Category Archives: Mars Colonization

The other half of SpaceX's Starship deep-space transportation system is starting to come out into the light.

Over the past three months, three full-size prototypes of the 165-foot-tall (50 meters) Starship spacecraft have launched on high-altitude test flights, each time with impressive but ultimately explosive results. However, the company hadn't showcased any versions of Super Heavy, the 230-foot-tall (70 m) booster that will launch Starship off Earth until now.

"First Super Heavy booster," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter on Thursday afternoon (March 18), where he posted a photo of the big rocket at the company's South Texas site, near the Gulf Coast village of Boca Chica.

Booster 1 "is a production pathfinder, figuring out how to build & transport 70-meter-tall stage. Booster 2 will fly," Musk said in another Thursday tweet.

Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-colonizing vehicles in images

SpaceX is developing Starship and Super Heavy to get people and payloads to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations. Both vehicles will be fully reusable, Musk has said. Super Heavy will come back to Earth for a vertical landing shortly after liftoff, as the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets already do, and Starship will be capable of making many trips to and from Mars or the moon. (Starship will be powerful enough to launch itself off both of those bodies, but it needs Super Heavy to get off the much more massive Earth.)

Starship and Super Heavy will start flying soon, if all goes according to Musk's plan. The billionaire entrepreneur recently said that SpaceX aims to launch Starship to orbit sometime this year, and that he envisions the Starship-Super Heavy duo being fully operational by 2023.

SpaceX already has a Starship mission on the books with a target launch date of 2023 the "dearMoon" flight around Earth's nearest cosmic neighbor, which was bought by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Elon Musk shows off SpaceX's 1st Starship Super Heavy booster - Space.com

The Green Space is a biweekly blog about all things environmental whether were talking a mason-jar compost heap or the entire world.

Google Elon Musk, and its likely that the top five search results will be negative news articles. Most recently, the CEO of Tesla tweeted out misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine to his millions of followers, has been sued by an investor for his erratic tweets and received criticism for opening the Tesla factory back in May despite local health rules a decision which has now resulted in more than 100 COVID-19 cases at the plant.

Elon Musk is a flawed character to say the least, yet despite that his various companies indelibly connected with his person have flourished through all the controversy. Thats because he has a cult following of mostly male idolizers who dont hesitate to attack anyone who criticizes Musk. No doubt many believe that despite his insolent Twitter comments, he deserves admiration for his aspirations to save the planet and create a more sustainable future. But we must beg the question given Musks attitude, the astronomical price of his electric vehicles and his aspirations to colonize Mars, for whom is he creating this sustainable future?

A fantastic article from Marcie Bianco demonstrates that Musk is one more in a long line of patriarchal colonizers, whom she describes as drunk on megalomania and the privilege of indifference. The modern space race, Bianco writes, is the direct result of men giving up on the planet they have all but destroyed. Cultivating Mars for human life is not a solution for everyone it is only for those at the tippy top who have already contributed disproportionately to the destruction of the planet. The concept of having a fallback planet to which the rich can flee when the going gets too tough on Earth can only contribute to the environmental fatalism its no use trying to stop climate change, lets just move to another planet that already threatens to overtake many of us in other forms (including myself, on bad days).

But Musk certainly isnt all bad, not because of any personal accomplishments or innovations, but because there is another, more positive side to the masculine image he presents. He shows a way to get more people, specifically overtly masculine men, interested in creating a sustainable future. Researchers have shown that women in general are more concerned about the environment and more willing to take action against climate change, and that toxic masculinity can often play into environmentally unfriendly practices like driving an inefficient car or eating more meat. Given the general perception of environmentalism as more related to the feminine values of care and community, Musks ability to appeal to masculinity to get men interested in environmentalism is genuinely impressive. He just goes about it the wrong way, promoting fatalism and colonization in a way that can only be detrimental to the environmental movement as a whole.

Musk provides a practical framework for what scholars are calling ecomasculinity the male counterpart to ecofeminism. Ecomasculinity emphasizes examining how sexism negatively impacts men while also promoting a philosophy of care for the environment, for those around you and so on. It encourages deconstructing and reconsidering the ways in which societal structures pressure men to be better, higher, stronger, more virile, smarter, richer, more powerful, composed and adored than their supposed competition. This pressure can lead to men oppressing other groups in order to prove their superiority around other men a phenomenon that we can see in action close to home at the college frat party.

Musk has demonstrated that its possible to inspire men to care about the environment, but ecomasculinity shows us that men need role models who inspire care while also working to closely consider gendered behaviors. You cant have one without the other. Think Bob Ross or Mr. Rogers, but for climate advocacy.

Unfortunately, no such role model exists. Bill McKibben, Hank Green, David Wallace-Wells and many other men offer more nuanced information about climate change and a greater emphasis on caring for what we have instead of abandoning it. Even Bill Gates, who recently published the book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, would make for a better billionaire idol than Musk. But none of them have the cool factor that Musk imbues in his every tweet. None of them sell flamethrowers or sleek self-driving cars. I understand Musks appeal, but there must be some middle ground between his dangerous, glamorous form of masculinity, and the boring, unglamorous work of actually solving problems.

