Category Archives: Moon Colonization

CALGARY Sending humans to colonize Mars would be a suicide mission, former Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk said Friday.

Thirsk, who holds the Canadian space endurance record with 204 days in orbit, said a private Netherlands-based group's plan to send 24 people to settle the red planet in a decade is a death wish.

During his six-month stint aboard the International Space Station in 2009, Thirsk said he spent much of his time repairing equipment like CO2 scrubbers and the craft's toilet.

That doesn't give him much confidence in Mars One's plans.

"I don't think we're ready ... we don't yet have the reliable technology to support a one-way trip to Mars," Thirsk said in Calgary Friday.

"It's naive to think we're ready to colonize Mars it'd be a suicide mission."

He said such a voyage to Mars would take six to nine months.

Calgarian Zac Trolley, 31, who's on a short list of 705 hopefuls on the Mars One sweepstakes, called Thirsk's comments "absolutely ridiculous.

"It's not a suicide mission. It sounds like you're intending to die and no one wants to put themselves in harm's way and intentionally die," the electrical engineer said.

He said any form of space travel comes with risks, adding the lunar module Eagle was never tested before it first touched down on the Moon in 1969.

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Mars colonization a suicide mission, says Canadian astronaut

When President Obama permanently grounded Americas space shuttles a couple of years ago, he made a huge mistake. He gave Russia carte blanche over the International Space Station and we now pay $70 million each for our astronauts to hitch a ride.

With Vladimir Putin flexing muscles in Ukraine and thumbing his nose at the U.S. and rest of the world, what happens if he gives our astronauts the boot? Our shuttles were hauled off to museums.

Not only did Obama tube the shuttles, he canceled the Constellation program, the successor to Americas historic space shuttle program.

Obama says he also opposes returning to the moon another huge blunder. Instead, he plans to send astronauts to asteroids and, eventually, to Mars.

To reach Mars from Earth, Obamas budget funds the design and production of massive new heavy lift rockets. But because gravity on the moon is one-sixth that of the Earth, it would be far easier to launch Mars missions from the moon. China thinks so, as well.

In abandoning the lunar program, the president missed the point. It is not about been there, done that, it is about having a place from which to launch deep space missions, test new technologies and develop limitless supplies of clean energy.

Space physicist David Criswell believes the moon could supply clean renewable energy for our entire planet.

He and others envision a series of lunar power facilities to capture massive amounts of solar energy and beam it back to Earth. The moon receives more than 13,000 terawatts of energy and harnessing 1 percent of that energy could satisfy our planetary needs.

Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Jack Schmitt, a geologist and one of the last two people to walk on the moon, believes Helium 3 found on the moon is the key to the second generation of fusion reactors. A light non-radioactive isotope, Helium 3 is rare on Earth, but plentiful on the moon and scientists believe it could produce vast amounts of electricity.

Potential lunar colonization got a healthy boost a year ago when ice was discovered by NASA scientists at its south pole. That means there could be drinking water, oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel on the moon itself.

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Reducaed to hitchhikers

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In less than a decade, there might be life on Mars. No not because the aliens have been hiding all this time, but because NASA might just put it there. The brightest minds at the Ames Research Center recently proposed sending plant life along with the next Mars rover. It's actually a pretty good idea.

Plainly named the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX), the plan aims to see how Earth life handles the red planet's lower gravity and higher radiation levels. But NASA scientists don't expect to dig holes and plant seeds in Martian soil. Rather, they intend to convert a clear CubeSat box into a greenhouse of sorts that will be filled with Earth air and about 200 seeds for the Arabidopsis plant, a cousin to mustard. The box will then live on top of the rover which will keep it watered. The bonsai tree pictured above is a (poor) rendering of what plants on Mars could look like, but the actual NASA rendition isn't much better. The neon green box in the middle is supposed to be the MPX box.

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The experiment isn't just to see if it's possible to keep plants alive. It's actually an important step towards figuring out if Mars colonization will ever be possible. "In order to do a long-term, sustainable base on Mars, you would want to be able to establish that plants can at least grow on Mars," said Heather Smith, the deputy principal investigator for MPX. "We would go from this simple experiment to the greenhouses on Mars for a sustainable base." She addedalthough possibly incorrectly, as far as we knowthat the plant "also would be the first multicellular organism to grow, live and die on another planet."

