Category Archives: Mars Colonization

What cant go on wont go on. Capitalism is breaking the system, meaning peoples lives and the biosphere.

There is no question Kim Stanley Robinson is one of the most important writers working today. Across almost four decades and more than 20 novels, his scrupulously imagined fiction has consistently explored questions of social justice, political and environmental economy, and utopian possibility.

Robinson is probably best known for his Mars trilogy, which envisions the settlement and transformation of Mars over several centuries, and the ethical and political challenges of building a new society. Yet it is possible his most significant legacy will turn out to be the remarkable sequence of novels that began with 2312. Published across less than a decade, these six books reimagine both our past and our future in startlingly new ways, emphasizing the indivisibility of ecological and economic systems and placing the climate emergency center stage.

The most recent, The Ministry for the Future, published in 2020, is a work of extraordinary scale and ambition. Simultaneously a deeply confronting vision of the true scale of the climate crisis, a future history of the next 50 years, and a manifesto outlining the revolutionary change that will be necessary to avert catastrophe, it is by turns terrifying, exhilarating, and finally, perhaps surprisingly, guardedly hopeful. It is also one of the most important books published in recent years.

This interview was conducted between January and March 2021, beginning in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the United States Capitol and the inauguration of President Biden, and ending as a second wave of the COVID pandemic began to gather pace in many countries around the world. As we bounced questions back and forth across the Pacific, a drumbeat of impending disaster grew louder by the day: atmospheric carbon dioxide reached 417 ppm, a level 50 percent higher than preindustrial levels; a study showed the current system responsible for the relative warmth of the Northern Hemisphere the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation at its weakest level in a thousand years; and Kyotos cherry blossoms bloomed earlier than they have at any time since records began in the ninth century CE.

James Bradley: In several of your recent novels, youve characterized the first few decades of the 21st century as a time of inaction and indecision in 2312, for instance, you called them the Dithering but in The Ministry for the Future, you talk about the 2030s as the zombie years, a moment when civilization had been killed but it kept walking the Earth, staggering toward some fate even worse than death. I wonder whether you could talk a little bit about that idea. Whats brought us to this point? And what does it mean for a civilization to be dead?

Kim Stanley Robinson: Im thinking now that my sense of our global civilization dithering, and also trying to operate on old ideas and systems that are clearly inadequate to the present crisis, has been radically impacted by the COVID pandemic, which I think has been somewhat of a wake-up call for everyone showing that we are indeed in a global civilization in every important sense (food supply, for instance), and also that we are utterly dependent on science and technology to keep eight billion people alive.

So 2312 was written in 2010. In that novel, I provided a timeline of sorts, looking backward from 2312, that was notional and intended to shock, also to fill the many decades it takes to make three centuries, and in a way that got my story in place the way I wanted it. In other words, it was a literary device, not a prediction. But its interesting now to look back and see me describing the Dithering as lasting so long. These are all affect states, not chronological predictions; I think its very important to emphasize science fictions double action, as both prophecy and metaphor for our present. As prophecy, SF is always wrong; as metaphor, it is always right, being an expression of the feeling of the time of writing.

So following that, The Ministry for the Future was written in 2019, before the pandemic. It expresses both fears and hopes specific to 2019 and now, because of the shock of the pandemic, it can serve as an image of how it felt before. Its already a historical artifact. Thats fine, and I think it might be possible that the book can be read better now than it could have been in January 2020 when I finished it.

Now I dont think there will be a period of zombie years, and certainly not the 2030s. The pandemic as a shock has sped up civilizations awareness of the existential dangers of climate change. Now, post COVID, a fictional future history might speak of the Trembling Twenties as its described in The Ministry for the Future, but it also seems it will be a period of galvanized, spasmodic, intense struggle for control over history, starting right now. With that new feeling, the 2030s seem very far off and impossible to predict at all.

JB: In The Ministry for the Future, the thing that finally triggers change is the catastrophic heat wave that opens the book. Its a profoundly upsetting and very powerful piece of writing, partly because an event of the sort it depicts is likely to be a reality within a decade or so. But as somebody whose country has already experienced catastrophic climate disaster in the form of fire and flood and seen little or no change in our political discourse, I found myself wondering whether the idea such a disaster would trigger change mightnt be too optimistic. Do you think it will take catastrophe to create real change? Or will the impetus come from elsewhere?

KSR: People are good at imagining the catastrophe will always happen somewhere else and to other people. Thus in Australia, people will tend to think, But it never could happen in Sydney, in Melbourne, in Perth. Even though it could. So it wont be catastrophe per se that changes peoples politics and their votes. The impetus comes from ideology, from ones invented imaginary relationship to the real situation. Here the discursive battle is paramount. The stories we tell each other will make the difference. The scientific community keeps telling us a story: that if we continue burning carbon into the atmosphere, and otherwise wrecking the biosphere, we will crash as a species. This story is making headway; Ive seen the headway, everyone has, in the last two decades. A tipping point will arrive soon where it is the obvious story that everyone accepts as real; it will become hegemonic. And the sooner the better.

People are good at imagining the catastrophe will always happen somewhere else and to other people.

The radically cold temperatures hitting the U.S. as I write this are located in many of the red states that voted for Trump, especially Texas. Voting Republican now is in effect a vote against science, a denial of science. So as I write, everyone in those regions without electrical power has to contemplate that in fact they depend completely on science and technology to stay alive. Will that change their thinking and their votes? Probably not not all of them, and not immediately. But repeated shocks from reality will soon change the window of acceptable discourse, and then the hegemonic space. We are utterly dependent on the science and technology that is both civilizations invention and its enabling device. This story needs to be insisted on. One way I try to do this is to remind everyone that when youre sick and scared for your life, you run to a scientist, which is to say your doctor. Thats proof of what you really believe, more than your vote or your words.

In Australia, I can only say Im mystified. Thirty million is a small population to include so many science deniers. An advanced, developed, rich nation, but also an island that can feel separate from the rest of the world who knows? No one can understand other political entities from the outside. Even inside them, they are mysterious. But Id have expected your science deniers and coal burners to be defeated at the polls by now. Maybe that will happen. Maybe electing an idiot like Trump helped to speed the process here.

