Category Archives: Moon Colonization

About 100 years ago, when countries began considering the whole cosmos legal territory, the rules seemed simple. In 1919, an international law provision extended state air rights vertically, all the way to outer space, and that sufficed for a while.

Today, international space law is much more developed. But its preoccupied with state actors, so rules mostly address national governments. Commercial space enterprise and its regulation are not at all sorted, and companies may start exploiting cosmic resources that belong to all before a global agreement is reached.

Whats more, the line between state and private space interests could become fine. For example, the US space agency NASA announced on May 1 that its seeking information from American commercial space transportation companies for travel to the lunar surface in 2018 and the decade to come.

On April 27, the US Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness held a hearing attended by space company chiefs, including Robert Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, maker of space habitations. He urged lawmakers to limit regulation so as to speed up commercialization and colonization. Meanwhile, Texas senator Ted Cruz, chairman of the subcommittee on space, advised attendees that America must expand commerce and ultimately settlement into space. And we must do it first.

When the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik I into low Earth orbit in 1957, it crossed US air territory, violating the 1919 law, but Americans accepted the transgression, intending to commit similar violations soon enough. So began the Space Race and global hustle to codify a law worth following.

A decade later, the founding principles of space law, still elaborated upon today, were created. The 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (aka the Outer Space Treaty) is a heartening read for any citizen of the Planet Earth.

It provides that space is open to all states and may be used and explored solely for the benefit and interest of all humanity. Its not subject to national appropriation. Also niceno weapons of mass destruction are permitted in space. The Moon and other celestial bodies must be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, and nations are to avoid harmful contamination of the cosmic environment.

Under the accord, each state is responsible for national activities in outer space, whether carried on by governmental or non-governmental entities. States retain jurisdiction and control over their space objects and personnel on them, and are liable for damages they cause. Each must supervise and authorize anyone acting in outer space.

Commercial space activity is easy to regulate in theory, based on the 1967 treaty. Each state is responsible for its people and anything it places in space, which arguably extends to any corporations it authorizes to operate there. Sounds simple enough. But remember 1919 and the extension of air rights; its not going to be simple and laws may be broken before suitable agreements are reached.

Humans traditionally move around in pursuit of profit, which drives much exploration. Yet space belongs to all, according to 1967 international law, and its exploitation for private gain isnt sanctioned even if the likelihood thats going to happen is widely recognized.

There have been many attempts to reach agreement on cosmic resources, among them, the 1979 Moon Agreement. It is international law and reiterates that space is common property, attempting to further address exploitation of natural resources, the environment, and scientific exploration in recognition of future commercialization efforts. But it was rejected by some nations, including the US, as too restrictive. Unlike the 1967 treaty, the small group of signatories struggled long and hard (pdf) over terms that ultimately read like benign reminders to keep the common good in mind.

Not a party to the 1979 treaty, the US may pull a Sputnik of sorts and just go for it, sanctioning space exploitation in violation of that international agreement. In 2015, US president Barack Obama signed the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which allows Americans to own and sell space resources, including minerals and water. How the law is implemented will determine whether American companies end up violating international accords, and many details have yet to be addressed. The US can argue that its law doesnt violate the definition of use of space in the 1967 treaty and others will argue otherwise. These matters arent finally decided for now.

Alexander Soucek, head of legal services at the 22-nation European Space Agency, says the act is at the very least very controversial. It may even be an outright violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treatys prohibition on national appropriation. In any case, it sets precedent and perhaps encourages other countries to go rogue.

Of course, companies banking on making money in the multiverse someday are pleased by these developments. One of them is Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining concern whose motto is, Our vision is to expand the economy into space. Co-founder, Eric Anderson told Tech World News that US plans to allow citizens to exploit space is the single greatest recognition of property rights in history.

He must have just spaced on those other agreements granting humanity the Moon and all celestial bodies.

Read more from the original source:
You are part owner of the Moon and stars, by law. No joke. - Quartz

Many years ago, when I first went to college, I joined two off-campus organizations, both of which were dedicated to getting people living and working in outer space.

