Category Archives: Moon Colonization

Old English mona, from Proto-Germanic *menon- (cf. Old Saxon and Old High German mano, Old Frisian mona, Old Norse mani, Danish maane, Dutch maan, German Mond, Gothic mena "moon"), from PIE *me(n)ses- "moon, month" (cf. Sanskrit masah "moon, month;" Avestan ma, Persian mah, Armenian mis "month;" Greek mene "moon," men "month;" Latin mensis "month;" Old Church Slavonic meseci, Lithuanian menesis "moon, month;" Old Irish mi, Welsh mis, Breton miz "month"), probably from root *me- "to measure," in reference to the moon's phases as the measure of time.

A masculine noun in Old English. In Greek, Italic, Celtic, Armenian the cognate words now mean only "month." Greek selene (Lesbian selanna) is from selas "light, brightness (of heavenly bodies)." Old Norse also had tungl "moon," ("replacing mani in prose" - Buck), evidently an older Germanic word for "heavenly body," cognate with Gothic tuggl, Old English tungol "heavenly body, constellation," of unknown origin or connection. Hence Old Norse tunglfylling "lunation," tunglrr "lunatic" (adj.).

Extended 1665 to satellites of other planets. To shoot the moon "leave without paying rent" is British slang from c.1823; card-playing sense perhaps influenced by gambler's shoot the works (1922) "go for broke" in shooting dice. The moon race and the U.S. space program of the 1960s inspired a number of coinages, including, from those skeptical of the benefits to be gained, moondoggle (cf. boondoggle). The man in the moon is mentioned since early 14c.; he carries a bundle of thorn-twigs and is accompanied by a dog. Some Japanese, however, see a rice-cake-making rabbit in the moon.

c.1600, "to expose to moonlight;" later "idle about" (1836), "move listlessly" (1848), probably on notion of being moonstruck. The meaning "to flash the buttocks" is first recorded 1968, U.S. student slang, from moon (n.) "buttocks" (1756), "probably from the idea of pale circularity" [Ayto]. See moon (n.). Related: Mooned; mooning.

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Moon | Define Moon at Dictionary.com

Commercial space missions, colonies on Mars and finding a way for the tourists of the future to book round-trip flights to the Moon were among the out-of-this-world ideas being discussed by brainiacs yesterday at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology forum aimed at helping private companies get a foothold in what could be a budding multibillion dollar economy.

The universitys second annual New Space Age Conference focused on getting out in front of the space race of the new millennium, which is being fueled by private companies looking to create and expand a brand new commercial market for space travel.

Aside from making space travel affordable for the public, one of the hot topics at yesterdays forum was the ongoing effort to land astronauts on Mars and the technology that would be required before a human could set foot on the Red Planet.

Among the challenges facing future Mars-bound astronauts will be dealing with radiation exposure, developing better propulsion systems that will allow them to complete the journey, which would currently take eight months, and creating equipment reliable enough to withstand the journey.

If we had all these things, we can just do it, said Jeffrey Hoffman, a former NASA astronaut and MIT professor. Theres a lot of challenges ahead.

Hoffman, who serves as the deputy principal investigator of an experiment aiming to produce oxygen from extraterrestrial material for NASAs Mars 2020 mission, said finding a way to get there is one thing but finding a way to create a self-sustainable colony will be exponentially more difficult.

The level of skills well need will be much broader, Hoffman said. Well need a lot of MacGyvers up there.

Keegan Kirkpatrick, an aerospace engineer and founder of RedWorks, said in order for humans to truly become interplanetary, future astronauts will have to cut the cord completely.

Mars has to operate independently from Earth, he said. Colonization is a question of high value and low cost. You have to have a lot of people to support a large diverse economy. Mars has to achieve resource independence. This was key to the colonization of the Americas.

And when it comes to funding such an ambitious expedition, scientists gathered yesterday agreed its going to take a partnership between government and private companies.

It would be prohibitively expensive, Hoffman said, noting the $20 billion Apollo 11 mission that sent man to the moon in 1969 would cost $150 billion today.