JB: Part of the process of change has to be about rethinking our relationship with the past and the future. The idea of how we reimagine our relationship with the future is one you return to often: in The Ministry for the Future, your characters discuss the way economists discount the value of future lives when making decisions now, and the entire plot of Aurora is driven by the failure of people in the present to consider the effect of their actions on the lives of their descendants. But in an odd way, arent these questions about the future the easy ones? Because its the poisonous legacies of the past, of racism, slavery, colonialism, and extractivism, and their human and environmental costs, that are really intractable. Can we solve those questions of the future without solving the problems of the past? Or is that a false dichotomy?

KSR: This question reminds me of a slogan one sees in Marx, also Tolkien: We have to deal with the historical situation weve been given. Things could have been different, but theyre not so on we go, free to act, and obliged to act, but not in a situation of our choosing.

Thats not to suggest we ignore history. Studying it teaches a lot (maybe everything) about where we are now. Seeing how we got to this moment which is to say arguing about how we got to this moment is part of the discursive battle about what to do now.

So there are indeed poisonous legacies of the past, inscribed into current practices, hegemonic beliefs, structures of feeling, and laws. The dead hand of the past, trying to strangle the new baby future that we, in the present, midwife. What I often feel that one can see very clearly is two major strands, braided together although often in direct conflict. I call it science versus capitalism. Its like Australian economist Dick Bryan once said to me about finance and the state: They are hand in hand, but theyre arm-wrestling for control.

So the project becomes to strengthen the strand that is working for justice and a sustainable balance with the biosphere I call that science, though it has to be admitted that this is a signaling word for a whole strand of history, which includes in it democracy, justice, progress, etcetera. Then, against that, theres capitalism, again a signal word for feudalism, patriarchy, and all the older power systems of the few over the many, most of which emerged with agriculture about 10,000 years ago. That power system has an ancient lineage and is hard to beat.

Into this mythic dualism, lots of elements of history can be slotted, but it is a view from space, or a sock puppet play, very Manichean, and maybe often unhelpful. Maybe its my own false dichotomy, but I still feel it has some explanatory power. So its not the future over the past, except as a version of this: Its science over capitalism.

JB: Im interested by your decision to define the conflict as science versus capitalism, because it forces us to think about a lot of these questions differently and to recognize that many things we dont usually think of as technologies economic policy, finance, social justice, education, and all the other drivers of social change can be usefully treated as precisely that. But doesnt it also demand we recognize the real challenge isnt electrifying the grid or rolling out solar panels, its a much more fundamental realignment of political power?

KSR: Yes, I think thats right. Technology can be thought of as machinery only, but here computers are really helpful as an analogy; they have to have both hardware and software. In civilization as a technology, as with computers, the software is crucial; otherwise its just an inert hunk of metal and plastic. So in this case, we need to focus on software technologies like finance, economics, law, and politics. Then justice becomes a technology, and language itself. This blows up questions like, Can there be a technological solution without political reform? Maybe people are there asking, Could we just make new machines that would overcome the disastrous effects of our unjust and unsustainable political economy, which is to say neoliberal capitalism?

I think the feeling of a massive immovable system has begun to creak, shift, crack, and let in new light.

I think the answer to that is no. We need to change our political economy so that a single index, profit, isnt our measure of doing well. We need to figure out a financial system that pays us for doing things good for the biosphere, including all its citizens, human and not this would be safest, and indeed its necessary for humans rather than rewarding activities that hurt people and biosphere, which profit-seeking will do.

Capital gets invested at the highest rate of return. Thats the law, often literally the law. Repairing the biosphere and creating justice among humans is not the highest rate of return now. So it wont happen. End of story.

Or beginning of new chapter. This is what were seeing in new terms like Modern Monetary Theory, full employment, carbon quantitative easing, the social cost of carbon, universal basic income and services, Half Earth plans, and wage parity. Also in the return of older terms like socialism, or social security. All these ideas or systems or software technologies are being proposed to get out of the death spiral of neoliberal capitalism. What I find interesting and really encouraging is that these ideas are being discussed by people in the central banks and the national governments and the international diplomatic community. Even among economists, who for the most part have devoted all their work to an analysis of capitalism. These are no longer marginal or science fictional ideas; they are on the table as potential legislation.

JB: Those ideas and that sense a new world is being brought into being around us is very much a part of The Ministry for the Future, which, despite the grief and anger that make it so wrenching to read, shares the essentially utopian vision of your work in general. But its often not easy to see how much change is afoot, if only because, as Mark Fisher put it, capitalism occupies the horizons of the thinkable. Do you think this difficulty contributes to the sense of despair and powerlessness so many people feel at the moment?

KSR: Yes. I think of it in terms known to many now: ideology, hegemony, structure of feeling, capitalist realism: There is no alternative. And so on. Its been 40 years of a dominant political economy, following a couple of centuries of expanding capitalist power over world history, so its hard to imagine how that could change. Thus the famous Jameson/Zizek slogan: Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.

But I think now theres also a widespread feeling that it cant go on. And what cant go on wont go on. Capitalism is breaking the system, meaning peoples lives and the biosphere. Were on the brink of causing a mass extinction event that will hammer humans, too; its not just climate change, which can be imagined as a matter of turning down the thermostat, but a much wider habitat collapse our only habitat.

Given that feeling, people are looking for a way out of the current system and also for some ideas as to what that next system might look like. Even at the heart of the capitalist order which is to say the central banks, the big corporations and investment firms, and in governments from local to nation-state level there is talk of change. Of course, very often many of those speaking are hoping to manage change while retaining power. But some very interesting changes are part of that discussion. So I think the feeling of a massive immovable system has begun to creak, shift, crack, and let in new light.

JB: Theres a question here about how the change takes place, though, isnt there? Especially given the power of the interests that oppose it. In New York 2140, you imagine a kind of Velvet Revolution, a peaceful reorganization of society and the economy, but in The Ministry for the Future you quote Keyness line about the euthanasia of the rentiers. Do you think well see an acceleration of violent resistance as the climate crisis intensifies? And how should we think about that?

