Category Archives: Moon Colonization

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14:20 01.06.2017(updated 16:07 01.06.2017) Get short URL

The possibility ofunfettered migration tothe Red Planet is not only far outof the reach ofmankind's current technological sophistication, butit would be a grim and vacuous existence even if we managed topitch our tents there, according toDr. Johann-Dietrich Worner, the director-general ofthe ESA.

Dr. Worner has urged people toturn away fromHollywood-induced fantasies such asthe box office hit The Martian, starring Matt Damon ofwhat it would be liketo live onthe desolate planet and recognize that, infact, colonizing Mars would be a far harsher reality.

"Colonization is the wrong word," Dr. Worner told the British Times newspaper ata UK Space conference inthe city ofManchester.

"Would you liketo stay ina place where half ofthe month it's dark and half ofthe month there's sun? That is the Moon. No. To stay fortwo weeks indarkness, that's not a nice life."

"Mars is the same. If you go toMars the light situation is a bit better, butyou cannot go outsidefor a small walk. Always you have tobe sheltered and covered, butyou cannot even bring your dog tothe next tree. The Martian was nice, butMars is not nice," intoned Dr. Worner.

He said that while visiting Mars might be an opinion onthe table, aswith the Moon, living there is another matter all together.

"Humans will fly toMars, forsure. But colonization that always sounds tome asthough we should leave the Earth. And I hope that we will not leave the Earth inthe next thee billion years, butthat humans will find a way tosecure life onEarth," he warned.

AFP 2017/ NASA

This NASA handout image, released on June 13, 2008 shows the Robotic Arm on NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander with a sample of martian soil as it prepares to move to the spacecraft's microscope station.

He also battered away the esteemed scientists Stephen Hawking's comments that life onEarth is only sustainable forthe next 100 years and that we must find another habitable planet bysaying:

"You will hardly find a better place."

The business magnate Elon Musk has proposed landing a colony onMars forunder US$200,000 per passenger, butit seems people likeDr. Worner are more concerned aboutwhat may come afterhumanity arrives.

See the original post:
Extraterrestrial Living Might Not Be So Appealing, Says ESA Chief - Sputnik International

Miami Dolphins defensive end William Hayes is one of the more interesting players in the NFL, and its not because he was traded for a stapler and a coffee machine. Its because of his beliefs, like that dinosaurs never existed.

What he does and does not find to be true are typically the meat of questions he receives from the media. It was the main topic of conversation between him and reporters during Dolphins OTAs, where he let us in his mind even more.

Because he receives so many questions that reveal things he believes (or doesnt) were keeping track of those things.

On Thursday afternoon, Hayes said, I dont believe a T-rex ever walked this Earth. It was the same tone he delivered in 2015.

When he was asked how he would explain his theory on dinosaurs, he told reporters, I just think we just put those things there just so we can have some shit to talk about, you know what I mean?

Hayes claims he did do a lot of research on dinosaurs in the past, but as he grew older it became ridiculous to him. It made me definitely not believe in it.

Jimmy Kimmel tried to prove dinosaurs were real to Hayes, but it didnt quite pan out.

Jimmy Kimmel done took me to a dinosaur museum, had other people take me to dinosaur museums and every time I went there it just made me just realize how ridiculous theories seem even more.

At least he (and others) made an effort to prove their existence.

In December of 2015, his then-Rams teammate Chris Long told ESPN, He does not believe that dinosaurs ever existed and he thinks that mermaids are real. I love dinosaurs, so we have a big point of contention.

When Hayes was still with the Rams, a mermaid showed up to the teams practice.

On Thursday, he gave a little clarification.

Im not saying theres necessarily a mermaid out there, Im just saying there possibly could be. Its a lot we havent discovered yet. We find different life form in the water every day.

He also told Jimmy Kimmel that he would have sex with a mermaid, but thats another story.

A new revelation on Thursday was that Hayes doesnt think the United States ever landed on the moon. I just dont think man went to the moon. I dont think weve been back there after we went have we?