I appreciate the work that Musk has done in inspiring young men to dream of starting an entrepreneurial career based on products that combat climate change, but I dont think its too much to ask for an unproblematic male climate role model. Musk fans might argue that his asshole behavior has nothing to do with his accomplishments as a businessman and innovator, but his personality is what propelled him to both fame and infamy. Tesla, SpaceX and his various other business ventures would not be nearly as successful if not for his headline-grabbing behavior. Even his environmental ideals smack of the kind of toxic masculinity that brings men down instead of lifting them into the future.

All this is to say men, dump Elon Musk. Leave him! Hes bad for you! Youd be so much better off without him! If you truly want to help the environment, Musks brand of toxic masculinity certainly isnt going to get you there. Instead, we must embrace a philosophy of care as both masculine and feminine, and accept that no one man could possibly solve a problem as vast as climate change.

Sarah writes primarily about trees, climate change and walking. You can reach her at [emailprotected].

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The Green Space | Elon Musk and Ecomasculinity - University of Pittsburgh The Pitt News

Mars today is pretty dry. The polar caps have water frozen in them, and there's some buried under the surface at mid-latitudes, but not a whole lot on a planetary scale; maybe enough to cover the entire surface of Mars to a depth of 20 to 40 meters.

Ancient Mars is another story. Billions of years ago there was a lot more. Estimates vary, but it may have been enough to cover the surface of the planet to a depth of 100 meters to as much as 1,500! Clearly, something dried Mars up.

Some of it evaporated and was eventually lost to space from the upper atmosphere, but it doesn't look like that process could've desiccated the whole planet. So what did? A new paper looking at various observations of the Red Planet indicates that a big chunk of the water from a third up to a staggering 95% was the victim of crustal hydration: The crust of Mars sucked it up. Or down, to be more accurate.

The key factor to this is the deuterium/ hydrogen (D/H) ratio. Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen; an atom of regular hydrogen has one proton in its nucleus (really, the whole nucleus is just that proton), but deuterium has a neutron in there as well. That makes it twice as heavy as regular hydrogen, and that's a big deal.

In general, a bucket of water will have 1 deuterium atom for every 5,000 hydrogen atoms. If you let it sit, the lighter hydrogen atoms will evaporate more easily. Wait some amount of time, and the ratio of D/H will change, with more deuterium than you'd expect. In a sense, it's like a clock telling you how long that water was sitting out.

We know the current D/H ratio on Mars by looking at water in its atmosphere, and we can also see what it was like billions of years ago by looking at Martian meteorites, chucks of rock from Mars that fell to Earth after a large asteroid impact sent them into space. Sure enough, the meteorites show a lower ratio, meaning Mars used to have more water.

However, combining that information with how water escapes from Mars to space, that implies the amount of water on Mars long ago was around 50 240 meters depth if spread out over the whole planet, which is at the very lowest part of the range of 1001,500 meters depth the geological evidence indicates. This in turn implies a lot of that ancient water is missing.

The scientists used a model of sources and sinks of water places where water could come from, and places it could go to try to figure out what happened. They based this on rover data, orbital measurements, and observations from Earth, and, long story short, the crust absorbed it. A lot of it. Up to 95%.

This would have happened during what's called the Noachian Period on Mars, from 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago. To be clear, this doesn't mean there's an underground ocean like on Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus. Instead, it got locked up into minerals, becoming part of their structure.

If this is true, it's a bit disappointing in some sense. There's a lot of water on Mars! Well, in Mars. But it's locked up in ways where it can't be released. Once it was absorbed, it took a one-way trip. A bit of a bummer if you want to find life on Mars.

maybe. At the same time, astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol, who is the Director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute, published what is essentially a science-based OpEd in the journal Nature Astronomy. In it, she argues that life on Mars may be all over the planet, saying that once it got started it could have spread to the whole planet via various methods before the water all went away (the article is behind a paywall, but this press release from the SETI Institute sums it up well).

She makes two overall points. The first is that we only have snapshots of what Mars was like in the past, and these are spread out over various places representing thin slices of time. So our viewpoint is a little skewed; a lot was happening on Mars pretty much anywhere you choose, and it's had a lot of time to makes changes. After all, the Sahara Desert here on Earth used to be lush with vegetation; you shouldn't judge a place for all time based on what you see now.

She goes into a bit of detail, but her point there is, as she writes, "Early life on Mars had the potential to spread and colonize globally." She points out that water existed all over the planet, there were several outlets for life to spread, and some of those outlets may yet exist today (such as recent volcanism, or cyclic thawing and freezing of water underground). And water may not be the only thing to look for; there are other patterns like soil pH and conditions that could shelter life from the otherwise harsh environment that could lead us to find "hidden oases" of life on Mars.

Her second point picks up from there, saying that if we want pristine samples of Mars to look for life we'd better get cracking. Humans will be there soon enough, and contamination is almost inevitable. We might be able to get samples from underground with properly sterilized tools and such, but we don't know how long it will take before our own interplanetary microbiome tries to make itself at home. We need to be extremely careful to install protocols to keep contamination minimized, both us to Mars and Mars to us (should extant life on Mars exist).

I think she makes a good point. We don't know if life still exists on Mars, but we don't know it doesn't, either. It's a wager with pretty high stakes. If we don't want to screw up our chance to seek out new life, then we need to think carefully about how we explore Mars. We can't just send a million people there to stomp around and ruin whatever scientific evidence might be found there, evidence with grand philosophical implications as well.

Mars isn't just some target, some light in the sky, some backup plan. It's a world. One just as old as Earth, that once had water and air and warmth and, perhaps, life. We need to make sure that is foremost in our minds as we proceed with its exploration.