KSR: Im not sure about this. In The Ministry for the Future, I described all kinds of political violence and also sabotage against fossil fuel or antihuman infrastructures. The novel was an attempt to describe the next three decades in terms that were antidystopian, but also plausible given the world of stark disagreements that we live in. If people see their families die as a result of climate change impacts, then the slow violence of capitalism will spark the fast violence of spasmodic revolt. Very often these violent acts of resistance do little good; the resistance fighters are killed or jailed, and the oppressive system doubles down in its oppression.

So I am among many who are trying to imagine ways of gaining the good results of a revolution without going through the trauma of old-style violent revolutions, which very often backfire anyway. Some better way to a better situation, which can be imagined in the realms of the discursive battle (Can we get more persuasive?); the political battle (Can we win a working majority?); the legislative battle (Can we pass laws that will help?); and then, also, sabotage of life-destroying machinery, mass civil disobedience, and alternative systems of governance that are simply lived outside the current nation-state system and so on. The list could be extended.

I am among many who are trying to imagine ways of gaining the good results of a revolution without going through the trauma of old-style violent revolutions, which very often backfire anyway.

My objections to violent resistance are both moral and tactical: First, it isnt right to hurt other human beings, if not being attacked by them and defending oneself. Then, tactically, violence often seems to backfire and increase the misery being resisted. This is either because the state monopoly on violence is jealously held (and possibly a good thing) or because even if you seem to succeed by violence, you fail in the long run because the effort has used bad means, and the most violent among the revolutionaries tend to seize power and then use that same violence against any dissent of any kind.

This isnt the whole story of history, obviously, but its the way it feels to me now, in our current situation. So a very rapid, stepwise, legal reformist revolution seems to me the best thing to try now. Later, if we get into the 2030s without meaningful progress on the various justice and sustainability fronts, I think more violent forms of resistance are more likely and maybe more justified. Were in a closing window of opportunity for peaceful tactics to work.

JB: That closing window of opportunity means some very radical ideas are now on the table, some of which such as proposals to dim the sun or seed the oceans with iron are likely to have significant side effects. The idea that humans might terraform or re-engineer the environment in this way is central to your Mars trilogy and plays a big role in 2312, Green Earth, and The Ministry for the Future. Do you think were now at a point where some of these sorts of schemes have to be seriously entertained? And to what extent should we see them as a symptom of the failure of democratic means?

KSR: Were in an all-hands-on-deck situation, so all these radical ideas need to be explored to see if they might help in safe ways. Geoengineering has been defined in advance as doing dangerous things to save capitalism, so naturally people tend to be wary of it. But everything humans do at scale has planetary effects and could be called geoengineering in some literal sense. Maximizing womens education and political power worldwide could be called geoengineering because it would slow the population rise as a result of increased human agency, and this would have biosphere effects we could measure. As its a good and needed thing in and of itself, its ancillary benefits to the biosphere make it a double good.

So at that point the term geoengineering is exploded, and if you wanted to discuss it further it should be on a case-by-case basis. Deflecting some sunlight away by casting dust into the atmosphere (solar radiation management), if the dust were not volcanic but chosen for its inertness (like limestone dust), would reduce temperatures slightly for a few yearsthen the dust would fall to Earth, and the results of the act could be evaluated. If it was done by international agreement, then it would be the result of representative governments. It would be an experiment. Seeding the ocean with iron dust to create algal blooms, which would then die and fall to the sea floor, taking their carbon with them well, the oceans are already sick because of our carbon burn, plastic pollution, bottom dragging, and overfishing. Doing more to it seems stupid to me, but on the other hand, a single experiment wouldnt change much and might teach us some things. On this particular tactic, Im like most people in thinking theres got to be a better, safer way.

But this discussion is part of what it means to be in the Anthropocene weve damaged the biosphere so badly that we now have to work at repairing it, without knowing enough to be sure how to do that well. Still, some actions are obvious. Stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Stop destroying habitat. Invent regenerative agriculture. End poverty and extend equal rights and education to all. These good acts will all have positive biosphere effects. The various emergency actions being discussed are marginal to these big, obvious things we need to do. You asked if I thought we were already at the point where we will need to do these things; I dont think so. But were close. And if millions die in a wet bulb 35C heat wave, then the nation-state where that happens may take matters into their own hands. No one in the developed world will have any right to object to that.

JB: The vision of our future you articulate in The Ministry for the Future is deeply confronting, but also, ultimately, hopeful in that it runs counter to the growing belief in the developed world that collapse is inevitable. Do you see hope as an imperative?

KSR: Yes, I do. Also, its very natural and biological; life hopes, hunger is a hope. Again, its too big a word to help much. Is it good to be alive? Do you hope to go on living therefore? That kind of hope is very persistent.

But then also there is fear. And there are reasons for fear. Is there a growing belief in the developed world that collapse is inevitable? Im not so sure. And what would collapse mean? That you have to live like people in the Global South live now? Or that three-quarters of all humans will suddenly die in a spasm of civilizational incompetence? These are very different kinds of collapse. So hopes and fears, we always have them in a great overflow.

What I like about science is the way it tries to get particular. Is enough food being grown to feed everyone on Earth? Yes. Is it automatic that that continues? No. Is wilderness a good idea or a bad one? (This is one Im thinking about now.) Well, scientists involved would ask which of the eight or ten definitions of wilderness youre talking about. I like that kind of specificity.

But I think with this question youre inquiring about our cultures structure of feeling, the vibe, how the young feel, what the internet is saying if you just link around reading, and so on. There, in the realm of the general intellect or the feeling of our time, were inside a ringing bell. There is a great roaring, a cacophony. You can pull out the sounds you want to hear and call it an accidental symphony of sorts, and then get on with what needs doing. Your hopes and fears will still keep you awake at night. Meanwhile, the work goes on. People want their children to have a good life. Capitalism isnt working, and what cant go on wont go on. So well be experimenting our way into a different political economy. Hopefully well dodge a mass extinction event, and then all kinds of good possibilities will open up. I think it really is a crux moment in history. The 2020s are going to be wild.

