Category Archives: Mars Colonization

Tuesday October 14, 2014 08:02 PM

By Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times (MCT)

A team of engineers at MIT that studies the technology needed for humans to live on other planets has determined that the Mars One plan to send four people to colonize the Red Planet by 2025 is not possible.

The claim they make is that no new technology is required for their mission, said Syndey Do, a doctoral candidate in aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the lead author of the study. Our numbers show that is not feasible.

Mars One is a nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands that has boldly promised the world to send four people on a one-way trip to Mars by 2024, with an additional four people arriving every two years.

To finance the mission, the Mars One team has proposed a reality TV show in which 40 aspiring astronauts from around the world would compete to be the first people to settle on Mars.

The MIT team was already at work on building what they call a settlement-analysis tool (its a computer model) that would help them understand what was needed for humanity to live on another planet. After chatting about the Mars One project in their office one day, they decided to use their tool to see whether the Mars One plan had legs.

Their results are published in a 35-page report on the MIT website.

It was a really good intellectual exercise for us, Do said. And it tested some of the modeling capabilities that weve been trying to develop.

To test the feasibility of Mars Ones plan to have colonizers grow all their food, the team built a simulated Martian habitat, put in data on how crops grow in space and then put in ideal growth conditions. Even with those ideal conditions, the Mars One would need an area four times larger than the one it had planned, they said.

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Is Mars One ready to colonize the Red Planet? MIT engineers say no

NASA Mars Journey Colonization Planned - No Return!
NASA Mars Journey Colonization Planned - No Return! Peter Brooks Personal Trainer Supreme Lifestyle.

By: Peter Brooks

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NASA Mars Journey & Colonization Planned - No Return! - Video

Frankly, the Military Industrial Complex should become a Mars Colonization Project

By: Frank Barish

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Frankly, the Military Industrial Complex should become a Mars Colonization Project - Video

October 6, 2014

Image Credit: SpaceWorks Enterprises

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Your Universe Online

Science fiction has long used the idea of placing astronauts in a state of suspended animation, and yet, as fantastic as that idea sounds it could increase the efficiency of a mission significantly by eliminating large amounts of food, water, clothing, and exercise equipment.

In July 2013, NASA announced the backing of a study by SpaceWorks Enterprises in Atlanta for investigating long-term hibernation for use on a future mission to Mars dubbed the Torpor Inducing Transfer Habitat For Human Stasis To Mars.

Therapeutic torpor has been around in theory since the 1980s and really since 2003 has been a staple for critical care trauma patients in hospitals, Mark Schaffer, an engineer with SpaceWorks, said at the International Astronomical Congress in Toronto last week according to Irene Klotz of Discovery News. Protocols exist in most major medical centers for inducing therapeutic hypothermia on patients to essentially keep them alive until they can get the kind of treatment that they need.

We havent had the need to keep someone in (therapeutic torpor) for longer than seven days, Schaffer added. For human Mars missions, we need to push that to 90 days, 180 days. Those are the types of mission flight times were talking about.

The system proposed by SpaceWorks would lower an astronauts core body temperature by about 10 degrees F, which would place the astronaut in a state of hypothermia and achieve a 50- to 70-percent drop in metabolic rate. Reduction of body temperature would be achieved by either non-invasive pads or ambient temperature reduction according to a SpaceWorks infographic provided by NASA.

Image Above Credit: SpaceWorks (Download full size image here)

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Space Hibernation May Help Astronauts On Their Journey To Mars

The SpaceX founder hopes to put humans on Mars in the mid-2020s, but that's just the first tiny baby step toward creating his vision of a Martian metropolis.

This guy wants to send a million of us to Mars in the next century. Tim Stevens/CNET

We've been hearing from real-life Tony Stark inspiration Elon Musk about his hopes for sending humans to Mars for a few years now. But in a new interview, the SpaceX founder shares a vision that's far more grandiose than building a small base on the fourth rock from the sun. He envisions a Martian metropolis up and running within a century.

Previously, Musk has told journalists that manned missions to the Red Planet could be possible as soon as the mid-2020s, a pretty optimistic timeline when you consider that NASA is targeting the mid-2030s for such a mission and it took about a decade just for SpaceX to get to the space station for the first time. But in a fascinating conversation with Aeon Magazine, Musk dismisses such notions of pessimism (or realism, depending on your perspective and how many billions you have at your disposal).

"SpaceX is only 12 years old now," he said. "Between now and 2040, the company's lifespan will have tripled. If we have linear improvement in technology, as opposed to logarithmic, then we should have a significant base on Mars, perhaps with thousands or tens of thousands of people."

Musk says that first wave of settlers will have to pay their own way, probably to the tune of about a half million dollars each -- a migration he likens to those who saved up to pay for the treacherous voyage to the American colonies centuries ago.

