Category Archives: Mars Colony

(Photo : GettlyImages/ Maja Hitij ) SpaceX Elon Musk

SpaceX's Elon Musk talked about his goals for Mars as he engaged with fans on Twitter. Elon Musk is known to launch astronauts to the Moon and develop implants for brain-computer interfaces, and it seems like the SpaceX CEO's imagination has no bounds.

SpaceX's Elon Muskhas made his money firing satellites into the Earth's orbit, but his main goal has always been to go to Mars and have people live there, according toExpress UK.

Musk has always maintained the purpose of his exploits in space is to make sure that humanity becomes a spacefaring civilization.

Musk has invested money and resources into his Starship program to create a fully reusable and interplanetary launch vehicle.

Also Read:Elon Musk Debunks Impression on SpaceX and Mars Mission Origins, Reveals Stand on Caffeine

Mars is the top candidate for an outpost because it is close, easy to reach, and its surface conditions are adequate for human exploration.

The SpaceX and Tesla CEO have now shared some insight into his plans for the Red Planet, telling his fans that the city on Mars could be completed by 2050.

On July 10, Musk was asked onTwitterabout SpaceX's plans for aRaptor factoryin South Texas. Raptors are engines used to power Starship, which is SpaceX's prototype rocket.

Musk said that SpaceX would be "breaking ground" with a second Raptor factory in Texas, and it will focus on producing Raptor 2 engines, while the branch in California will focus on orbital engines and experimental designs, according toDallas Morning News.

A fan on Twitter asked Musk about the volume production he is aiming for and the number of Raptors he wants per year.

Musk then went on to say that SpaceX will pump out thousands of engines until 2022, which should be enough to build a fleet of spacecraft for Mars.

This is not the first time Musk has said that he can set up a city on Mars in 30 years. The billionaire has opened up about the project in the past, revealing his estimates for how much the Mars project will cost.

In 2018, Musk told his Twitter followers that building a city on Mars will cost around $100 million to $10 trillion. One of the challenges, he said, is the cost of shifting large quantities of cargo to the planet.

With very few resources, future Mars colonists will have to take building materials with them. Musk added that his plans to make humanity interplanetary would begin this year, according toAustin American Statesman.

Musk believes that putting humans on Mars will help preserve the human species in case a cosmic cataclysm will wipe us out.

Musk tweeted that about half of his money is intended to help Earth issues and help create a self-sustaining city on Mars to ensure the continuation of life in case Earth gets hit by a meteor or if World War 3 happens.

However, not everyone is convinced that Musk can pull it off, with one expert calling his goals "delusional."

Lord Martin Rees, one of the leading astrophysicists in the United Kindom, thinks that Musk's dream is dangerous and compared it to living on top of Mount Everest.

Related Article:SpaceX CEO Elon Musk Claims Humans Journey to Mars Possible in Three Years as Starship will Be in Automatic Mode By Next Year!

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Written by Sophie Webster

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SpaceX's Elon Musk Wants to Create a City on Mars by 2050 After Announcement of Raptor Factory in Texas. - Tech Times

The last century's space race was a competition between the world's great powers and a test of their ideologies. It would prove to be a synecdoche of the entire Cold War between the capitalist United States and the socialist Soviet Union.

The starting pistol in the race to the future was fired in 1961 when President John F Kennedy committed to "achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth" and it ended with a US victory on 24 July 1969 when the crew of the Apollo 11 mission splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

There are no such stakes in today's race. The values of the future aren't in question, merely the egos of three billionaires. One of these men is launching his private spacecraft off the planet on Sunday. Another follows suit soon after.

So here's how they compare and what you need to know:

"My mum taught me to never give up and to reach for the stars," said Sir Richard Branson announcing that he was going to be among the first people his spaceflight company launches on a mission.

Unfortunately, not only will Virgin Galactic's mission fall short of the stars, the two-and-a-half hour mission will also fall short of space, at least according to the internationally agreed definition.

VSS Unity is a spaceplane (perhaps just a plane?) that launches in mid-air from the belly of a carrier aircraft at an altitude of about 15km, and then flies up to an altitude of about 80km, allowing the passengers to feel nearly weightless for approximately six minutes and glimpse the curvature of the Earth.

The problem for Sir Richard is that the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) defines the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space as 100km above Earth's mean sea level, the so-called Karman Line, 20km higher than he is going to travel.

The definition of the edge of space is a bit of a challenge. Earth's atmosphere doesn't suddenly end but becomes progressively thinner at greater altitudes. In very simple terms, physicist Theodore von Karman's solution was to define the edge of space as the highest point at which an aircraft could fly without reaching orbital velocity.

While Karman himself and the FAI regards this altitude as 100km, Sir Richard has the US Air Force and NASA on his side. They both place the boundary of space at 80km above mean sea level, partially because putting it at 100km would complicate issues regarding surveillance aircraft and reconnaissance satellites for the US - although the Department of Defence subscribes to the FAI definition.

