Daily Archives: March 5, 2020

A pristine white rocket stirs up the dusty terracotta surface of Mars, coming in for a smooth landing. A hatch opens, and two rovers make their way across the rugged orange-red terrain. There are no humans -- at least, not yet. But this is one small step -- or a short wheel roll -- to a new world that could be our future home.

I'm playingSurviving Mars, a 2018 survival strategy game from Tropico developers Haemimont Games and Paradox Interactive. The goal? Build the infrastructure to sustain human life on the red planet.

"Humanity is in a weird situation right now -- my smartphone has more computing power than NASA had when they sent people to the moon, but we're using that to exchange pictures of cats and argue on Twitter," said Bisser Dyankov, producer of Surviving Mars.

Video games and virtual reality simulations are bringing the average person closer than ever to experiencing life on Mars. For many, these pop culture tours make the actual missions to colonize the planet proposed both by NASA and private companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX feel more achievable.

These games, along with other pop culture representations of Mars, have vastly increased interest in human missions to Mars, said James Burk, IT director of the space advocacy nonprofit the Mars Society. In particular, the 2015 movie adaptation of the novel The Martian was a major turning point in piquing public curiosity in colonizing the planet. And now, SpaceX's plan to send an unmanned mission to Mars as soon as 2022 "is throwing gasoline on it all," he added.

"It's getting easier all the time to tell the story of sending people to Mars because now we have all these tools," Burk said. "People are more accepting of that reality now."

Strategize how to build a Mars colony and keep everyone alive in the game Surviving Mars.

Just hours after Surviving Mars was announced in May 2017, people took to the internet to argue (as they do) about how much of the game was factual and how much was science fiction. They went so far as to exchange formulas determining whether wind turbines would really be a plausible way to generate electricity on Mars, as they are in the game, Dyankov said.

"We know that whatever we do, there will always be smarter people who are willing to go way deeper and test our ideas," Dyankov said. "You know you're touching something and motivating people to go do the math and ask questions and look for the answers."

Surviving Mars gameplay is incredibly detailed: Set up a mission by choosing a sponsor, who will influence how you spend your money. Choose your rocket, your colonists and your commander by their profession and the benefits they can offer. (For example, choosing the inventor will get you faster drones, the politician will increase your funding, and the rocket scientist will give you an extra rocket at the start.)

Bisser Dyankov

Several more decisions go into launching your first rocket full of drones to build infrastructure, including what to bring and where to land, while balancing your funding and resources. Allocate resources for construction, including water, oxygen and power. Select a research area such as physics, robotics and biotech, each of which could offer a different benefit down the line.

Bottom line? It's a lot. The developers relied heavily on NASA resources, including topological maps and research concepts.

"It's a game, but we wanted to make it plausible fiction and ground it in existing science," Dyankov said. The team consulted with a NASA worker on the core elements of the game during early builds, but chose to forgo some elements of realism for the sake of fun gameplay, he added.

Occupy Mars gives you a first-person experience of exploring the Martian landscape.

Occupy Mars seeks to replicate the Mars experience from a different perspective.

While Surviving Mars is a colony-building strategy game, Occupy Mars is an open world sandbox game due out in the next few months that will give you the first-person experience of life on the planet. As a player, you build and update your base, discover new regions and generally try to survive, said Jacek Wyszyski, CEO and CTO of development studio Pyramid Games, based in Poland.

In college, Wyszyski dreamed of building rockets for SpaceX, until he learned that certain US laws, for national security reasons, prohibit international applicants from applying for roles at companies that work with rockets. Instead, he turned to building rockets in video games.

Occupy Mars developers consulted with the Mars Society and researched NASA resources to build the game so that the basic elements are similar to what you'd really find on Mars.

The game takes place about 50 years in the future, so the technology involved is more advanced than what we currently have, like supercharged 3D printing. But basic requirements for a working Martian base -- water, power, oxygen, heating, pressure regulation and radiation shields -- are all present, though simplified.

Like with Surviving Mars, the key was to balance realism with playability, Wyszyski said. "Initially, we wanted it to be as realistic as possible, but over the years of development we learned that the most important thing for the player is cool gameplay -- if it's too realistic, it's going to be boring," he added. For example, early feedback was that players didn't want to spend six hours building a corridor -- they wanted to get it done fast, and go exploring.

Of course, humans have not set foot on Mars, and games can only take us so far. But several research stations set up by NASA and other organizations in deserts and remote locations on Earth attempt to mimic some of the harsh conditions we would find on the planet, including extreme temperatures.

The Mars Society's Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah has hosted more than 200 crews of six-person teams of researchers and students, who live for a week or two on the station, simulating life on the Martian surface. They explore the desert in full spacesuits, maintain the station's water systems, grow plants, and recycle their waste water. (Hey, no one said desert space travel was glamorous.)