This specific proposal is still just a proposal. At the end of the day, there's only so much space for so many instruments on the next Mars rover which is scheduled to depart for the red planet in 2020 and land in 2021. At present, NASA's considering proposals for a total of 58 different instruments, and since the Curiosity rover's only carrying about 10 instruments, it seems very unlikely they'll all make the cut. All else fails, we can always just shoot plants at the moon. [Space.com]

Images via NASA / Gizmodo

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NASA Wants to Send Plant Life to Mars in 2020

The moon is the perfect stepping stone for human exploration of space and for that reason going back to the moon is very important. Just supplying the ISS with food, air and water from a lunarbase would be alot cheaper than supplying the ISS from earth. This is BECAUSE the moon has so little gravity and no atmosphere. A payload taking off from the lunar surface can have any shape or size. No need to take in account drag and aerodynamics. And using a MagLev track payloads can be lofted into space using only electricity.

Everything needed to build spaceship and equippment is right there on the lunar surface as it is very similar in composition to earths crust. There are no or very little of volatiles like carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen but those same elements are considered waste on the ISS. CO2, urine and waste plastics for instance. Everywhere humans go they bring it along. A station on the moon that takes care of wastes from the ISS would be a good start for a lunar industry. CO2 is split into carbon and oxygen using the Sabatier electrolysis cycle which also produces hydrogen. Hydrogen and carbon is used to steal oxygen from the lunarsoil and metals for construction become the "waste" that can be used. So you get more CO2 and water that you can split into hydrogen, oxygen and carbon once more. Eventually you have so much oxygen you have no choice but to get rid of it. So you sell it to NASA for a profit where it is turned back into precious CO2. Same thing with the water only it just gets enriched with nitrogen compunds.

Food production isnt a given. We dont know when it is feasible or if it can even be done on the moon. But if you stock up on enough water and CO2 a biological outpost on the moon would be ideal. Then you finally get to put all those nitrogen compunds into use and begin to sell kelpburgers to NASA.

I wouldnt call this colonization however. People would just live and work on the moon much like we live and work on oilplatforms, in nuclear subs or in research stations in Antarctica. But I am still all for it. There are plenty of other worlds out there that we WILL colonize. We just need to build a bridge to them first.

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Moon colonization? - Yahoo

For years, critics have been taking shots at NASA's plans to corral a near-Earth asteroid before moving on to Mars and now NASA's chief has a message for those critics: "Get over it, to be blunt."

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden defended the space agency's 20-year timeline for sending astronauts to the Red Planet on Tuesday, during the opening session of this year's Humans 2 Mars Summit at George Washington University in the nation's capital.

That timeline calls for NASA to develop a new Orion crew capsule and a heavy-lift rocket called the Space Launch System while continuing research on the International Space Station. By the mid-2020s, astronauts would travel to a near-Earth asteroid that was brought to the vicinity of the moon. That'd set the stage for trips to Mars and its moons sometime in the 2030s.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden discusses his agency's plan to get astronauts to Mars during a session at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington on Tuesday.

Some members of Congress want NASA to forget about the asteroid and go directly to Mars or the moon's surface instead. But Bolden said NASA needed the asteroid mission as a "proving ground" for the farther-out missions to Mars.

"We don't think we can just go," the former astronaut and Marine general said.

Bolden said missions to Mars would be important not only to learn whether life once existed beyond Earth, but also to set the stage for interplanetary settlement. That would serve as an insurance policy against any potentially planet-destroying catastrophe on Earth's.

"Only multiplanet species survive for long periods of time," Bolden said, echoing echoing a call for outer-space colonization that has been made by luminaries ranging from physicist Stephen Hawking to SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk.

Bolden said getting astronauts to Mars by the 2030s would require "modest increases" in NASA's budget. Musk has said he could do it sooner, perhaps in 10 years if enough money was available. But Bolden said an Apollo-scale push to Mars isn't in the cards.

A NASA chart lays out the agency's step-by-step plan for human exploration of Mars.

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NASA Chief Tells the Critics of Exploration Plan: 'Get Over It'

By Associated Press Published: Monday, April 21, 2014, 7:10 am

(WLFI Photo, file)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (AP) A team of Purdue University students has created a $550 billion plan to colonize the moon as part of a senior design project.

The 1,100-page report outlines plans for a project that the students call Project Artemis. The proposed moon colony would be the first step toward the eventual colonization of Mars.