Of course, the first few decades of attempted colonization of America's eastern shores were disastrous, as colonies were unable to support themselves in a foreign and unfamiliar land, but at least Jamestown and Plymouth had oxygen and water aplenty. What would it take to ensure a colony on another planet is both successful and sustainable?

Musk's answer is a bit of a stunner: He says it would take a million colonists. Even more mind-bending is the fact that, according to Musk's math, creating a city on Mars with more inhabitants than Austin, Texas, is achievable within a century's time.

He estimates that getting all those people and the cargo to support them to Mars would require "100,000 trips of a giant spaceship" from Earth. The rumor is that Musk is working on just such a colonial transport ship, and working out the logistics for such grand ambitions is built into the DNA of SpaceX, which is all about driving down the cost of space travel through reusable rocket technologies like the Grasshopper.

Not surprisingly, Musk's vision extends beyond Mars to other parts of the solar system. He imagines colonies on asteroids and on the more "welcoming" moons of Saturn and Jupiter, all centered around a new space economy that fosters our new multi-planet existence. The first step to achieving this in Musk's mind is to create a new Earth-to-Mars economy.

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Elon Musk thinks you could travel to Mars really soon

It's time to move beyond this pale blue dot to begin our multi-planetary colonization. That's one of the reasons Elon Musk started SpaceX. And in an interview with Aeon, he put a really fine point on his plans to explore the known universe.

"Fuck Earth! Who cares about Earth?" is how the piece starts out. Obviously, Elon does, or else he wouldn't have co-founded Tesla and worked so hard on SolarCity. But his point veiled in laughter is sound.

I think there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multi-planetary. In order to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen, in which case being poor or having a disease would be irrelevant, because humanity would be extinct. It would be like, 'Good news, the problems of poverty and disease have been solved, but the bad news is there aren't any humans left.'

And as always, it start with Mars:

If we can establish a Mars colony, we can almost certainly colonise the whole Solar System, because we'll have created a strong economic forcing function for the improvement of space travel. We'll go to the moons of Jupiter, at least some of the outer ones for sure, and probably Titan on Saturn, and the asteroids. Once we have that forcing function, and an Earth-to-Mars economy, we'll cover the whole Solar System. But the key is that we have to make the Mars thing work. If we're going to have any chance of sending stuff to other star systems, we need to be laser-focused on becoming a multi-planet civilisation. That's the next step.

The Aeon piece is well worth the read. Check it out by clicking these oddly colored words.

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This Is The Best Elon Musk Quote Yet

Sep 30, 2014 by Bob Yirka The Land of the Long White Cloud. Credit: Associate Professor Ian Goodwin

(Phys.org) Two teams of researchers describe new developments in understanding early Polynesian migration. One group suggests early Polynesians may have been able to make their way southwest to New Zealand and northeast to Easter Island because of a temporary shift in wind patterns. Another group describes a sophisticated voyaging canoe found recently in New Zealand that appears to have Polynesian origins. Both groups have published papers describing their research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists agree that early Polynesians were able to migrate across vast stretches of ocean in canoes, what has been a cause of curiosity, however, was how they managed to make their way to places that would have entailed sailing into the wind. In one of the studies, a team from Australia suggests that for a small window of time, the prevailing winds in the area around Polynesia would have shifted, allowing relatively easy passage to places that before were unreachable. They looked at ice cores, tree rings, stalagmites, and even sediments from across the region and used what they found to create a computer model to mimic conditions from the 800s to the 1600s. When running the simulation, the researchers found evidence of a change in prevailing winds for short, decades-long periods. During some of these periods, the prevailing winds would have shifted east, allowing migration to Easter Island, during others the winds would have shifted southwest, allowing travel to New Zealand. After 1300, the simulations show, the prevailing winds shifted back to their current direction, preventing further migration to such places.

Researchers in the other study describe wood fragments from a canoe found on a shore in New Zealand (high winds removed the sand that was covering it)they've dated its last use to approximately 1400. They've also found the wood it was made from is native to New Zealand, but not Polynesia. But, they've also found an etched sea turtle image on it, a creature not normally found in New Zealand art. Sea turtles are featured prominently in Polynesia art, however, and the boat is also similar in design to another boat from the same time period found in the Society Islands, suggesting a Polynesian connection. The researchers believe the boat was approximately 20 meters long and was either double-hulled or had an outrigger, which would have allowed for the addition of a shelter.

Taken together the papers suggest that early Polynesians built sophisticated canoes and used them to sail to new places in the Pacific when prevailing winds shifted allowing them to do so.

