same principle at a larger scale. Then, youd have to refuel the shuttle in orbit, which SpaceX (Musks company) is also working on. Thirdly, youd have to produce the fuel on Mars, so that you dont have to ship it from Earth. This would drastically reduce the payload and the associated costs. The entire feasibility of the project might rely on this, and we have very little idea how to do it.

This is just discussing the space flight aspect of things, let alone the livability and potential terraforming that a city on Mars would require.

If everything goes according to plan, theInterplanetary Transport System (ITS) would carry 1,000,000 people to Mars; not at once but in transports of 10,000, in 40 to 100 years. Musk envisions a fun trip, with zero-gravity games and attractions for the colonists.

In the 1950s, Sci-Fi writersCyril M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl envisioned a dystopic futurein which humanity decides to colonize Venus. The worlds best marketers and publicity-makers were employed to make Venus, a hot horrid hell, attractive to colonists. Is this what were looking at here? Is this all marketing glitter and misleading flashes, or does Musk plan do what it says on the tin?

Musk is, as always, extremely aggressive in his plans and in his timings. He greatly relies on technology that hasnt even been invented, but might foreseeably emerge in a few years. It also might not.

The thing is we dont really know how this will play out. We might look back on his vision and say that it ignited everything, or we might simply forget it through the shroud of history. But these are not words spoken in vain. If anyone has the drive and the resources to pull something as crazy as this, its Musk. Whether or not he succeeds, someonewillsucceed, and that someone will have this kind of attitude.

There is a huge amount of risk. It is going to cost a lot, he wrote. There is a good chance we will not succeed, but we are going to do our best and try to make as much progress as possible.

You can read the full paper describing Musks plan, published in the journalNew Space, by clicking here.

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Elon Musk shares his view of Mars colonization: one million people living in a self sustainable city - ZME Science

WHETHER IT WAS BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN A BIG BALL OF CHEESE, HOME TO THE MAN IN THE MOON, OR POSSESS THE POWER TO TURN PEOPLE INTO WEREWOLVES, THE MOON HAS BEEN A PERPETUAL SOURCE OF WONDER FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO TODAY.

JUST ONE QUARTER THE SIZE OF EARTH, THE MOON IS SMALL COMPARED TO OTHER MORE SPECTACULAR BODIES IN THE UNIVERSE. BUT, SINCE ITS ONLY 240-THOUSAND MILES AWAY, A RELATIVELY SHORT DISTANCE WHEN COMPARED WITH THE VASTNESS OF SPACE, NOTHING LOOMS LARGER IN THE NIGHT SKY.

MANY SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THE MOON FORMED ABOUT 4.6 BILLION YEARS AGO. ONE THEORY IS THAT A HUGE ASTEROID, STRUCK EARTH WITH SUCH FORCE, THAT ROCK AND DEBRIS WERE SHOT INTO ORBIT AROUND THE PLANET LIKE THE RINGS OF SATURN. OVER TIME, THIS CLOUD OF FRAGMENTS CAME TOGETHER TO FORM THE MOON.

SINCE IT HAS LITTLE IF ANY ATMOSPHERE TO PROTECT IT, THE MOON HAS BEEN, AND CONTINUES TO BE, BOMBARDED BY SPACE DEBRIS. THE EVIDENCE APPEARS ALL OVER ITS DUSTY SURFACE.

ITS ENTIRE SURFACE IS POCKED WITH TENS OF THOUSANDS OF CRATERS.

IT WASNT UNTIL GALILEO POINTED A TELESCOPE AT THE MOON IN 1609 THAT WE GOT THE FIRST CLOSE LOOK AT ITS FEATURES.

The moon orbits the earth like the earth orbits the sun. Since the moon doesnt shine on its own, but only reflects light from the sun, we see more or less of it during its monthly revolution, depending on its position. We call these varying views, phases.

When the moon is on the far side of the earth, away from the sun, the moon is fully illuminated or full. As the moon travels around the earth, we can only see the sunlight falling on part of it, resulting in crescent moons and half moons.

When the moon is directly between the earth and the sun, light falls on the far side of the moon, blocked from earths view. The moon is dark, or new. IT TAKES ABOUT 29 DAYS FOR THE MOON TO COMPLETE ITS CYCLE FROM FULL TO FULL.

On rare occasions, a full moon passes through earths shadow, and the suns light is blocked. This is called a total lunar eclipse.

the moon has quite an effect on our planet. As Earth turns, the moons gravity tugs on our oceans creating the tides. Tidal forces have carved our planets coastlines, buoyed its polar icecaps, and influenced the rhythms of life.