To make these missions more accessible, the organization is developing MarsVR -- an open-source VR platform that brings viewers to the desert base to explore the landscape.

The platform, releasing later this year, will be both an educational tool that anyone with a VR headset can download, and a training tool for crews before they arrive at the Mars Desert Research Station. MarsVR will allow crew members to virtually practice living on the station -- learning how to put on a spacesuit, operate the air lock and rovers, and cook freeze-dried food, all before stepping foot on the base, Burk said. You'll also be able to explore a square mile of the terrain around the base. From an engineering perspective, it's what it would actually be like to build a Mars colony and walk around, he added.

"Every second there is precious," Burk said. "So if they know where everything is ahead of time, it makes it better."

The exploration portion of MarsVR will be free to download on Steam for VR headsets. The training portion will be provided to crews, and sold separately to the general public to support the missions.

Scientists training for Mars missions can use the Mars 2030 VR experience to explore the red planet.

VR is beneficial for training purposes in high-risk, high-cost situations, including space and Mars exploration, said Tuong Nguyen, an analyst with global research firm Gartner. For more than 20 years, NASA has used virtual reality to replicate the harsh conditions of space as a means of training astronauts.

In 2015, Julian Reyes was director of AR/VR at the now-defunct Fusion Media Group when he came across a white paper from MIT's AeroAstro Lab. It was about the feasibility of the Mars One project, a privately funded effort to colonize Mars, which has also since gone bankrupt.

Reyes began exploring research on what a successful mission would actually look like. This led to a partnership between Fusion, MIT and NASA to develop a VR experience based on NASA's research. Reyes visited the Johnson Space Center to create virtual scans of spacesuits, and the Langley Research Center to learn about space architecture and concepts for habitations on Mars. Data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRise camera was used to create a 40 square kilometer (15 square mile) virtual representation of the planet.

Julian Reyes

The result was Mars 2030 VR, a 2017 game that brought all of NASA's available data on Mars into a visual experience for both a general audience and scientists training for Mars missions. It's available for VR headsets, and is open-source on Epic Games.

Mars 2030 VR takes place in -- you guessed it -- 2030, around when NASA aims to make it to the red planet. It opens with what NASA calls "the seven minutes of terror" -- an extremely difficult maneuver when you descend to the Martian surface from space. Exit your rocket via rover and check out your habitation. After that, all you need to do is explore: Walk around to see some of the planet's geological features, either in real time or by teleporting to different places. Pick up different elements like rocks to learn about Mars' history, like when the planet might have been geologically active.

The team has since moved on to creating an internal project called Lunar 2024, to help astronauts run missions to the moon from beginning to end in VR, practicing arrival procedures, moving around a habitation and uncovering rock samples. It will also include a multiplayer feature so astronauts can perform tasks together on the virtual moon.

NASA is also testing these VR programs with the Assistant Response Gravity Offload System, or ARGOS, a cranelike tool that holds astronauts while simulating the gravity of the moon or Mars.

"VR has the capacity of mirroring the real world, and it's only getting better," Reyes said. "There's no closer analog to training astronauts for these missions than using these simulation tools, because they provide the closest experience possible to achieving that."

Games and VR may not yet be advanced enough to fully simulate life on Mars alone. But they do have the power to spark the interest of young people who will grow up to be the astronauts who do step foot on the red planet, according to Dyankov of the Surviving Mars game.

"The best result of our game would definitely not be how many copies it sells," Dyankov said. "It's if we can imagine 30 or 50 years from now, somebody on Mars says, 'For me it all started with this game when I was a kid.'"

Continued here:
The future of Mars colonization begins with VR and video games - CNET

A reported new entry on PlayStation Networks European database may be hinting at something Star Wars-related. The entry in question concerns Star Wars Project Maverick, a title that as of yet remains foreign to the public. Apart from a striking piece of key art, nothing else about Project Maverick appears on the database.

The news comes courtesy of the PSN releases Twitter page (via Wccftech), a recently created bot account from Software Engineer Luciano Ciccariello that tracks PSN updates. Check out PSN releasess post below:

A quick Google search cross referencing the word Maverick with Star Wars pulls up a couple of interesting results. One in particular concerns trailer mashups for The Force Awakens and the Tom Cruise-starring Top Gun: Maverick film. Obviously, this is unrelated to the topic at hand. However, another Maverick and Star Wars connection links back to The Maverick Moon, a childrens storybook from 1979 whose writer, Eleanor Ehrhardt, reportedly went uncredited within the text itself.

Random House published the storybook, which is set during an undisclosed period of time after the events ofStar Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. Its plot centers on Luke Skywalkers enrollment in the New Academy for Space Pilots, where he trains to become a pilot for transport ships that are headed to uninhabited planets for colonization purposes. In some respects, this aligns with Wccftechs theory that Project Maverick may be a flight simulator of some sort.