It's not clear whether this definition is covered by the small print of Virgin Galactic's customer tickets, but ultimately the company aims to be operating multiple space tourism flights a year, and already has more than 600 customers for the $250,000 (189,000) seats - including Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio.

"Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of traveling to space. On 20 July, I will take that journey with my brother," said Jeff Bezos, announcing his seat on a journey to the edge of space.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket is capable of actually making it there, with a maximum achieved altitude of above 100km, but how high it will bring its four passengers hasn't yet been confirmed.

These passengers will be Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, a mystery customer who paid $28m (20m) for the seat in an auction, and 82-year-old Mary Wallace "Wally" Funk, a woman who had astronaut training in the 1960s but was denied the chance to go into space because of her gender.

While the mission will be scooped to launch by Virgin Galactic, by inviting Wally Funk it has managed to scoop Branson on getting a famous victim of gender injustice into space - she had previously put money down to fly with Virgin Galactic.

It will take three minutes to take the passengers up to the required altitude, at which point they will have three minutes more in which to enjoy their sudden near-weightlessness. They'll be allowed to unbuckle their seatbelts and float around, as well as examine the curvature of the Earth through one of the capsule's windows. Just over 10 minutes after launch, the spacecraft will land back on Earth.

The 20 July flight will fittingly occur on the anniversary of the moon landings in 1969, but unlike the Apollo missions there will be no human piloting the modules. Instead, Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft is completely autonomous and will follow a programmed mission timeline before parachuting back to Earth.

The company has said that it expects to sell seats for more tourism flights in the future, but it isn't clear how this will happen and the tickets for New Shepard are yet to go on general sale.

"I want to die on Mars - just not on impact," Elon Musk once quipped, although he hasn't announced his immediate intention to travel into space at all.

Unlike both Bezos and Branson, Musk's private spaceflight company, SpaceX, has a long and successful history of launching payloads way beyond the 100km mark.

SpaceX has announced it will be launching an all-civilian mission into orbit by the end of the year, with the passengers actually orbiting around the planet for up to four days before returning to Earth.

All four crew seats on the mission have been paid for by Jared Isaacman, the founder of Shift4 Payments, who has declined to reveal the costs.

Isaacman is donating two of the seats to St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, with one being given to a staff member there, and another intended to be raffled off to a member of the public. He hopes to raise $200m (145m) for the hospital, alongside a $100m (72m) donation of his own.

Elon Musk hasn't mentioned flying on this mission himself, although he has long articulated a plan to travel to Mars, plans that have been described as a dangerous delusion by Britain's chief astrophysicist Lord Martin Rees.

Back in 2016, Musk outlined his vision of building a colony on Mars "in our lifetimes" - with the first rocket propelling humans to the Red Planet by 2025.

For many years the company used an image of the Martian surface being terraformed (turned Earth-like) in its promotional material. However, a NASA-sponsored study published in 2018 dismissed these plans as impossible with today's technology.

Recently Musk has tweeted he believed it was "possible to make a self-sustaining city on Mars by 2050, if we start in five years" but as of yet, SpaceX has not planned any missions to the planet.

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Virgin Galactic: The private space race explained as Richard Branson prepares for Sunday's launch - Sky News

News

Kadokawa Games is continuing to unveil new details about the mecha strategy JRPG Relayer, which could keep you busy for over 100 hours.

Published on July 13, 2021 Giuseppe Nelva

Home News Mecha Strategy JRPG Relayer for PS5 & PS4 Is Going To Be a Big Game; Post-Story Content Teased

Kadokawa Games is continuing to unveil new details about the upcoming mecha strategy JRPG Relayer.

Today we hear directly from director and producer Yoshimi Yasuda that the game is going to be a rather big experience.

Yasuda-san mentions that the developers are working on a post-campaign challenge mode similar to the Labyrinth of Yomi in their previous game, God Wars.

He also explains that there are four modes of play: the main scenario campaign takes an estimated 40 hours to complete. Developing characters in the battle simulator can take 20 additional hours. Playing the post-story content mentioned above can take another 40 hours, and then you can enjoy the Lap Play (which is the way Japanese gamers describe New Game+ type of gameplay, even if no info was provided on what it will entail specifically).

Relayer will be released simultaneously worldwide for PS4 and PS5 in 2021. A few weeks ago, we published an extensive interview with Yasuda-san himself.

If youd like to learn more, youcan check out the original reveal,additional details,the first trailer, anotherpromotional video, the first reveal ofthe rich cast of characters that will populate the game, andthe second.

If youre unfamiliar with the game, heres an official description.

Story

Humanity is not alone in the universe.

In the year 2049, mankind finally meets intelligent life: the Relayers. Around the same time, the discovery of an ancient alien civilization sets the wheels of fate in motion for the Starchildren, humans bestowed with unique powers.