He was shocked that we had gone up to the moon on multiple occasions. It led him to ask, And we just went up there and chilled? I dont know about all that.

Hayes just isnt buying it. He felt the same about the moon landing as he did about dinosaurs: its just something to talk about. Hes also confident he can convince his head coach of the same.

If [Adam] Gase just hear me out one time hell probably feel where Im coming from.

Hayes didnt clarify if he thinks Neil Armstrongs one small step for man was filmed on a soundstage. Either way, he doesnt think it happened.

Even though Hayes is a skeptic, he also is optimistic, like thinking there are other life forms out in the universe.

Im just thinking they could possibly be somewhere else. I mean, some other type of life form, he said. Im not saying a human or a legit alien with two little things coming out his head. Im just thinking like there could be another life form.

A reporter asked him about the colonization of Mars and if hed like to visit. Of course, Hayes was all for it.

That sounds pretty dope man, I wouldnt mind taking a trip to Mars and see how it looks up there.

Listening to Hayes discuss what he thinks about certain things in the world is fun to listen to. Hopefully were fortunate enough that he keeps sharing what he believes in with us.

Excerpt from:
A running list of everything NFL conspiracy theorist William Hayes does and does not believe in - SB Nation

Published time: 23 May, 2017 19:14

Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos wants to send people back to the moon but this time to colonize.

The billionairerevealed more about his ambitious plan to settle on the moon during a Q&A with kids at the Seattle Museum of Flights Apollo exhibit Saturday.

Answering a question about the impact of AI on space exploration, Bezos said: I think we should build a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon. Its time to go back to the moon, but this time to stay.

READ MORE: Amazon boss wants to start delivery service to the Moon

Bezos has previously spoken about Blue Origins plan to send cargo shipments to the moon to deliver equipment necessary for building a human colony.

Writing in an internal company report earlier this year, Bezos said: A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this.

The future lunar mission could be underway as early as July 2020, Bezos said although he is counting on NASAs help.

Our liquid hydrogen expertise and experience with precision vertical landing offer the fastest path to a lunar lander mission, he said. I'm excited about this and am ready to invest my own money alongside NASA to make it happen.

READ MORE: Cosmic concrete ideal for Mars can make Red Planet settlement a reality

Meanwhile, the race to colonize other parts of the solar system is hotting up. Earlier this month, NASA revealed it has developed a form of concrete that could be produced on Mars, solving the problem of how to build structures that can withstand the planets radiation.

While the space agency still hopes to accomplish its Mars mission goal by 2030, SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk is confident he can get humans on the red planet by 2024.

See the rest here:
Amazon boss Bezos outlines ambitious plans for permanent moon colony (VIDEO) - RT

NASA will hold a competition to develop scientific instruments for a potential mission to land on Jupiters icy moon, Europa.

The space agency requested any scientific instruments developed during the contest be geared towards searching for alien life or towards assessing the prospects for colonization.

The possibility of placing a lander on the surface of this intriguing icy moon, touching and exploring a world that might harbor life is at the heart of the Europa lander mission, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate, said in a press statement Thursday.

We want the community to be prepared for this announcement of opportunity, because NASA recognizes the immense amount of work involved in preparing proposals for this potential future exploration, Zurbuchen said.

NASA began designing and testing its Europa Clipper space probe, which is expected to launch sometime in the early 2020s. The Europa Clipper will also investigate the icy moons habitability for human and alien life, but will not land. NASA proposed Europa lander will follow the probe.

Europa may have watery oceans below its ice similar to those of Earths, which may be kept warm by complex gravitational interactions and the moons core. The oceans may be warm enough to support some type of alien life.

Republican lawmakers asked NASA to add more instruments to the Europa Clipper so it can investigate plumes of water ice ejected from Europas surface and deploy several small satellites, which would orbit the moon.