Our nearest celestial neighbor is a lot more than a beautiful view.

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Moon 101 Video - Video -- Video Home -- National Geographic

Elon Musk Details His Vision for a Human Civilization on Mars ... Universe Today Elon Musk has never been one to keep his long-term plans to himself. Beyond the development of reusable rockets, electric cars, and revolutionizing solar ... and more »

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Elon Musk Details His Vision for a Human Civilization on Mars ... - Universe Today

If theres one thing you can definitively say about Elon Musk its that he most certainly does not lack ambition. The boss of SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company makes more grand plans before breakfast than you have in your entire life. His most frequent muse is to travel to Mars, which he has been a proponent of for a long while, but in a recent paper published in New Space, Musk dives deep into his vision for not just a visit to Mars, but the emergence of an entire Mars society.

The text, which is a more technical summary and explanation of the Mars colonization plans that Musk revealed during a lengthy talk at the Astronautical Congress in Mexico late last year, explores the benefits and considerable challenges of creating a sustainable city on the Martian surface.

Musk begins by explaining why Mars is really our only option when it comes to colonizing another planet within our own Solar System, axing the ideas of colonies on Venus and Mercury, as well as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. It really only leaves us with one option if we want to become a multi-planetary civilization, and that is Mars, Musk says. We could conceivably go to our moon, and I actually have nothing against going to the moon, but I think it is challenging to become multi-planetary on the moon because it is much smaller than a planet. It does not have any atmosphere. It is not as resource-rich as Mars. It has got a 28-day day, whereas the Mars day is 24.5 hours. In general, Mars is far better-suited ultimately to scale up to be a self-sustaining civilization.

Then theres the issue of actually making Mars at least partly habitable. Musk seems to be pretty confident that this is an easy problem to solve. Mars is about half as far again from the sun as Earth is, so it still has decent sunlight, he says. It is a little cold, but we can warm it up. It has a very helpful atmosphere, which, being primarily CO2 with some nitrogen and argon and a few other trace elements, means that we can grow plants on Mars just by compressing the atmosphere.

But why would anyone want to actually live there? Well, according to Musk, it would be a blast. It would be quite fun to be on Mars because you would have gravity that is about 37 percent of that of Earth, so you would be able to lift heavy things and bound around, Musk insists. Furthermore, the day is remarkably close to that of Earth. We just need to change the populations because currently, we have seven billion people on Earth and none on Mars.

The full article dives deep into the nuances of reusable fuels, the process of actually sending a refuelable rocket to Mars, and the costs associated with actually making the trip. Its a lengthy read, so grab a cup of coffee and your thinking cap, because youre going to need it.

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Elon Musk shares plan to colonize Mars - New York Post

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Elon Musk Details His Vision For A Self-Sustaining City On Mars Forbes So why Mars, rather than the Moon, which is closer and might seem more accessible as humanity's first colony? Musk makes several arguments in favor of the Red Planet. "I think it is challenging to become multi-planetary on the moon because it is much ... Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species - Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishersMary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers all 11 news articles »

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Elon Musk Details His Vision For A Self-Sustaining City On Mars - Forbes

Genetic biotechnology is usually discussed in the context of current and emerging applications here on Earth, and rightly so, since we still live exclusively in our planetary cradle. But as humanity looks outward, we ponder what kind of life we ought to take with us to support outposts and eventually colonies off the Earth.

While the International Space Station (ISS) and the various spacecraft that ferry astronauts on short bouts through space depend on consumables brought up from Earth to maintain life support, this approach will not be practical for extensive lunar missions, much less long term occupation of more distant sites. If were to build permanent bases, and eventually colonies, on the Moon, Mars, asteroids, moons of outer planets or in free space, well need recycling life support systems. This means air, water, and food replenished through microorganisms and plants, and its not a new idea.

Space exploration enthusiasts have been talking about it for decades, and its the most obvious application of microorganisms and plants transplanted from Earth. What is new, however, is the prospect of a comprehensive use ofsynthetic biology for a wide range of off-Earth outpost and colonization applications.

To this end, considering human outposts on the Moon and Mars, astudyfrom scientists basedat NASA Ames Research Center and the University of California at Berkeley examined the potential of genetic technology, not only to achieve biologically based life support systems, but also to facilitate other activities that must be sustained on colony worlds. Not discussed as often with biotechnology and space exploration in the same conversation, these other activities include creation of rocket propellant, synthesis of polymers, and production of pharmaceuticals. Together with the life support system, they paint a picture of the beckoning era of space activity that puts synthetic biology at center stage.