Then, in the year 2051, our story begins one fateful day when two young women cross paths in Artemis, a colony located on the surface of the Moon. Get ready for an intergalactic adventure where humans and ancient aliens meet, and our stellar neighbors come to life!

Setting

Relayer takes place in the Milky Way galaxy, within our solar system. In the not-too-distant future, humanity has extended its sphere of influence to Jupiter, with the moon and Mars already established as colonies. Humanitys very existence is threatened by mysterious extraterrestrials known as the Relayers, who plan to annihilate the universe. As if in response to the Relayers invasion, the Starchildren, human successors to the wills of the stars, awaken.

A simulation RPG where you lead your troops to victory using strategy & 4 different types of spacecraft!

In Relayer, players participate in turn-based battles, where each different unit plays its own specific role in combat. There are four different types of Stellar Gear, or spacecraft controlled by a Starchild: Assault, Sniper, Tank, and Scout. Each types attack range and weaponry vary, so players will be required to position themselves according to the unique battle situation.

Players can also employ various combat strategies, such as using hate to draw the enemys attention, allowing certain allies to act as decoys, and calling upon allies to push the enemy back.

This is the first new simulation RPG for PS5 from the highly acclaimed GOD WARS development team!

Overcome challenges by customizing your characters occupation!

In Relayer, each character can be assigned to one of the 20 unique job types and 20+ general-purpose jobs in-game. Jobs distinguish your character as an individual, and it can even give you an advantage in battle! There are over 80 jobs to choose from, and each one is unique.

An interstellar adventure with more than 80 stages!

In addition to the main scenario, Relayer contains 80+ stages, including the side story The Asterisms Voyage, which is unlocked as the story progresses. Enjoy the episodes that delve into the characters backgrounds, solve the mystery of the birth of the Moona science fiction fan-favoriteand experience the world of Relayer to the fullest!

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Mecha Strategy JRPG Relayer for PS5 & PS4 Is Going To Be a Big Game; Post-Story Content Teased - Twinfinite

Early on the evening of Monday, 12 July, a thin crescent Moon will be seen low on the horizon, just after sunset. Just half a degree below and to the right of our planetary companion, Venus and Mars the two closest planets to Earth, will shine in the twilight.

This is a perfect time for families to venture outside, viewing the wonders of the night sky.

Venus is often called the morning star, or evening star (depending on when the planet rises and sets), due to the fact it is seen near the Sun in the east at dawn, and west at sunset.

The evening of 12 July is a perfect example of Venus as the evening star.

This planet, roughly the size and mass of the Earth, is home to a hellish landscape of scorching temperatures, a poisonous atmosphere, and sulfuric acid rain.In June, NASA announced that two new space missions would be heading to Venus beginning later in the decade. VERITAS and DAVINCI+ will investigate the planets surface and atmosphere, returning incredible images, maps, and other data, likely rewriting our understanding of how Earths sister planet became so inhospitable, along with how it might still be active today. Theyll be joined by the European spacecraft EnVision, for whats sure to be an exciting new chapter in solar system exploration, NASA describes.

Shining bright red near the Moon andVenus, Mars completes the evenings cosmic triangle.

Mars is now a planet of robots, as orbiters, landers, and rovers explore the Red Planet. Robotic explorers built by NASA, the ESA are now joined by intrepid robotic explorers from China and the UAE.

Mars will, almost certainly, be the first world after the Earth on which humans lead out their lives. If we are smart enough, brave enough, and far-sighted enough toovercome the anti-science paradigmperpetuated far too often on social media, Mars provides us our best chance to become a multi-planetary species.

As seen from Mars, the Earth will be an evening star or morning star to future Martian colonists.

How long will it be until people living on Mars will look toEarth, hanging out as a bright light in the Martian sky? Will they see the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos as they appear to huddle together with Earth?

Counting stars by candlelight, all are dim but one is bright;The spiral light of Venus, rising first and shining best,On, from the northwest corner, of a brand new crescent moon,While crickets and cicadas sing, a rare and different tune,Terrapin Station The Grateful Dead,Terrapin Station

Anyone can view this event without any special equipment The Moon,Mars, and Venus are all easily visible using just the naked eye. This event will be seen by most people around the globe, provided the skies above them are clear.

Ideally, skygazers will want to head outside just a little after sunset, to a dark location, with a clear view to the west. This event will be visible for around 30 minutes before Mars and Venus set, so bring chairs, drinks, and snacks if youve got them! If you have a pair of binoculars, bring them along!

The thin two-day oldMoonwill be the first of the objects seen a slender crescent will appear, staking its claim on the darkening sky. Look for the first signs of this young Moon about 20 degrees above the western horizon.

Minutes later, the shining light of Venus will make itself known, just about 3.5 degrees to the right and a little over six degrees below, the Moon.

One handy trick for observing the night sky is to hold an index finger out at arms length. This will cover about half a degree side-to-side, around the size of the Moon or theSunas seen from Earth. a clenched fist held at arms length covers about 10 degrees from thumb to pinkie finger.