Lawmakers asked NASA to consider a future Europa lander mission in 2016, but the Obama administration wanted to reject the mission and strip down the Europa Clipper to increase funding for Earth sciences, including global warming.

President Barack Obama requested NASAs mission to Europa receive only $49.6 million in 2017, far less than the $175 million the mission got from Congress in 2016.

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NASA Is Sending A Lander To Search For Life On Jupiter's Icy Moon - The Daily Caller

Beyond Earth presents Titan as a better alternative for human colonization in space

The entire scientific world is currently debating on the best strategies for NASAs future manned mission on Mars. However, a new book called Beyond Earth argues that setting up a human colony so close to Earth is much too challenging. Therefore, it suggests a different destination for a possible long-term human settlement: Titan, the biggest of the Saturns moons.

This might sound like an insane proposal, since Saturn is quite far away and an unmanned spacecraft took seven years just to reach the planet. However, the book is not just a piece of science-fiction literature. One of the authors is Amanda Hendrix, a scientist from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Planetary Science Institute.

For the book, Hendrix collaborated with Charles Wohlforth, an environmentalist with valuable knowledge on how to make hostile conditions suitable for life. Together, they interviewed many scientists at NASA on the impacts extensive space travel has on humans or how technology might evolve.

What they obtained was a bundle of information on our present and future resources for space travel, combined with a little fiction. Also, the book is a bit easier to understand than any other series documenting the NASA attempts to develop a human exploration mission.

The two authors argue against the current destinations established by NASA for the manned missions. Both the Moon and Mars do not have atmospheres and are abundant in harmful variation. Therefore, any colonies might have limited access to the surface and would have to build everything underground.

On the other hand, Titan has an atmosphere which protects the surface from radiation. Also, it would defend any structures from collapsing. With enough protective clothing and an oxygen mask, humans might be able to venture on the surface of Saturns moon. Besides, they might even benefit from water supplies from the ocean hidden underground.

The authors admit that the distance might be a problem, but they say that those sent to explore Mars would face the same problems posed by long-distance space travel. However, the evolution of technology should allow for the exploration of more distant worlds. Image Source: JPL NASA

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Beyond Earth Offers Titan as a More Sensible Option for Human Colonization - Apex Tribune

Enlarge / Home, sweet colony. Saturn's moon Titan.

For a while now, there's been a debate in the US over how to direct NASA's next major human spaceflight initiative. Do we build an outpost on the Moon as a step towards Mars, or do we just head straight for the red planet? Which ever destination we choose, it'll be viewed as the first step toward a permanent human presence outside of the immediate neighborhood of the Earth.

All of that indecision, according to a new book called Beyond Earth, is misguided. Either of these destinations presents so many challenges and compromises that attracting and supporting anything more than short-term visitors will be difficult. Instead, Beyond Earth argues, we should set our sights much farther out in the Solar System if we want to create a permanent human presence elsewhere. The authors' destination of choice? Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

Colonizing Titan seems like an outrageous argument, given that the only spacecraft we've put in orbit around Saturn took seven years to get there. Why should anyone take Beyond Earth seriously? Well, its authors aren't crackpots or mindless space fans. Amanda Hendrix is a planetary scientist who's worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Planetary Science Institute. For the book, she's partnered with Charles Wohlforth, an environmental journalist who understands some things about establishing a livable environment. And the two of them have conducted extensive interviews, talking to people at NASA and elsewhere about everything from the health complications of space to future propulsion systems.

An interview with the authors about colonizing Titan

The resulting book is a mix of where we are now, which problems need to be solved to make a home elsewhere, and a future scenario that drives us to solve those problems. In this sense, Beyond Earth is a bit like the recent National Geographic effort Mars, which blended present-day documentary with a fictionalized future. But the book is a little easier to swallow then the miniseries, which shunted viewers between footage of real-life rockets and CGI dust storms.