If the government is sponsoring an expedition and something goes wrong, they get holed up in the halls of Congress. If a private company gets into an accident, they answer to shareholders, Hoffman said. Its going to take a public-private partnership.

The university will host another daylong seminar today, titled Beyond the Cradle: Envisioning a New Space Age, which will focus on how to adapt our culture for people that may never call Earth home and how to develop the habitats, spacecraft and innovations of the future.

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Travel to the Red Planet is the next big biz (ad)venture - Boston Herald

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After The Washington Post obtained a copy of the confidential white paper that Bezos space company Blue Origin is passing on to Trumps transition team, the company verified its authenticity. And while Elon Musks SpaceX rushes to beat Trumps own lunar ambitions, Bezos is focused on the logistics of something a little more permanent than private sightseeing excursions.

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Blue Origin want to deliver cargo to the moon, paving the way for sustained human colonization of our natural satellite. Theyve even picked a spot for this potential real estate a cheery little crater near the moons south pole, with access to water via ice hidden in the craters shadows, and enough consistent sunlight to make use of solar energy.

The thought of lunar expansion hasmanaged to whet the appetites of several companies, who are already offering their own ideas for involvement. One such example is Bigelow Aerospace. Its founder, Robert Bigelow, wants to adapt the design of their BEAM habitat, currently docked with the International Space Station. He wants to create an orbital depot to house supplies and medical facilities.

According to Bigelow, venturing toward Mars is premature. As for the moon? Bigelow asserts that We have the technology. We have the ability, and the potential for a terrific business case. For his part, Bezos believes that if you go to the moon first, and make the moon your home, then you can get to Mars more easily.

Bezos says that this projectonly be done in partnership with NASA, and believes that [Blue Origins] liquid hydrogen expertise and experience with precision vertical landing offer the fastest path to a lunar lander mission. He is personally excited about this, to the point of investing his own money alongside NASA,to make sure they get there.

Blue Moon is all about cost-effective delivery of mass to the surface of the Moon, according to the Amazon boss. Any credible first lunar settlement will require that capability But all of this is just the beginning of Blue Origins ambitions. Their first proposed mission hopes to be just the first in a series of increasingly capable missions.

Well have to wait to see whether President Trump and his advisors are as excited about the possibilities as Bezos himself.

Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.

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Jeff Bezos Wants to Improve Amazon Delivery Service... to the Moon ... - Breitbart News

It seems like the world has caught a case of moon fever.

On February 27, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that two unnamed people are paying his rocket company, SpaceX, to send them on an auto-piloted trip around the moon in 2018. Later The Washington Post revealed that Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and his own rocket company, Blue Origin, had circulated a 2020 moon colonization plan around Capitol Hill.

But its not just a gaggle of billionaires whove set their sights on Luna. On Tuesday, Congress passed its first big NASA budget in nearly 7 years. The bill calls on NASA to reach the moon by 2021.

To bring everything back to Earth a little, we called up Jim Lovell: an astronaut who visited the moon twice, once during Apollo 8 (the first crewed lunar mission) and again on Apollo 13 (which required a storied effort to rescue from disaster).

During a wide-ranging interview, we asked Lovell if there was a moment on Apollo 8 that he wished he spoke more about and his response floored us.

But first, a little setup.

Apollo 8, which launched aboard a gigantic Saturn V rocket on December 21, 1968, took off during what Lovell called a hilarious time for the planet.

There was the Vietnam War going on, it was not a popular war, especially with the younger people, Lovell told Business Insider. There were riots, there were two assassinations of prominent people during that period, and so things were looking kind of bad in this country.

And yet at the end of the year, he said, NASA was working toward its commitment, made in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, to send people to the moon before the end of that decade.

And it happened. So in the last few weeks or days of 1968 we accomplished something that we set out to do that was favourable and approved by just about every body in this country, he said.

However, Lovell said that he and his two crewmates, Frank Borman and Bill Anders, soon realised it was more than just a spaceflight.

You have to remember we brought back a picture of the Earth as it is 240,000 miles away. And the fact is, it gives you a different perspective of the Earth when you see it as three-dimensional between the sun and the moon, and you begin to realise how small and how significant the body is, he said. When I put my thumb up to the window I could completely hide it, and then I realised that behind my thumb that Im hiding this Earth, and there are about 6 billion people that are all striving to live there.