Following the arrival of Venus, a red light first dim, then growing progressively brighter as the sky darkens, will be seen just one-sixth of a degree below and half a degree west of the Moon. This is, of course, the planet Mars.

Make sure to see Moon,Mars, and Venus together in the sky on 12 July, low on the western horizon, just after sunset.

This article was originally published onThe Cosmic Companionby James Maynard, the founder and publisher of The Cosmic Companion. He is a New England native turned desert rat in Tucson, where he lives with his lovely wife, Nicole, andMax the Cat. You can read the original article here.

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Watch the Moon, Mars, and Venus form a celestial conga line on July 12 - The Next Web

Think back to the beginning of commercial aviation in the 20th century. The Wright brothers flew their Wright Flyer on 17 December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, proving that heavier-than-air flight was possible. On 1 January 1914a little over 10 years after Kitty Hawkthe worlds first passenger flight took off from Tampa and landed in St Petersburg, Florida, a trip lasting only 23 minutes. The Wright Flyer was a giant leap, and while that first passenger flight was a small step building on the history made at Kitty Hawk, it ultimately paved the way for todays commercial aviation industry, which has transformed global society and opened up new industries and economies.

Fast-forward to July 2021. Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic has just demonstrated a small step towards opening up the space domain for broader access, with the successful flight of VSS Unity, a sub-orbital rocket plane. Last Sunday it flew to the edge of space, allowing its crew, and paying passengers, to experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the earth as if from orbit. Critics have dismissed the flight, and an upcoming launch by competitor Jeff Bezoss Blue Origin of its New Shepard suborbital rocket, as mere stunts, and attacked space billionaires Branson, Bezos and Elon Musk for investing time and money in what they claim are frivolous efforts. The critics dont see the bigger picture.

The start of space tourism is just as important as the early days of commercial aviation were in transforming global affairs. Initially only open to the very rich, and quite dangerous, commercial air travel is now commonplaceindeed, a globalised economy couldnt function without it. Might similar opportunities emerge from commercial space activities in coming decades?

Space tourism needs to be considered as just one element of an effort to expand human access to the space domain and open up the final frontier for large-scale entrepreneurial activities. The era of government-run space programswhats been called old space or Space 1.0, epitomised by NASAs Apollo missionslimited the ability of societies to use space for broad purposes beyond satellites in orbit. What low-cost space access does is allow states and commercial actors to exploit space directly in new and exciting, and much more far-reaching, ways.

But to achieve this goal, the proponents of space tourism such as Branson, Bezos and Musk need to aspire to more than suborbital joyrides for the mega-rich. The industry needs to make a determined effort to provide regular, safe and affordable access to low-earth orbit (LEO) for a wide range of paying customers. If the cost can be brought down to the equivalent of a business-class airfare and paying passengers can fly into orbit with confidence in the safety of the craft, the space tourism market will take off. A failure to achieve this space is for everyone goal will likely see space tourism wither.

The space tourism sector therefore needs to quickly take the next step to develop the technology for accessing LEO cheaply and safely. That will require new types of launch vehicles that take us beyond Bransons air-launched rocket plane and Bezoss suborbital rocket. There will also need to be a blurring of the line between space tourism and the broader elements of commercial space, including a desire to engage more fully with the space-based industry and space-based manufacturing sectors. Space tourism companies need to engage with commercial space companies, such as Axiom Space, that are developing commercial orbital platforms for manufacturing and research, because it will broaden their customer base and strengthen their business model.

The tourism dimension is important, though. Seeing the earth from LEO is a breathtaking experience, and many people would pay to experience hours or even days in orbit, rather than just four minutes of weightlessness. Developing a launch vehicle that can dock with an orbital platform established to support the space tourism market would be a critical next step. Its that positive vision for a future for humanity in space, so well illustrated in Stanley Kubricks 1968 film adaption of Arthur C. Clarkes 2001: A Space Odyssey, that needs to be the goal. Science fiction needs to become fact or this effort wont work.

Of course, governments can benefit from space tourism too, as paying customers. Already, Musks SpaceX is moving quickly to seal contracts to launch satellites for the US military, and theres discussion on the role SpaceXs revolutionary and fully reusable Starship launch vehicle might play in supporting the US Space Force. Imagine the potential applications for the vehicles developed for orbital space tourism, including supporting countries defence and national security needs. Fast, low-cost access to LEO is truly transformative for military space activities and, in the same way that the Sopwith Camel, the Spitfire and the F-35 Lightning II are all descendants of the Wright Flyer, the implications of new types of craft for low-cost space access need to be considered in a future operational context.

This isnt simply about generating a lucrative new economic sector or getting easier access to orbit. At a broader level, space tourism contributes to transforming how humanity thinks about its future in space and increases the prospects for humanity becoming a spacefaring civilization. That future, with humans living and working in space, both for exploration and commercial activity, is a positive vision.