James Bradley is a writer and critic. His books include the novels Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist, and Clade, all of which have won or been nominated for major literary awards; a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus; and The Penguin Book of the Ocean. In 2012 he won the Pascall Prize for Australias Critic of the Year. His newest novel, Ghost Species, is published by Hodder Studio. He lives on Gadigal Land in Sydney, Australia.

This interview is excerpted from the book Tomorrows Parties: Life in the Anthropocene.

Originally posted here:
Its Science Over Capitalism: Kim Stanley Robinson and the Imperative of Hope - The MIT Press Reader

Dubais Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center (MBRSC) is developing a mega project to simulate life on the Red Planet in the Metaverse as part of the countrys plans to build a colony on Mars by the year 2117.

Colonising Mars has been a goal for the global space sector for years, while the United Arab Emirates has revealed plans to build an entire city on Mars by 2117.

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Now MBRSC has teamed up with BEDU, a Dubai-based pioneer in Web3 technologies, in the development of the 2117 Metaverse, which will include virtual experiences that capture the sensations of being in space and setting foot on the Red Planet, as well as create awareness around the challenges of exploration and colonization.

As we set our sights on ever more challenging destinations for exploration with humans and robots, innovative ideas and future thinking will be critical to helping us reach new milestones, said Adnan al-Rais, Mars 2117 program manager at MBRSC.

Concepts like this will be supported by MBRSC as we believe this will help us expand our scope of bigger possibilities."

The Emirates in 2017 announced progressive plans to build a human colony on the Red Planet in 100 years.

Since then, the space center has sent its Hope spacecraft to study the planets atmosphere and is building a $136 million mega science city in Dubai that simulates the conditions on Mars.

It also aims to land a rover on the Moon later this year.

MBRSC will work closely with BEDU experts to collaborate on ideation, creative development, and visualization of the 2117 metaverse elements.

The UAE is known throughout the world as a pioneer, said Amin al-Zarouni, CEO of Bedu. As it takes its place as a frontrunner in the race to put the first humans on another world, we congratulate Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center for its recent successes and the bold scope of its planned future endeavours.

We are excited to partner with MBRSC and are honoured to capture this spellbinding adventure to the stars using the power of the latest and greatest technologies here on Earth. With 2117 we aspire to deliver a fully experience driven Metaverse that focuses on creating endless opportunities for both, individuals, and organizations.

The UAE's space program is not just about missions, but also about creating jobs. The sector provides more than 3,200 jobs, with more than 57 space companies and five space science research centers operating in the UAE.

Read more:

UAE ministers say space is a key sector for the future, launches new tech challenge

UAE announces new space mission to explore Venus

'Mission accomplished': UAE Hope Probe successfully enters Mars orbit

See the rest here:
Dubais space center to simulate life on Mars in the Metaverse - Al Arabiya English

What would you do given the opportunity to live on Mars? is a question that probably doesnt come up in most opera rehearsal rooms. But for Boston-based composer and librettist Elena Ruehr and Cerise Lim Jacobs, the creative team behind White Snake Projects Cosmic Cowboy, the question is an open matter of debate.

I would say theres no people to colonize on Mars . . . but shes like, but we dont know whats alive on Mars, said Ruehr, gesturing to Jacobs in a recent Zoom interview during a Cowboy tech rehearsal.

I mean, how do you define life, when youre talking about alien life? said Jacobs, a former lawyer who founded White Snake in her retirement and became its driving force. There may not be life as we define life, but there may be life!

This weekend, Cosmic Cowboy will debut in front of a live audience at the Emerson Paramount Centers Robert J. Orchard Stage after several years of postponements and setbacks. Cowboy is a space opera, literally: In its 90 minutes, it gallops across eons, from the creation of the universe by the Sumerian gods Tiamat and Apsu to the distant future, where Tiamats daughter Tia meets and falls in love with a sentient robotic probe.

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Mythology and folk tales have long been the lodestone of Jacobss creative process, a fascination she traces to her childhood in Singapore where she was immersed in Malay, Indian, and European cultural influences as well as her familys Chinese background. [Singaporeans] celebrated everyones holidays, she said. I realized how similar all these cultural myths were, how they cross borders and ethnicities. Around 2017, several years after shed started working in opera, she said someone asked her if shed been influenced by Joseph Campbell, whose 1949 book The Hero With a Thousand Faces pointed out cross-cultural parallels between stories of the archetypal heros journey. Her response: Who is he?

The premiere was originally slotted for 2019, said Jacobs, but was pushed back a year after then-President Donald J. Trump announced in 2017 he would end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program. In response, Jacobs (who as a native of Singapore spent her early years under British colonial rule) teamed up with Mexican-born composer Jorge Sosa for the poignant I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams.

Cowboy was rescheduled for fall 2020, but the pandemic sent live performances into limbo, and Jacobss network of singers, set designers, stage managers, and more shrunk drastically.

There has been a mass exodus of personnel from performing arts during the shutdown, because there was simply no work for them, said Jacobs. I have singers who retrained . . . and now they work for Google. The tenor who was cast in the role of Vizier Mummu and Mr. Mu went to work for this computer company, while another became a stay-at-home parent. The number of career changes was endless.

During its hiatus from live performances, White Snake presented three new online operas that allowed performers to participate from home thanks to 3-D virtual sets through computer graphics tool Unreal Engine and low-delay live audio through Tutti Remote, an audio plug-in commissioned by Jacobs. The company is continuing those presentations in 2023 with a program of operatic vignettes on the theme of Asian-American identity, titled Fractured Mosaics, and a reimagining of Mozarts Cosi fan tutte. But the possibility of presenting Cosmic Cowboy as an online opera never arose, said Jacobs. All our digital operas were written for the small-screen format.

Apart from the cast, little changed about the music and libretto of Cosmic Cowboy during the pandemic. White Snake has become even more committed to being an activist opera company, said Jacobs. But even in its early drafts, Cosmic Cowboy explored themes of colonization and the conflict between order and chaos, a dichotomy present in many world mythologies that has often been conflated with good vs. evil.

