Category Archives: Mars Colonization

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

27-Aug-2014

Contact: Munir Humayun Humayun@magnet.fsu.edu 850-544-5740 Florida State University

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. 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 team's 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 Earth's crust, form when lava cools. Among their intriguing properties, Humayun says, is that "they stick around forever."

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

Last year, Humayun's 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 Planet's 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 we've 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."

Read the original:
Scientist uncovers red planet's climate history in unique meteorite

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 team's 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 Earth's crust, form when lava cools. Among their intriguing properties, Humayun says, is that "they stick around forever."

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

Last year, Humayun's 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 Planet's 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 we've 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.

On Mars, oxygen is distributed in the atmosphere (as carbon dioxide, molecular oxygen and ozone), in the hydrosphere (as water) and in rocks. In the thin, dry Martian atmosphere, the sun's ultraviolet light causes unique shifts in the proportions in which the three isotopes of oxygen occur in the different atmospheric gases.

So when water vapor that has cycled through the Martian atmosphere condenses into the Martian soil, it can interact with and exchange oxygen isotopes with zircons in the soil, effectively writing a climate record into the rocks. A warm, wet Mars requires a dense atmosphere that filters out the ultraviolet light making the unique isotope shifts disappear.

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Red Planet's Climate History uncovered in Unique Meteorite

Mars Colonization By: Alexis Anna

By: Alexis Headding

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Mars Colonization By: Alexis & Anna - Video

Girlfriend or Red Planet? #39;Mars One #39; hopefuls on hard choice
As the ambitious crowd-funded project #39;Mars One #39; narrowed down the candidates for the first Mars colonization to just 705, RT asked two possible trailblazers, why they are so determined to...

By: Arthur Elisha

See original here:
Girlfriend or Red Planet? 'Mars One' hopefuls on hard choice - Video

BARRINGTON Working 9 to 5 isnt for everyone.

Kendra Christie answers the phone at her dads Shelburne County salvage yard but pines for life in a bubble, living and working on Mars as part of a colonization team.

An existence on the red planet is now closer than ever for Christie, 29, who learned she had made the shortlist for an international space project that wants to send astronauts on a one-way trip to Mars.

She said people who know her understand why she would chuck an earthly existence for a Martian one.

Ive been like this my whole life. Ive always been a space nut.

When I get into something I get really into it, Christie said Monday.

Earlier this month, Christie learned by email that shed been shortlisted for the mission by Mars One, a non-profit organization headquartered in the Netherlands.

From 200,000 applications worldwide, she is now one of 54 Canadians, including two other Nova Scotian contenders, aiming to be part of a colonization drive by 2025, according to Mars One. The other Nova Scotians are Tyler Reyno of Lower Sackville and a woman identified as Jacqueline from Halifax.

I honestly dont think its sunk in yet, Christie said.

You had to be 18 to apply. I think theres an 81-year-old still in the running.

More here:
Nova Scotia woman prepared for final frontier

Mars is the focus of much speculation and serious study about possible human colonization. Its surface conditions and the availability of water make it arguably the most hospitable of the planets in this solar system, other than Earth. The Moon has been proposed as the first location for human colonization, but unlike Earth's moon, Mars has the potential capacity to host human and other organic life. With an environment suitable for colonization, and potential for alteration into a stable ecosystem in the far future, Mars is considered by most scientists, including Stephen Hawking, as the ideal planet for future colonization and renewal of life. The colonization of Mars is a thought-provoking subject that captures the imagination of many people in science and science-fiction. The project of colonizing Mars provides a useful thought experiment for contemplating the future of humanity. Cities, bases and even biosphere bubbles can be established before terraforming Mars.

Some groups have speculated that Mars might one day be transformed so as to allow a wide variety of living things, including humans, to survive unaided on Mars' surface. Others make a variety of objections to doing so, some relating to technical feasibility, and others to desirability.

Link:
Colonization of Mars - Space Colonization Wiki

On Monday, the Mars One Project announced that its group of 1,058 finalists for a one-way trip to Mars has been whittled down to 705, based on the results of medical examinations and on personal decisions to drop out of the pool.

Last month when I wrote about Mars One's aim to establish a human colony on the red planet by around 2025, I learned a lot through comments left here at 13.7 and through emails and Twitter updates sent to me directly about two divergent channels of thought regarding this goal. Finalists and their supporters are excited about the mission, believing it key to the future health of our species; skeptics and detractors say it will never come about because the technological know-how and funding required are beyond the means of this organization.

I have no idea if Mars One will succeed in setting up habitable colonies on Mars in the next decade or so.

Or, for that matter, if NASA's plan to land humans on Mars sometime in the 2030s and bring them home again, honed by practice on an asteroid will succeed, though I hope so! (NASA's Mars Exploration Program website is a fun fount of news and views on this project.)

But as an anthropologist, I do know that the questions at the heart of this sort of enterprise go much further than the ones I took up last time, concerning the psychological and social tendencies of Mars One applicants.

What will it mean for us to start over on a new planetary home? What aspects of human societies, continuously developing and changing since our species first evolved 200,000 years ago, will we replicate on Mars? Which will we alter?

Perhaps the central question, from an anthropological perspective, is one of power: How will men and women representing so many different cultural, ethnic and religious traditions work out issues of decision-making?

Mars One project leaders have given thought to this matter. They write:

"Early on, because the settlement will be very small, it is likely that most decisions will be collective and require unanimity. As the community grows it will become necessary to develop more complex systems for managing conflict and maintaining effective ways to make decisions. Mars One will provide training and a database of knowledge about human social organization to assist in that process as the settlement grows."