Lovell said this moment was a seed being planted, and one that would germinate into full blossom once he was back on Earth.

You have to really kind of think about our own existence here in the universe. You realise that people often say, I hope to go to heaven when I die,' he said. In reality, if you think about it, you go to heaven when youre born.

By this Lovell meant the remarkable situation we find ourselves in: floating on a cosy rock that is drifting through the seemingly endless void of space.

You arrive on a planet that has the proper mass, has the gravity to contain water and an atmosphere, which are the very essentials for life, he said. And you arrive on this planet thats orbiting a star just at the right distance not too far to be too cold, or too close to be too hot and just at the right distance to absorb that stars energy and then, with that energy, cause life to evolve here in the first place.

In reality, you know, God has really given us a stage, just looking at where we were around the moon, a stage on which we perform. And how that play turns out is up to us, I guess, he said.

Trapped on a cosmic stage together, and at a time when the US is again painfully divided, Lovells words are ones we could all take to heart.

Disclosure: Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post and is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.

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Apollo astronaut: 'You go to heaven when you are born' - Business Insider Australia

March 10, 2017 by Matt Williams, Universe Today Artist's concept of a terraformed Mars (left) and an O'Neill Cylinder. Credit: Ittiz/Wikimedia Commons (left)/Rick Guidice/NASA Ames Research Center (right)

The idea of terraforming Mars aka "Earth's Twin" is a fascinating idea. Between melting the polar ice caps, slowly creating an atmosphere, and then engineering the environment to have foliage, rivers, and standing bodies of water, there's enough there to inspire just about anyone! But just how long would such an endeavor take, what would it cost us, and is it really an effective use of our time and energy?

Such were the questions dealt with by two papers presented at NASA's "Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop" last week (Mon. Feb. 27th Wed. Mar. 1st). The first, titled "The Terraforming Timeline", presents an abstract plan for turning the Red Planet into something green and habitable. The second, titled "Mars Terraforming the Wrong Way", rejects the idea of terraforming altogether and presents an alternative.

The former paper was produced by Aaron Berliner from the University of California, Berkeley, and Chris McKay from the Space Sciences Division at NASA Ames Research Center. In their paper, the two researchers present a timeline for the terraforming of Mars that includes a Warming Phase and an Oxygenation Phase, as well as all the necessary steps that would precede and follow.

As they state in their paper's Introduction:

"Terraforming Mars can be divided into two phases. The first phase is warming the planet from the present average surface temperature of -60 C to a value close to Earth's average temperature to +15 C, and recreating a thick CO atmosphere. This warming phase is relatively easy and quick, and could take ~100 years. The second phase is producing levels of O in the atmosphere that would allow humans and other large mammals to breath normally. This oxygenation phase is relatively difficult and would take 100,000 years or more, unless one postulates a technological breakthrough."

Before these can begin, Berliner and McKay acknowledge that certain "pre-terraforming" steps need to be taken. These include investigating Mars' environment to determine the levels of water on the surface, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and in ice form in the polar regions, and the amount of nitrates in Martian soil. As they explain, all of these are key to the practicality of making a biosphere on Mars.

So far, the available evidence points towards all three elements existing in abundance on Mars. While most of Mars water is currently in the form of ice in the polar regions and polar caps, there is enough there to support a water cycle complete with clouds, rain, rivers and lakes. Meanwhile, some estimates claim that there is enough CO in ice form in the polar regions to create an atmosphere equal to the sea level pressure on Earth.

Nitrogen is a also fundamental requirement for life and necessary constituent of a breathable atmosphere, and recent data by the Curiosity Rover indicate that nitrates account for ~0.03% by mass of the soil on Mars, which is encouraging for terraforming. On top of that, scientists will need to tackle certain ethical questions related to how terraforming could impact Mars.

For instance, if there is currently any life on Mars (or life that could be revived), this would present an undeniable ethical dilemma for human colonists especially if this life is related to life on Earth. As they explain:

"If Martian life is related to Earth life possibly due to meteorite exchange then the situation is familiar, and issues of what other types of Earth life to introduce and when must be addressed. However, if Martian life in unrelated to Earth life and clearly represents a second genesis of life, then significant technical and ethical issues are raised."