Tiamat is the mother of creation, Jacobs explained. [She] is the ocean, and Apsu, her consort, is a river, and their mating creates the universe. I responded that in all the modern depictions of Tiamat Ive seen, including her prominent appearance in the Dungeons and Dragons universe, she represents a primordial evil force, and Jacobs nodded. Shes actually amoral! Creation is neither good nor evil, but she is chaotic. Because the creative process is chaotic.

Theres sort of a feminist story in [the opera], which I really appreciate, said Ruehr. Im also a sci-fi weirdo . . . so I had a lot of fun writing it. In creating the music, Ruehr tried to incorporate elements she referred to as timeless, using one form of minor scale to represent the past and another to evoke the future.

Now everyone just has to make it to the stage without getting COVID, said Jacobs. Honestly, its my greatest nightmare, not being able to be there to open the show!

COSMIC COWBOY

At Robert J. Orchard Stage, Emerson Paramount Center. Sept. 16-18. http://www.whitesnakeprojects.org

A.Z. Madonna can be reached at az.madonna@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @knitandlisten.

Excerpt from:
Cosmic Cowboy is a space odyssey for 2022 - The Boston Globe

In the final months of his presidency, Donald Trump ordered nuclear energy to be tested on the moon by 2027, as well as the development of nuclear-powered spacecraft that would orbit the Earth, the moon and outer space.

He also ordered the development of micro nuclear reactors small enough that they could fit inside a typical shipping truck that zips cargo along the highway.

During this period, the media was busy reporting on the Jan. 6 riots, insurrection and false accusations of voter fraud and few paid attention.

However, these orders may offer clues about what was included in some of the 'Top Secret' folders squirreled away in Mar-a-Lago.

On Dec. 16, 2020,Trump signed the"Space Policy Directive-6," which set the goal of testing nuclear energy on the moon by 2027.

Then on Jan. 5, 2021, the day beforethe Jan. 6 insurrection Trump signed Executive Order 13972, which directed NASA, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to study the cost and technical feasibility of using nuclear-powered spacecraft and satellites.

Some of these spacecraft would orbit the Earth, but most of the nuclear-powered craft would be meant for deep space missions to Mars and further places that are light years away.

There are Trump supporters,including Tesla founder Elon Musk, who support the goal of using nuclear power to help humans set up mining operations on the moon and colonize Mars.

The Jan. 5 Executive Order also includes Trump's direction to NASA and the Department of Defense to design and build micro nuclear reactors that could be transported on trains, planes or the typical trailer truck.

The Biden Administration has embraced a similar ideaand is developing small reactors that could supply electricity for 1,000 to 10,000 soldiers in remote desert, jungle and mountain terrains. The microreactors could also be used to plug holes in America's grid in transformers that fail due to terrorist attacks, wildfires or other natural disasters.

The new effort is called "Project Pele," named after the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes.The DOD recently announcedthat it would review proposed designs for "Project Pele" and choose a winner before building and testing it in Idaho.

In folktales, Pele could destroy a city or a beach by hurling lava and ash. Micro-nuclear reactors pose potential dangers, too.It could be catastrophicif terrorists got ahold of them, for example.

Although saving the coal industry was a focal point for Trump's Department of Energy, whistleblowers were alarmed by his nuclear negotiations in 2018.

They claimedTrump secretly authorized the sale of nuclear technology, made by a company called IP3, to Saudi Arabia. The deal was intensely negotiated by Trump's fired and disgraced advisor, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who had close ties to IP3.

The deal Flynn negotiated didn't require the Saudis to agree they wouldn't use the technology to make nuclear weapons.

These whistleblowers went to Congress and the reaction there was a rare bipartisan alarm.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)teamed up withSen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) of New Jersey to request the GAO investigate. The GAO noted that Congress and the State Department were left out of the loop in the negotiations. State diplomats would have been savvier about how Saudi Arabia's shifting, complicated and secret alliances might put America at risk.

Interestingly,conservative think tanksrecently issued reports detailing how entrenched anti-American Wahhabi extremists were inside the enormous Saudi royal family.

Investigatorsdiscovered that IP3simply wrote one executive order that Trump could sign so his aides could simply cut and paste it onto White House stationery.

Trump's Jan. 5, 2021 order and his December 16, 2020 order bothstress the importance of letting private industry,rather than the government, take a leadership role in achieving America's nuclear goals.

For years, NASA has debated nuclear-powered craft to carry explorers to Mars. Nuclear craft could achieve faster speeds, cutting down the time astronauts spent traveling through high levels of radiationthat would bombard them in outer space.

There are potential wealthy investors who see mining on the moon as a cosmic jackpot. PayPal founder Rod Martin, former special counsel to conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel, appeared on a 2021 Right Response Ministries podcast to explain how God is directing Martin's hedge fund to invest in colonizing the moon and Mars.

One incentive is what Martin described as the vast wealth of "Helium 3" a rare substance needed in nuclear energy production waiting to be harvested from the moon's surface.

In the podcast, Martin announced he had created a certification process for financial advisors, taught at evangelical Liberty University. He also expressed admiration for Tesla billionaire Elon Musk's efforts at space exploration.

But Martin promised listeners that his aerospace ventures would be guided by "Christian principles of liberty, security, values."

He then urged listeners to tell their financial advisers to enroll in his certification courses and claimed his board of directors included retired Air Force and Space Force generals.

Trump's 2020 nuclear goals went uncriticized by most world leaders, although one unnamed Chinese official remarked to Xinhua News Agency that testing nuclear energy on the moon could violate a 1979 United Nations treaty that bans weaponizing the moon.

As for Russia,just days after the FBIsearch at Mar-a-Lago, the state-owned TV network Russia One aired and tweeted news anchor Eugeny Popov gloating that Russian officials already had the top secret nuclear documents that Trump had taken out of the White House. And he said that Russia's military and intel agents were busy reviewing them.

Watch below:

Continued here:
Trump pushed for nuclear testing on the moon during final months of presidency - Salon

Cult sketch group Whitest Kids U Know has had countless collaborations, most notably a five-season run of their eponymous IFC series. Their most recently announced project is an animated film named Mars, which was in development before the 2021 death of member Trevor Moore.