So, why Titan? The two closer destinations, the Moon and Mars, have atmospheres that are effectively nonexistent. That means any habitation will have to be extremely robust to hold its contents in place. Both worlds are also bathed in radiation, meaning those habitats will need to be built underground, as will any agricultural areas to feed the colonists. Any activities on the surface will have to be limited to avoid excessive radiation exposure.

Would anyone want to go to a brand-new world just to spend their lives in a cramped tunnel? Hendrix and Wohlforth suggest the answer will be "no." Titan, in contrast, offers a dense atmosphere that shields the surface from radiation and would make any structural failures problematic, rather than catastrophic. With an oxygen mask and enough warm clothing, humans could roam Titan's surface in the dim sunlight. Or, given the low gravity and dense atmosphere, they could float above it in a balloon or on personal wings.

The vast hydrocarbon seas and dunes, Hendrix and Wohlforth suggest, would allow polymers to handle many of the roles currently played by metal and wood. Drilling into Titan's crust would access a vast supply of liquid water in the moon's subsurface ocean. It's not all the comforts of home, but it's a lot more of them than you'd get on the Moon or Mars.

There is the distance thing, which Hendrix and Wohlforth acknowledge, but they argue it's a bit besides the point. The radiation and lack of gravity that make long-range space travel a risk would all bite anyone we sent to explore Mars. NASA assumes it'll find solutions, but the authors are critical of the Agency promoting a journey to Mars without already having solved them. Whether we go to Mars or Titan, the solution is speed: less time in space means less risk. And, if we could rocket along fast enough so that a round-trip to Mars with time spent exploring was safe, then we could do a one-way trip to Titan.

So, Beyond Earth is a good look at the current state of human space-exploration technology, as well as how that will hold us back from doing the things we want to do. It's both thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Mixed in with that, however, is a scenario under which Earth will get its act together and do what needs to be done to overcome these technological hurdles. That scenario is driven in part by a very believable desperation, caused by unaddressed climate change that drives wars and radicalization. Low Earth orbit becomes cheap, and then an efficient new thruster is developed. (Unfortunately, the thruster of choice in this scenario is unlikely to ever work.)

The Earth's governments bands together in a massive effort to send colonists to Titan, who almost immediately begin to view themselves as pioneers who boldly settle a new world with no help from anyone. Tensions and cultural differences ensue. This part of the book is a fun yarn, and plenty of it involves believable extrapolations from our current state. Whether it adds to Beyond Earth overall will probably be a matter of personal taste.

While the focus of the book is on leaving Earth, it's hard to escape the sense that Beyond Earth is an extensive argument for staying put. As Hendrix and Wohlforth repeatedly drive home, there's no place we could go in our Solar System that offers anything close to what the Earth provides for us. Going anywhere else would involve a cost that could go a long way toward making our existence here much more sustainable. While I'm all for eventually establishing a presence elsewhere, it would be nice to do so by choice, rather than end up being forced to do so due to our carelessness on Earth.

Continued here:
Forget Marslet's go colonize Titan! - Ars Technica

Al Globus and Joe Strout have an analysis that space settlements in low (~500 km) Earth equatorial orbits may not require any radiation shielding at all. This is based on a careful analysis of requirements and extensive simulation of radiation effects. This radically reduces system mass and has profound implications for space settlement, as extraterrestrial mining and manufacturing are no longer on the critical path to the first settlements, although they will be essential in later stages. It also means the first settlements can evolve from space stations, hotels, and retirement communities in relatively small steps.

This huge reduction in total mass compensates for the greater energetic difficulty of launching materials from Earth to ELEO as opposed to launching from the Moon to L5, the design location of the Stanford Torus. In the early studies, the EarthMoon L5 point was chosen as the location of a settlement for the energetic advantage of launching materials from the Moon. Going from the Moon to L5 requires a delta-v 3 of 2.3 km/sec, and going from Earth to 500 km ELEO is 10 km/sec [Cassell 2015]. Using the velocity squared as our energy measure , Earth to ELEO requires 19 times more energy per unit mass. Analysis suggests that at least 19 times less mass is needed if no radiation shielding is required. Thus, the energetic advantage to launching the mass of a settlement with deep space radiation shielding from the Moon to L5 is balanced by launching far less mass from Earth if no radiation shielding is necessary.