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Where did the waters of Mars go? Underground. Maybe Martian life did, too. - SYFY WIRE

Four strains of bacteria which could help promote plant growth have been found in testing facilities onboard the ISS. One of the strains - Methylorubrum rhodesianum - was already known to scientists but three have been determined to be a "novel species".

The three strains have been called IF7SW-B2T, IIF1SW-B5, and IIF4SW-B5 and are closely related to Methylobacterium indicum.

Methylobacterium species help to promote plant growth and are commonly found in soils on Earth.

Experts from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) believe the strains could help create the "fuel" needed for plant growth on Mars when humans eventually arrive.

Mars' and Earth's soil obviously differ in many ways.

One of the main differences is that Earth's soil has much more moisture, which is better suited for plant growth.

But by creating a resilient fuel which can withstand the harsh Martian environment, it could help with colonisation of the Red Planet, according to the research published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

Dr Kasthuri Venkateswaran and Dr Nitin Kumar Singh of JPL said that the strains might possess "biotechnologically useful genetic determinants" to help grow crops on Mars.

The pair added: "To grow plants in extreme places where resources are minimal, isolation of novel microbes that help to promote plant growth under stressful conditions is essential."

READ MORE:Elon Musk's bold Mars plans dismissed as ''dangerous delusion'

In their study, the researchers said the discovery could potentially lead to more novel bacteria findings which could benefit humanity's mission to Mars.

They wrote: "The whole genome sequence assembly of these three ISS strains reported here will enable the comparative genomic characterisation of ISS isolates with Earth counterparts in future studies.

"This will further aid in the identification of genetic determinants that might potentially be responsible for promoting plant growth under microgravity conditions and contribute to the development of self-sustainable plant crops for long-term space missions in future."

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NASA: Unknown bacteria found on the ISS - and it could help with the move to Mars - Daily Express

The audio of NASA's newest rover crunching across the surface of Mars has been documented, bringing a whole new dimension to Mars exploration.

(Photo: NASA via Getty Images)With NASA one day seeking to take humans to the Red Planets surface, and possibly beyond, the United States National Research Council Decadal Survey suggests that the space agency uses the ISS as a test-bed for studying microorganisms.

A sensitive microphone carried by the Perseverance rover recorded the bangs, pings, and rattles of the robot's six wheels as they rolled through Martian terrain. However, the audio recording has an unexplained high-pitched scraping noise. Engineers are attempting to solve the dilemma.

Dave Gruel, the lead engineer for Mars 2020's EDL Camera and Microphone subsystem, said per the Associated Pressthat he'd pull over and call for a tow if he heard these sounds driving his car.

"But if you take a minute to consider what you're hearing and where it was recorded, it makes perfect sense," he said.

Vandi Verma, a senior engineer and rover driver at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said people don't know the wheels are metal when they see the photos. She explained in a statementthat the rover is definitely very loud when someone is rolling on rocks with these wheels.

Perseverance, the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to Mars on Feb. 18, touched down near an ancient river delta to look for evidence of past existence. The most promising rocks will be sampled for potential return to Earth.

The sighing of Martian wind and the fast ticking soundof the instrument's laser zapping rocks were previously picked up by a second microphone, which was part of the rover's SuperCam instrument. Scientists will use this data when they search Jezero Crater for evidence of life.

The SuperCam sounds were part of a sequence of system tests performed by Perseverance. These included everything from the robotic arm's unstowing to the rover's first temperature measurements using the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer.

The rover has also been looking for a suitable airfield to conduct its first flight tests with the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. The Perseverance and Ingenuity teams are making arrangements for the rover to launch the helicopter. It would have 30 Martian days, or sols (31 Earth days), to complete up to five test flights now that the right spot has been discovered.

The EDL and SuperCam mic recordings are taking Mars down to Earth in a whole different way, Space.com said. These audio files will be used to remind models of the Red Planet's environment and assist engineers in monitoring Perseverance's fitness, according to project team members. Furthermore, the images of SuperCam's snaps will show valuable knowledge about zapped rocks, such as their hardness and whether or not they are coated.

ALSO READ: Viral Mars Perseverance Rover Video With Sound Is Fake! Here's Why

Astrobiology, including the quest for evidence of ancient microbial life, is a crucial goal for Perseverance's work on Mars. The rover will research the planet's geology and climate evolution. It would pave the way for human colonization of Mars, and be the first mission to gather and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Following NASA flights, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), the spacecraft will be sent to Mars to retrieve these sealed samples from the soil and return them to Earth for further study.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA's Moon to Mars exploration strategy, which involves Artemis lunar missions to better prepare for human discovery of Mars.

The Perseverance rover was built and is operated by JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California.

Perseverance will drop off an experimental tag-along helicopter called Ingenuity before it begins digging into rocks for core samples. Next month, the helicopter will attempt the first powered, operated flight on another world.

RELATED ARTICLE: Can NASA Perseverance Rover Bring Back Ambient Sound to Earth?

Check out more news and information on Spaceon Science Times.

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NASA Perseverance Rover Officially Shares the Sounds of Driving on Mars - Science Times

Even though people are actively living in space and weve colonized Mars with robots, space will always be The Final Frontier. Most of us, however, cant just hop on Booking.com and book a suborbital vacation package. Now, one company is looking to change that with the worlds first space hotel. The ambitious project is scheduled to open in 2027. Heres everything you need to know.

