Monthly Archives: April 2021

NASAs Ingenuity mini-helicopter is charging up its solar panels and spinning its blades in preparation to fly above the Martian surface. The 4-pound drone is set to lift off early on Monday in an atmosphere just 1/100th as dense as Earths, rise 10 feet above Mars Jezero Crater, harboring, NASA hopes, fossilized life that might have thrived billions of years ago, then gently touch back down. The insect-like craft uses a microchip that is comparable to what was found in cellphones a few years ago about 150 times the computing power available to the much larger Perseverance rover.

The landing site in Jezero Crater with landforms reaching as far back as 3.6 billion years old, could potentially answer important questions in planetary evolution and astrobiology, said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASAs Science Mission Directorate. It will revolutionize how we think about Mars and its ability to harbor life.

A livestream confirming Ingenuitys first flight is targeted to begin around 3:30 a.m. EDT Monday, April 12, on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agencys website, and will livestream on multiple agency social media platforms, including the JPL YouTube and Facebook channels.

Taking off from the surface of Mars, reports Kenneth Chang for The New York Times, is comparable to flying at an altitude of 100,000 feet on Earth. No helicopter on our planet has flown that high, and its more than two times the typical flying altitude of jetliners. The entire flight should last about 40 seconds, but it could forever change the way NASA explores other planets. Future Mars helicopters could scout out canyons and mountains that rovers cant access, fly in and out of craters, or even do reconnaissance for astronauts.

Something Much Stranger? Jezero Crater Mystery, Landing Site for NASAs Mars Perseverance Rover

Each world gets only one first flight, MiMi Aung, the project manager for Ingenuity, said in a briefing on Friday. The Wright brothers achieved the first flight on Earth. Ingenuity is poised to go for being the first on Mars.

Even if conditions at Jezero Crater are perfect, though, flying on Mars is challenging with the air there has just 1% the density of Earths atmosphere, the equivalent of flying three times higher than the peak of Mount Everest. To catch enough lift with so few molecules to push against, NASA reports, the helicopters two pairs of blades spin in opposite directions at a speed roughly eight times faster than a passenger helicopter on Earth.

There were some people who doubted we could generate enough lift to fly in that thin Martian atmosphere, Amiee Quon, who tested Ingenuity in a Mars-simulation chamber on Earth, said in the Friday briefing.

Suppose that it does, in fact, work. What we will have proven is that we can add an aerial dimension to discovery and exploration on Mars, Zurbuchen said. That aerial dimension, of course, opens up aspects of science and overall exploration that, frankly, at this moment in time, are only our dreams.

A NASA First Helicopter Will Survey Mars Jezero Crater for Signs of Life

Were Already Colonizing Mars It starts with Instagram posts and discarded parachutes, and the sense that a world is ours for the taking. , The first attempt at powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. Or, to put it in more mundane terms, Mars will have become another airport, reports Slate.

That landing spot was named by the NASA team Octavia E. Butler Landing. a homage to Butler as a visionary artist and as the first sci-fi author to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. The name conjoins the daring mission of the Perseverance rover with the legacy of a luminous writer of intellectually daring novels. It also meaningfully honors a Black woman, on behalf of NASA.

Few writers. says Chrsitopher Schaberg for Slate, have been as acutely aware of the moral quandaries of human domination and planetary colonization (see Dawn), and of how colonies function as palimpsests of slavery and other cross-generational patterns of violence (consider Kindred). To call the landing site Octavia E. Butler Landing is somewhat paradoxical; it might as well have been named Be Careful What You Wish For.'

The Perseverance mission is reminiscent of an older way of doing science [where] naturalists and other explorers traveled, welcome or not, to faraway places to gather trunkfuls of specimens for closer study, writes Marina Koren at The Atlantic.

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Epic NASAs Ingenuity Helicopter Poised to Forever Change the Way We Explore Other Planets - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

NASA Animation: 'How We Are Going to the Moon'

An animated short produced by NASA details how the agency plans on returning to the moon by 2024 through its Artemis program.

NASA

The countdown is on.

A video starring Iroquois JuniorHigh School seventh-graders is goingto the moon this coming fall.

"We'll be on the moon forever. Maybe aliens one day in the future will see us and say, 'Look at this Ir-o-quois group,'" teacher Lindsey Bloomster said.