But realising that vision will take time, and space is an incredibly harsh environment. It will also take money. Governments alone cant and wont create that future suggested in 2001, so commercial companies and the space billionaires have to lead. Bezos advocates the establishment of orbital space colonies, while Musk talks about the potential for a colony on Mars. Both are very long-term visions, but the journey has to begin somewhere, and its the space billionaires who are taking small steps now to achieve those giant leaps in the future.

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Space tourism: a small step that can lead to giant leaps | The Strategist - The Strategist

Even in this age of free-flying conspiracy theories, this one's a doozy.

On Thursday (June 29), a guest on Alex Jones' radio show named Robert David Steele claimed that Mars is inhabited by people sent to the Red Planet against their will.

"We actually believe that there is a colony on Mars that is populated by children who were kidnapped and sent into space on a 20-year ride, so that once they get to Mars, they have no alternative but to be slaves on the Mars colony," Steele told Jones, the founder of the controversial InfoWars website. [25 Space Conspiracies That Just Won't Die]

It's unclear why this "ride" would last two decades; it takes just 6 to 9 months to reach Mars using current propulsion technology. Perhaps Steele believes that the kidnapped children return to Earth, as adults, 20 years after being spirited away?

Whatever the details may be, Jones seemed open to the possibility.

"Look, I know that 90 percent of the NASA missions are secret, and I've been told by high-level NASA engineers that you have no idea," Jones told Steele, who the show billed as a "CIA insider." "There is so much stuff going on."

Jones went on to add that "clearly, they dont want us looking into what is happening; every time probes go over, they turn them off."

The Daily Beast did some due diligence on Steele's assertion, contacting NASA for a comment.

"There are no humans on Mars. There are active rovers on Mars. There was a rumor going around last week that there werent. There are," Guy Webster, a spokesman at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who specializes in the agency's Mars-exploration activities, told The Daily Beast. "But there are no humans."

Alex Jones has supported and promulgated conspiracy theories in the past. He has claimed, for example, that the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, Connecticut in which 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed 27 people, including 20 first-graders was a hoax.

Mars has proven to be fertile ground for conspiracy theorists over the years as well. There's the famous "face on Mars," of course. And more recently, UFO enthusiasts have claimed that NASA's Curiosity rover has captured images of a variety of Red Planet animals that resemble rats, lizards, squirrels and crabs.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSpace.com.

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New Conspiracy Theory: Children Kidnapped for Mars Slave ...

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In a series of tweets on Thursday, Elon Musk revealed new details about his plan to build a city of 1 million people on Mars by 2050.

Musk said he hoped to build 1,000 Starships the towering and ostensibly fully reusable spaceship that SpaceX is developing in South Texas over 10 years. That's 100 Starships per year.

Eventually, Musk added, the goal is to launch an average of three Starships per day and make the trip to Mars available to anybody.

"Needs to be such that anyone can go if they want, with loans available for those who don't have money," Musk wrote.

Not enough to convince you to leave Earth behind?

"There will be a lot of jobs on Mars!" he added.

Starship, if realized as designed, would be the most powerful launch system ever created; each launch would pack enough thrust to send more than 100 tons (about seven fully loaded school buses' worth of mass) and 100 people into orbit at a time.

Musk didn't specify what exactly the rockets would need to carry to Mars, but a lot of food, water, building materials, tools, and advanced life-support systems are a given. Thus, he estimated he would need a whole fleet of Starships to build a permanent settlement.

"Megatons per year to orbit are needed for life to become multiplanetary," he tweeted on Thursday.

In total, 1,000 Starships could hypothetically transport about 100 megatons of stuff to Mars; that's the volume Musk has said he hopes to send to the red planet per year. With each ship ferrying about 100 passengers, that would make for a total migration of about 100,000 people.

Musk also suggested he planned to capitalize on the brief windows of time that the orbits of Earth and Mars align which come about every 25 months. That allows spacecraft to spring off of Earth's rotation and set themselves on a low-fuel journey toward Mars.

Musk said he would take advantage of that opportunity by "loading the Mars fleet into Earth orbit," then sending all 1,000 ships on a Mars-bound trajectory over that 30-day window every 26 months.

That seems to contradict an earlier tweet in which Musk said 1,000 Starships would fly to Mars each year, rather than every 26 months. Either way, SpaceX has a long way to go before reaching those goals.

Musk said a new Starship prototype may launch before the end of March.

"First flight is hopefully 2 to 3 months away," Musktweeted on December 27.

The development of the prototype hit delays after an accidental explosion during a fuel-tank-pressurization test on November 20, which blew the top off SpaceX's first 16-story Starship prototype.

The company could build as many as 20 different prototypesbefore engineers settle on a "1.0" design to fly cargo and people.

The full Starship launch system would also include a 22-story rocket booster called Super Heavy; combined, the whole thing would stand about 387 feet (118 meters) tall. During launch, a Starship spaceship would ride atop the booster, disconnect after the booster runs low on fuel, and rocket its way into orbit.