During the press cycle of his latest directorial effort, Barbarian, WKUK member Zach Cregger gave an update on the project.

We had written a movie called Mars and the plan was always for it to be an animated feature, Cregger said. Before Trevor died, we recorded all of his dialogue, and weve crowdfunded the budget for this movie. Its like $300,000, a little more. And were currently making it, I think were going to wrap it up in about a month or so and I think its great.

Without Trevor, theres no Whitest Kids, he continued. So this will be our final thing and Im really proud of it and Im really happy to put it out there.

Prior to his death, Moore teased the plot of the film in an interview.

Its about a couple of billionaires race to put a city on Mars, he said. Thats the kind of line that we like to hit, where its like, alright, were not talking about Elon Musk, were not talking about [Richard] Branson or [Jeff] Bezos or any of these guys, but were going to talk about this. Whats happening in society right now is like all these rich guys are about to start colonizing the moon because we think thats still going to be an issue 20 years from now. Its not going to age itself out quickly.

Read more:
Whitest Kids U Know Wrapping Production on Animated Movie Mars, Final WKUK Project After Trevor Moores Death - Variety

Strong pointsThe MOXIE instrument sent to Mars succeeded in producing oxygenThis machine produces oxygen at approximately 10.5 grams per hour NASA regards the feat of producing oxygen on Mars as a medal

Washington, On Mars, we will no longer need to transport oxygen from Earth. The American space agency NASA has managed to manufacture oxygen from the atmosphere of Mars itself. According to NASA, with the help of Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE), scientists have started producing oxygen on Mars itself. With this oxygen, the availability of oxygen for astronauts on future Mars missions will come from the atmosphere of the house itself.

how to succeed In fact, winter is at its peak on Mars. According to NASA, due to the formation of relatively high atmospheric pressure on cold nights, the MOXIE sent to Mars managed to produce oxygen. MOXIE managed to produce more oxygen by producing more carbon dioxide than by producing at the highest air density due to cold. Currently, this machine produces oxygen at approximately 10.5 grams per hour.

Can humans survive with so much oxygen?According to scientists, a human needs oxygen at the rate of 21 grams per hour to survive. This means that twice as much oxygen as this machine produces is enough to keep a human being alive. NASA plans to produce oxygen on Mars as a tag.

still a long way To sustain a human crew of four to six astronauts from the surface of Mars and in orbit, NASA will need to produce 2 to 3 kilograms of oxygen per hour. Although the machine is currently working in the initial stage, but according to NASA, the advanced version of this machine can achieve this. To produce that much oxygen, 25 kW of power would be needed, and MOXIE only produces 100 watts of power, so NASA believes the advanced version can achieve this. Currently, only about 10% of the energy generated is used to generate oxygen. The remaining air is consumed to operate the collector compressor.

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FIRST POST: September 06, 2022, 2:25 PM IST

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NASA has created oxygen from the atmosphere of Mars, will the dream of colonizing now come true? - News84Media - News84Media.com

There are many space organizations in the world, but the top 7 are listed here. Read on to know about these top 7 space organizations of the world.

In ancient times, even the wisest of homo sapiens assumed that the Earth was flat. It was then that some curious people explored the real truth. Then, moons were only meant for night-gazing, and nobody could ever imagine stepping on them, but Neil Armstrong, proved everyone wrong. Today, humans are once again hoping to make the impossible possible.

That is when it becomes crucial to know about the top 7 space organizations of the world that are extensively contributing to our understanding of the world beyond the blue planet. Read on

Annual Budget: $20.7 Billion (2018)

Formed By: The USA

Founded In: 1957

At the top of the list stands the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and for all the right reasons. NASA is a United States government agency responsible for science and technology in relation to air and space. The agency took birth in 1957, with the arrival of the Soviet Satellite Sputnik.

While the whole world knows about some of the most spectacular contributions by NASA, not many are aware of its actual roles and achievements. NASA is an umbrella for astronauts who conduct scientific research in orbit, a satellite that aids scientists in gaining more knowledge about our planet, and space probes that study and examine the solar system and the space beyond it. NASA is also looking forward to a novel program that aims to send humans to explore Mars and the moon. In addition, the agency doesnt keep all the information to itself. It disseminates the earnings so that the information can be put to making human life better all across the globe. For instance, firms that design and create spinoff products make use of discoveries by NASA for their projects.

Additionally, NASA also plays a powerful role in the education sector. It aids students aspiring to be future scientists, engineers, and astronauts with extensive knowledge and factual information. People at NASA are adventurers and enthusiasts; they are driven by their curiosity to know more about the unknown.

Annual Budget: $11 Billion (2017)

Formed By:China

Founded In: 1993

The China National Space Administration is the Peoples Republic of Chinas government agency responsible for civil space administration as well as international space cooperation. It also organizes and leads cooperation in the aerospace field and foreign exchanges.

The organization was founded to manage national space activities. It comprises four departments: General Planning; Science, Technology, and Quality Control; System Engineering; and Foreign Affairs. Additionally, the China National Space Administration operates three launch facilities, namely Taiyuan, in Shanxi, Jiuquan, in Gansu province, and Xichang, in Sichuan province.

Evolved in secret, China's space program is formed under the joint control of the Commission on Science, Technology, and Industry for the National Defense and the Chinese military. However, in 1964, this space program came under the umbrella of the Seventh Ministry of Machine Building, which became the Ministry of Aerospace Industry in 1983. The Ministry of Aerospace Industry got split into the Chinese Aerospace Corporation, and the CNSA.

The country has designed its own family of Chang Zheng boosters. These Chang Zheng (Long March) boosters are domestically used. They play the role of competitors in the international commercial space launch market. Applications like communications satellites and Earth-observation satellites for military and civilian use have been a part of its space development.

The country also initiated its very own human spaceflight program in the year 1992.

Annual Budget: $7 Billion (2018)

Formed By: Europe

Founded in: 1975

The European Space Agency (ESA) is defined as Europes gateway to space. It holds the mission to shape Europes space capability development and make sure that the investments in space continue, so as to deliver advantages to Europes citizens and the world.

The organization comprises 18 Member States. Coordination of intellectual and financial resources of these Member states makes it possible for the organization to undertake activities and programs way beyond the scope of any single European nation.