Bloomster's seventh-grade S.T.E.M. class made the video for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return American astronauts to the moon by 2024.

In preparation, NASA will hire private companies todeliver Artemis science and technology to the lunar surface over the next three years. The Iroquois video and videos from other school classes will be compiled and launched in the first quarter-million-mile, UPS-stylespace delivery in November.

The videos are part of NASA's Artemis Project Pledge, in which next-generation adults pledge to valuescience, technology, engineering and math, or S.T.E.M., education. Iroquois students spent the week before spring break researching the Artemis program andcreating their pledges, including "to prepare the Artemis generation to be (Iroquois) Brave explorers."

Students also produced and edited the video.

"The fun part about the project was putting it all together, saying our parts and seeing it come together," said Ben Moffett, 13.

More: SpaceX mission scheduled to blast off with Edinboro University grad

Bloomster and Iroquois Junior-Senior High Principal Douglas Wilson will join the students aboard this fall'smoon shot. Both have small speaking parts in the video.

Wilson originally declined Bloomster's invitation to be part of the project but later thought better of it, Bloomster said.

"He said, 'You know what? I want to be on the moon,' " she said.

And Wilson's contribution was ahit.

"We really liked seeing your principal speak so strongly about partnering with community," NASA's Moon to Mars Team saidin an emailed thank-youto the Iroquois class for its "AMAZING" video. "We are excited that you are joining the other pledgees in preparing the Artemis Generation to explore."

Artemis astronauts going to the moon in person for the first time in a half-century will include the first woman on the moon. The four-astronaut teamwill remain on the lunar surface for about a week. Subsequent Artemis teams will set up a base camp at the lunar South Pole.

Their mission: To explore, colonize and learn what they can on the moon.

Their next giant leap for mankind: Mars.

"I think going to the moon some day would be fun, and being an astronaut and seeing what they do," said Hunter Chew, 13. "I wouldn't want to go to Mars.That's too far away from Earth."

More: Q&A: Behrend planetarium director talks lunar landing

The students' class projects this year also included creating circuit games, building bridges and rubber-band racecars, and experimenting with computer-aided 3-D design.

"I like them to be able to do things and had been worried that, with COVID, we'd just have to do research all year," Bloomster said.

But the school was closed just twice, and briefly, due to COVID-19 cases.

The students last week built their own rockets, and the countdown to launch is on.

"It will be really fun to send them off and see how they go," Hunter said.

Astronauts last visited the moon almost 50 years ago, via Apollo 17 in 1972.The Artemis program is named for the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology.

More: From the archive: Erie reacts to man landing on the moon

Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@timesnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @ETNmyers.

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To the moon: Greetings and a message from young Iroquois earthlings - GoErie.com

Investigators are carefully looking at what appears to be space debris from a rocket that has washed ashore in Lincoln County.

This object is believed part of a space craft developed by a California-based aerospace manufacturing company. It washed ashore in Lincoln County.

At approximately 3:15 p.m. April 9, the Lincoln County Sheriffs Office was notified of what was believed to be charred debris from a spacecraft that washed up in the Alsea Bay near Waldport. A fisherman had removed the debris, a large black cylindrical tube, from Alsea Bay and it was briefly stored near a local business.

Officials are examining this object, believed to be part of a spacecraft that washed ashore in Lincoln County.

Deputies responded to the location and set up an exclusion perimeter while the nature of the object was being assessed. Central Oregon Coast Fire and Rescue responded to the scene and determined the object was not an immediate hazardous materials threat. After further consultation with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, SpaceX was contacted.

SpaceX was not able to determine if the object was a component of one of their spacecrafts, however it did appear consistent with a composite overwrapped pressure vessel. SpaceX engineers assessed numerous photographs and observations from deputes before determining the object could be safely transported.

The object was transported to a secure location by deputies so additional evaluation could be made regarding the objects origin.

According to the online site, Wikipedia, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California.

SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars.

SpaceX reportedly has sent more than 100 rockets into orbit in the past 10 years.

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Did it Come From Outer Space? Debris washes ashore in Lincoln County - St. Helens Chronicle

Writer-director Neil Burger is well known for his provocative cinematic projects, most notably 2006's period-set magician movie "The Illusionist," 2011's psychological thriller "Limitless," and a trio of "Divergent" films adapted from author Veronica Roth's young adult sci-fi novels.

