Category Archives: Moon Colonization

5591857

The Cassini space probe detected hydrogen coming from Saturns moon, Enceladus, which suggests alien life could develop there, according to NASA.

NASA said Enceladus has almost all of the ingredients needed to support life as we know it on Earth, but admitted they found no living organisms. Hydrogen is an excellent source of chemical energy that supports life near deep sea hydrothermal vents on Earth. Scientists think this kind of chemical reaction could have been the origin of life on Earth.

NASA also announcedsimilar activity may be occurring on Jupiters moon, Europa. The Hubble Space Telescope spotted plumes on Europa, suggesting powerful thermal sources on the moons surface.

Enceladus and Europa are protected by an ice shell which maintains a liquid water ocean. Both of these moons are fairly similar and arejudged as the two of the most likely places in our solar system to find alien life. Life on Earth may have emerged from similar deep-ocean hydrothermal vents.

Here on Earth there are a number of things that protect life. With this research, we are making a big step forward towards answering the question, Is there life out there?' associate administratorof NASAs Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen said during the NASA press conference announcing the discovery.

Enceladus and Europa probably have watery and salty oceans similar to those of Earths below the ice, likely kept warm by complex gravitational interactions and the planets core.

The search for life beyond Earth has enthralled humans for ages, Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 directs NASA to continue to search for life and advance the science of astronomy, astrophysics and astrobiology. NASAs effort to search for life on ocean worlds is an important step in these efforts.

The Europa Clipper is a NASA robotic probe intended to launch sometime in the early 2020s. The probewill investigate the icy moons potential for human colonization and alien life.

Geologists announced in September that earthquakes on Earth can produce hydrogen. They concluded that the same kind of Marsquakes could also produce hydrogen on Mars, removing a major barrier to life.The Red Planets atmosphere is rich in oxygen, so an ample supply of hydrogen may indicate that water is more common on Mars than generally believed.

Follow Andrew on Twitter

Send tips to andrew@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [emailprotected].

Continued here:
NASA Find Ingredients For Life On Two Ocean Worlds Beyond Earth - Daily Caller

ANA SOFIA GUERREIRINHO | PHOTO COURTESY The moon, where Elon Musk is planning his temple of doom.

SpaceXshoots for the stars once again. Well, in this case, its actually our very own moon.

Yep, Luna is getting a facelift as Tesla CEO and SpaceX pioneer Elon Musk plans to build a community on the moon. Construction is planned to begin by 2030 with the help of NASA and a plea for government funding.

Musk has already begun preparation for travel to the moon. Late next year, he plans to take two people on a flyaround the moon through a Gatorade promotional campaign.

Tourism plays a large part in the future of human colonization, Musk said Wednesday afternoon.

While efforts will be made to make space exploration more affordable, estimates for the trip to the moon alone are nearing $1.7 million. Which is far less than his proposed attempt to colonize a mysterious city called Detroit, Michigan. Which only costs $29.

Elon Musk has several projects already in the works on Earth, which he hopes will contribute to his lunar paradise. The most important are arguably the solar powered roofs designed by Tesla Solar. Musk already hopes to make them more affordable than tile roofs and may yet use them to power his moon community.

He also is pushing forunderground tunnels to relieve traffic, which may work towards a tunnel system across the moon. His TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) has already dug a test trench in LA and will continue to improve tunneling efficiency.

Hoping to maintain an initial population of 1,200, Musk will be making an effort to select who can and cannot travel to the moon to live and work. Everyone must be screened and trained to live in space. As not to let in the wrong clientele, the idea of a wall was briefly tinkered with.

Unfortunately, the vacuum of space was considered too easy to tunnel through. No, Musk will be creating startup programs with the cooperation of NASA that will mass produce space-worthy candidates. Think of it like an astronaut puppy mill. Again, NASA will beg for funding.