Although written specifically in the context of lunar and Martian outposts, the proposed biologically based technical infrastructure is just as applicable to a colony on less frequently discussed worlds, such as the dwarf planet Ceres or an outer planet moon, or to a colony that orbits in the Earth moon system.

Rocket fuel and life support

As well discuss a little later in connection with rocket fuel, the chemical elements needed oxygen and nitrogen are available in and in the vicinity of the places we might put outposts. Its just that the atoms of these elements are not in a breathable form. Rather theyre combined with atoms of other chemical elements. On Mars, for instance, theres plenty of oxygen, but not a drop is useful either to mix with propellant in rocket engines, or for humans to breath. Thats because Martian oxygen atoms are bound with carbon atoms in molecules of carbon dioxide (CO2). For humans, CO2 is a waste product; instead, we need to breathe molecular oxygen (O2) to support life functions. But, in the presence of light, photosynthetic organisms, such as plants, algae, and certain bacteria take in CO2 and water (H2O) in and release O2. In the process, they make food.

The moon also has oxygen, but in the form of silicon dioxide (SiO2) in rocks, and both the moon and Mars have sources of water. While there are chemical and electrical methods that can split up and rearrange atoms of some of these compounds without the help of living things, the gist of the NASA/Berkeley conclusion was that using life forms, especially certain microorganisms, the amount of energy and effort needed to produce a given amount of oxygen can be reduced substantially. The same is true for the production of rocket propellant and for nitrogen, which is needed both for human breathing (as N2 gas to dilute O2), to support plants (with the help of bacteria), and for certain types of rocket fuel.

Emphasizing the utility of microorganisms, the study also noted that genetic methods can increase the yields of the needed chemicals. One important example involves a type of microorganism known as cyanobacteria. Descendants of ancient bacteria that are thought to have been the first major suppliers of oxygen gas to Earths oceans and atmosphere, cyanobacteria are photosynthetic. Like plants, they consume CO2 and water, releasing O2. The genomes the collection of genes of various strains of cyanobacteria are small and their sequences are well known, making the capabilities of these organisms easy to manipulate with genetic engineering. In addition to already being able to use nitrogen directly, they can be enhanced with genes from other microbes with novel energy systems, including those with the capability of generating methane and hydrogen (both useful as rocket fuel).

Food and drug production

The NASA/Berkeley study included an economic analysis showing the power of synthetic biology to produce food mass. Natures most famous method for this, photosynthesis, is extremely efficient; thus, colonies on the Moon, Mars, other bodies, or free space colonies will emphasis plant farming, and probably algae-based nutrition as well. Youre unlikely to see big farm animals, such as cows or pigs. They take up far too much land. But, due to their high protein to mass ration, its been suggested that space colonists might learn to farm and enjoy insects such as grasshoppers. Furthermore, possibly timed appropriately for space colonization, the technology for synthetic meat beckons. Since, colonists will largely on their own, the NASA/Berkeley report also discussed using synthetic biology for pharmaceutical production.

Adapting life to its new home

Certain regions of Earth feature environments similar to those on planets and moons that humans might colonize. Especially with a division of Earth life known as the Archaea domain, there are various microorganisms that can survive in extreme cold, high salinity (thought to characterized sources of underground Martian water, or ancient water on Mars), and certain Archaea are also methane produces. Thus, while not mentioned specifically in the recent report, researchers looking at applying biological methods to space exploration are also looking into the prospect of modifying certain bacteria, such as cyanobacteria with Archaea genes.

All that mentioned above is but the tip of the iceberg. On Earth, there are organisms that resist radiation, heat, cold, and drying, even to the point of being able to live in the space vacuum. Considering potential space colonization environments compared with our homeworld in terms of gravity, radiation, and various other parameters, there are a lot of traits we might eventually genetically engineer into life forms that we bring to help them survive while they perform their task, whether circulating life support gasses, producing rocket fuel, eating up rock, or even terraforming changing the colonys entire environment to make it like Earth.

David Warmflash is an astrobiologist, physician, and science writer. Follow @CosmicEvolution to read what hes saying on Twitter.

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Deep-space travel, colonization may rely on genetically engineered life forms - Genetic Literacy Project

Back in 1969, Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, uttered his famous words: "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind."

The statement has inspired ever since. More than 500 astronauts have entered space in the nearly five decades that have followed, and over 10 have landed on the moon.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon and Armstrong's companion in the Apollo 11 mission, gave a presentation on his ideas for visiting Mars at the Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX 2017), which concluded on Thursday.