Now Burger has his eyes fixed on the stars with his new science fiction adventure flick, "Voyagers," which revolves around the perils inside a generation spaceship carrying 30 home-grown candidates on a one-way mission to settle an exoplanet 86 years from Earth.

Lionsgate will release "Voyagers'' nationwide on April 9. The film'syouthful cast includes Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead, Chant Adams, Isaac Hempstead Wright, Viveik Kalra, Archie Madekwe, Quintessa Swindell, Madison Hu, and Colin Farrell. The premise finds the crew discovering that they're being drugged with an emotional suppressant called "The Blue," and centers on the heightened chaos that ensues when they stop drinking their medicine.

Related: Astronauts on Mars missions could suffer cognitive and emotional problems

Here's the official "Voyagers" synopsis:

"With the future of the human race at stake, a group of young men and women, bred for intelligence and obedience, embark on an expedition to colonize a distant planet. But when they uncover disturbing secrets about the mission, they defy their training and begin to explore their most primitive natures. As life on the ship descends into chaos, they're consumed by fear, lust, and the insatiable hunger for power."

Space.comspoke with Burger on the genesis of "Voyagers," what sort of mood and visual style he hoped to attain, the origins of the azure-hued cocktail known as "The Blue," his inspiration for the plot, and visiting SpaceX to create a realistic set environment for his actors.

Space.com: What was the creative seed for writing and directing "Voyagers?"

Neil Burger: I was interested in human nature in a vacuum. We've seen other space movies that are going to a distant planet, but I wanted to delve into the idea of what's it really like to be confined on one of these ships if we were really going to go someplace and how does that work. It's not a shopping mall in space, you need to conserve weight and conserve fuel and it's all the bare minimum. It's tight quarters so we designed this set with these long narrow hallways leading to confined compartments. So then it's how do people hold up under that kind of pressure for their entire lives. And if things do start to break down whats that look like?

Space.com:You've explored elements of human potential and limitations in other movies. How does "The Blue" operate as a narrative device in the screenplays framework?

Burger:Basically, they put these young people on the ship who are going to just live their lives and procreate on the ship and have the next generation and then the next generation, and that's how they're going to get there. The mission planners have accounted for everything, so they have them on what we call "The Blue." Its like a sedative. It's something making them docile and dulled down so that they don't act out and procreate at the right time to conserve food. They don't know that's what its doing to them, they think it's some vitamin supplement.

But they're super smart and one of them hacks into a computer and stumbles upon the truth of what this is. So he and his friend go off of it and they suddenly awaken to this emotion and human sensation that they've never felt before. In a way, going off the drug is like being on a drug for them. It's intoxicating. Slowly the whole crew goes off of it and all hell breaks loose.

Related: Is Interstellar Travel Really Possible?

Space.com: What were some of your influences and inspirations in creating a mood and tone for "Voyagers?"

Burger: Because I wanted it to be about human nature in a vacuum, I wanted to strip everything down with the ship. Which sort of makes sense they'd have a minimal craft to take them there. So simple rooms and simple corridors all in white. I like that because it featured the human aspect of it. Certainly the ship is a character but it's just white ceilings and white floors. And I also saw it, because of the confinement and claustrophobia, as a little bit like a submarine movie. So I looked a lot at "Das Boot" to see how those sailors were dealing with the stressors of being confined underwater. This is different, but it's a similar thing.

Space.com: In your research, what were some shocking or surprising facts you discovered about colony ships and space travel?

Burger:Once I came up with the idea, for me it always has to be based in reality. I wanted it to all ring true. The most wonderful thing we did is spend time at SpaceX in California. [SpaceX's headquarters and rocket factory are in Hawthorne, Calif.] We went there and went through the whole design process and hung out with their engineers and got to sit in a capsule and see how their controls were done. So that was very informative, what they were working on, and to see how they were simplifying everything. You look at these old spaceships or even old airplanes and theres a million different switches and toggles. They brought it all down to basically an iPad's worth of touchscreens. It was just inspiring to be there.

Space.com: Would you climb aboard a starship and blast into space if given the chance?

Burger: I would go up in space, yeah. I think it would be amazing. People don't realize the stresses it puts on you. I would love to do it.

You live your life on Earth and get into all your petty concerns and worries. To be up in the heavens looking down would put it all in perspective.