I saw expansion into space as the solution to many of the worlds biggest problems, including energy shortages, overpopulation and world hunger to name a few, and I could see myself actually doing it, going off and living or working in a space colony somewhere between Earth and the moon more specifically at L5, a point in space that is always in the same spot relative to Earth and the moon.

I became somewhat of a disciple of physicist Gerard ONeill, and his cylinder design, to the point I could explain its key features and concepts to others, including mirrors, farming pods, dimensions, rotation and scenery, and the use of an electromagnetic mass driver to mine materials from the moon and asteroids, so the colony could be constructed entirely on-site, in space.

Now, with space travel finally becoming a reality thanks to billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and their privately funded space race, I no longer have any interest in moving away from our home planet. Not that I could even if I wanted to, given the hefty price tag for a seat on any of these expeditions.

Bezos and Branson are each selling a five-minute thrill ride to suborbital space, which is about 62 miles from Earths surface, for around $250,000 a seat, while Musk is selling a one-week trip around the moon, 300,000 miles, for an undisclosed amount that is estimated to be between $35 million to $100 million a ticket.

I dont remember when it was I first stopped wanting to go into space, but my guess is it was after I moved to a place where I could live, each and every day, in close contact with the Earth and its beauty. Not that I didnt have an appreciation for such beauty before that, or I hadnt experienced its transformative effect on the heart and the senses, or I wasnt already in love with life and people, but growing up in a flat personality-less suburb, my natural impulse and inevitability was to move away and go somewhere else, and I guess a space colony was one possible place to move to, even though I knew California was the much greater likelihood.

As my love for and connection to Earth increased, my desire to leave it behind diminished.

Add to that my growing sense of self-awareness, which included the realization that I am extremely uncomfortable riding in fast cars, boats on the ocean, small airplanes performing trick maneuvers or any size plane during moments of turbulence and roller coasters and drop towers and pendulum rides and gravity rides and other such horrors at carnivals and amusement parks, and it all added up to, why would I want to ride in a spaceship of any sort?

I believe the ongoing survival of our species will necessarily involve and require space colonization. Then again, dont the Hopis say humanity already started and ended, then started again seven other times in our history, so in the big picture is it really that big of a deal? Throw in some Einstein and Mayer to remind us that energy and mass are neither created nor destroyed, but transformed, converted, redistributed, reassembled and re-expressed.

Im a fan of science, and of ever expanding our horizons, so I support space colonization efforts. But it is no less difficult or palatable for me to try and conceive of our extinction, transformation, evolution than it is to imagine us spreading our greed and war, fear and violence and prejudice and pollution to the rest of the universe.

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Space colonization then and now - Santa Ynez Valley News

Many years ago, when I first went to college, I joined two off-campus organizations, both of which were dedicated to getting people living and working in outer space.

I saw expansion into space as the solution to many of the worlds biggest problems, including energy shortages, over-population and world hunger to name a few, and I could see myself actually doing it, going off and living or working in a space colony somewhere between Earth and the moon more specifically at L5, a point in space that is always in the same spot relative to Earth and the moon.

I became somewhat of a disciple of physicist Gerard ONeill, and his cylinder design, to the point I could explain its key features and concepts to others, including mirrors, farming pods, dimensions, rotation and scenery, and the use of an electromagnetic mass driver to mine materials from the moon and asteroids, so the colony could be constructed entirely onsite, in space.

Now, with space travel finally becoming a reality thanks to billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson and their privately-funded space race, I no longer have any interest in moving away from our home planet. Not that I could even if I wanted to, given the hefty price tag for a seat on any of these expeditions.

Bezos and Branson are each selling a five-minute thrill ride to sub-orbital space, which is about 62 miles from Earths surface, for around $250,000 a seat, while Elon Musk is selling a one-week trip around the moon, 300,000 miles, for an undisclosed amount that is estimated to be between $35-$100 million a ticket.

I dont remember when it was I first stopped wanting to go into space, but my guess is it was after I moved to a place where I could live, each and every day, in close contact with the Earth and its beauty. Not that I didnt have an appreciation for such beauty before that, or I hadnt experienced its transformative effect on the heart and the senses, or I wasnt already in love with life and people, but growing up in a flat personality-less suburb, my natural impulse and inevitability was to move away and go somewhere else, and I guess a space colony was one possible place to move to, even though I knew California was the much greater likelihood.