I know the idea of moving to the final frontier may be scary at first, but at least Elon Musk is man enough brave the cold. Not to mention the undeniable tactical advantage of launching solar-powered nuclear missiles from the surface of the moon towards definitely not Russia. Tesla is a nuclear superpower thanks to Moon Emperor Musk.

I think we should all face the future with the same sense of adventure and determination. Also, we need more funding.

Original post:
Shooting for the Stars, with a Moon Base - NDSU The Spectrum

Team Original Gravity from the University of California is looking to take everyones favorite fermented yeast drink to new heights. File photo

Ever since space exploration has become a possibility for mankind, multiple innovative yet somehow crazy ideas have sprouted in recent years.

Ingenious plans like human colonization, and growing potatoes and greens in space all sound great, but another new idea definitely takes the cake.

A team of college students from the University of California in San Diego, United States, are looking totake drinking to a whole new spectrum, as they plan to brew fermented yeast on the moon.

Self-dubbed as Team Original Gravity, the students are finalists in the Google Lunar XPRIZE challenge, Business Insider reports.

We want to become the first people to ferment yeast on the moon,Neeki Ashari, one of the members,told the news outlet.

The team is looking to brew the concoction through the use of an automated 3D-printed device which holds separate compartments of sugary liquid and yeast.

The projected gadgetwhich is about the size of a soda canwill be managed through electronic controllers and will be able to log data about the fermentation process.

Once a space rover equipped with the device lands on the moon, a valve will automatically open the compartments, the report said. The yeast will then eat the liquids sugars and produce carbon dioxide to create beer.

Although their plans seem like a light-hearted science project at first, Ashari assures the public that it would soon play a pivotal role in human colonization.

Thisexperiment would far exceed brewing applications and would actually servea vital purpose, she explained. If we can understand this, it can play a role inconsumptive and clinical applications for the future of colonization inspace exploration.

Meanwhile, Googles esteemed competition aims to come up with low-cost methods of robotic space exploration.

If Team Original Gravity wins, they will receive a $20 millionfund and have their device launched in a lunar lander and rover to the moon in December 2017. One of the members will depart with the mission as well. Khristian Ibarrola/JB

RELATED STORIES:

NASA looking to grow potatoes on Mars through simulationreport

NASA locates moon robots missing for 8 years

Here is the original post:
College students planning to brew beer on the moon - Inquirer.net

5586375

NASA scheduled amajor press conference Thursday that may announce the discovery of alien life on an ocean world in our solar system.

The press conference willunveil new data about ocean worlds exploration including NASAs upcoming Europa Clipper mission planned for launch in the 2020s and the broader search for life beyond Earth.

The press statement indicated it will almost certainly be aboutJupiters moon Europa and could include Saturns moon Enceladus. Both of these moons are fairly similar and are two of the most likely places in our solar system to find alien life.

The Europa Clipper is a NASA robotic probe intended to launch a sometime in the early 2020s. The probewill investigate the icy moons potential for human colonization and alien life.

Europa and Enceladus probably have watery and salty oceans similar to those of Earths below the ice, likely kept warm by complex gravitational interactions and the planets core. Life could exist in theice-covered ocean perhaps in an environment similar to the deep-ocean hydrothermal vents where life on Earth may have emerged.

This isnt the first time time NASA has called a mysterious press conference about Europa.The space agency put out an unusually cryptic press release last Septemberclaiming it found surprising activity on Jupiters moon Europa, which many in the media suspected may have been signs of life on the moon.NASA called a similar emergency press conference when they announced the discovery of flowing water on Mars last September.

NASA previously used the Hubble Space Telescope to find evidence for water ice plumes jetting offEuropa, leading the agency to suspect the moon has an icy shell on top of an ocean of liquid water.NASA has alsofoundevidence of clay-like minerals associated with organic matteron the icy crust of Europa.

Follow Andrew on Twitter

Send tips to andrew@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [emailprotected].