Both parts are being designed to be fully reusable. If that vision comes to pass, Musk estimates the cost of a single launch would be just $2 million that would be hundreds of times cheaper than the current cost of launching a similar number of people and amount of cargo into space on any planned or existing rocket (including SpaceX's own Falcon 9 system).

Musk said in September that he hoped to launch a Starship into orbit by mid-2020 and maybe even fly a person in it before the end of the year. Gwynne Shotwell, the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, said during a NASA teleconference that the company was "aiming to be able to drop Starship on the lunar surface in 2022" and fly the Japanese tech entrepreneur and billionaire Yusaku Maezawa around the moon in 2023.

However, all of those statements came before the Starship prototype explosion. SpaceX will also have to clear several regulatoryandpractical hurdles including securing the safety of the residents of Boca Chica Village, which sits within 2 miles of SpaceX's Texas launchpad before it can launch any prototypes to orbit.

"Helping to pay for this is why I'm accumulating assets on Earth," Musk tweeted on Thursday.

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Elon Musk says he plans to send 1 million people to Mars ...

Editor's Note:In this weekly series, SPACE.com explores how technologydrives space exploration and discovery.

Ambitious exploration efforts have always aimed for self-sufficiency, but the need is especially acute when the new terrain being traversed is another planet. Extensive resupply from Earth would be prohibitively expensive, experts say, so exploiting Red Planet resources is crucial to making pioneering manned missions affordable in the short term and Mars settlement sustainable over the long haul.

"We want to move and explore in a very similar manner that we've done in the past, so that we can live off the land to make all these missions very cost-effective and more efficient," Prasun Desai, acting director of the Strategic Integration and Analysis Office in NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, said last Tuesday (Aug. 6). [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]

The goal is to enable the exploration of Mars "in a much more aggressive manner, so that we can really get a sense of, Are we alone in the universe?" added Desai, who was speaking at a celebration at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. marking the first year on the Red Planet for the agency's Curiosity rover.

Martian resources

The Red Planet may be cold and dry, but it harbors a wealth of resources that pioneering astronauts could extract and exploit, said Robert Zubrin, president and founder of the Mars Society. This non-profit organization advocates manned Mars exploration and is hosting its 16th annual conference on the topic Aug. 15-18 in Boulder, Colo.

For example, astronauts could generate oxygen and rocket fuel (for potential trips home to Earth) by pulling feedstock out of the Red Planet's thin, carbon dioxide-dominated atmosphere, Zubrin said. And they could get all the water they need from the dirt under their boots.

"We now know that Martian soil has water in it," Zubrin told SPACE.com. "Even at the equator, it's 5 percent water by weight; in the Arctic regions, it's 60 percent water by weight. And we've developed technology that can bake water out of that soil and make it available."

This water, along with Mars' plentiful carbon dioxide, would make it feasible to grow crops for food and other plants to make products such as clothing, at least in some regions, he added.

"Sunlight at the Martian equator is about equal to that of Norway," Zubrin said. "And there's also nitrogen and all the other elements needed to make fertilizers and so forth."

Iron oxide and silicon oxide are also common in Martian soil, so human pioneers would be able to make iron, steel and glass, he said. And the availability of water and carbon dioxide would allow them to make plastics as well. [Future Visions of Human Spaceflight]

"This civilization [here on Earth] was built on iron, steel and natural fibers until the 20th century," Zubrin said. "We can do all of that."

Complicated products such as computer chips would likely have to be imported from Earth for a long time to come, he added. But most such items would be lightweight, greatly reducing the mass and therefore cost of necessary resupply missions.

Powering a new society

Living on Mars will require a considerable amount of power, of course. While solar panels and radioisotope thermoelectric generators (which convert the heat of radioactive decay into electricity) have powered robotic NASA rovers on the Red Planet, new strategies will be required for manned missions, Desai said.

"We're going to need a lot more power for when humans are on the surface with a lot larger vehicles, to be able to operate those types of systems," he said.

NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate is researching a number of possibilities, including more efficient fuel cells and better batteries to improve energy storage, Desai added.

While such technologies could help support the first pioneering steps on the Red Planet, a long-lasting human society on the Red Planet may require a more potent power source. And Zubrin thinks it can be found underground.

Some Martian volcanoes last erupted just a few hundred million years ago, he said, and Mars-orbiting spacecraft have found evidence for a subsurface water table, which could only exist on the frigid planet in the presence of internally generated heat.

"There is hot stuff underground," Zubrin said, noting that geothermal energy is the number four power source here on Earth, after combustion, nuclear and hydroelectric. "We should be able to locate places where we can drill down and access geothermal heat, which might also give us liquid water as well, which would be convenient."

Initial drilling to tap into this heat would be done using nuclear power, he added.