The original concept for Voyager Station, then called the Von Braun Station, was announced in 2019 with a tentative launch date of 2027. It was surprisingly ambitious with the promise of a luxury-hotel-esque interior featuring everything from gourmet restaurants to rock climbing walls to low-gravity basketball courts. Construction delays and the COVID pandemic set the project back. Its since been taken over by new construction company Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC). Now, the companys president, former pilot John Blincow, is motivated, educated, and optimistic that sojourning on his space station in this decade is not only possible but likely.

In an interview with CNN, OACs senior designer also assured guests that Voyager Stations aesthetic would not be reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was almost a blueprint of what not to do, said Tim Alatorre. I think the goal of Stanley Kubrick was to highlight the divide between technology and humanity and so, purposefully, he made the stations and the ships very sterile and clean and alien.

Modern space travel is indeed a cold, sterile experience. Even todays most luxurious commercial space travel involves vacationing in a cramped, zero-g laboratory environment with vacuum toilets and sleeping bags strapped to the wall. If the concepts are realized, Voyager Station will be anything but. OAC promises 125,000 square feet of habitable space, including posh hotel-style suites with mostly traditional beds, baths, and showers. The 5,300-square-foot luxury villas will sleep up to 16 people with three bathrooms and full cooking facilities. With a wheel-and-spoke design that spins around a center axis, the station will create its own artificial gravity (about that on Earth) in the living quarters and common areas, so they feel more like their terrestrial counterparts. Guests will also enjoy resort-like amenities, including sleek bars, full restaurants (complete with gourmet dining and NASA-inspired throwbacks like Tang and freeze-dried ice cream), and unique activities that take advantage of the lower-gravity environment. Oversized windows throughout will afford stunning views of Earth and our galaxy from every corner of the station.

Pricing for overnight stays aboard Voyager Station has yet to be announced. For the very first guests, its safe to assume it wont be cheap. Nightly rates aboard the International Space Station currently run more than $30,000 without the fancy five-star amenities promised at Voyager Station. Plus, theres the matter of actually getting to the station. If Virgin Galactics suborbital space rides currently priced at $250,000 per person are any indication, the roundtrip transportation wont be cheap either.

If a trip to Voyager Station doesnt fit into your travel budget, check out our favorite bucket list trips for space and astronomy nerds. For something a little more exciting, an edge-of-space hot air balloon ride is always an option.

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Inside The First-Ever Luxury Space Hotel Thats Set to Open in 2027 - The Manual

Second-in-command on Nasas first simulated Mars mission, 'HI-SEAS', Kate Greene discusses what it takes to be a modern astronaut and why todays right stuff is different from what was required on the Apollo missions of the 20th century.

Theres really nothing normal about six adults making believe they live on another planet, says Kate Greene. Shes reflecting on an experience in which she lived in a geodesic dome, only ventured outside in a fake space suit, bathed with wet wipes, breathed recycled air and never felt real sunlight on her skin for four months.

Green, who is by academic training a laser physicist, is also what she calls an almost-astronaut. The term is self-effacing, used deliberately to maintain a respectful distance between her and real space travellers who have buckled up in the command module on the launch pad. Yet Greene has played a vital role in our understanding of how human spaceflight to Mars might look one day. As an analogue crew member, she lived and worked as a scientist under simulated Martian conditions as part of a Nasa human research programme.

The Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) was a Nasa-funded project that ran for five years from 2013, in six missions to provide scientific insight into astronaut response and adaptation to living on Mars, should we everget there. Greene was second-in-command of a six-member team in the projects first instalment. Its purpose was to collect physiological data on crews during long-duration simulated Mars missions, with a focus on diet and nutrition, she explains, (although there were countless other scientific observations and experiments). Her experiences are recorded in her new book Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars.

Greene, who as well as being a laser physicist is a published poet, became involved in HI-SEAS by answering an open-call advertisement on a whim. Although the project required applicants to have baseline qualifications for astronaut training (which she had), she had no relevant experience, having spent most of her post-academia career as a science journalist. But it turned out the people selecting candidates to be an almost-astronaut found that to be an acceptable characteristic. Looking back on the mission, Greene feels Nasa was looking for a broader spectrum of life experiences. Possibly the reason for that, she ventures, is that while we were going to be under the microscope to a certain extent, we werent going to undergo the relentless scrutiny that most Nasa astronauts are required to go through in justifying whos the best of the best. I think what they were looking for was a diverse crew coming from a variety of backgrounds.

The backgrounds of Greenes five crewmates were in space systems research, engineering, materials science, geology and education outreach. I put it to Greene that this is significantly different from the traditional hero image of space explorers of the 1960s, when astronauts on the Apollo, Gemini and Mercury programmes tended to be all-American, 30-something white men with engineering or military test pilot backgrounds. You can see why, says Greene. Back then, Apollos mission was to get to the Moon, so astronauts were part of the process, part of the engineering. You only had to survive for a few days, so it was all about efficiency. But going to Mars is different. With the round trips potentially taking years, simply tolerating conditions while getting the job done needs to make way for quality of life for the astronauts. Youre going to be away from home for a long time and so youve got to think about things like your mental wellbeing and what youre going to eat.

Four months isolated in a geodesic dome high on the slopes of Hawaiis Mauna Loa volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean might sound (to some at least) like a holiday in paradise. Yet for Greene, this was a far cry from a regular vacation. She recalls arriving a week in advance of the start of the project, following a short practice run at a desert research station in Utah, where we got to know each other a little better as a crew and to figure out what our experiments might be.