[Specifically, the Mars travelers] "will expand their knowledge on different forms of social organization on Earth, and how cultures vary in terms of determining issues of social structure (e.g. social hierarchy, distribution of power, approaches to decision-making, kinship structure, and management of resources)."

More here:
Mars Offers Humanity A Do-Over

Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to touch down on the Red Planet in 2021.

Plant life may touch down on Mars in 2021.

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Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on the Red Planet in early 2021. The investigation, known as the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX), could help lay the foundation for thecolonization of Mars, its designers say.

"In order to do a long-term, sustainable base on Mars, you would want to be able to establish that plants can at least grow on Mars," MPX deputy principal investigator Heather Smith, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, said April 24 at the Humans 2 Mars conference in Washington, D.C. "This would be the first step in that we just send the seeds there and watch them grow." [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]

The MPX team led by fellow Ames scientist Chris McKay isn't suggesting that the2020 Mars rovershould play gardener, digging a hole with its robotic arm and planting seeds in the Red Planet's dirt. Rather, the experiment would be entirely self-contained, eliminating the chance that Earth life could escape and perhaps get a foothold on Mars.

MPX would employ a clear "CubeSat" box the case for a cheap and tiny satellite which would be affixed to the exterior of the 2020 rover. This box would hold Earth air and about 200 seeds ofArabidopsis, a small flowering plant that's commonly used in scientific research.

The seeds would receive water when the rover touched down on Mars, and would then be allowed to grow for two weeks or so.

"In 15 days, we'll have a little greenhouse on Mars," Smith said.

Continued here:
A greenhouse on Mars? Scientists propose plant experiment for next rover.

Several hundred would-be Mars colonists have just had their hopes and dreams dashed.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which aims to establish a Red Planet settlement beginning in 2025, announced Monday (May 5) that it had sliced its pool of potential colonists from 1,058 down to 705. The remaining astronaut candidates now advance to an interview round with Mars One's selection committee.

"Were incredibly excited to start the next phase of Round 2, where we begin to better understand our candidates who aspire to take such a daring trip," Mars One chief medical officer Norbert Kraft said in a statement. "They will have to show their knowledge, intelligence, adaptability and personality." [Images of Mars One's Red Planet Colony Project]

The Dutch nonprofit Mars One aims to land four colonists on the Red Planet in 2023. Do you want to be one of them?

The 353 people who didn't make it were eliminated for personal or medical reasons, Mars One representatives said. The 418 men and 287 women who survived this latest cut come from all over the world, with 313 hailing from the Americas, 187 from Europe, 136 from Asia, 41 from Africa and 28 from Oceania.

Mars One plans to launch its first crew of four Mars colonists in 2024, with touchdown on the Red Planet coming in 2025. Additional crews will blast off in two-year increments thereafter, gradually building up the off-world settlement. At the moment, there are no plans to bring these pioneers back to Earth.

The organization will mount several unmanned Mars missions in the next decade to demonstrate technologies and prepare for the arrival of people. For example, it aims to launch a robotic lander and orbiter in 2018, a scouting rover in 2020 and six cargo missions in 2022.

Mars One plans to pay for all this by organizing a global media event around the Mars colonization effort, from astronaut selection through the settlers' time on the Red Planet. It's already negotiating with media companies about showing Round 2 of the selection process on TV, representatives said.

"Once the television deal is finalized and the interviews begin, the stories of the 705 aspiring Martians will be shared with the world," Mars One said in a press release Monday.

More than 200,000 people applied to become Mars One astronauts. In December, the organization slashed this pool down to 1,058 candidates.

See the rest here:
Private Mars One Colony Project: 705 Astronaut Candidates Pass Latest Cut

Plant life may touch down on Mars in 2021.

Researchers have proposed putting a plant-growth experiment on NASA's next Mars rover, which is scheduled to launch in mid-2020 and land on the Red Planet in early 2021. The investigation, known as the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX), could help lay the foundation for the colonization of Mars, its designers say.

A rendition of the proposed location of the Mars Plant Experiment (MPX) on top of a Curiosity rover image. MPX would be affixed to NASA's next Mars rover, which is due to launch in 2020.

"In order to do a long-term, sustainable base on Mars, you would want to be able to establish that plants can at least grow on Mars," MPX deputy principal investigator Heather Smith, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, said April 24 at the Humans 2 Mars conference in Washington, D.C. "This would be the first step in that we just send the seeds there and watch them grow." [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]

The MPX team led by fellow Ames scientist Chris McKay isn't suggesting that the 2020 Mars rover should play gardener, digging a hole with its robotic arm and planting seeds in the Red Planet's dirt. Rather, the experiment would be entirely self-contained, eliminating the chance that Earth life could escape and perhaps get a foothold on Mars.

MPX would employ a clear "CubeSat" box the case for a cheap and tiny satellite which would be affixed to the exterior of the 2020 rover. This box would hold Earth air and about 200 seeds of Arabidopsis, a small flowering plant that's commonly used in scientific research.

The seeds would receive water when the rover touched down on Mars, and would then be allowed to grow for two weeks or so.

"In 15 days, we'll have a little greenhouse on Mars," Smith said.

MPX would provide an organism-level test of the Mars environment, showing how Earth life deals with the Red Planet's relatively high radiation levels and low gravity, which is about 40 percent as strong as that of Earth, she added.

"We would go from this simple experiment to the greenhouses on Mars for a sustainable base," Smith said. "That would be the goal."

Excerpt from:
Plant Life on Mars? NASA May Send Up Greenhouse in 2021