As my love for and connection to Earth increased, my desire to leave it behind diminished.

Add to that my growing sense of self-awareness, which included the realization that I am extremely uncomfortable riding in fast cars, boats on the ocean, small airplanes performing trick maneuvers or any-size plane during moments of turbulence, and roller coasters and drop towers and pendulum rides and gravity rides and other such horrors at carnivals and amusement parks, and it all added up to, why would I want to ride in a spaceship of any sort?

I believe the ongoing survival of our species will necessarily involve and require space colonization. Then again, dont the Hopis say humanity already started and ended, then started again seven other times in our history, so in the big picture is it really that big of a deal? Throw in some Einstein and Mayer to remind us that energy and mass are neither created nor destroyed, but transformed, converted, redistributed, reassembled and re-expressed.

Im a fan of science, and of ever expanding our horizons, so I support space colonization efforts. But it is no less difficult or palatable for me to try and conceive of our extinction, transformation, evolution than it is to imagine us spreading our greed and war, fear and violence and prejudice and pollution to the rest of the universe.

Read the rest here:
Space colonization then and now | Ron Colone | santamariatimes ... - Santa Maria Times (subscription)

Forbes

Stephen Hawking Warns We Must Colonize Another Planet Soon - Here's Why He's Wrong Forbes The most likely worlds for colonization are our moon or Mars (which is also Elon Musk's target of choice for a colony in the next century), and in case you hadn't heard, neither of these places are habitable. Even if Earth were to suffer the ... Stephen Hawking gives humans just 100 years to flee EarthSacramento Bee Stephen Hawking will show how humans can move planet in 100 yearsBlasting News Home Science Stephen Hawking says we need to leave Earth in 100 years or...Mobiletor.com TechRadar -Telegraph.co.uk -BBC all 57 news articles »

Original post:
Stephen Hawking Warns We Must Colonize Another Planet Soon - Here's Why He's Wrong - Forbes

Wed, May 03, 2017 11:10pm

For those of you who like your space travel tinged with intrigue and scheming, we may have found a new show for you to get excited about: The First, an upcoming space drama about the first human mission to Mars. A year after abruptly leaving his Netflix creation House of Cards, Beau Willimon is jumping streaming ships to Hulu for a straight-to-series eight-episode order, with a premiere date of 2018.

He took to Twitter to share The First news ...

My interest is certainly to the moon, if not yet back. House of Cards was impeccably created, and is a huge early reason why Netflix is such a bright star in the original content universe. Perhaps if Willimon can get David Fincher to help kick off the look of this new series too, as he did with HoC, then I'll really be on my way back from the moon. Though no such mention was made in Willimon's seven-tweet-announcement, he was able to pack in a fair amount of details.

Besides sharing a picture of his beautifully diverse, "fearless as astronauts" writing team, Willimon says they'll "be telling the human story of space exploration: the challenges & sacrifices of the crew, engineers, scientists & their loved ones." They'll "also delve into the private & public sector players, what the near future looks like, and the technology of interplanetary travel... But at its heart, The First is about the insatiable desire to grasp the unknown, to achieve the impossible ... And most importantly, about the toll on those driven by that desire. How are we transformed by the journeys we choose?"

Though it may seem like a departure for political-playmaking and Juilliard-fellowing Willimon, getting a pioneering space mission off the ground has got to be a huge political process in its own right, as much as a scientific one. And don't get me started on the dirty politics involved in interplanetary colonization!

Okay, maybe I am to the moon and back about this one. What about you?

Via (Collider)

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House of Cards creator Beau Willimon shooting for Mars in new Hulu series The First - Blastr

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Building structures on Mars for future astronauts to live and work in could be much easier than scientists previously believed, according to a new study.

University of California-San Diego scientists were able to create sturdy bricks out of simulated Martian soil without using an adhesive. In fact, making small bricks on Mars was easier than doing so on Earth, researchers wrote in their study.

Experts on Mars colonization think this could be a huge breakthrough.

The question of whether an environment is habitable or not is only partially a function of the nature of the environment itself, Dr. Robert Zubrin, who helped design plans for NASAs manned mission to Mars and wrote the The Case For Mars, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. It is also a function of the ingenuity of the would-be settler.