During that first week, the crew had team-building conversations about what psychological pressure points were on them in the simulation, or analogue (the preferred astronaut term). They discussed under what sort of circumstances individuals might leave the simulation, clearly one of the major differences between living in the analogue and the real thing. In space, you know the physics of how youre going to die, says Greene, referring to the strict protocols for throwing a fellow astronaut overboard in mission-critical scenarios, with its inevitable fatal outcome.

At this point she reminds me of the second-ever American spacewalk that nearly ended in disaster when in 1965 on the GeminiIV mission Nasa astronaut Gene Cernan experienced difficulties returning to the craft, opening up the possibility of his crewmate Tom Stafford having to close the hatch and return to Earth without him. This episode was to lead to immediate adoption of underwater astronaut training back on Earth, with Cernan being somewhat understandably one of the first to sign up after his botched EVA (extra-vehicular activity).

These first rudimentary pre-mission simulations were to evolve into analogues that would let engineers test equipment and play out scenarios that might arise on expeditions in deep space. But increasingly, these faux space missions are used to probe astronaut psychology and sociology the most unpredictable element in any human expedition to study coping strategies potentially useful on a long journey far away from Earth.

I at no point embraced the fantasy fully. I embraced the restrictions.

Back on Hawaii, the pre-mission fortnight was also spent fiddling with our space suits and getting last minute supplies. Also, since this was the first HI-SEAS mission, there were technical teething problems to overcome, such as finalising electrical systems in the astronaut habitat dome, creating a one-day delay. But once everything was in place, we arrived at night, just as you would on Mars, the idea being that we would go to sleep and when we woke up, wed be on another planet. We arrived by van and entered the dome that smelled a bit like a new car, or maybe a new spaceship smell is more accurate (its the off-gassing of the vinyl technically). A brief discussion with architects and the crew were left to their own devices: We explored our own rooms that we were very excited about, and then went to bed. When we woke up, we spent the first few days organising our food supplies.

When you look at four months food supplies for six people, says Greene, you are confronted with a sight that looks like something youve never seen before. There was just so much of it. After the food was organised, it was simply a question of setting up the mission experiments and running them.

It quickly became a very domestic experience, living communally, eating, cleaning up after yourself and doing your work. The work itself included a lot of food experiments, monitoring how your sense of smell changes with time, or your nasal patency (how much oxygen youre taking in through your nose). Such was the intensity and volume of scientific work during the analogue that at any given point Greene was behind in filling out survey documentation put in place to monitor anything and everything from her reaction to having foot swabs as part of a microbial sample test, to her inner thoughts on what deep space travel meant to her personally. There were so many little tasks to do all the time to keep those science projects running. If you talk to any of the guys on the Space Station, theyll tell you that theyre busy all the time. Everything was about data, says Greene.

However, for all the surface resemblance to a space mission, the HI-SEAS analogue was just that, says Greene a simulation in which she always knew there were never going to be the sort of life-or-death scenarios that could face astronauts at least 30 million miles from home (the exact distance between Earth and Mars varies wildly with time, as they are on different orbits around the Sun). She never found it particularly difficult to accept the idea that she was an almost-astronaut on Mars, where things got pretty normal quite fast, while on the other hand, she admits she never completely bought into the illusion. I always knew I was going back to Earth, she says, a Freudian slip perhaps betraying that the illusion had become more established in her mind than she might initially admit.

When pushed on the issue of whether she actually believed she was no longer on Earth, she says: Controversially, no. I at no point embraced the fantasy fully. I embraced the restrictions. And I felt them. I felt the frustrations of the communication delay and the inability to have a real-time conversation with anyone outside of the simulation. Stripped of electronic devices and social media, our sole regular contact with Earth was through email. Since Mars is extremely far away, and photons can only fly so fast, ouremail transmissions were delayed by 20minutes each way to mimic the actual communication lag to be experienced by Martian explorers.

The closest she got to an off-world experience was in the preparatory mission in Utah, where I let myself relax. I was outside at the time looking at the rocky horizon and I tried to let myself imagine what it must be like to be an astronaut on Mars. The moment I felt most on Mars I was in Utah. But in the same moment, I was right back on Earth. Its a common experience for astronauts to dream of home.

Meanwhile, the repetitive nature of the Martian simulation created the effect of time becoming meaningless: Youd ask yourself if its Wednesday or October. There seemed to be no difference between a day and a month, and I experienced a lot of elasticity of time. I suggest to her that this would have been good mental preparation for the series of Covid-related lockdowns shes experienced in her small apartment in New York. You would think so, she says, but its not the case. Although it might seem oddly prescient to have written a book about the experience of living on Mars that it so outwardly similar to life during the pandemic, it is different. Life in the dome on Hawaii was easier, she says, not least because there was always a detailed action plan. All this, she says waving her hand vaguely at the Big Apple, is kind of mushy. It doesnt make any sense.

Although Greene was occupied in conducting reams of endless scientific data-gathering experiments, the inescapable conclusion is that it was the crew that was the experiment. She is happy to accept that you could see it as being a case that she and her five crewmates were the lab rats under the microscope, with data analysts back on Earth working out what the 21st-

century version of the right stuff would be in terms of long-duration excursions into deep space rather than flag-planting weekend trips to the Moon. I think its important to state that I really did think that I was contributing something to the future of space flight, and potentially this data canbe a part of human space exploration history.