"Voyagers" launches into theaters Friday, April 9. The PG-13 movie runs 1 hour, 48 minutes.

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Director Neil Burger's 'Voyagers' launches a colony ship to the stars - Space.com

April 6, 2021

COVID-19 has impacted lives across the globe in a variety of ways. Some have lost loved ones, others have lost their jobs or their homes, and many suffered isolation from friends and family. In Nicole Andersons case, it meant staying eight months in Australia before claiming her new job at Arizona State University.

Anderson, the new director at ASUs Institute for Humanities Research (IHR), safely arrived on U.S. soil in March and is about four weeks into her new job, ready to resume her life and career.

She's also ready to share her experience and wealth of knowledge with the ASU community. Anderson's research interests are interdisciplinary and span fields such as cultural theory and practice, art theory, posthumanism, animal and environmental studies, ethics, bioculture, biopolitics, poststructuralism and continental philosophy.

ASU News spoke to Anderson about the past year, what the future might bring and how she can help students understand the importance of the humanities.

Question: You were originally supposed to arrive at ASU about a year ago, but the pandemic struck. What was the past year like for you?

Answer: It has been a challenging year for everyone everywhere in different ways. For me, over the last year my aim was to keep those around me in Sydney, as head of a large school/department, as well as myself amidst uncertainty around obtaining a visa, challenging government travel restrictions and cancelled flights focused, motivated and forward-looking. That was helped by the fact that I felt incredibly fortunate and privileged to have the support of ASU in general and in particular my colleagues Dean Jeffrey Cohen and Ron Broglio, associate director of IHR, as well as the patience of the wonderful IHR staff. The empathy and generosity extended to me during this past year is testament to the strong leadership and values of ASU. I look forward to repaying that incredible generosity.

Q: Why are the humanities critical right now in 2021?

A: One way I tried to explain the humanities to my inquisitive young nephew once was to tell him it concerns the way we think about ourselves. I even gave him the idea that if we ever colonize Mars, he could think of the humanities as providing diverse tools philosophy, history, politics, literature, art, media and so on to represent, communicate, transform, shape or create the new world we might live in (Mars) and understand the world (Earth) we came from and the history of human endeavor; in other words, our story. What is critical is how and for what purpose we tell those stories.

For this reason, I believe that the problems we face today such as climate change denial; sexual, gender and racial discrimination; poverty; and the role of technology to name but a few are not merely technical and economical in nature, but have to do with what and how human beings are taught to value and how they go about interpreting their world. To change values and perspectives it is not enough to present facts: Cimate science denial is an example. What makes the humanities critical right now is that it can provide a narrative that includes ethical and social justice rhetoric and stories around these issues that the general public can understand and that presents another interpretation or view of the world, with which they can interact. Part of what the humanities can do is turn the facts into the compelling stories that need to be told and influence and change the way people view the world.

Q: How can the humanities create just, ethical and sustainable worlds?

A: As we all know in the past few years there has been increasing public skepticism around "facts" and with that an escalation of tensions in many areas of thought. The humanities provides the visual, oral and digital communication skills about who we are and where we are going, and through the myriad forms of story can continue to shape the cultural, social, political and ethical imagination in socially just and inclusive ways. How the humanities can do this is through research and translating that research into our teaching. It comes down to how we collaborate with each other as well as the sciences and industry here, now, today. It is about the relevance of what is learnt in the classroom and in our research and the way we connect, convey or communicate that to students and/or the general public, so that better more thoughtful approaches to issues can be embraced.

Q: Tell me briefly what it is that the Institute for Humanities Research does and what is the scope of its work?

A: The IHR exists to facilitate research in all its varied forms. It supports research projects, it increasingly enables internal and external grants and fellowships that bring visibility to the university, and it puts on events that address the issues we are facing today in order to inspire and generate ideas and further interdisciplinary collaborations. A distinctly modern initiative is working with the sciences because they are impacting our lives more dramatically every day.

Q: What do you hope you will bring to the institute and how will it change or evolve?

A: The IHR has increased research and grown an inspiring program of events see the newsletters due to a range of previous directors, including the amazing work of founding director Sally Kitch and Cora Fox. More recently this is particularly due to the strong leadership of both Elizabeth Langland and Ron Broglio. Also the work that has been done by IHR staff: Elizabeth Grumbach, Lauren Whitby, Celina Osuna, Barbara Dente and Sarah Moser, has been incredibly professional and outstanding. My aim is not to come in and simply change things for the sake of it, but to respect their legacy by building on the work they have done and in consultation with them, the faculty and the university.