Becoming self-sufficient

A manned Mars outpost will likely be supported financially at first by governments, foundations or extremely wealthy individuals here on Earth, Zubrin said. But if it hopes to last over the long term, it must eventually come up with a way to support itself and pay for its imports.

Red Planet settlers may be able to send some gold and other precious metals back to a picked-over Earth, Zubrin said, but such heavy materials are extremely expensive to launch. He thinks it's more likely that a Mars colony's main export will be intellectual property.

The frontier environment on Mars will serve as an incubator of innovation, just as it did in the United States, Zubrin added.

"You have, typically, a severe labor shortage and an extremely challenging environment, and so you're forced to innovate," he said. "This is where you get this culture of invention in 18th and 19th, even into 20th century America."

"The Martian frontier is going to amplify this to a much greater degree," he added.

Areas ripe for potential Red Planet innovation include robotics and agriculture, Zubrin said. And if indigenouslife on Marsis ever discovered, its genome could be incredibly valuable, both scientifically and financially.

Going to Mars

Putting boots on Mars is the main goal of NASA's human spaceflight program, and the space agency isn't the only organization with Red Planet dreams.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One aims to land four people on the Red Planet in 2023 as the vanguard of a permanent settlement there. Mars One estimates this initial mission will cost about $6 billion, and the organization plans to foot most of the bill by staging a global media event around it.

And billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, the founder of private spaceflight firm SpaceX, said late last year that he wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people. Indeed, Musk has said he started SpaceX primarily to help humanity become a multiplanet species.

Zubrin is confident that somebody will eventually break through, and our species will establish an outpost on Mars.

"The idea is out there," he said. "Sooner or later, it's going to happen."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter@michaeldwallandGoogle+.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebookor Google+. Originally published onSPACE.com.

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Incredible Technology: How to Live on Mars | Space

2018 video game

Surviving Mars is a city building simulation video game initially developed by the Bulgarian studio Haemimont Games, and later by Abstraction Games, and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released on Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 15, 2018. The player serves as an overseer who must build a colony on Mars and ensure the survival of the colonists.

Surviving Mars is a city builder simulation game that takes place on Mars and is modeled after real Martian data.[1] The player chooses a sponsoring nation, each conferring slightly different benefits and a unique building and vehicle, and then lands on Mars with robotic drones and rovers. These rovers and drones prepare the colony for humans on the red planet by setting up power and water infrastructure, domes, resource depots, oxygen generators, and landing pads. The player's goal is to create a thriving colony on Mars with occasional rockets from Earth, which have limited cargo space, forcing the player to balance bringing resources from Earth and producing resources on the planet. For example, the first human colonists will bring limited food with them on their rocket, so farms are crucial to a thriving colony on Mars. The player can bring electronics, machine parts, food, concrete, metal, prefab buildings, rovers and drones from Earth, or research technologies to manufacture them on Mars.[2] Players must balance expanding the colony with managing oxygen, food, water, and replacement parts. The game also has storylines called mysteries, which add various events to the colony,[3] including plagues, war, rival corporations, AI revolt, alien contact, and others. Rare metals can be exported back to Earth for funds. Landing sites also have various natural disasters like dust storms, meteor storms, cold waves, and dust devils to increase difficulty.[4][5]

Haemimont Games, the developer of the Tropico series, initially led the game's development.[6] The team studied science and challenges real-life scientists consider when thinking about colonizing Mars, then turned them into gameplay elements. The game's aesthetics were inspired by The Jetsons and Futurama.[5] Describing the game as a "hardcore survival city-builder", publisher Paradox Interactive announced the game in May 2017.[7] The game was released for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 15, 2018 with mod support.[8]

About a year after release, in June 2019, Haemimont signed on with Frontier Developments for development of a new property for Frontier's publishing label.[9] In March 2021, Paradox revealed that development of Surviving Mars has moved from Haemimont Games to Abstraction Games.[10]

Surviving Mars has several DLCs, available either separately or as part of the digital season pass available in the game's "First Colony Edition". Space Race, the game's first expansion, was released on November 15, 2018, and introduces rival colonies competing to achieve milestones on Mars.[11] The second, Green Planet, was released on May 16, 2019, and introduces the concept of terraforming Mars into a planet that can sustain human life.[12] Several content packs were also released, including a building pack and the "Marsvision Song Contest" radio station (with the release of Space Race)[13] and "Project Laika", which introduced ranching on Mars as well as pets in the colony (with the release of Green Planet).[14]

A free update adding space tourism features will be added in March 2021.[15] A full paid DLC expansion is planned later in 2021.[15]

The city-builder game Cities: Skylines, also published by Paradox, received a free update themed around Surviving Mars.[16]

The game received generally favorable reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic,[17] scoring 80% on PC Gamer, and 78/100 on IGN.[1][2]

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Surviving Mars - Wikipedia

With less than a month to go before Jeff Bezos embarks on his "greatest adventure" with a trip to space, more than a few people here on Earth are making it known they'd prefer it if the wealthiest man on the planet takes a one-way trip and remains in orbit.