Researchers scooped soil into into a rubber case, then compacted it. Iron oxide in the faux Martian soil seemingly caused the bricks to stick together without adhesive, according to the study. The ability to use native soils in construction could greatly simplify a long-term manned mission to Mars.

Other researchers have shown how we can make fuel, oxygen, food, plastics, and even steel on Mars, Zubrin said. These folks have shown a way to make bricks, providing another excellent addition to the Martian settlers tool kit. It is work like this that will help make the Red Planet a new home for humanity.

Zubrin said its easier to maintain a human settlement on Mars than it would be to colonize the moon or other celestial bodies.

Unlike the Moon, Mars has all the raw materials both the elements of life, including hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, as well as the elements of industry we need, but it is human inventiveness that transforms these raw materials into useful resources, Zubrin said.

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Study: You Can Easily Make Bricks On Mars, And That's A Big Deal - The Daily Caller

Is water the new oil of space?

It may be to Middle Eastern oil states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who are looking at space as a way to diversify out of the earthly benefits of fossil fuel.

Middle East oil states are investing in satellite technology and trying to transform their domestic economies into digital economies and knowledge-based economies, said Tom James of Navitas Resources, an energy consultant based in London and Singapore.

As space colonizers such as Elon Musk and Jeffrey P. Bezos (owner of The Washington Post) aspire to shrink the cost of space travel, interest has picked up among oil states and others in how to power space settlements using water and minerals mined from the heavens.

Oil states are investing in companies and infrastructure that could one day mine minerals and water found on the moon and in asteroids.

They are investing in it in order to attract business to the Middle East, James said. Oil states have large, empty spaces, relatively small populations and are located near the equator. The UAE has launched a multipronged effort to establish a space industry in which it has invested more than $5 billion, and that includes four satellites already in space and another due to launch in 2018.

The Middle East is ideal for launching rockets and spaceships, James said. Its the long-term solution. Oil and gas may not run forever. So they are looking to invest and be part of the new, future economy.

The water is critical. It can be turned into hydrogen to fuel the spaceship, oxygen for breathing or left untouched for drinking and everyday use. Requiring only a four-day trip and containing lots of ice, the moon is a prime candidate for resource extraction.

The interest in space mining and industrialization has picked up in recent years as Musk, Bezos and others push outward. Part of the key to unlocking affordable space travel and space industrialization is finding extraterrestrial materials such as water and minerals that do not have to be rocketed up from Earth.

Goldman Sachs wrote a recent research note explaining that space mining could be more realistic than perceived. The bank in the same report said the storage of water as a fuel could be a game changer by creating orbital gas stations.

Most of the minerals will remain for use in space. Some rare, highly valuable commodities could be brought back to Earth. Goldman Sachs, for instance, was quoted in a 2012 interview with Planetary Resources that estimated that a football field-size asteroid could contain up to $50 billion worth of platinum.

Asteroid mining could very quickly supply an emerging on-orbit manufacturing economy with nearly all the raw materials needed, according to the Goldman Sachs report.

The possibilities are beginning to register with the business sector.

Within the next five years, James said, mining and energy companies will start thinking about space mining before the shareholders start asking, What is your strategy? and they answer, Oh, we dont have one.

The technology already exists. NASA launched a billion-dollar mission in September to vacuum materials from an 2,000-foot-wide asteroid called Bennu. The spacecraft is scheduled to sidle up to the asteroid in 2018, extend its arm and pull in its cargo. The ship will return to Earth a couple of years later.

But it is unclear whether mining on a wider scale is a real business, said Paul Chodas, an astronomer and asteroid expert with NASA.

The technology is there, but its not simple. Asteroids travel through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. Tracking asteroids and determining their composition is difficult.

Its hard to determine which ones will have the most valuable minerals, Chodas said. He said it is doable, but the question is cost-benefit. Is it worth the cost? We dont know yet. There is simply more work to be done to determine whether space mining is profitable. But its promising.

Chris Lewicki is chief executive of Planetary Resources, a Seattle-area company studying asteroids to find one that is an appropriate candidate for mining.