Read the original post:
NASA May Have Found Alien Life On Ocean World - Daily Caller

Throughout March, we published articles about the new space race as part of our ongoing project Futurography, which introduces readers to a new technological or scientific topic each month. Weve covered a range of issues, but were also interested in what you have to say, so weve written up the results of our survey on the topic. Meanwhile, Futurography continues with our April course on the synthetic biology.

There was no universal agreement between readers on the question of what space projects are most exciting. Many enthused about the prospect of getting humans to Mars, while others were more intrigued by sending a lander to Europaand perhaps even searching for life there. Some emphasized targets that are a little closer to home, such as setting up a colony on the surface of the moon. And though most readers took the question seriously, one joked (we hope!) that Sex with green women was the real goal.

Regardless of where were headedor what were trying to do when we get theremost thought that some combination of robotic and crewed missions would be ideal. The robotic exploration of the solar system is an absolute triumph, as is the Hubble. But human travel to space is going to happen, and we should be doing it, one wrote. A few, though, were skeptical, offering opinions such as, What added value do humans in space bring? Humans in space is a circus sideshow. Or, as another put it, we should hold off on human exploration until were ready for serious extra-planetary colonization efforts, since, Just sending people up to orbit the Earth does nothing.

That said, most agreed that efforts like landing a human on Mars had potentially important political ramifications. The first humans on Mars will either be American or Chinese. The political impacts could be large, one proposed. Others suggested that the public enthusiasm drilled up by a major space mission might be the most important element: Without public involvement, the political capital required for an effective space program will evaporate in favor of more immediate terrestrial concerns. But some were concerned that it might be dangerous to let nationalist interests drive efforts in space. One such respondent wrote, Id like to think it could be done apolitically. No one owns the moon; no one should own mars.

Many readers seemed convinced that more economically driven endeavors such as asteroid mining could yield real results. Indeed, one optimistically predicted, Asteroid miners will be the first trillionaires. Others were skeptical, suggesting that it would be decades before we see any real results. Another mused, With the tremendous cost of sending things into deep space, I dont see how we could get a decent return on our investment. And a few worried about the potential risks, asking, for example, What happens if there is a glut of asteroid minerals that crashes the base metals markets to the point that it's no longer profitable to launch rockets to mine asteroids?

Readers were less divided on the question of new countries joining the space race, tending on the whole toward cautious optimism. While a few wrote that it was too early to say which efforts would be most successful, many singled out for praise projects underway in India and the United Arab Emirates. And others argued that it was good for any nation to give it a shot, since new technology is always good for any country. These are very long gestation projects, so returns will take longer, one wrote, and another suggested that they might be most effective as incubators for high-tech engineering knowhow and carriers of national pride. Even some of those who were unsure suggested that it might have merit, as did one who wrote, [I]ts a good thing to get everyone into the picture. Maybe that would be a first step towards a United Earth.

Some of those who felt that less powerful nations shouldnt be investing in space felt that these nations should instead be ceding the field to private companies. Indeed, many wrote that even NASA might need to take a backseat to commercial initiatives, though by-and-large they seemed to think that the future would entail a balance of public and private. Governments have an important role to play in the future of space exploration, but it is a delicate role, one said. Developing on a similar line of reasoning, another argued, In particular, government space programs will provide the framework around which private space companies can build. And as one more reader wrote, [A]ll collaborative efforts are exciting including returning to the moon, going to Mars, and further studying the climatology of the home planet.

This article is part of the new space race installment of Futurography, a series in which Future Tense introduces readers to the technologies that will define tomorrow. Each month, well choose a new technology and break it down. Future Tense is a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate.

Link:
What Slate Readers Think About the New Space Race - Slate Magazine (blog)

People are starting to dream about the colonization of #Space again. Elon Musk, the visionary CEO of SpaceX, has already weighed in on a settlement on Mars. Now an Austrian architect and engineer named Werner Grandl has published his own thoughts on how we might colonize space with a plan that does not mention #Mars but rather focuses on the moon and Earth-approaching asteroids.