Explore further: Chicken bones tell true story of Pacific migration

More information: 1. An early sophisticated East Polynesian voyaging canoe discovered on New Zealand's coast, Dilys A. Johns, PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1408491111

Abstract The colonization of the islands of East Polynesia was a remarkable episode in the history of human migration and seafaring. We report on an ocean-sailing canoe dating from close to that time. A large section of a complex composite canoe was discovered recently at Anaweka on the New Zealand coast. The canoe dates to approximately A.D. 1400 and was contemporary with continuing interisland voyaging. It was built in New Zealand as an early adaptation to a new environment, and a sea turtle carved on its hull makes symbolic connections with wider Polynesian culture and art. We describe the find and identify and radiocarbon date the construction materials. We present a reconstruction of the whole canoe and compare it to another early canoe previously discovered in the Society Islands.

2. Climate windows for Polynesian voyaging to New Zealand, Ian D. Goodwin, PNASdoi: 10.1073/pnas.1408918111

Abstract Debate about initial human migration across the immense area of East Polynesia has focused upon seafaring technology, both of navigation and canoe capabilities, while temporal variation in sailing conditions, notably through climate change, has received less attention. One model of Polynesian voyaging observes that as tradewind easterlies are currently dominant in the central Pacific, prehistoric colonization canoes voyaging eastward to and through central East Polynesia (CEP: Society, Tuamotu, Marquesas, Gambier, Southern Cook, and Austral Islands) and to Easter Island probably had a windward capacity. Similar arguments have been applied to voyaging from CEP to New Zealand against prevailing westerlies. An alternative view is that migration required reliable off-wind sailing routes. We investigate the marine climate and potential voyaging routes during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), A.D. 8001300, when the initial colonization of CEP and New Zealand occurred. Paleoclimate data assimilation is used to reconstruct Pacific sea level pressure and wind field patterns at bidecadal resolution during the MCA. We argue here that changing wind field patterns associated with the MCA provided conditions in which voyaging to and from the most isolated East Polynesian islands, New Zealand, and Easter Island was readily possible by off-wind sailing. The intensification and poleward expansion of the Pacific subtropical anticyclone culminating in A.D. 11401260 opened an anomalous climate window for off-wind sailing routes to New Zealand from the Southern Austral Islands, the Southern Cook Islands, and Tonga/Fiji Islands.

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Researchers find possible explanation of early Polynesian migration

SPIKE TV PARTNERS WITH VINCE GERARDIS TO DEVELOP ORIGINAL SCRIPTED SERIES "RED MARS"

Series Based On Kim Stanley Robinson's International Best-Selling Mars Trilogy

New York, NY, September 24, 2014 - Spike TV and Vince Gerardis, Co-Executive Producer of HBO's "Game of Thrones," have partnered to develop an original scripted series to be based on Kim Stanley Robinson's expansive MARS TRILOGY, his series of novels about the colonization and transformation of Mars. A recipient of the prestigious Nebula and Hugo awards, Robinson's novels are widely regarded as the best books written on the subject, and a holy grail for science fiction fans.

The Spike series, "Red Mars," will focus on the core question at the heart of the novels - what is it to be human when we are no longer of earth? Are we not then Martians?

NASA has made going to Mars the organizing principal of all their programs. Several private corporations too are establishing footholds in the race to the red planet, as evident in daily news stories.

"This series shines a light onto many views of what it means to be human - and asks if can we sustain our humanity under incredible duress," said Sharon Levy, Executive Vice President, Original Series, Spike TV. "We are thrilled to partner with such an accomplished producer as Vince Gerardis to tell this incredible and thought-provoking story."

"There are many homes for large canvas television these days. It inspires me that Sharon has offered her network as home for this and provided a canvas for me to bring the world created in these books to the screen," said Gerardis.

In addition to "Game of Thrones," Gerardis' television resume includes Executive Producer on ABC's "FlashForward."

New York Times best-selling author Kim Stanley Robinson has previously served as member of The Mars Society and was noted by Time Magazine as "Hero of the Environment." He was an early advocate on key global initiatives including climate change and other environmental issues, is an honorary member of the Association of Mars Explorers. He will consult on the series.

Sharon Levy, Executive Vice President, Original Series, Spike TV, Ted Gold, Senior Vice President, Scripted Original Series, and Justin Lacob, Vice President, Original Series, will oversee the project.

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Spike TV Partners with Vince Gerardis to Develop Original Scripted Series "Red Mars"

A million dollars will not buy happiness. Neither will $10 million or $100 million. I understand you'd like to find that out for yourself, by having a rich person hand you a boatload of cash, instead of having to watch that same person flail away at existence by buying Porsches, living in big houses, engaging in punitive litigation, marrying a new surgically enhanced spouse every 10 years and watching grandchildren spend their allowances on crystal meth.