As always, fans shouldnt get their hopes up. For now, this is merely rumor and speculation based on reported PSN database entries. It is worth noting, however, that similar PSN listings via Gamstat correctly leakedResident Evil 3remake one week ahead of Capcoms official announcement.

[Source: PSN releases on Twitter via Wccftech]

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Rumor: Something Called Star Wars Project Maverick Appears on PSNs European Database - PlayStation LifeStyle

Who is Michelle Kunimoto?

As the first step to achieve the ultimate goal of Mars colonization, NASA, the United States space agency will launch its Artemis lunar landing program in the coming years. The space agency has now invited applications for astronauts who will be embarked for manned missions as a part of the Artemis program.

IANS

A milestone mission awaiting astronauts

Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator, in a statement, confirmed this news, and he revealed that the new astronauts will be part of the upcoming manned lunar and Red Planet missions. Applicants interested in escaping in going beyond the earth to explore the deepness of the cosmos can apply via NASA's official application link before March 31, 2020.

The newly selected people will join the elite league of present-day NASA astronauts comprised of 48 members, and 350 astronauts in NASA's history. As per the space agency, the selected astronauts will visit multiple destinations that include the International Space Station (ISS), Mars and the moon.

"America is closer than any other time in history since the Apollo program to returning astronauts to the Moon. We will send the first woman and next man to the lunar South Pole by 2024, and we need more astronauts to follow suit on the Moon, and then Mars. We're looking for talented men and women from diverse backgrounds and every walk of life to join us in this new era of human exploration that begins with the Artemis program to the Moon. If you have always dreamed of being an astronaut, apply now," said Jim Bridenstine in the statement.

Conditions apply for NASA's astronaut program

In order to apply for this astronaut candidature program, the applicant should be a citizen of the United States. The applicant should also hold a master's degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

"Candidates also must have at least two years of related, progressively responsible professional experience, or at least 1,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in jet aircraft. Astronaut candidates must pass the NASA long-duration spaceflight physical," said NASA.

Original post:
Wish to land on moon? NASA invites applications to Artemis program; the final date is here - International Business Times, India Edition

2020 is already promising to be a fantastic year for space exploration. The next generation of Artemis explorers can begin applying for the program that will be journeying to the Moon, Mars and beyond; the James Webb Space Telescope is ready to test key deployments made in space, and even the Orion spacecraft that will blast off to the Moon during Artemis missions has successfully passed its final tests. Furthermore, NASA and commercial space companies prepare for the colonization of orbit, rockets are taking payloads to the International Space Station (ISS) very often and 3D bioprinting is becoming an attractive and useful method to carry out experiments. The next one up is SpaceX mission CRS-20. Scheduled to launch at 11:50 PM Eastern Time (EST) on March 6 from Floridas Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the unpiloted cargo spacecraft is expected to arrive at the orbiting laboratory two days later with three Techshot-managed research campaigns.

The Indiana-based commercial research company is sending equipment and samples supporting plant, heart and cartilage research for NASA, Emory University and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) to the ISS. According to the company, astronauts onboard the station will use Techshots 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF) mounted inside the ISS U.S. National Laboratory (ISS National Lab) since last summer to manufacture human knee menisci for the 4-Dimensional Bioprinting, Biofabrication, and Biomanufacturing, or 4D Bio3program. Based at USU, 4D Bio3 is a collaboration between the USU and The Geneva Foundation, a non-profit organization that advances military medical research.

Funded by the U.S. Defense Health Program and managed by the Geneva Foundation, 4D Bio3promotes the development and application of advanced bioprinting, biofabrication, and biomanufacturing technologies for research pursuant to U.S. Department of Defense priorities and ultimately for translation to clinical medical defense care and training solutions.

This is our most diverse manifest to date, said Techshot President and CEO, John Vellinger. Throughout March well be conducting three major investigations in space for three customers using three very different Techshot-built research devices. Its going to be a busy month, but were excited to see the results.

Techshot owns BFF and the company built it at a cost of approximately seven million dollars. The starting point was an nScrypt printer, which now is highly modified by Techshot for use inside the ISS. In that relationship, Techshot handles all the space bioprinting, while nScrypt handles all the Earth-based bioprinting.

This first experiment for 4D Bio3 next month will be used as a test of the materials and the processes required to print a meniscus in space. Techshot engineers will upload a design file to BFF from the companys Payload Operations Control Center in Greenville, Indiana, and evaluate its success via real-time video from inside the unit. A second meniscus print will take place in BFF early next year and the item will then be returned to Earth for extensive testing and comparison to the nScrypt Earth-printed items. Last year nScrypt printed the same thing at a U.S. military base in Africa with their own printer.