The first step would be to establish a #Lunar Base and use it to mine the moon for its resources, metals ranging from iron to platinum group metals, helium 3 for future fusion power plants, and water for rocket fuel. The lunar base could consist of a series of modules on the lunar surface or located underground, in a lava tube, protected from radiation and meteor strikes.

The next step would be to go to Earth-approaching asteroids, attach modules to them, and start mining them. If an asteroid happened to be 400 meters in diameter or greater, it could be hollowed out, a colony for about 2,000 people built inside, and then rotated to produce artificial gravity.

Mining and gravity are the keys. The moon and Mars have one drawback in that they have much lower gravity than Earth. People who live on these worlds will grow up accustomed to one-sixth and one-third gravity respectively and will be restricted in where else they can go. A native born Martian or Lunarian may not be able to visit Earth without a great deal of medical intervention and conditioning.

The idea of free-floating asteroid colonies is a variant on an idea first developed in the late 1960s and then popularized in the 1970s and 1980s by the late Dr. Gerard K. ONeill. The idea was that instead of setting down roots on another world with a hostile environment, build space-based colonies in which the environment can be controlled. Using space resources, the number of such flying settlements would be virtually unlimited. The idea somewhat fell out of favor toward the end of the 20th Century, however. But with more efforts being directed to asteroid and lunar mining, the vision of colonies in space may be due for a revival.

Read the rest here:
To colonize space, go back to the moon and then mine the asteroids - Blasting News

PORTLAND In studying to become an aerospace engineer, Evan Peacos ultimate goal is to push space exploration beyond what were capable of now, including sending humans to Mars.

Peaco is a 2014 graduate of Portland High School and recently received the prestigious Dr. Robert H. Goddard memorial scholarship, worth $10,000, from the National Space Club.

Peaco,who topped 7,000 other applicants for the honor, was the keynote speaker at the clubs annual scholarship dinner, which was held in early March in Washington, D.C.

At the dinner, Peaco had the chance to meet legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who was the lunar module pilot during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, and the second man to walk on the moon.

In announcing Peaco as the winner of the Goodard scholarship, the National Space Club said he rose to the top of the competition with his strong academic record and experience in aerospace.

The process of becoming the Goodard scholar is a tough one, and includes first completing an online application and then submitting a video on why the applicant is inspired by space. Six finalists are chosen to undergo an interview process.

Peaco is a junior at the University of Maryland in College Park, where hes on the space systems track. He plans to earn at least a masters degree, but said this week hes not sure about also pursuing a Ph.D.

Members of the Portland School Board recognized Peaco for his achievement during their March 21 meeting, when Superintendent Xavier Botana said, We encourage (our) students to reach for the stars, and that is what Evan is doing, quite literally.

Peaco told the School Board that his time at Portland High School prepared him well and said many of his teachers were exceptionally able to engage students in the material they were teaching, and also cared about the success of every student individually.

As a student, Peaco said, he didnt participate solely on the math team and the robotics club, but also appreciated the opportunities he was given to take part in civic engagement, the arts and sports.

In particular, Peaco said he would like to recognize Daniel Deniso, who teaches AP calculus at Portland High, as well as Ileen DaPonte, who teaches 10th grade math and who also led the math team when Peaco was a student.

Id also like to recognize (Rosalee) Lamm, who I had for geometry and physics and who organized the schools Robotics Team, he said, adding, in general Id like to recognize all the teachers I had at Portland High School and King Middle School, (because) each of them helped me to reach where I am today.

In his keynote address to the National Space Club, Peaco said hes always loved gazing at the moon and the planets and its his hope that hell witness the first humans setting foot on Mars within his lifetime.

But, he said, such progress will only be possible if the people of the world work together to make it happen.