To break Phase One "The Warming Phase" down succinctly, the authors address an issue familiar to us today. Essentially, we are altering our own climate here on Earth by introducing CO and "super greenhouse gases" to the atmosphere, which is increasing Earth's average temperature at a rate of many degrees centigrade per century. And whereas this has been unintentional on Earth, on Mars it could be re-purposed to deliberately warm the environment.

"The timescale for warming Mars after a focused effort of super greenhouse gas production is short, only 100 years or so," they claim. "If all the solar incident on Mars were to be captured with 100% efficiency, then Mars would warm to Earth-like temperatures in about 10 years. However, the efficiency of the greenhouse effect is plausibly about 10%, thus the time it would take to warm Mars would be ~100 years."

Once this thick atmosphere has been created, the next step involves converting it into something breathable for humans where O levels would be the equivalent of about 13% of sea level air pressure here on Earth and CO levels would be less than 1%. This phase, known as the "Oxygenation Phase", would take considerably longer. Once again, they turn towards a terrestrial example to show how such a process could work.

Here on Earth, they claim, the high levels of oxygen gas (O) and low levels of CO are due to photosynthesis. These reactions rely on the sun's energy to convert water and carbon dioxide into biomass which is represented by the equation HO + CO = CHO + O. As they illustrate, this process would take between 100,000 and 170,000 years:

"If all the sunlight incident on Mars was harnessed with 100% efficiency to perform this chemical transformation it would take only 17 years to produce high levels of O. However, the likely efficiency of any process that can transform HO and CO into biomass and O is much less than 100%. The only example we have of a process that can globally alter the CO and O of an entire plant is global biology. On Earth the efficiency of the global biosphere in using sunlight to produced biomass and O2 is 0.01%. Thus the timescale for producing an O rich atmosphere on Mars is 10,000 x 17 years, or ~ 170,000 years."

However, they make allowances for synthetic biology and other biotechnologies, which they claim could increase the efficiency and reduce the timescale to a solid 100,000 years. In addition, if human beings could utilize natural photosynthesis (which has a comparatively high efficiency of 5%) over the entire planet i.e. planting foliage all over Mars then the timescale could be reduced to even a few centuries.

Finally, they outline the steps that need to be taken to get the ball rolling. These steps include adapting current and future robotic missions to assess Martian resources, mathematical and computer models that could examine the processes involved, an initiative to create synthetic organisms for Mars, a means to test terraforming techniques in a limited environment, and a planetary agreement that would establish restrictions and protections.

Quoting Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Red Mars Trilogy, (the seminal work of science fiction about terraforming Mars) they issue a call to action. Addressing how long the process of terraforming Mars will take, they assert that we "might as well start now".

To this, Valeriy Yakovlev an astrophysicist and hydrogeologist from Laboratory of Water Quality in Kharkov, Ukraine offers a dissenting view. In his paper, "Mars Terraforming the Wrong Way", he makes the case for the creation of space biospheres in Low Earth Orbit that would rely on artificial gravity (like an O'Neill Cylinder) to allow humans to grow accustomed to life in space.

Looking to one of the biggest challenges of space colonization, Yakovlev points to how life on bodies like the Moon or Mars could be dangerous for human settlers. In addition to being vulnerable to solar and cosmic radiation, colonists would have to deal with substantially lower gravity. In the case of the Moon, this would be roughly 0.165 times that which humans experience here on Earth (aka. 1 g), whereas on Mars it would be roughly 0.376 times.

The long-term effects of this are not known, but it is clear it would include muscle degeneration and bone loss. Looking farther, it is entirely unclear what the effects would be for those children who were born in either environment. Addressing the ways in which these could be mitigated (which include medicine and centrifuges), Yakovlev points out how they would most likely be ineffective:

"The hope for the medicine development will not cancel the physical degradation of the muscles, bones and the whole organism. The rehabilitation in centrifuges is less expedient solution compared with the ship-biosphere where it is possible to provide a substantially constant imitation of the normal gravity and the protection complex from any harmful influences of the space environment. If the path of space exploration is to create a colony on Mars and furthermore the subsequent attempts to terraform the planet, it will lead to the unjustified loss of time and money and increase the known risks of human civilization."