Greene says that because of analogues such as the HI-SEAS programme, the science and engineering community is able to amass plenty of data to design a safer, better mission beyond low-Earth orbit. While she is happy to have played her part in that process, she admits the push to go further into space has left me wondering what assumptions get built into space systems and mission designs, leading her to wonder further what it is that makes us want to go in the first place. What is it exactly that propels us up and out?

She takes a few moments to make the point that much early exploration of our home planet, though often dressed up in the guise of the pursuit of knowledge or scientific discovery, was, as we are now becoming increasingly more aware, rooted in colonialism and subjugation. What kind of remnant legacies and unexamined assumptions thread through todays discussions to colonise Mars? And if there ever is a human mission to Mars, who gets to go? Who decides? Yet she also sees deep space exploration as bringing with it the opportunity to inspire new ways of sustainability for both our lives and our ecosystems back on Earth. What kind of wisdom might launch inside those spaceships? What kind of wisdom might we grow here at home?

One Upon a Time I Lived on Mars is published by Icon Books, 14.99

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'In space, you know the physics of how you're going to die': Kate Greene - E&T Magazine

A Univeristy of New South Wales professor believes that humans will colonise Mars by 2050, but not to the extent that Elon Musk predicts.

Professor Serkan Saydam from UNSW Sydney is of the belief that the minute autonomous mining processes quickly become more commercially viable, there will be humans on Mars well before the end of the 21st century.

With NASAs Perseverance Rover touching down on the red planet in recent times, there is increased interest in humankinds ability to put itself onto Mars, with many anticipating it will come sooner rather than later.

Saydam says that is certainly achievable, but there are many hoops to jump through before we may touch down on the distant planet.

Everything is all about water. You use water as a life support, plus also being able to separate out the hydrogen to use as an energy source, he says in an interview with the university's media arm.

The process for having humans on Mars will be to set up operations, go there and produce water with robots first, and then be able to extract the hydrogen to make the energy ready before people arrive.

Innovation in robotics and autonomous systems are clearly important so that we have the water ready and the hydrogen separated and ready for when human beings land.

At the moment, we dont have the ability to do it. There are significant research efforts, specifically here at UNSW under ACSER (Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research), about the best way to do it, but there is no consensus yet. It also depends on how many people we expect to be living on Mars. Is it five, or 5000, or 50,000, or even more?

Saydam disagrees with the idea that there will be a city on Mars of up to 1 million people within 30 years, which has been coined by entrepreneur Elon Musk, who says he will easily fly over 1000 SpaceX rockets with people, infrastructure and cargo to the red planet.

I believe a colony on Mars is going to happen, but between 2040 and 2050 is more feasible. This could be shortened depending on the technological advances that can reduce the costs or from stronger motivation.

What I think will happen is that first of all we will do these activities on the moon and have a colony there. Then we can use the moon as a petrol station to get to Mars and beyond.

He goes on to say that there must be a monetary benefit involved for companies to invest in products that will fuel the colonisation of Mars.

One issue is that demand is not there. For companies to get involved in developing products (for Mars missions), they need to be able to produce minerals or something that can be used for manufacturing goods and then sell it.

At the moment, everything is just a cost and there is no revenue for companies.

Despite Saydams sentiments, Musk and SpaceX look to push on, with the company looking to fly the first humans to Mars in 2022, with NASA aiming for a launch in 2024.

Although, there is no word yet on how many architects will be needed in order to terraform the Martian landscape.

Image: Wikipedia Commons

Read more here:
Humans on Mars by 2050? We Might Have Liftoff - Architecture and Design

Science fiction epic The Expanse has always been good, but during its fifth and latest season, which aired on Amazon Prime this winter, more people seemed to notice just how good it is. The seriess penultimate season is rated 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics commending the actors strong performances and the showrunners attempt to accurately portray a not-so-distant future in which humans have colonized the Solar System. Based on novels of the same name by James S.A. Corey, the joint pseudonym of authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, The Expanse is singular among recent sci-fi TV for its realism. From the ecological collapse that will push people off of Earth, to space travel (warp drive is a bunch of hooey), to the political dynamics of an interplanetary human society, The Expanse tries to get the details right. And more often than not, it succeeds.

But the shows commitment to accuracy isnt limited to its scientific elements, like its realistic depiction of peoples movements in zero-g, and the series has garnered acclaim for more than just its nuanced representation of our hypothetical sociopolitical future. In season five, The Expanse heavily explores themes of trauma, abuse, and intimate partner violence, and more so than many prestige dramas grappling with these topics, the sci-fi series does them justice.

Season five of The Expanse picks up where season four left offwith asteroids hurtling toward an unsuspecting Earth. Sent by Belter freedom-fighter Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander), three rocks impact the planet, killing millions of people and injuring and displacing millions more. While the governments of Earth, Mars, and the Belt scramble to deal with the fallout from this terrorist attack, smaller-scale dramas unfold across the Solar System. The Rocinante is docked for long-term repairs, and the crew are free to pursue personal missions. Among them are Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) and Amos Burton (Wes Chatham), who, in parallel journeys, revisit their past trauma.

Everybody there is carrying the weight of their history, and some of those histories are terrible.