Lewicki said the mining industry is a natural to make the first move when it comes to recovering space minerals because of its earthbound expertise. He foresees a small, robotic mining operation drilling for water on an asteroid in as soon as about 10 years.

This is how [the mining industry] continues, Lewicki said. Mining asteroids isnt a space project. Its a resource project. In the same way having minerals and materials are very important for our economy, space becomes a new medium for furthering that economy.

The regulatory phase got a major boost in 2015, when President Barack Obama signed legislation recognizing asteroid resource property rights.

The law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens to own asteroid resources and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids.

In addition to the UAEs space industry, Bloomberg News reports that the Saudis signed a pact with Russia in 2015 for cooperation on space exploration. Abu Dhabi is an investor in Richard Bransons space tourism venture, Virgin Galactic.

Several private companies, including Deep Space Industries, Planetary Resources and Shackleton Energy, are trying to crack the mining potential.

If you have any significant human activity in space, then you are going to need resources, said Peter Stibrany, chief strategist and business developer for Deep Space Industries. It will get too difficult to launch everything from the ground.

Deep Space Industries is four years old and living off seed money from investors and founders. Stibrany said the company is in the technology development stage and working to create delivery systems for lower orbit launches.

He said mining space resources faces what he calls a four-dimensional problem.

The first two are technological and regulatory, which are being addressed.

While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower, according to the Goldman Sachs report. Prospecting probes can likely be built for tens of millions of dollars each, and Caltech has suggested an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft could cost $2.6 billion.

James pointed to nano-sats, small satellites priced relatively inexpensively at $2 million each, far less than the hundreds of millions needed to place current satellites in orbit.

The third concern is the lack of a current market in asteroid resources. That should resolve itself when the space population hits critical mass, demanding infrastructure.

Then a business will follow if investors see that a reasonable return is likely over a reasonable amount of time with appropriate risks. That is the fourth hurdle.

The end game, Stibrany said, is that if you have 1,000 or 10,000 people living and working in space, there is no practical way that is going to work without using in-space resources.

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Middle East oil states investing companies, infrastructure to one day ... - The Denver Post

April 28, 2017 Science fiction has long painted space settlements as inevitable, and talk of Martian brick-building and life-supporting gardens makes it feel closer than ever. But some suggest a simpler path to long-term living in space: orbital habitats near Earth.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk placed colonization underserious consideration last fall at theInternational Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico,when he announced his intention to bring 1 million people to Mars. But while the presentation was heavy on rocket technicalities, it left out details ofhow colonists will survive, much less raise children in a high-radiation, low-gravity environment millions of miles away.

NASA contractor and colonization advocate Al Globus says theres a radically easier way:large, round habitats known as ONeill cylinders that orbit nearby, spinning at just the right speed to create the sensation of normal gravity inside.

Its tough to do things 50 million kilometers away, he says.

Nestled into the protective bubble of Earths magnetic field, such a colony could sidestep some of the biological challengesposed by Martian living to focus on the immediate technical problems of space construction and resource recycling. Plus, it would be close. Whether you need a new carbon dioxide scrubber or a quick escape, help would be hours, not months, away.

Indeed, we don't really know how livable we can make Mars. Musk, NASA headquarters, the movies, all assume that [living in] one-third gravity will be essentially the same as [living in Earth] gravity, says Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. But we have zero data to support that assumption. If it turns out that one-third gravity has the same physiological effects on humans as zero gravity, then Mars is not an option for long-term colonization in the way that Musk is thinking.

Advocates expect humans to adapt as they have in the past. President of the Mars Society Robert Zubrin compares settling Mars to settling the Earth's Northern Hemisphere: We evolved in Kenya. Winters would have killed an unshielded human in a single night.

Princeton physicist Gerard ONeill first crunched the numbers decades agofor the design that now bears his name,and found no theoretical obstacles to building miles-long habitats free from the punishing forces that batter Earthly structures.

Globus has updated that work with plans for a more modest starting point, a third-of-a-mile-wide cylinder in Equatorial Low Earth Orbit (ELEO), where he envisions it supporting hundreds to thousands of people in a relatively low-radiation environment with Earthlike pseudo-gravity.