A petition on Change.org entitled "Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth" launched in early June, after Bezos announced his plans to fly on next month's first passenger spaceflight of his company Blue Origin, and the petition already has more than 122,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon. Bezos has said he's dreamed of going to space since he was 5 years old.

Ric Geiger, 31, an account manager for an automotive supplies wholesaler in Michigan, tells CNBC Make It he started the petition "as a joke" with an initial goal of reaching 150,000 signatures. Geiger says he launched the petition after he saw a similar joke "on a meme page on Facebook" that he thought was "hysterical," but when he looked online to see if there was an existing petition, he couldn't find one.

"For me, it started as a joke, because obviously there is no way we can keep Jeff Bezos from re-entering Earth," Geiger wrote in an email. (Indeed, the petition offers no proposals for how anyone could, realistically, prevent the Amazon billionaire from returning from his spaceflight, which is set to launch on July 20.)

However, Geiger also felt the initial humor of the petition and its title would ultimately allow him to "reach a broader platform" to spread a more serious message about the issue of wealth inequality.

Geiger sums up the message behind the joke petition in one of the comments he posted to the petition's landing page on Change.org. There, he writes: "Billionaires should not exist...on earth, or in space, but should they decide [to go to] the latter, they should stay there."

Bezos is the world's wealthiest person, with an estimated net worth of roughly $199 billion, according to Bloomberg. His wealth even grew by more than $70 billion in 2020 despite the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the economy.

The founder of Amazon and private space company Blue Origin has faced quite a bit of criticism over the fact that he's accumulated a massive amount of wealth while reportedly paying little or no taxes at times. Bezos has also been criticized in the past for donating a relatively small amount of his large fortune to charity, though he has more recently pledged to give more than $12 billion to philanthropic efforts, including climate issues.

Geiger felt his petition would likely strike a nerve, and a funny bone, among those who, like him, are critical of Bezos' massive accumulation of wealth. While he didn't expect so many people to add their names to the petition, he hopes the unexpected visibility will draw attention to what he says are the more serious aspects of his critiques of billionaires like Bezos and the broader issue of wealth inequality.

Citing a 2020 survey showing that 63% of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck in the midst of the pandemic, and many average working class Americans facing "crippling student loan or medical debt," Geiger claims "it's a slap in the face to watch billionaires like Bezos, [SpaceX's Elon] Musk, and [Virgin Galactic's Richard] Branson play space race games with their hoards of wealth."

In Bezos' case, the billionaire has invested heavily in his private space company, Blue Origin, at one point selling roughly $1 billion worth of Amazon stock each year to fund the venture.

"So, yeah, I get upset when I see people spending frivolously. I'm talking building a rocket ship and flying to space level frivolity, I'm talking a yacht built custom for traveling outside your main yacht level frivolity, not avocado toast level here," Geiger wrote in his email, referring to Bezos' Blue Origin funding and the billionaire's reported plans to build a $500 million yacht, as well as the oft-repeated, and over-inflated, criticism of millennials spending too much money on avocado toast.

In the past, Bezos has defended his spending on Blue Origin as more than simply a vanity project. In 2019, he told CBS that developing space technologies is "important for this planet [and] important for the dynamism of future generations." (The billionaire has even envisioned a future where humans leave Earth to live in colonies of space pods.)

"We humans have to go to space if we are going to continue to have a thriving civilization," Bezos said at the time. "We have become big as a population, as a species, and this planet is relatively small. We see it in things like climate change and pollution and heavy industry. We are in the process of destroying this planet. And we have sent robotic probes to every planet in the solar system this is the good one. So, we have to preserve this planet."

Meanwhile, Branson has also said he believes that space exploration is ultimately meant to benefit life back on Earth, while Musk believes that building human colonies on other planets, like Mars, is key to prolonging human civilization.

Geiger's petition isn't the only one out there taking aim at Bezos, as another recent Change.org petition made headlines after more than 14,000 people signed on to try to get the billionaire to buy Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"...and eat it.

Regardless, Geiger never actually believed his joking attempt at a petition would eventually approach its goal of 150,000 signatures.

"I didn't expect that it would get this big. My genuine intention was to use humor to commiserate and help mitigate some of the existential dread among my peers," he said, adding: "Even as a full-time salaried employee, with nothing [saved for] retirement, the future I see for myself and most of my generation is bleak."

When asked if he thinks Bezos himself will get word of his petition, and the fact that more than 120,000 people would like him to remain only the wealthiest person in space for the foreseeable future, Geiger says that idea is also worthy of a laugh.

"Honestly, I just think it's really funny to think that I might in some way show up as a blip on the radar of the richest man in the world simply because of this stunt," he said.

Neither Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic or SpaceX immediately returned CNBC Make It's request for comment.

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A petition to make Jeff Bezos stay in space has more than 120,000 signatures heres how it got started - CNBC