While viewers are offered glimpses of the two characters backstories in previous seasons of the show, the most recent episodes hold nothing back. In flashback scenes on Earth, the audience meets young Amos, whos taken in by a flawed, but good-intentioned woman after living on the street. Its implied that, in addition to joining a gang to survive, he was forced into sex work as a child, illuminating reasons for Amoss violent tendencies and emotional detachment.

Across the Solar System in the Belt, Naomi searches for Filip (Jasai Chase Owens), the son she was forced to leave, only to be kidnapped by him and reunited with his fatherher abuserMarco and her old comrades. Viewers learn that she was captivated by Marcos charisma and persuaded to join the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA), a radical movement for Belters liberation, when she was young. After giving birth to Filip and growing wary of the OPAs violent tactics, she attempted to leave. In a ploy to keep her from escaping, Marco hid Filip from Naomi, nearly driving her to suicide. Instead, she left, starting life anew. Held captive aboard Marcos ship in the present day, Naomi is once again forced to make the harrowing choice to leave Filip, who has been poisoned against his mother by his father, victimized himself by Marcos emotional abuse.

Sex and culture critic Ella Dawson praises these plotlines in a tweet: Can we talk about #TheExpanse having more than one survivor of sexual violence and abuse as a main character?? In a phone conversation, Abraham and Franck explain that they drew from their personal experienceswith trauma and therapywhen crafting these stories.

I have certainly been in relationships that were not physically, but emotionally abusive, Abraham says. And I spent a lot of time kind of unspooling that, and that informs what I do now.

Franck connects the themes in season five to his childhood in a fundamentalist, conservative religious group, in which isolation and control played large roles. Abraham notes that it was important to them to make clear in The Expanse that while abuse survivors are impacted by the trauma theyve endured, they arent lessened by it. Everybody there is carrying the weight of their history, and some of those histories are terrible.

Speaking to their decision to center abuse survivors in both the novels and on the show, Abraham and Franck also emphasize that, unfortunately, abuse is common. (So common, that allegations of sexual harassment and assault against castmember Cas Anvar necessitated writing the death of his character, Alex Kamal, into the shows season five finale.) According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, in the US, one in four women and one in nine men experience severe intimate partner physical violence. National Childrens Alliance estimates that roughly 700,000 children are abused in America each year. Amos, a white man from Earth, grew up impoverished in Baltimore. Naomi, a Black woman from the Belt, was a successful engineer before meeting Marco. Their backgrounds could not be more different, but as the writers illustrate in this season of The Expanse, trauma is universal.

Yet the show is groundbreaking not simply because it represents trauma, but because that representation is diverse and empathetic. (Abraham and Franck praise the casts performance, noting that much of the stories nuance is owed to them.) Particularly in Naomis case, the showrunners make clear that they understand how isolation and power play roles in abuse.

In an email, Tipper explains she did a lot of research into radicalization to prepare for her portrayal of Naomi in season five. As the leader of an extremist faction of Belters fighting by any means necessary for independence, Marco is what she calls a revolutionary narcissist, and like so many abusers, he is smart and charismaticcapable of winning thousands to his cause. But his nobility and righteousness are what Abraham calls a cloak for his abuse. Throughout season five, the audience sees Filip wrestle with the messages Marco has fed him about Naomi: that shes a bad mother, a deserter, someone whos weak-willed and unable to make hard choices to fight for her people or her family. His manipulation and gaslighting work.

Abraham paraphrases a tweet that likens Marco to men who learn the language of feminism and social justice only to use it to control others and increase their own power. He asserts that just because Marco is the underdog, doesnt mean hes the good guy. He is perfectly capable of taking an absolutely legitimate cause, an absolutely genuine injustice, and riding that in the direction that he wants for greater aggrandizement.

In a devastating scene indicative of the influence Marco wields, he tells Naomi about his plan to lure her chosen family, the crew of the Rocinante, to their deaths using her as bait. She pleads with her former comrade and friend Cyn (Brent Sexton), who failed to stop Marcos abuse in the past and continues to enable him in the present. She hopes to reason with Filip, whom shes tried, but failed to release from his fathers grasp. Her son slaps her. As shes dragged away by guards, she screams at Marco, sobbing, I fucking hate you! I hate you. This is the impetus for her second escape.

Tipper reveals this line was improvised. Naomi really thought she was making some breakthroughs with Filip and Cyn, and it was so brutally snatched away by Marco in that moment, she writes. He had orchestrated this grand spectacle of just how much she had failed and just how much she is not in control. Tipper remembers reading somewhere that your son can be your abuser. The pivotal moment, she writes, is, I think unfortunately, once Filip strikes her, that rings devastatingly true for Naomi, and she knows its time to go.

Viewers first learn Naomi has a son in season two of The Expanse. In a conversation with her crewmate Prax (Terry Chen) who is searching the Solar System for his daughter, she reveals her history and explains it took her a very long time to understand abandoning Filip wasnt her fault. This powerful sentiment is one the show reaffirms over and over again: The choices that survivors make in order to cope are, in Francks words, legitimate.

As viewers see, leaving ones abuser, especially when children are involved, is so much more complicated than simply walking out the door; an abusers pull is powerful.

In both my conversation with Abraham and Franck and my email exchange with Tipper, we discuss the discourse surrounding the question abuse survivors are most often asked: If the situation is so bad, why dont you just leave? In The Expanse, both Naomi and Amos eventually escape their abuse, but as viewers see, leaving ones abuser, especially when children are involved, is so much more complicated than simply walking out the door; an abusers pull is powerful.