The core job of the organization involves drawing up the European space program and carrying it through. ESAs programs are constructed to figure out more about our planet, its real-time space environment, the solar system, and the universe.

Its job is to also develop satellite-based technologies and services. Moreover, the European Space Agency (ESA) also promotes European countries. However, it would be wrong to say that the organization works in alienation. On the contrary, the organization works closely with many other space organizations outside Europe.

Annual Budget: $3.27 Billion (2015)

Founded In: 2015

Popularly known as the ROSCOSMOS, the organization is a State Corporation established to oversee a comprehensive reform of the Russian space industry. It ensures the right implementation of the government of Russias space program and its legal regulation.

The Russian Federal Space Agency operates a myriad of scientific programs. The programs revolve around communication, Earth science, and scientific research.

Annual Budget: US$2 Billion (2018)

Formed By: Elon Musk

Founded In: 2002

One of Elon Musks most determined projects, SpaceX designs, constructs, and launches advanced spacecraft and rockets. The American aerospace company situated in Hawthorne, California holds the goal to make visiting space affordable so humans can easily colonize Mars.

The organization is a private spaceflight company. It sends people, like some NASA crews, and satellites to the International Space Station.

The well-framed Mission statement for SpaceX by Elon Musk says it all, You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great and thats what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. Its about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I cant think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.

Annual Budget: $1.5 Billion (2018)

Formed By: India

Founded In: 1969

The Indian Space Research Organization is the pioneer space exploration agency of India. ISRO is famous all around the globe because it successfully showcases its cost-effective and unique technologies every now and then. This smart approach makes the organization of the elite ones in the world.

ISROs predecessor organization was called the Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR). The Indian Space Research Organization was established by Vikram Sarabhai.

The organization designs, constructs and delivers application-specific satellite products and tools to India. Some of these products include communications, broadcast, disaster management tools, weather forecasts, Geographic Information Systems, navigation, and more.

Annual Budget: $2.03 Billion (2013)

Formed By: Japan

Founded In: 2003

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is a space organization that came into being via a merger of three institutions, viz, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), the National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA), and the National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan (NAL).

It is a core performance agency to support the government of Japan in the overall aerospace development and utilization.

On its 10th anniversary, the organization framed a corporate slogan, Explore to Realize.

JAXA is involved in research, technology development, and the launch of satellites into orbit. The organization is also responsible for a myriad of advanced missions like asteroid exploration, and possible human exploration of the planets only natural satellite, the M

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Here Are The Top 7 Space Organizations Of The World! - Jagran Josh

When Frank Drake began his astronomy career in the late 1950s, this was an incredibly exciting time for the field. Humanity was beginning to unlock the secrets of the Universe using ever more powerful radio frequency and optical telescopes, including the tantalizing prospect of space-based telescopes. Amidst the ramping up Space Race between the US and USSR, there was an ever-growing excitement about humankinds future among the stars.

As concrete plans for landings and colonies on the Moon, Venus and Mars were proposed and put into action, it also brought to the forefront many existing and new questions about humanitys place in the Universe. During Frank Drakes 92 years on planet Earth until his passing on September 2nd of this year he was one of the driving forces behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), along with other legends like Carl Sagan.

Although to the average person the acronym SETI is most likely to bring to mind popcorn movies about little grey or green men, Drakes Project Ozma, as well as the SETI Institution and the ongoing Breakthrough Listen project are just some of the attempts made by Drake and his colleagues over the decades to answer that one question that may affect the very course of humankinds future: are we alone in the Universe?

In a Universe that contains billions upon billions of stars and planets, what is the chance that life will form on any of these planets? Of this life, what percentage will possess a level of intelligence that enables complex societies in which scientific inquiry and technological development can be sustained? Out of these societies, how many will acquire the means to reach out beyond the limits of their planet?

Although the speculation about extraterrestrial life has been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, it hasnt been until the development of more advanced means of observation that humanity has gained the ability to put these speculations to the test. As commonplace as we consider lifeforms whether intelligent or not to exist within the Earths biosphere, we know at this point in time that of all planets and moons in our Solar System, only the Earth is capable of supporting life, never mind an advanced society.

In the 1930s, rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky mentioned his doubts about alien intelligent life in an unpublished work, with physicist Enrico Fermi becoming associated in the 1950s with a formal definition of these doubts, commonly referred to as Fermis Paradox. Essentially this paradox entails the conflict between the likelihood of a significant number of alien civilizations, and the clear absence of these civilizations.

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence thus seeks to resolve this paradox. Are we wrong about the likelihood of intelligent life forming, or are there other factors that we may be missing? In 1961 Drake would formalize these factors in what is called the Drake Equation, which is:

N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L

Here N is the number of civilizations within our galaxy with whom communication may be possible.

Unsurprisingly, the values one can assign these factors will range wildly, makingN to be of questionable use, but it is a useful aid in showing the many underlying questions to be answered before the larger question of whether Earth life in general and human civilization in particular is a cosmic fluke, somewhat rare or actually commonplace.

In Carl Sagans Cosmos PBS television series as well as the book with the same title these same questions are also asked and considered from many angles. In science fiction works such as Star Trek, Babylon 5, etc. the uncomfortable questions are avoided as these feature a Galaxy brimming with thousands upon thousands of civilizations. Based on the available scientific evidence one might ask the question of whether we are perhaps afraid of being all alone in the Galaxy.

What if we do travel out there in faster-than-light spaceships, but find a Galaxy utterly devoid of life and habitable planets?

Would we recognize another civilization if we came across it? This is one of the questions posed in Carl Sagans Cosmos,as he describes a hypothetical scenario in which a probe like the Voyager 1 & 2 approaches Earth, and its operators try to determine whether Earth has an active biosphere, and maybe a civilization. Based on the atmospheric levels of organic molecules like methane and photosynthesis indications the former seems likely, while the Earths surface shows signs of structures, but would they be signs of an intelligence?