In addition, he points to the challenges of creating the ideal environment for individuals living in space. Beyond simply creating better vehicles and developing the means to procure the necessary resources, there is also the need to create the ideal space environment for families. Essentially, this requires the development of housing that is optimal in terms of size, stability, and comfort.

In light of this, Yakolev presents what he considers to be the most likely prospects for humanity's exit to space between now and 2030. This will include the creation of the first space biospheres with artificial gravity, which will lead to key developments in terms of materials technology, life support-systems, and the robotic systems and infrastructure needed to install and service habitats in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

These habitats could be serviced thanks to the creation of robotic spacecraft that could harvest resources from nearby bodies such as the Moon and Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). This concept would not only remove the need for planetary protections i.e. worries about contaminating Mars' biosphere (assuming the presence of bacterial life), it would also allow human beings to become accustomed to space more gradually.

As Yakovlev told Universe Today via email, the advantages to space habitats can be broken down into four points:

"1. This is a universal way of mastering the infinite spaces of the Cosmos, both in the Solar System and outside it. We do not need surfaces for installing houses, but resources that robots will deliver from planets and satellites. 2. The possibility of creating a habitat as close as possible to the earth's cradle allows one to escape from the inevitable physical degradation under a different gravity. It is easier to create a protective magnetic field.

"3. The transfer between worlds and sources of resources will not be a dangerous expedition, but a normal life. Is it good for sailors without their families? 4. The probability of death or degradation of mankind as a result of the global catastrophe is significantly reduced, as the colonization of the planets includes reconnaissance, delivery of goods, shuttle transport of people and this is much longer than the construction of the biosphere in the Moon's orbit. Dr. Stephen William Hawking is right, a person does not have much time."

And with space habitats in place, some very crucial research could begin, including medical and biologic research which would involve the first children born in space. It would also facilitate the development of reliable space shuttles and resource extraction technologies, which will come in handy for the settlement of other bodies like the Moon, Mars, and even exoplanets.

Ultimately, Yakolev thinks that space biospheres could also be accomplished within a reasonable timeframe i.e. between 2030 and 2050 which is simply not possible with terraforming. Citing the growing presence and power of the commercial space sector, Yakolev also believed a lot of the infrastructure that is necessary is already in place (or under development).

"After we overcome the inertia of thinking +20 years, the experimental biosphere (like the settlement in Antarctica with watches), in 50 years the first generation of children born in the Cosmos will grow and the Earth will decrease, because it will enter the legends as a whole As a result, terraforming will be canceled. And the subsequent conference will open the way for real exploration of the Cosmos. I'm proud to be on the same planet as Elon Reeve Musk. His missiles will be useful to lift designs for the first biosphere from the lunar factories. This is a close and direct way to conquer the Cosmos."

With NASA scientists and entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Bas Landorp looking to colonize Mars in the near future, and other commercial aerospace companies developing LEO, the size and shape of humanity's future in space is difficult to predict. Perhaps we will jointly decide on a path that takes us to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Perhaps we will see our best efforts directed into near-Earth space.

Or perhaps we will see ourselves going off in multiple directions at once. Whereas some groups will advocate creating space habitats in LEO (and later, elsewhere in the Solar System) that rely on artificial gravity and robotic spaceships mining asteroids for materials, others will focus on establishing outposts on planetary bodies, with the goal of turning them into "new Earths".

Between them, we can expect that humans will begin developing a degree of "space expertise" in this century, which will certainly come in handy when we start pushing the boundaries of exploration and colonization even further.

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We're more likely to resort on space habitats. Not that Mars isn't tempting, but it would ask too much time, ressources and close to no disasters for it to be another place to live in. And, of course, there could be more on it that we need to discover before doing anything we would regret. What's more, we'll need to relocate our growing population. Being able to control it by creating new homes with little risks of destroying anything in the process isn't bad at all. But again, we'll still need time and ressources for this. And in the long, long term, we'll need other worlds anyway. Space habitats are cool and all, but planets (habitable ones, that is) are less likely to explode due to some flying rocks not paying attention to red lights....that and other things.