You say if Bill Gates gave you a big boat stuffed with $100 bills, your grandchildren wouldn't end up as meth addicts. You'd still vote for Democrats. You'd fund Ebola research and send poor but deserving students to college. You'd continue to live in your modest rental, and--with apologies to the Barenaked Ladies--would still eat Kraft Dinners (but more of them). You'd start up solar start-ups. You'd fund Mars colonization feasibility experiments. You'd become an Alzheimer's respite worker. You'd improve the world, even if you had to drive a Prius.

But the sad stories of recent lottery winners indicate you wouldn't do any of those things. A million dollars has a life and a momentum of its own, just like meth has a life and momentum of its own. In money's case, that momentum is toward stress-filled lives short on intimacy, compassion and authenticity--and long on Ayn Rand politics and shopping.

Ten million dollars allows for less intimacy, less compassion and less authenticity than a million. More Ayn Rand and more shopping, though. A hundred million? You have to pay for friendship. You even have to pay people to experience life for you. You have to pay people to run your foundation. They screw things up and you have to cut short your annual six weeks in Bali--saying goodbye to your new, surgically enhanced Australian friend--to come home and fix things, along with some awkward stuff involving your broker and those stock tips he shouldn't have even told you about.

Full disclosure: I used to work in Sun Valley, a known hangout for folks with millions of dollars. While still in high school, I worked as a ski patrolman on Bald Mountain for $6.50 a day, tobogganing the wounded wealthy to ambulances at the bottom of the mountain. I began my teaching career at the Community School in Ketchum, where some of my 14-year-old students had cars that cost twice my annual salary.

The rich people I met spent their lives in a weird, artificial existence. Measuring their worth as parents by the value of the new car they bought their 14-year-old was only the weirdest symptom of that weirdness. Their wealth insulated them from family and friendship. They ruined their health by eating and drinking too much when they weren't following nutritional regimes that promised a bright anorexic immortality. They bought stuff and more stuff when antidepressants would have worked every bit as well.

It turns out that buying stuff wrecks your happiness, mainly because the Second Law of Thermodynamics--entropy--gets a good workout the morning after a shopping binge. Clothes don't show as well in the bedroom as in the store, and neither do you. The Porsche gets keyed in the parking garage, or a beggar points at it at a red light and you have to pretend to be texting. The only space to store your never-used camping gear is in the garage between the Bowflex and the rowing machine, items you moved from your home office months ago because they were acquiring a dusty coat of guilt.

The gulf between what money promises and what it delivers accounts for the astonishing viciousness endemic among billionaires.

The solution isn't earth-shattering: you need just enough money to avoid the cruel and ugly authenticities of poverty, which are dead-end minimum-wage jobs, unpayable college loans, medical bills that wipe out major food groups, multiple deployments to Iraq, clothes-on-the-sidewalk evictions and so on.

When I taught liberal arts, I asked students for essays describing the true face of happiness. It was a depressing exercise. Almost all of my students mentioned a million dollars. They also brought up authenticity. "I want an authentic, rich life," they wrote. "On my own island, with a big house, a riding arena, a helicopter and a dance studio. I also want to write novels about the human condition."

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If You Had $1 Million

Was Mars now a cold, dry place once a warm, wet planet that sustained life? And if so, how long has it been cold and dry?

Research underway at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory may one day answer those questions and perhaps even help pave the way for future colonization of the Red Planet. By analyzing the chemical clues locked inside an ancient Martian meteorite known as Black Beauty, Florida State University Professor Munir Humayun and an international research team are revealing the story of Mars ancient, and sometimes startling, climate history.

The teams most recent finding of a dramatic climate change appeared in Nature Geoscience, in the paper Record of the ancient Martian hydrosphere and atmosphere preserved in zircon from a Martian meteorite.

The scientists found evidence for the climate shift in minerals called zircons embedded inside the dark, glossy meteorite. Zircons, which are also abundant in the Earths crust, form when lava cools. Among their intriguing properties, Humayun says, is that they stick around forever.

When you find a zircon, its like finding a watch, Humayun said. A zircon begins keeping track of time from the moment its born.

Last year, Humayuns team correctly determined that the zircons in its Black Beauty sample were an astonishing 4.4 billion years old. That means, Humayun says, it formed during the Red Planets infancy and during a time when the planet might have been able to sustain life.

First we learned that, about 4.5 billion years ago, water was more abundant on Mars, and now weve learned that something dramatically changed that, said Humayun, a professor of geochemistry. Now we can conclude that the conditions that we see today on Mars, this dry Martian desert, must have persisted for at least the past 1.7 billion years. We know now that Mars has been dry for a very long time.

The secret to Mars climate lies in the fact that zircons (ZrSiO4) contain oxygen, an element with three isotopes. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons sort of like members of a family who share the same last name but have different first names.

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Scientist Uncovers Mars' Climate History In Unique Meteorite