As an aerospace engineering undergraduate, Peaco said most of his classes are math, science, and engineering-based. So, for example, Ive taken classes covering aerodynamics, electricity and magnetism, special relativity, quantum mechanics (and) thermodynamics, among others.

Currently, he said, Im taking classes on control theory, spaceflight dynamics and aerospace structures. I havent taken any astronomy classes at university, but Ive kept it up as a hobby.

Peaco said he looks forward to the commercialization of space.

That means more opportunities for space tourism colonization (and) asteroid mining, he said. In the more distant future, I hope people will be able to easily travel to destinations like the moon and Mars, (which would) pave the way for permanent colonization of these places.

With government funding of NASA significantly reduced, Peaco said there are areas where the private sector can make real progress in space exploration.

Right now, he said, we are seeing private companies creating technologies that will drastically reduce the cost of reaching low-Earth orbit, which will greatly accelerate the commercialization of space.

However, the government still needs to play a leading role in space exploration, Peaco added. As its the only entity with the potential to fund grand achievements like a Mars mission.

Evan Peaco, a Portland High School graduate and winner of the National Space Clubs Goodard scholarship, touring theNASA Goddard Space Flight Center with the James Webb Space Telescope in the background.

See original here:
Portland High School grad reaches for the stars - The Forecaster

Yesterday humanity marked a glorious milestone: SpaceX successfully relaunched and re-landed a Falcon 9 -- the first time in history a rocket has been reused.

Reusing rockets is a big deal. In his superb deep dive into all things Elon Musk, Wait But Why author Tim Urban provides a useful analogy: Imagine the current air travel industry with one key difference: an airplane works for one flight only. Each flight is on a brand new plane, and after the flight, passengers exit into the terminal and the plane is broken down into scrap metal and possibly-reusable parts that are sent off to be refurbished for use in a future plane.

An airplane costs around $300 million to build. So in this new model, in addition to paying for the crews time and fuel, airlines have to spend $300 million extra each flight to build a plane. How would that change things?

First, there would be very few flights availablethe schedule would be limited by the pace of plane production. Second, the price of a round-trip ticket between Chicago and San Francisco would now cost about $1.5 million per person. For economy.

$1.5 million per person round-trip to SFO sounds crazy, but its a surprisingly appropriate analogy. Space shuttle missions cost over $200 million per astronaut. What if they could reuse the rocket?

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musks projection is that reusable rockets could bring the cost of space travel down 100x. But the implications are way bigger than making it cheaper for communications companies to fling satellites into low earth orbit.

Weve just gotten a step closer to becoming a multiplanetary species.

Right now, theres lots of talk of getting to Mars. Even Donald Trump has gotten in on the action, signing an order for a human mission to Mars by 2033.

Going to Mars is one thing. Weve sent people to the moon; we will eventually send people to Mars. But staying on Mars is something else entirely. In order to stay there, we need to send lots of people. We need ways to get them back if necessary. In other words, we have to make the round-trip flight between planets cost closer to $350 than $1.5 million.

And why would we want to stay there? Simple: to enhance the chances of humanitys survival.

Right now, we live at risk of a single event wiping out all of humanity. Solar flares, supervolcanoes In A Short History Of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson describes two recent near-misses, when an asteroid passed within just 100,000 miles of earth. In cosmic terms, he said, this was the equivalent of a bullet passing through your sleeve without touching your arm.

Keeping the entire human species on one planet is a recipe for extinction.

And so the push to colonize other planets. A sustainable population on Mars means we double our chances of not being on the planet that gets hit by an asteroid.

But going to Mars also gives us a chance to create a new kind of society, without the baggage weve built up on earth.

On Mars, we could apply a new model of government. We could invent a new economic system. We could upend the legacy systems -- the historic racism, the systemic inequality, the ingrained poverty -- that make life on earth so painful for so many.

Idealistic fantasies? Sure. But possible. Right now, there are lots of people on earth trying to create systems that are fairer and more just, but they continually run up against the brick wall of civilizations inertia. The vacuum of space, however, has no such wall.