The curved interior of Kalpana One, a roughly 800 by 1000 foot cylindrical space habitat that engineers calculate could support 3,000 people.

Bryan Versteeg/spacehabs.com

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Caption

But theres no such thing as a free lunch, especially in space. If concerns about gravity and radiation hinder a Mars colony, material scarcity threatens the creation of orbital settlements. A proper ONeill cylinder would need millions of tons of rock and metal.

Earth-launched materials could support early, smaller habitats, but more robust colonies would eventually require resources from the moon and nearby asteroids.

If you want to get less dependent on Earth then you have to develop a transportation system that can get lunar materials.... This is not an impossible task. This is merely difficult, Globus says with the characteristic optimism of a space engineer.

But schemes to mine and shuttle raw materials seem impracticable to many experts. Dr. Zubrin, for one, is skeptical. Its a lot easier to settle a planet than to build one, he says.

Globus counters that Mars is a big place, and no single site will offer all the necessary materials. Developing a transportation system on Mars is difficult too.... Its probably easier on Mars, but on the other hand its also 50 million kilometers away, he explains.

He cautions against what Dr. ONeill originally called the mental hangup of assuming that worlds are inherently easier to colonize than open space: You have to build all the same stuff on Mars that you have to build in orbit. You need pressure vessels, you need radiation shielding (which we actually dont need in ELEO), you need a power system, you need life support.

Either type of settlement would be highly dependent on Earth for decades to centuries, and, for Globus, the shipping costs alone justify starting closer to home.

Neither vision would come cheap.Space agencies will help, but some economic drive is necessary for sustained colonization, and experts have settled on two candidates: entrepreneurial settlers and rich tourists.

The Mars camp favors a pioneering model, much like how Americans spread west. I think that Mars is gonna be a great place to go, said Musk at Guadalajara. It will be the planet of opportunity.

Zubrin sees Mars in a similar light, a rich but harsh environment ill-suited for vacationing. Pioneering is for people with a stoic ethic who believe that happiness is a life where you can accomplish great deeds. It will be a real long time before space, even Earth orbit, is a place of safety and comfort.

He predicts a Mars colony would become "a pressure cooker for invention.

Globus, however, suggests that ticket sales could drive development. No one knows the size of the space-tourism market, but private individuals have paid tens of millions of dollars to visit the ISS, and more than 600 people have put down large deposits for spots on Virgin Galactics waiting list for five minutes in space.

The key to expanding that market, in Globuss opinion, would be habitats big enough to keep even pampered tourists happy.

"Most people dont want to live in what basically boils down to some huts connected by tunnels under [30 feet] of stuff [on Mars], he explains, adding that it would be easier to build large structures in orbit than on Mars.

Globus sees small-scale tourism as the path to large-scale colonies, starting with orbiting hotels much like the onesBigelow Aerospace is developing. A hotel is not a whole lot different from a settlement. It has to be pressurized. It might want to recycle its air. It might want to rotate, he says.

NASA's Dr. McKay points to Antarctica as precedent for tourists paying thousands to visit an inhospitable place: Their demand and resources enable an infrastructure that enables me to do research there. I love that model. I see that model as applicable to the moon, to space, and maybe even to Mars.

Floating cylinders and world-based colonies have at least one thing in common: Both seem highly implausible.

But big thinking demands strong justification.Musk frames the enterprise as a response to existential threats, but McKay questions the assertion that space colonies are the obvious first line of defense, mentioning arctic seed banks and massive underground bunkers as survival strategies that might take priority.

Globus finds the existential argument convincing, but offers a second motivation: a moral responsibility to spread life beyond Earth. No other species is even remotely in a position to settle space.... Its our duty.

Space settlements may be science fiction today, but lunar landers and flying cars once were, too. Classifying a concept as such neither assures its failure nor guarantees its promise. But for now, questions and dreams abound while firm answers are few.

Long term, we need to determine if [colonization is] possible, says McKay. Were assuming that its possible ... but I want to emphasize that we dont know that its possible.

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To colonize space, start closer to Earth - Christian Science Monitor

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Audi gave a sneak peek at the upcoming summer movie Alien: Covenant, which features the Audi Lunar Quattro, a futuristic rover deployed on a colonization mission with a bunch of clueless humans.