So it is for these reasons that as director of IHR I would want to continue to promote and support the various ways that humanities research already fosters an understanding of how humans continue to shape, traditions, customs and cultures; foster the values of dignity, agency and equity; and continue to situate the institute as the facilitator in inter- and cross-disciplinary research collaborations; making ASU greater than the sum of its parts. In and through all of this, at the same time the IHR could develop as a provider or facilitator of significant and innovative contributions and solutions to industry, government, community and the real-world problems of our times, and to increasingly engage and involve all ASU students and faculty.

Q: Whats the best thing you think youll like about ASU and living in the States?

A: ASU represents the best of the United States in enabling opportunities and possibilities to contribute to effecting positive and socially just changes for a better world for all. Also the inter- and cross-disciplinary work that is allowed to happen at ASU is incredibly exciting because it is empowering and innovative.

Top photo: Nicole Anderson is the new director of ASUs Institute for Humanities Research. She earned her PhD from the University of Sydney. She recently served as the head/dean of a large interdisciplinary department (Media-Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature) at a leading university in NSW, Australia. Anderson is the co-founder and chief editor of the journal Derrida Today, published by Edinburgh University Press, and the founder and executive director of the Derrida Today Conferences. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News

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Meet the new director of ASU's Institute for Humanities Research - ASU Now

The rivalry between SpaceX and Boeing has the hallmarks of David and Goliath.

One is a titan of industry, the poster-child of Americas ambitions to explore the cosmos and a key enabler of the Apollo programme that landed the first human being on the Moon.

The other is a young upstart venture run by an eccentric multibillionaire entrepreneur and made up of a rag-tag bunch of engineers, some of whom used to build water towers.

But out of a dream of landing a greenhouse on Mars using a converted Russian ballistic missile to kick-start human colonisation, SpaceX rose to the top of the worlds burgeoning commercial space sector. It now challenges established aerospace legacy companies like Boeing for accolades and Nasa funding.

Nearly 50 years after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to journey into outer space, a duopoly on American human spaceflight is emerging between the two rivals, with both competing for the spotlight as Nasa seeks to return to the Moon and send astronauts to Mars for the first time.

The two companies have already competed in the high-stakes field of human spaceflight.

SpaceX beat Boeing on its own turf last year, defying expectations to become the first American mission to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) since 2010.

A second crewed SpaceX mission to the orbital station is planned for later this month, and the company is also planning the first space flight crewed entirely by civilians.

I'm convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket.

Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing

The Inspiration4 mission will launch four people, including sponsor Jared Isaacman, into space on board a Crew Dragon capsule modified with an observation dome.

Boeings Starliner spacecraft has yet to complete its second uncrewed test flight. Originally planned for last week, that mission has been put off, again, until May.

Plagued by software issues, the Starliner failed to rendezvous with the ISS during a 2019 flight in a major embarrassment for the company, which has had a hand in almost every crewed Nasa space mission.

The first Crew Dragon launch marked the end of an era in which only government-owned spacecraft were capable of making giant leaps for mankind in space.

The fortunes of Boeing and SpaceX rest on the success of two wildly different rockets, with each company hoping its design will help to usher in a new era in human space exploration.

Nasa plans to land the first woman and the next man on the lunar surface by 2024, under its Artemis programme, and those astronauts will probably fly to the Moon on a Boeing rocket.

It is the prime contractor for the programmes Space Launch System (SLS), a colossal rocket more powerful than anything Nasa has yet built.

In its final configuration, the 108-metre-tall craft is designed to carry a payload of 46 tonnes to the Moon with the aim of supporting exploration efforts.

The SLS project passed a significant development milestone this year when engineers successfully tested four of the spacecrafts giant engines, capping off a nearly year-long test campaign to validate the rockets design.

But despite the recent successful test, SLS is now three years behind schedule and nearly $3 billion over budget.

Critics of the project say Nasa should move on from the expendable rockets proven but expensive technologies, like its two solid fuel boosters.

The space agency this month began to review the affordability of the SLS. It has already spent more than $20bn on the project, with each future launch of the rocket priced at an additional $2bn.