A 500 km circular ELEO using polyethylene shielding was analyzed. Even at 10 kg/m2 shielding, the equivalent of which is very likely to be provided by any reasonable hull, the 20 mSv/yr and 6.6 mGy/yr are met. Indeed, with no shielding at all the general population limit is met and the pregnancy limit is very nearly met. This has an interesting consequence: spacewalks in ELEO may be safe enough from a radiation point of view to be a significant recreational activity.

The total mass of the 4 rpm unshielded (56 meter diameter Stanford Torus, 123 person) space colony could be launched from Earth with about 40 Falcon Heavy vehicles.

The space settlement rotation rate recommendations of [Globus 2015] are: Up to 2 rpm (rotations per minute) should be no problem for residents and require little adaptation by visitors. Up to 4 rpm should be no problem for residents but will require some training and/or a few hours to perhaps a day or two of adaptation by visitors. Up to 6 rpm is unlikely to be a problem for residents but may require extensive visitor training and/or adaptation over a few days. Some particularly susceptible individuals may have a great deal of difficulty. Up to 10 rpm adaptation has been achieved with specific training. However, the diameter of a settlement at these rotation rates is so small (under ~40 meter for seven rpm) its hard to imagine anyone wanting to live there permanently, much less raise children. Rotation at high rates, however, may be useful for a dedicated radiation study station in ELEO.

Note that there are two classes of people that must be accommodated: residents and visitors. For residents a few days of feeling ill at the beginning of a multiyear stay is of little concern. However, if a settlement expects many short term visitors it may be best to keep the rotation rate under about 4 rpm.

The Kalpana One space station design at 4 rpm requires 17 tons/person. The cheapest advertised price today for delivering mass to orbit is the Falcon Heavy, in development, at $90 million for 53 tons to LEO [SpaceX 2015], or $1.7 million per ton. For 17 tons that is about $29 million.

The cheapest advertised price to launch people to LEO is a bit over $26 million/seat on a Falcon 9/Dragon which includes a stay at a Bigelow space station [Bigelow 2015], also in development. It should be noted that this cost must be incurred for settlers going to any space location.

Combining these two costs gives us (rounding up) $60 million per person. This does not include materials, construction or resupply costs. We assume that government or space tourism businesses will conduct most of the research and development cost other than actually building a settlement.

To get the transportation costs to close to one million dollars, leaving some small number of millions for everything else, we need to reduce the cost of launch by about a factor of 50 to around $1.2Million/person. Notice that these are extremely rough calculations, but are sufficient for planning purposes.

Elon Musk is trying to make hundreds of flights per year economic by launching and maintaining a network of 4000-20,000 internet satellites.

To reach a 50 times price reduction will almost certainly require fully reusable launch vehicles, much improved technology and a very high flight rate, probably in the tens of thousands per year. The reusability and technology requirements are generally recognized but for some reason flight rate is often ignored. However, with fewer than 100 launches per year today, a single reusable vehicle capable of two flights a week could, theoretically, satisfy the entire launch market! Even 1,000 flights per year would only require 10 such vehicles. Large reductions in price will not come if vehicles are built in such small numbers. Launch vehicles only make money when they fly, so we need a very high flight rate, probably over 10,000 flights/year.

There are only two applications that, at the right price, could create a market requiring a flight rate of ten of thousands or more per year: space solar power (SSP) and tourism. SSP requires a very large investment up front before any income is generated and is vulnerable to terrestrial competition, particularly as batteries improve.

Tourism was a $2.3 trillion/year industry in 2014.

The rest is here:
Towards an Economically Viable roadmap to large scale space ... - Next Big Future

Moon Express is one of only two teams in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition with a verified launch contract for its 2017 lunar mission. In October 2015, Moon Express announced that it had signed the worlds first multi-mission launch contract with Rocket Lab USA for 3 lunar missions between 2017 and 2020.