A significant amount of attention with SETI has been directed towards radio frequency (RF) communication, as RF signals can travel significant distances through space, and are at least for human civilization a common communication method that also liberally gets broadcast into space. If Earth has been lit up like a proverbial RF beacon for about a hundred years, surely this would be the case for other inhabited planets too.

This assumption was one of the reasons why in 1977 a narrowband RF signal received by the Ohio State Universitys Big Ear radio telescope got a surge of attention, as it seemed to be the surest sign of extraterrestrial intelligence. This so-called Wow! signal came from the direction of the Sagittarius constellation and lasted beyond the 72 second observation window by Big Ear. Unfortunately no modulation was detected in the 1420 MHz signal, and so far the signal has not been repeated, making it likely that it was an astronomical phenomenon.

On the 35th anniversary of the Wow! signal, the National Geographic Channel sponsored a promotion for one of its shows by transmitting a digital stream encoding thousands of Twitter messages to the presumed origin of the 1977 signal via the Arecibo Observatorys radio telescope dish. To this day we have either received no response, missed the response, or our message ended up in someones spam folder.

What is perhaps one of the most humbling aspects of astronomy is the sheer, mind-boggling scale of the Cosmos. Not just in terms of space and distances, but also in terms of time. Much of the electromagnetic radiation that is now being captured by the newly launched James Webb Space Telescope was sent out by their sources millions to billions of years ago. Our own Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 87,000 light years in diameter, with an estimated 100 400 billion stars. The light from the furthest stars in the Milky Way relative to Earths position originate from a time when humanity was still living as hunter-gatherers on a wild Earth.

This notion is perhaps the most difficult one that Frank Drake and his colleagues had to contest with when it comes to SETI projects. It feels that all we can do is keep listening, even if the likelihood is vanishingly small that there is anything to receive. This did however not prevent the SETI@home project from attracting over a million users who dedicated part of their computer resources to running a distributed super computer that processed data from the Arecibo and Green Bank radio telescopes.

Even though the SETI@home project is currently dormant after no conclusive findings, the Berkeley SETI Research Center behind the project still has other ongoing projects, of which the most notable one is the Breakthrough Listen project. With $100 million in funding, the project began in 2016 and is expected to run for 10 years, providing the most comprehensive search to date using both radio and visible light telescopes.

The most vexing aspect of SETI projects is that although there are plenty of signals coming in that bear a closer look, who is to say what signal definitely comes from an advanced civilization, and which ones are from natural phenomena? The Cosmos is after all a rather noisy place in the electromagnetic spectrum, which significantly increases the burden of proof.

Over the past decades, humankind has sent out messages directed at potential alien civilizations. These have ranged from RF transmissions to physical items, such as the Pioneer plaque attached to the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that was designed by Drake and Sagan. A few years later the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft would be launched, each with a Voyager Golden Record attached to it.

At this point in time, Pioneer 10 and 11, as well as Voyager 1 and 2 have left the reach of Earths star system and are travelling through interstellar space. Even though only Voyager 1 and 2 are still actively gathering sensor data and communicating with Earth, the messages these spacecraft carry should last long enough for another civilization to find them and perhaps manage to decode them.

Barring faster-than-light travel or another means of transport which humanity has not yet conceived of, such an event would take place many thousands to millions of years into the future of Earth. Even the radio and television broadcasts we have sent out for decades now will take thousands of years to reach the more distant parts of the Milky Way, and possibly vice versa, making SETI one of the longest endurance games imaginable.

Regardless of what humankinds future will look like, Frank Drakes legacy along with that of Carl Sagan and other great minds of the recent past, should endure for many more decades and centuries to come. Perhaps the most impactful aspect of their teachings is that how they taught us to take the time now and then to find ourselves outside at night. To find a spot without any artificial light and to look up, so that we can take in the enormity and beauty of the Milky Way and the countless stars which we can perceive even with the naked eye.

By allowing us to see even just a bit more of this one small Galaxy and to allow our minds to wander on the question what and who we may find among all those stars, humanity is better prepared to deal with the challenges and possible discoveries than before, regardless of what the final Drake Equation ends up looking like. May you find peace among the stars, Mr. Drake.

Continue reading here:
Frank Drake's Legacy, Or: Are We All Alone In The Universe? - Hackaday

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Deliver Us Mars, the sequel to the excellent Deliver Us the Moon, was recently delayed, with the sci-fi action-adventure game now scheduled for lift off on 2nd February.

In a new story trailer, we get a glimpse of protagonist Kathy's motivations and back story. Along with the crew of the spaceship, the Zephyr, she journeys to the red planet on a mission to retrieve the ARK colony ships, stolen by the mysterious Outward organisation, if humanity is to stand any chance of survival.

Deliver Us Mars is looking like a solid outing and one we are looking forward to. The wait until February is long, but hopefully, it will be well worth it.

What do you think of Deliver Us Mars? Did you play its predecessor? Plot your course in the comments section below.

See more here:
Deliver Us Mars Tugs on the Heart Strings in New Story Trailer - Push Square

A new water map of Mars could offer freshclues about the planets past and potential landing spots for the future.

Researchers from the European Space Agency (ESA) spent a decade developing the map from data collected by two Mars orbiters.

They found hundreds of thousands of areas containing aqueous mineral deposits, which are created though interactions between rock and water.

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As the minerals still contain water molecules, they could show locations where we can extract water for human bases on the planet.

These outcrops may also provide ideal sites for exploring whether life once began on Mars.

The map could provide a paradigm shift in our understanding of Martian history.

This work has now established that when you are studying the ancient terrains in detail, not seeing these minerals is actually the oddity, John Carter of the Institut dAstrophysique Spatiale in Paris, said in a statement.

The map uses data from two complementary tools: the CRISM spectrometer on NASAsMars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the OMEGA instrument on ESAs Mars Express spacecraft.

The researchers combined the datasets to establish the locations and quantities of aqueous minerals.

They nowwill now examine the data for signs that water was either globally persistent or only present during short and intense periods. They will also search for evidence that Mars ever had a climate that could sustain life.

The team also hopes to gives Mars mission planners prime candidates for landing sites.

Humankind may be a small step closer to colonizing the red planet.

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New water map of Mars shows potential landing spots on the planet - TNW