The high costs associated with the traditional expendable design, similar to that of the shuttle programme of the 1980s, make the innovative offerings of commercial competitors such as SpaceX a tempting proposition. Its smaller but reusable Falcon Heavy rocket costs as little as $90 million to fly.

In another blow to Boeings lunar ambitions, lander designs from rivals SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics were all chosen ahead of its own proposal for continued development under the Artemis programme.

The three winning designs were together awarded nearly a billion dollars in funding, well short of the $3.3bn Nasa had asked for to fund the landing section, which will actually carry astronauts down to the surface from the rocket another set-back for the project.

SpaceX proposed a version of its Starship spacecraft to ferry passengers and cargo between lunar orbit and the surface.

It is the most radical of the three designs, and the lunar-optimised Starship could negate the need for the SLS, instead hitching a ride to our nearest celestial neighbour on the super heavy booster the company is developing.

This raises serious questions over the value of the Boeing-managed project, with many wondering why Nasa is still funding the SLS at all.

Former Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine, who stepped down from his post as head of the space agency shortly after the SLS engine test in January, said last year that the Boeing spacecraft was the only rocket thats going to be human rated by 2024 that will take humans to the Moon.

But since then, opposition to the project grew as costs ballooned.

The Bloomberg news agencys editorial board in February published a scathing takedown of the SLS project, calling on President Joe Biden to scrap the heavy-lift rocket, citing spiralling costs and increasing delays.

With the programme still well behind schedule, Nasa may have to push back the ambitious 2024 Moon landing target put in place by the Trump administration.

Top Nasa officials regularly voiced doubts about the 2024 deadline, which was brought forward from 2028 by president Donald Trump shortly before the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landings.

President Biden gave his support to the agencys goal of returning humans to the lunar surface after speculation about the new administrations stance on the Artemis project.

Nasas Artemis missions are due to begin before the end of this year with an uncrewed flight around the Moon.

That flight is intended as a dry run for the 2024 mission carrying astronauts, which will then be followed by a later mission in which humans will spend about a week on the Moon.

Meanwhile, the development of SpaceXs Starship continues at breakneck speed, with the company conducting a flurry of flight tests at its facility in Southern Texas in recent months.

Although its tests frequently ended in spectacular fashion, with prototype Starships regularly bursting into unplanned fireballs during flight or while landing, SpaceX has ambitious targets for lunar exploration.

The company hopes to carry out the first commercial mission to the Moon and plans to fly Japanese entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa and eight other civilians around the Moon in a Starship.

As with the Artemis programme, the mission will be preceded by an unmanned Starship flight.

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover as it acquired this image using its onboard Left Navigation Camera (Navcam). AFP

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover using its Left Mastcam-Z camera (a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast). AFP

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover as it acquired this image using its onboard Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) on Mars. AFP

The surface of Mars directly below NASA's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using the rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The surface of Mars directly below Nasa's Mars Perseverance rover, seen using rover's down-look camera. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

A Nasa illustration shows a diagram added over the 21-metre parachute deployed during the descent of the Perseverance rover to Mars. Systems engineer Ian Clark used binary code to spell out 'Dare Mighty Things' in the orange and white strips. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / AP

The Perseverance rover descends to the surface of Mars. A key objective of Perseverance's mission on Mars is to search for signs of ancient microbial life. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / EPA

The heatshield drifts away following separation from Nasa's Perseverence rover, during its descent to Mars. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / EPA

A close-up of Nasa's Perseverance rover during its descent to Mars. The rover will gather data on the planet's geology and past climate, paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / EPA

Martian dust swirls up as Nasa's Perseverance rover descends to the surface of the Red Planet. The mission aims to be the first to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / EPA

The 21-metre parachute attached to Nasa's Perseverance rover begins to open to slow down the descent to Mars. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / EPA

A portion of a panorama made up of individual images taken by the navigation cameras aboard Nasa's Perseverance rover reveal the Martian landscape. Nasa / JPL-Caltech / Reuters

The ultimate goal of Nasas Artemis programme, however, is to prepare for the much more challenging task of landing humans on Mars.

Boeing and SpaceX have set their sights on this goal.

In 2016, Boeing's chief executive at the time, Dennis Muilenburg, threw down the gauntlet to Elon Musk.