In the short clip, the Lunar Quattro patrols the colony spaceship Covenant for unseen dangers while also providing exploration and research support for the crew.

The scene opens with the little rover exploring an unidentified lifeform in the ships cargo bay and it ends with a glimpse of a drooling xenomorph hanging from the ceiling. It certainly cant end well for anyone on board.

Audis moon rover is more than just a movie prop, however. It was developed in a partnership with Part-Time Scientists, a Berlin-based startup, and will be deployed on an actual mission to the moon later this year.

The mission will be the first private venture to the moon and details are still being finalized. It will be just the second rover to land on the moon since the 70s, following Chinas Yutu rover. The Chinese rover landed in 2013, 40 years after the previous rover, the Soviet Lunokhod 2.

Audis moon rover features Quattro drive technology and an e-tron motor that is powered a lithium-ion battery with a solar panel. The Lunar Quattro is 85 percent aluminum, weighs 66 pounds, and was produced by a 3D metal printer at Audis headquarters in Ingolstadt.

No word on whether it comes equipped with lasers or other weapons that could be used for blasting aliens.

Alien: Covenant opens on May 19 in the U.S. The movies human stars include Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, and Michael Fassbender.

Its a sequel to director Ridley Scotts Prometheus, the 2012 prequel to 1979s Alien, and is the eighth film in the Alien franchise. Check out the full trailer below if you havent already.

Source: Audi

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Audi Lunar Quattro to be Featured in Alien: Covenant - Motor Trend

America may have been first to reach the moon, but Europe and China are gunning to be the first to build a moon base.

Both the Chinese and European space agencies confirmed this week that talks are underway with the goal of beginning collaborative efforts to construct a base on the moon. News of the talks was initially disseminated by Tian Yulong, secretary general of Chinas space agency, via Chinese state media. It was corroborated and confirmed on Wednesday in a conversation between Bloomberg and Pal Hvistendahl, a spokesman for ESA, the European Space Agency.

Hvistendahl placed an emphasis on the importance of cooperation between these two, and other entities if extensive space travel and colonization are to be made possible.

Space has changed since the space race of the 60s. We recognize that to explore space for peaceful purposes, we do international cooperation, Hvistendahl told Bloomberg.

The groundwork for that cooperation will be laid by Chinas Change-5 expedition, the countrys first unmanned sample retrieval missions, set to return from the moon in November.

An international analysis of Change-5s sample will be conducted, by both China and the ESA, upon the missions return. A small step, but an important one. Europe also wants to send an astronaut to the Chinese space station (China was previously excluded from the ISS by the United Statess military concerns).

Further details about a design or timeline for the international moon base were not given, although its not hard to speculate what they might look like, given that both entities have stated their intentions for such a base in the past.

Public European plans for a moon base date back as far as 2015, when the ESA set a 2040 construction deadline for a moon base. The idea was described by Johann-Dietrich Woerner, the ESAs director general, as a moon village, although he stressed that this didnt mean village in the traditional sense. Rather, it would be a fully-functioning colony.

In 2016, Woerner put forward the idea of 3D-printing the moon base out of moon dust. It might sound like science fiction has addled Woerners brain with that suggestion, but it might just plausible and it could provide a blueprint for development if initial China-ESA collaborations prove fruitful.

China and the ESA have expressed interest in a moon base as a jumping off point for mars and as a staging area for space mining, which could prove to be a highly lucrative business in the future.

Curiously left out of the talks was the United States. While President Donald Trump has noted the potential military application of space travel efforts, he has sent mixed messages as to how supportive he will be of such efforts.

On asteroid mining, for example his NASA budget doesnt paint a friendly picture. Its possible that China and the ESA dont see the United States as fertile ground for space travel anymore, which in turn has driven them to seek collaboration elsewhere. It could be that very perception that brought them together in the first place.

And on paper, it does seem like a good fit. The ESA gets access to Chinas burgeoning space program and brings to the table its own ambition and extensive planning. Time will tell if the cooperative efforts hold and grow, and how quickly we really do make it to living on the moon.

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Europe and China Are Working on a Moon Base - Inverse