The moon colony would have three separate outposts where people would live for about four years. The proposed visit would begin in 2024.

Professor James Longuski says the moon outpost would help scientists learn more about the requirements for a one-way trip to Mars, which would be challenged by radiation and low gravity.

The Journal & Courier reportsthe team presented its report to a crowd of spectators Thursday. NASA administrators in Houston listened by speakerphone.

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Purdue U. students outline plan for colony on moon

During its mission, the Galileo spacecraft returned a number of images of Earth's only natural satellite. Galileo surveyed the moon on Dec. 7, 1992, on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-1997.

This color mosaic was assembled from 18 images taken by Galileo's imaging system through a green filter. On the upperleft is the dark, lava-filled Mare Imbrium, Mare Serenitatis (middle left), Mare Tranquillitatis (lower left), and Mare Crisium, the dark circular feature toward the bottom of the mosaic. Also visible in this view are the dark lava plains of the Marginis and Smythii Basins at the lower right.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. A team of Purdue University students has created a $550 billion plan to colonize the moon as part of a senior design project.

The 1,100-page report outlines plans for a project that the students call Project Artemis. The proposed moon colony would be the first step toward the eventual colonization of Mars.

The moon colony would have three separate outposts where people would live for about four years. The proposed visit would begin in 2024.

Professor James Longuski says the moon outpost would help scientists learn more about the requirements for a one-way trip to Mars, which would be challenged by radiation and low gravity.

The Journal & Courier reports the team presented its report to a crowd of spectators Thursday. NASA administrators in Houston listened by speakerphone.

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Students' $550B moon colony

Over the past 50 years, Americans have witnessed the first man walk on the moon, the birth of the Internet and cellphones, large and small and large again. What will the future of technology and science hold in the next 50 years? Controlled weather? Space colonization? Personal drone use?

Pew Research Center recently asked the American public about their predictions and hopes for the future of technology. The U.S. Views of Technology and the Future report, released Thursday, found that a majority of the more than 1,000 Americans surveyed believe that the next five decades will see the custom creation of transplantable organs, and computer-developed art, music and novels rivaling human talent. And while most dont believe the United States will see teleportation, space colonization or controlled weather, more people found those first two ideas more likely scenarios than the ability to choose which way the wind blows.

Most Americans dont think humans will be able to control the weather in the 50-year future.

Clearly nature holds a place in the popular imagination that even some of the most challenging engineering projects cant match, said senior researcher of Pew Research Centers Internet Project Aaron Smith.

When it comes to short-term changes regarding some controversial technological advancements, the majority is wary:

Pew notes its not that everyone is completely opposed to trying new technology. Theyre just inclined to let others take the first step.

Getting brain implants to improve memory or eating lab-grown meat, on the other hand, might not have many takers at all. Just twenty-six percent would (literally) change their minds, and only 20 percent were willing to try Franken-meat. But the opinion was nearly split on riding driverless cars, with 48 percent up for the challenge and 50 percent uninterested.

Were asking: What technological advancements are you looking forward to in the future? Tell us in the comments below.

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Americans predict what the future looks like for technology

9 hours ago

(Phys.org) The true extent of poor pupil behaviour in schools is seriously underestimated, according to an academic from the University of East Anglia.

Prof Terry Haydn argues that until the scale, nature and complexity of the problem is acknowledged, shortfalls in the working atmosphere in classrooms are likely to continue.

Research by Prof Haydn questions the positive picture of behaviour presented by the government. He says recent Department for Education and Ofsted reports suggesting it is at least satisfactory in 99.7% of English schools and good or outstanding in 92% of schools are misleading. He warns that even the acknowledgement last year by Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, that disruptive behaviour is impeding the learning of 700,000 pupils may seriously underestimate the extent to which poor classroom climate limits pupil achievement.

Published today in the journal Review of Education, Prof Haydn's findings are from four studies conducted over 10 years. The research aimed to gain a more accurate insight into the extent to which deficits in the working atmosphere limit educational achievement and equality of educational opportunity in English schools. It also explored the difficulties schools and teachers face in reconciling the tensions between educational inclusion - that is, not removing difficult pupils from classrooms and schools - and the right to learn of all pupils in an environment which is most beneficial to learning.