Time to get off this rock, methinks.

The rest is here:
The Colonization Of Mars - MediaPost Communications

Scientists find evidence that a 50-meter-deep pit on the Moon's surface could be a skylight opening to an intact lava tube tens of kilometers long.

Lunar colonization isnt mere science fiction anymore. Billionaires plan to send tourists on once-in-a-lifetime trips, and politicians say that they hope to colonize the Moon in the next few decades. There may even be ways for human colonists to harvest water from ice that may be permanently shadowed in certain caves.

But where could a human colony actually live? The Moon has no atmosphere or magnetic field to shield it from solar radiation and micrometeorites that constantly rain onto its surface. Thats no environment for our squishy, earthling bodies.

Scientists studying the Moons surface may have found the answer: shelter humans in lunar lava tubes. The Moon is covered in huge swaths of ancient basaltic lava flows. Earths volcanoes can also erupt similar flows, with basalt sometimes running as molten rivers. In these rivers, the outside cools faster than the inside, creating a hard shell. The remaining lava pours out, leaving a hollow space behind.

Do similar lava tubes exist on the Moon?

In a presentation on Wednesday at the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in The Woodlands, Texas, Junichi Haruyama, a senior researcher at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), discussed one such lava tube that he suspects may be snaking underneath the Moons surface.

Could the pit be a skylight opening to an intact lava tubes long, narrow passage?In 2009, Haruyama and his team spotted evidence of a dark hole in the Moons Marius Hills region in data from the Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya (nicknamed SELENE, which stands for Selenological and Engineering Explorer). What the researchers didnt know was whether the pit led to something larger below. Two narrow surface depressions called sinuous rilles, which scientists think represent collapsed portions of lava tubes, stretch away from the pit. Could the pit be a skylight opening to an intact lava tubes long, narrow passage?

Ancient basaltic lava flows called lunar mare cover much of the Moon, similar to the much younger Columbia River basalts in the western United States. But because the Moons gravity is one sixth that of Earths, gravity doesnt impede lava flow as much, allowing lava to spread widely across the surface. Nonetheless, lunar lava tubes may have formed in an Earth-like way, Haruyama said.

Last year, another team spotted gravity anomalies that suggested hollow, narrow spaces around the Marius Hills pit. These data came from NASAs Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, which consists of two spacecraft orbiting the Moon. The orbiters can detect these anomalies by measuring how much the Moons gravity tugs on them. Areas of more mass tug on the spacecraft more, whereas hollow areas have less mass and so tug on GRAIL less.

To confirm GRAILs findings, Haruyama and his colleagues turned again to SELENEs data, looking closer at the sinuous rilles. They specifically looked at data from SELENEs Lunar Radar Sounder (LRS), which imaged the subsurface using low-frequency radio waves.

The LRS data revealed hollow space more than 100 meters deep in some places and tens of kilometers long underneath one of the rilles near the pit. The pit it self looked to be 50 kilometers deep. These data led researchers to believe that the pit could, indeed, be a collapsed portion of a lava tube roof. These data also match the gravity readings from GRAIL, Haruyama said.

If humans, via rover or their own two feet, ever got access to the tubes, the science would be amazing, said Brent Garry, a geophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The tubes interior tempts with pristine surfaces, absent of lunar soil or bombardment by micrometeorites, he said. These surfaces could offer answers to questions about the Moons origin and formation.

If humans ever got access to the tubes, the science would be amazing.In another LPSC presentation on Wednesday, Garry detailed a way to closely explore these tubes, using light detection and ranging, also known as lidar. On Earth, scientists use lidar scanners to map both land and the ocean floor. More recently, scientists have started employing lidar to map Earths vast network of caves.

Over the past 2 years, Garry and his team used a lidar scanner to map the inside of a lava tube at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho. The park is named for the otherworldly feel of its basaltic lava flows. Apollo astronauts even studied the geology of the park there before ever stepping on its namesake.