"I'm convinced the first person to step foot on Mars will arrive there riding a Boeing rocket," he said at a public event hosted by The Atlantic magazine held in Chicago.

The SpaceX founder responded simply with a tweet: Do it.

The exchange kicked off a new kind of space race between the two companies, and Nasa is expected to exploit the rivalry, as it did with the crewed missions to the ISS, to stimulate healthy competition on innovation and cost.

Boeing hopes its SLS will be used for a manned Nasa mission to the Red Planet, and the US space agency is planning to make that happen in the late 2030s or early 2040s.

Mr Musk, who has said he does not care if his company is beaten to the milestone of landing the first humans on Mars, has frequently changed the target date for his companys first manned mission there.

In March this year he told his 50 million Twitter followers that SpaceX would be landing rockets on the Martian surface well before 2030.

SpaceX is assembling the next prototype Starship, and Mr Musk recently unveiled the first test craft of its Super Heavy booster.

The companys founder says the next prototype Starship, SN15, will feature a range of upgrades over previous versions.

Boeings rivals in Boca Chica are planning to attempt a first orbital flight with their space craft later this year.

Updated: April 7, 2021 08:38 PM

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Boeing v SpaceX: the rivalry shaping the future of space exploration - The National

Last month, Science Timesreported that the Russian space agency Roscosmos and China's National Space Administration (CNSA) recently agreed on building a lunar base called International Scientific Lunar Station and a satellite to orbit around the Moon.

The International Scientific Lunar Station is said to rival NASA's Gateway program, which will build a rival space station developed by an alliance of different countries in the next decade.

This announcement is in preparation for the 60th anniversary of Yuri's Nightthat marked the beginning of human spaceflight on April 12, 1961.

(Photo: YouTube)China and Russia To Build Moon Base (Without SpaceX or NASA) Screenshot from YouTube/Toasty Business

Building a lunar will give many benefits to space agencies around the globe and the world as a whole. It will be the first step to test humanity's capabilities and technologies to one day colonize Mars, according toThe Next Web.

Also, a lunar base would serve as a station for various scientific activities, like observing the Sun and other objects in the cosmos.

The lunar base will help scientists in researching astronomy and could assist in developing a variety of important advanced technologies and capabilities, like robotics, utilization of resources, in-space propulsion, optical communication, space additive manufacturing via 3D printing, and more.

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They say that space is now the new battleground and having a lunar base means a great deal in the space race. It will help establish subsequent Mars missions and other cosmological activities.

It is a signal of a significant breakthrough in space flight, high-value extraterrestrial resources, power and communication, space habitats for the crew, and facilities that will lessen the risks on the technical and financial aspects of future space missions.

The space race is a competition between nations, particularly the US and the Soviet Union, to show superiority in spaceflight. It is like a continuation of the Cold War in the 20th century that pitted the ideologies of capitalism and communism, according to one exhibit from the National Air and Space Museum.

The crew who will live in the International Lunar Research Station would work together by developing and sharing the infrastructure but also enhancing their capabilities and talents, TNWreported.

Their scientific research would include resource mining and processing, technology development, and human exploration on the Moon that perhaps one day could open tourism.

In the 20th century, both Americans and Russians achieved their first interplanetary flyby by sending spacecraft, and astronauts, and cosmonauts to space. Also, other nations have sent their rockets and satellites in the '60s and '70s.

But according to Space.com, these are all just a sideshow of the real space race at the time. With NASA's Apollo program, the space agency's engineers embarked on a series of space missions to place the first human footprints on the lunar surface.

Although there are more American and Societ missions after the successes of NASA's Apollo program, it is believed that the 20th-century space race has been won by the United States. But as the Cold War wound down, both countries agreed to cooperate in space and created the International Space Stationin 1998.

In this 21st century, more countries are joining the space race that is why the joint project of Russia and China is a significant move in winning the current space race. Even private companies are also becoming a part of this monumental event in history.

Tomorrow's winner of the space race is yet to be determined with more players coming in, which is expected to have more win-lose scenarios than the past century.

RELATED ARTICLE: Russia and China Join Forces to Build Station Around the Moon, Rivaling NASA's Planned Gateway

Check out more news and information on Spaceand Moonon Science Times.

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Moon Exploration: Why China and Russia are Teaming Up for a Lunar Base - Science Times