Three of the studies focused on teacher perspectives on classroom atmosphere. They involved surveying 243 trainee teachers, who were also asked about their experiences as former pupils. Interviews were conducted with another 118 teachers, including 13 headteachers, across 80 schools. The fourth study surveyed the views of 708 secondary school pupils aged 11-15, from five schools.

The research used a 10 point scale, developed by Prof Haydn, which attempts to provide an indication of the extent to which deficits in classroom climate may hamper learning, with level 10 being where the working atmosphere is completely conducive to learning and level one being classrooms where learning is severely limited by pupil disruption. Many of the teachers interviewed felt that learning started to be affected as soon as the atmosphere fell below level eight on the scale, and this was a not uncommon occurrence. The research also indicates that the problem of behaviour is not limited to 'low level' disruption. Teacher and headteacher testimony suggested that schools and teachers often have to make difficult decisions about how to deal with 'pupils with problems', without simply excluding them, passing them on to other schools, or avoiding the challenge of admitting difficult pupils.

Prof Haydn, from the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at UEA, questions the view that any deficit in classroom climate can be attributed to inadequate teachers or poor headteachers. "This is not an aspect of education that is straightforward or susceptible to simple solutions or quick fixes. The suggestion that there are easy answers to the problems posed by challenging pupils underestimates the complexities of the issue, and the fact that cultural and 'out of school' factors are part of the problem, for example, unsupportive parents," he said. "The idea that level 10 is a natural or default state of affairs in terms of classroom climate, or that it is easy to create a classroom climate where all pupils behave and are keen to learn and do well, with any group of pupils, is simplistic and unhelpful."

The research raises the question of the extent to which there is a right to learn in classrooms in England, for pupils who are keen to learn and do well. Prof Haydn argues that behaviour cannot be interpreted as satisfactory if some pupils are impeding the learning of others and if teachers are not able to teach the class in a way that focuses primarily on optimising pupil learning rather than on control issues.

"There is a real danger that underestimating the complexity of these issues might lead to a failure to work constructively to address them, or a tendency for politicians of all parties to simply blame schools and teachers for anything that falls below level 10," said Prof Haydn. "The reality is that schools and teachers will always have to work hard, and with considerable initiative and ingenuity, to minimise the problem of disruptive behaviour. In England, as elsewhere in the developed world, there are many pupils who are not perfectly socialised and are not wholeheartedly committed to learning."

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Research suggests scale of disruptive behaviour in schools is underestimated

When President Obama permanently grounded America's space shuttles a couple of years ago, he made a huge mistake. He gave Russia carte blanche over the International Space Station and we now pay $70 million each for our astronauts to hitch a ride.

With Vladimir Putin flexing his muscles in the Ukraine and thumbing his nose at the United States and rest of the world, what happens if he gives our astronauts the boot? We'd be up the creek without a paddle. Our shuttles were hauled off to museums.

Not only did Obama tube the shuttles, he canceled the Constellation program, the successor to America's historic space shuttle program. Although the complex program was plagued by delays and cost overruns, taxpayers lost the $11 billion they'd invested when the president shut it down. Obama says he also opposes returning to the moon-another huge blunder. Instead, he plans to send astronauts to asteroids and, eventually, to Mars.

To reach Mars from Earth, Obama's budget funds the design and production of massive new heavy lift rockets. But because gravity on the moon is one-sixth that of the Earth, it would be far easier to launch Mars missions from the moon. China thinks so, as well.

In abandoning the lunar program, the president missed the point. It is not about "been there, done that," it is about having a place from which to launch deep space missions - like his mission to Mars - test new technologies and develop limitless supplies of clean energy.

Space physicist David Criswell believes the moon could supply clean renewable energy for our entire planet. He and others envision a series of lunar power facilities to capture massive amounts of solar energy and beam it back to Earth. The moon receives more than

13,000 terawatts of energy and harnessing one percent of that energy could satisfy our planetary needs.

Apollo 17 astronaut Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, a geologist and one of the last two people to walk on the moon, believes Helium 3 found on the moon is the key to the second generation of fusion reactors. A light non-radioactive isotope, Helium 3 is rare on Earth, but plentiful on the moon and scientists believe it could produce vast amounts of electricity.

Potential lunar colonization got a healthy boost a year ago when ice was discovered by NASA scientists at its south pole. That means there could be drinking water, oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for rocket fuel on the moon itself.

China sees the strategic advantage of establishing bases on the moon and plans to start within 10 years.

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It's a mistake to rely on Russia's space shuttle