Global leaders in space exploration have now set their sights on Mars, including China.

Wu Yanhua, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said that the country has started an unmanned Mars probe project and plans to launch a Mars probe around 2020.

Steve Eisenhart, senior vice president of the Strategic and International Affairs of the Space Foundation of the United States, said that Aldrin has been working on his idea for close to 30 years.

According to Aldrin's plan, humans may be able to land on Mars before 2039 and set up a station there. Eisenhart and Aldrin, while not representing the U.S. government or the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), agreed that Mars is a good destination for space exploration.

However, Jan Woerner, director-general of European Space Agency (ESA), said that the moon is a good stepping-stone before going to Mars.

"If we have a goal which is too far away, there might be roads in between those inspirations," said Woerner, adding that the moon is close enough to test and develop needed technology. "It's a very good test bed - then go deeper into our solar system."

Tian Yulong, secretary-general of the CNSA, said that China is now in discussions with the ESA on co-building a "moon village."

Tian said that a house on the moon could be constructed within a week with materials brought from Earth as well as moon surface materials using 3D printing technology.

Yasuyuki Ito, associate director-general of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, said that his generation was greatly affected by the Apollo program.

"Lunar exploration is our target. At the same time, we've also been discussing a Mars goal," he added.

Pascale Ehrenfreund, chair of the executive board of the German Aerospace Center, said that bringing humans to Mars is very difficult, as is raising funds for space exploration.

"We do things in steps. And the moon is one of the important steps on our way to Mars," she said.

China's Lunar Exploration China's Chang'e lunar program, named after a legendary goddess, includes three phases: orbiting, landing and returning with samples.

Liu Jizhong, director of the China Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center of the CNSA, said the Chang'e 5 lunar probe is expected to land in the Mons Rumker region and to take samples back to Earth at the end of the year.

The probe landing site, an isolated volcanic formation located on the northwest of the near side of the moon.

"China is planning and designing its future lunar exploration program. We will focus on the south pole region of the moon. The research on water and the permanent shadow area of the lunar south pole region will bring greater scientific discoveries," Liu said.

According to Wu Yansheng, general manager of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), China is working on an idea for manned lunar landing.

The mission will consist of a manned spaceship, a propulsion vehicle and a lunar lander. The manned spaceship and the lunar lander will be sent into circumlunar orbit separately.

Yang Liwei, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office, said that China is in the preliminary stage of its manned lunar program and estimated that Chinese astronauts will be able to walk on the moon around 2030.

Low-Cost Space Transport Without capable launch vehicles, humans are not able to go deeper into space.

China's Long March carrier rockets still have room for improvement, according to Lu Yu, director of Science and Technology Committee of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT).

He said that CALT is developing a heavy-lift launch vehicle with a payload of 140 tonnes to low Earth orbit and 50 tonnes to lunar transfer orbit.

CALT has made progress in developing reusable launch vehicles, including parachute landing and propulsion landing, said Lu.

Founded by U.S. entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002, SpaceX aims to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars. It has developed the Falcon launch vehicle family and invested big in reusable technology for orbital rockets.

Aerospace transportation is now focused on low-cost ways to enter space, said Wang Guoqing, a CASC official.

Wang said leaders in space exploration have set up their own range of launch vehicles and systems, and reusing launch vehicles will become important for reducing costs.

"Breakthroughs have been achieved in reusable technology after 10 years of study. However, we still face challenges as reusable aerospace launches require high reliability and safety," he added.

Win-Win Situation Chinese and global space leaders reached an agreement on cooperation in space exploration at GLEX 2017 - no matter whether they aim for the moon or Mars.

"China is expanding cooperation with the United Nations (UN) in space exploration and will disclose projects later this year," said Yang.

The country has previously undertaken bilateral cooperation with various countries and institutions and is looking toward multilateral projects. China will carry out joint projects with the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), including astronaut training, scientific experiments aboard space stations and multilateral application of such experiments, he added.

Liu also proposed creating an open platform for cooperation in accordance with the principle of "sharing the risks and achievements" and setting up the International Union of Planetary Scientists and the International Union of Planetary Science College Students.

"Rather than a space race, I think cooperation is always good and worldwide cooperation is even better. I hope we can breach Earth's crises by having worldwide cooperation in space," said Woerner.

"We should not try to duplicate everything, and if we join forces we can do even more with the same amount of money," he added.

Source: Xinhua News

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Moon or Mars - humanity's next stop - Space Daily