Moon Express sees the moon as critical for humanity to become a multi-world species, and that our sister world, the Moon, is an eighth continent holding vast resources than can help us enrich and secure our future.

MoonEx had been planning to place the International Lunar Observatory (ILO) on the Moon as early as 2018. The plan calls for placement of both a 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) radio telescope as well as an optical telescope at the South Pole of the Moon.

Rick Tumlinson, chairman of Deep Space Industries, plans to land its first prospector on an asteroid by 2020.

Deep Space Industries will use small scouts to explore and study prospective targets. A larger robot will land on high value asteroids to mine and process material. It will use solar power to evaporate and capture water from the sample.

Water, we believe, is relatively easy to harvest from asteroid materials, said Tumlinson.

By 2025 they could be producing serious quantities of resources.

Deep Space Industries and the University of Tennessee were awarded NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program funding for developing technology to slow spacecraft carrying asteroid resources as they return to Earths orbit.

The purpose of asteroid mining is to collect fuel and building materials harvested from near Earth asteroids and provide them to commercial and government missions. One major challenge to making asteroid mining a reality is slowing down the returning mining spacecraft as they approach Earth. Returning from distant destinations, these spacecraft will be traveling at high speeds, so slowing them down enough to slip into orbit is quite difficult.

Current braking methods call for the returning asteroid mining spacecraft to expend a great deal of propellant to slow itself down enough to achieve low Earth orbit insertion. However, propellant is heavy and valuable, so if another way of slowing the spacecraft could be devised, it would significantly help the economics of asteroid mining missions.

The NASA grant will research the manufacturing of an aerobrake system from the asteroids regolith (soil) collected from mining operations. The idea is that the fully laden asteroid mining spacecraft will use the collected material to manufacture a braking system during its journey back to Earths orbit. The aerobrake system would act as a large heat shield that would allow the spacecraft to pass through Earths atmosphere, creating enough drag to slow down the payload without using propellant.

Using aerobrakes instead of propellant will expand by 30 to 100 times the number of asteroids where water and other supplies can be affordably delivered to markets in Earth orbit, said Dr. John S. Lewis, chief scientist at DSI. In the near future, explains Lewis, asteroid resources will support space stations, expeditions to the Moon and Mars, and the transfer of payloads from low orbit to geosynchronous orbit by space-based tugs refueled with asteroid propellant.

Planetary Resources is also focused on water.

You can concentrate that solar energy and heat up the surface of the asteroid and literally bake off the water in the same way youd bake a clay pot, says CEO Chris Lewicki.

Both Lewicki and Tumlinson want to supply building materials in space, which could allow for the construction of super-massive floating structures that would be ungainly to launch from Earth.

This was the old L5 colonization vision.

National Space Society has updated analysis of the enormous growth potential of orbital space colonization and near earth settlement. If the single largest asteroid (Ceres) were to be used to build orbital space settlements, the total living area created would be well over a hundred times the land area of the Earth. This is because Ceres is a solid, three dimensional object but orbital space settlements are basically hollow with only air on the inside. Thus, Ceres alone can provide the building materials for uncrowded homes for hundreds of billions of people, at least.

Original post:
Moon as unprospected eighth continent that will produce trillionaires ... - Next Big Future

It is possible that in future possessing materials for creating firs infrastructure for future mars colonists will be easier than anyone could imagine.

Group of civilian engineers working on Stanford University along with NASAs Ames Research Center managed to create new technology, which will make possible creating concrete from regolith present on the Mars or on the Moon. As all we know, main factor which makes colonization of planets or Moonvery expensive is cost of delivering to orbit any kilogram of payload. In case of creating permanently inhabited base on the Moon or on the Mars it would be necessary to deliver there large amount of materials like concrete to built structures likefoundations orshelters for colonists. Perfect solution would be possessing material for buildingson the spot. Unfortunately regolith which can be found on the Mars orMoon is not perfect material it is loose and it would be very hard to form it into any solid structure like blocks or bricks. Now it seems that scientists found perfect solution.