I think we always need to remember that often in abusive relationships its not all bad, Tipper asserts. Also there are so many reasons why someone may not leave, whether it be economical or situational or threat of violence/death, and sometimes staying can be the lesser evil. Speaking from his own experience leaving a cult, Franck comments, Its easy from the outside to go, Well, you should just leave. From the inside, youre looking at abandoning what you consider to be the entirety of your life Theres no one way out. Just surviving, no matter what path you choose, is an accomplishment. Thats a victory.

Abraham hopes that The Expanse successfully communicates that in the aftermath of these experiences, however genuinely terrible, there is still the potential for joy. There is still the potential for meaningful work and meaningful friendships and meaningful connections. It doesat the end of season five, both Amos and Naomi are surrounded by the people who love them, buoyed by community.

Historically, hard science fiction has used futuristic settings as backdrops over which to tell human storiesin all their pain and complexity. The Expanse is no exception, and its most recent season is proof that everyones favorite space opera is also one of the best shows about abuse on TV.

The Expanse is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

See the article here:
The Expanse Team Unpacks Its Abuse Storylines in Season 5 - Observer

Elon Musk said in December that hes confident SpaceX will be able to land humans on Mars by 2026. Sadly, there are many obstacles to this ambitious plan, and his dreams of terraforming the Red Planet may not come to fruition in our lifetime.

Here are some of the biggest hurdles:

In 2018, scientists discovered a large source of liquid water almost a mile beneath Mars south polar cap. The lake is 20 kilometers (12.3 miles) wide and contains briny water rich in magnesium, calcium and sodium perchlorate, which keeps it in a liquid state at temperatures of about 200 Kelvin (-73 Celsius).

The reason why this discovery is important is simple: Where theres water, theres life or at least thats how it works on Earth.

To those, including Musk, who hope this water could be used for human consumption, scientists say: Not so fast! They claim that because of the risk of interplanetary contamination, we should not send humans on Mars until we know for sure whether its water contains life or not. We could bring molecules from Earth that could be mistaken for signs of Martian life or, if there is life on the Red Planet, expose it to microbes from Earth.

This would not only make research impossible but could also jeopardize the survival of native microorganisms. Years or even decades of drilling, sample analysis and research need to be undertaken first.

In an earlier tweet and follow-up, Musk said hed like to terraform Mars by bombarding the planets poles with 10,000 nuclear missiles. That would have released trapped carbon dioxide that forms Martian ice caps, thickened the planets atmosphere and increased temperatures.

That plan was short-lived.

The study published not long after the tweet showed that there is not enough CO2 remaining on Mars to provide significant greenhouse warming were the gas to be emplaced into the atmosphere; in addition, most of the CO2 gas in these reservoirs is not accessible and thus cannot be readily mobilized. As a result, we conclude that terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology.

Engineer and problem solver that he is, Musk came up with another solution: living in glass domes. (Musk runs SpaceX as well as electric-car maker Tesla TSLA, +2.05%. ) In a tweet in which he detailed this plan, he also said that [t]erraforming will be too slow to be relevant in our lifetime. However, we can establish a human base there in our lifetime. At least a future spacefaring civilization discovering our ruins will be impressed humans got that far.

This sci-fi city under the dome would need to be self-reliant and independent from Earth ships bringing in supplies. To this end, Musk said the colony would need to have 1 million inhabitants and transfer 1 million tons of cargo from Earth. If we take into account that SpaceXs Starship can carry up to 100 people and 150 tons of cargo, it would need to make more than 6,600 roundtrips to transfer all of it. Although this number would significantly decrease at some point due to growth of the colony population and colonists producing their own goods, it is still painfully obvious that Musk will need a bigger ship.

All these problems make the colonization of Mars a scientific and engineering nightmare of gargantuan proportions. However, there is an even greater issue: The economic viability of such a colony, should it ever be established.

John Hickman, a professor of political science at Berry College in Georgia, said in a piece titled The Economic Flaws in Elon Musks Mars Colonization Plans that a colony on Mars would have one huge disadvantage over those on Earth: the lack of a physical commodity worth exporting.

This is a big problem because history has shown that only colonies capable of producing a profitable export commodity manage to survive. These goods are used to kickstart an economic exchange with the mainland, including an influx of migrants eager to start a new life in the new world.

Since Martian products would not be able to compete with Earth-produced goods, the colony would not be able to establish this kind of exchange, which would also dispel any appeal of emigration. The rich, influential and successful a driving force behind every successful colony would not be enticed to move to Mars.

The inability to transfer existing material goods to another place, paired with a small Martian population and incompatible currencies, would cause their wealth and influence to take a substantial hit.

Finally, due to a crippling latency (3 hours and 22 minutes of signal lag), it would be hard for Martians to do business with Earthlings.

Musk has been criticized for his claims, and many colleagues of mine have written scorching pieces without considering that he isnt a scientist but an engineer and a problem solver. He reacts on scientific findings and adjusts his goals and trajectories. Even though these obstacles may seem insurmountable, I am certain Musk already has a plan to work around, or over, them.

I have reached out to him for comment, and if he responds, Ill be happy to update this piece.

Until then, the Red Planet awaits. Let us hope it wont wait for too long.

Read more:
If Elon Musk makes it to Mars, then what? These are the hurdles for humans who wish to live on the Red Planet - MarketWatch