Lidar scanners work by pinging their surroundings with beams of laser light and measuring the time it takes for the light to bounce back. The scanners can take millions of data points every second, allowing for the creation of highly detailed 3-D maps. They also dont depend on sunlight, which could make them useful in a shadowy lunar pit. Garry suggests that lidar would be extremely useful in mapping centimeter- to millimeter-scale features, helping future explorers determine the structure of a lava tube.

How to get the scanner into a tube is another story, one that would involve transportation using a rover, Garry said.

Haruyama and Garry agree that lava tubes could, in theory, shield humans from the Suns unfiltered radiation and the wide surface temperature fluctuations experienced on the Moon: temperatures over one Moon day (27 Earth days) can range between 123C and 153C. In contrast, Earths average temperature is only about 16C.

Whats more, lunar lava tubes likely have flat floors like those on Earth, easing the way for vehicles or instruments, Haruyama said.

However, long-term human colonies on the Moon likely wont happen in the nearor even farfuture. Ben Bussey, chief exploration scientist for the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate at NASA, explained during a NASA town hall meeting on Monday that NASAs deep-space habitability plans are currently focused on reaching Mars and that plans dont call for going onto the lunar surface before going to Mars.

But if those plans ever change, at least we know may have a place to crashfiguratively, at least.

JoAnna Wendel (@JoAnnaScience), Staff Writer

See the rest here:
Lunar Lava Tubes Could Offer Future Moon Explorers a Safe Haven - Eos

Software company 8i is leading the charge for volumetric human capture, a key technology that could have a lasting importance across virtual platforms. Digitally created characters are very detailed and can leave an impression in interactive and/or cinematic experiences but, when attempting to recreate real people, theres a level of realism that just isnt reached. 8is holograms are bringing real people into virtual experiences with a high image quality that doesnt break the immersion and they have the tech on display for their narrative experience Cycling Pathways To Mars at the 2017 South by Southwest show (SXSW).

Buzz Aldrin, one of the legendary astronauts from the worlds first moon landing, is the subject of 8is tech in Cycling Pathways To Mars. Aldrin and 8i previously collaborated on Message To Mars, a project that couldcombat mission isolation for astronauts, and this new experience is essentially an extension of that. Aldrin has had a complex theory for how the colonization of Mars would begin, but it was not something easily explained to those that dont share Aldrins level of expertise. The immersion of VR coupled with Aldrins knowledge made for a narrative experience where his words are brought to life and viewers, such as myself, come away with a much better understanding.

Cycling Pathways To Mars places you on a platform with a projection system on the floor that displays the virtual Buzz Aldrin as he theorizes the different steps needed to move toward Mars colonization. As he walks us through his ideas, the space around us unfolds to match what he describes. Were shown his original moon landing, the moon of the future, the proposed journey to Mars on massive ships called Cyclers and, finally, the Mars colony. The experience is running on an HTC Vive in roomscale, so youre able to walk around the platform and get a look at things from a different perspective.

Planets fly through you as youre surrounded by thesolar system and youll even fly through the Cycler and get a close look at its components. There was an interesting interaction I was making that I didnt realize until my host told me after the hands-on. Ben Stein, 8is General Manager, pointed out I gave Buzz Aldrins hologram a wide berth and those before me had done the same. I moved through the other digital assets with no problem, but I really felt like Aldrin was sharing the space with me. 8i has shared images of their volumetric projections before, but seeing one close up really reveals how impactful they can be.

If youre at SXSW, you owe it to yourself to check out Cycling Pathways To Mars. It is being hosted at the Marriott in downtown Austin until Thursday March 16. On Friday, it will be available through TIME Inc so others can experience it as well.

Tagged with: 8i, buzz aldrin, SXSW

Continued here:
SXSW 2017: Buzz Aldrin Shows Us The Pathway To Mars ... - UploadVR