Team leaded byan associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford School of EngineeringMichael Lepech, developed technology basing on protein, carbon and regolith. Mixture will create substantial composite similar to concrete after being mixed in low gravity conditions. Proteins were possessed from animals like slaughters, carbonused for experiment wasgenerated by humans and samples of regolith were provided by Nasa. First transformed mixture samplesshowed that they are as strong as ordinary pavement bricks and has similar density and other features.

Technology gives great opportunity to built base on Mars or on the Moon without waiting for delivering concrete or any building materials from Earth. It is possible to create farms with genetically modified organisms producing proteins mixed with carbon and regolith. Such farms could work without any service for a long time being controlled remotely.First buildings could be created by robotic machines using bricks manufactured on robotic farms. First colonists would land, finish buildingsand install additional equipment. It would reduce time necessary for creating safe shelters resistant for space radiation and micrometeoroids which are most dangerous threat for any base on the Moon or Mars.

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Regolith into concrete revolutionary technology can help in colonization of Mars - MilTech

Buzz Aldrin wants NASA to privatize LEO and retire the ISS. At the 2017 Humans to Mars conference, according to Space.com, Aldrin remarked that We must retire the ISS as soon as possibleWe simply cannot afford $3.5 billion a year of that cost. Aldrins plan for Mars is heavily dependent on cyclers, shuttle orbits between Earth and Mars that could enable the regular transport of cargo and crew between a Mars colony and Earth. But PCMag points out that the ISS is funded through 2024, so Aldrins vision isnt likely to take off before thenat least not under the auspices of NASA. Private space companies, though, are another story.

Speaking of private space flight: SpaceXs Falcon 9 has had an impressive run, including its recent victory lap as the first previously flown rocket to launch and return to its landing pad again. Now SpaceX has successfully tested the rocket module at the core of the upcoming Falcon Heavy as well. The Falcon Heavyessentially three Falcon 9s strapped togetheris critical to Elon Musks long-term plans for space exploration and Mars colonization. With the core stage having been successfully test-fired, the next step is to assemble all three of the Falcon Heavys rocket boosters and prepare for its first launch.

Theres some brain-candy type news from the TRAPPIST system. How have all its planets stayed in perfectly circular orbits, crammed into the relatively tiny space they occupy, without crashing into each other? They have integer orbital resonances. For every 2 orbits of the outermost planet, the next one in does 3 orbits, the next one 4, 6, 9, 15, and 24, University of Toronto Scarborough astronomer Dan Tamayo told Gizmodo. This is called a chain of resonances, and this is the longest one that has ever been discovered in a planetary system.

Last but not least, Io also shows its angry, angry face in the news this week. Io, the fiery satellite of Jupiter known for being the solar systems one moon most desperately in need of Alka-Seltzer, has long been known for its intense volcanism. Our ability to observe the specifics of the moons volcanic activity have been limited by the difficulty of direct observations from Earth and the relatively limited windows offered by missions like Juno and the earlier Voyager and Galileo missions. Recently, scientists were able to take advantage of a rare orbital alignment between Europa (the icy moon of Jupiter where life might exist in oceans deep below the frozen surface) and Io to track how quickly Ios volcanos produce lava, and how fast that lava flows over the surface.

Scientists tracked lava waves as they moved across the Loki Patera, a formation larger than Lake Ontario. Their findings suggest that the periodic brightening of Loki Patera is caused by lava waves hardening and beginning to sink, at which point a wave of fresh lava replaces them. Scientists recommend that anyone planning to vacation at one of Ios scenic lava lakes pack SPF 5 billion and a full-body asbestos suit.

Now read: Our favorite books about space

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This Week in Space: the ISS, a Heavy Rocket, and a Dance of Alien Planets - ExtremeTech