Vincent B.Ho, Director of 4D Bio3 and professor and chair of radiology at USU said that meniscal injuries are one of the most commonly treated orthopedic injuries, and have a much higher incidence in military service membersreported to be almost 10 times that of the civilian population. We successfully biofabricated 3D human medial and lateral menisci in a pilot study performed in Africa last summer and anticipate learning valuable lessons on the challenges and benefits of biofabrication in microgravity by performing a similar experiment on the space station.

Besides BFF, there are four other Techshot owned and operated research machines inside the ISS today. Only the BFF is a bioprinter. The others are an X-ray machine for mice, two identical units called the Techshot Multi-use Variable-gravity Platform (MVP), and one called the ADvanced Space Experiment Processor (ADSEP), which is where cells printed in the BFF go to become conditioned and cultured into the tissue. The company has agreements with NASA and the ISS National Lab that permit Techshot to operate a commercial business in space. This is part of NASAs objective to make orbit more commercial, providing access to space for nearly anyone.

Another complex Techshot-managed experiment launching onboard SpaceX CRS-20 will test whether a heart-specific stem cell, called a cardiac progenitor, multiplies better in space and if more of them become heart muscle cells known as cardiomyocytes. This is part of Chunhui Xu, an associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the Emory University School of Medicine who studies heart cells, research that aims to improve treatments for congenital heart disorders and better the hearts ability to regenerate after injuries.

Preparing the experiments: under the vent hood, Biomedical Engineer Jordan Fite adds media to bags and fluid loops that will be used in the experiment in space (Image: Techshot)

Techshot explained that human cardiac tissues cant repair themselves once damaged from disease, due to this, repairing a failing heart by cell therapy requires a large number of cardiomyocytes, which can be converted from stem cells cultured in two dimensions in Earth-based laboratories. Without the pull of gravity, it is expected that culturing in three dimensions in space, inside specialized Techshot cell culture experiment modules, will increase the yield of high-quality heart muscle cells. The company expects that learning more about why this happens could lead to new strategies for reproducing the same results on a much larger scale on Earth, lowering costs and enabling more patients to receive needed cardiac cell therapies.

Astronaut handling Techshots BFF (Image: Techshot/NASA)

It is expected that once the cargo spacecraft reaches the station, the 12 Techshot experiment modules will be removed from the spacecraft and inserted by the crew into the companys Multi-use Variable-gravity Platform (MVP) unit number two mounted in the Japanese space laboratory known as Kibo.

We are thankful for Techshots engineers who designed the Multi-use Variable-gravity Platform hardware and will help us maintain constant communication with the astronauts during the flight operation. Their professionalism and collaboration with our team have contributed tremendously toward our overall research efforts, said Ho.

Besides the materials for the BFF meniscus print, SpaceX CRS-20 will also carry 12 Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System, or PONDS, plant growth devices that Techshot co-developed with Tupperware Brands, and that was first prototyped by NASA Kennedy Space Center. According to company officials, they will be growing red romaine lettuce inthe devices, installed inside two of the space stations identical plant growth chambers each called Veggie. The PONDS units are being tested in two different configurations, each representing approaches refined from two previous flight tests. For this demonstration, lettuce is expected to grow in space for 21 days. Besides the hardware built and own, Techshot also manages the space stations most complex greenhouse, called the Advanced Plant Habitat, and it manages two on-orbit research furnaces called PFMI and SUBSA.

Techshot has been working hard to get samples ready in a lab at the Space Station Processing Facility at NASAs Kennedy Space Center.

Product assurance associate Keri Roeder, program manager Nathan Thomas and mechanical engineer Grant Vellinger prepared samples for Techshot customer Emory University (Image: Techshot)

Founded more than 30 years ago, Techshot operates its own commercial research equipment in space and serves as the manager of three NASA-owned ISS payloads. The company is also working on other space 3D printing technologies. Last fall they tested a laser-based 3D metal printer in zero gravity inside an aircraft performing parabolic arcs over the Gulf of Mexico (sometimes unofficially nicknamed the vomit comet). However, officials suggest that this technology is still at least a couple of years from Techshot launching it to the space station.

NASA and dozens of companies continue to work together to develop the means for astronauts and space explorers to endure life in orbit, the Moon and other planets. This vision is enthralling for anyone who ever dreamed of going to space, even hopeful of the next generations that will be able to experience space travel and conduct research work in microgravity. Perhaps we are too hopeful of the future, but with so much going on, its difficult not to be.

The launch on Friday will be the last SpaceX launch under the current NASA CRS-1 contract, yet SpaceX will continue performing resupply missions under a new CRS-2 contract beginning with the next scheduled resupply mission in August this year. To watch the launch, which is scheduled to take place at 11:50 p.m. EST on Friday, March 6, and capture of the spacecrafts arrival at the ISS, you can tune into NASA TV using the video below:

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Techshots New Projects Will be on the Next SpaceX Mission Launch - 3DPrint.com