The Glitter Band - ring of human habitats orbiting a planet. The planet is where you go for a vacation, not to live.

100,000? Forget it. What the authors are saying is that, with current or foreseeable technology, this is an impossible project. If within the next 300 years we have not learned how to terraform Mars in, at worst, a few decades, we will never do it.

The initial exploration & colonization 'of space' probably will be things like asteroid mining and solar powersats for Earth. That will naturally entail space stations & hollowed-out asteroid colonies, and will be driven by business. However, terraforming will happen too. And people who migrate in large #s to the newly opened planets can simply modify themselves via genetic engineering to adapt to the different gravity, etc. After all, that'll be old tech by the time they're ready.

Underground living offers protection from radiation and impactors, ready access to resources rather than mining distant bodies, and airtight enclosures. Water reservoirs in liquid form, skylights for natural light, no need for artificial gravity,

The advantages are clear.

Lot of literature about space living. One of those O'Niell cylinders would make a really good system ship with proper propulsion, like Dr Lerner's Focus Fusion system which makes a fusion thruster and an electromagnetodynamic generator for power to the ship. Lots of resources among bodies in this system. Free of planetary dominance and most politics, a free roaming (NO low earth orbit limitations, atmospheric frag, orbit degradation,etc) and entirely self sufficient ship with one 'gee' living and working conditions would be able to live near if not 'inside' the asteroid belt where its supplies would last....forever. It could export the mined materials to earth for it's international sponsors, and also could travel to the vicinity of the Moon for its shuttles to mine lunar regolith for new colony ship (may as well say colony ship....it is a colony and it lives on a really big ship) construction. Fuel..our system is running over with boron and hydrogen and water everywhere.

I've read terraforming Mars suggestions for twenty years, and they all start with the same nonsense claim that humans are doing a great job warming Earth. They ignore that it's taken 9 billion humans 200 years to warm Earth by 0.9 C. Where do these kooks get this idea that Earth is warming at "a rate of many degrees centigrade per century," or that we could see such results on Mars? Even if we could do it, though, it would be a waste of resources to do so. We see what equilibrium Mars is like. Moving from that requires continuous effort and materials, much of which fizzles into space, lost.

"an underground nuclear detonation created large quantities of heat as well as radioisotopes, but most would quickly become trapped in the molten rock and become unusable as the rock resolidifed." https://en.wikipe...ct_Gnome

-And what makes you think that explosives couldnt be designed to minimize residual radiation or that it couldnt be mitigated?

I think that the plowshare tests were conducted when the need for self-sustaining underground refuges in light of NBC threats became obvious during the cold war.

While Mars may be a far more hospitable place to develop technologies for terraforming, if we are talking about investing tens of thousands of years, and the goal is to create earth's twin, then Venus is the obvious candidate. Not only would the gravity be very similar, but the chances of creating a stable earth like environment would be much better.

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The future of space colonization terraforming or space habitats? - Phys.Org

March 10, 2017

Unlocking humanitys future as an interplanetary species is no simple feat.

But students at Arizona State University and the Central University of Tamil Nadu in India are up for the challenge. The international collaboration is vying for a chance to induce photosynthesis on the moon.

Photosynthesis is the basis of all life, said Jonathon Barkl, a physics and economics major in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. If it can happen on another planet, were one step closer to proving humanity can eventually do the same.

The quest to help build sustainable life on the moon started with TeamIndus, the only Indian team competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE. The $30 million international competition inspires innovators to develop low-cost methods of robotic space exploration and be the first privately funded team to land spacecraft on the moon, travel 500 meters and transmit high-definition video and images back to Earth.

TeamIndus has officially secured a launch contract with Indias Space Research Organization to send a lander to the moon in December 2017. As part of their mission to catalyze humankind as a multi-planetary species, TeamIndus created the Lab2Moon challenge to fly one youth experiment aboard their spacecraft to the moon.

We have this amazing opportunity to send a payload to the lunar surface and conduct science that could impact the future of human exploration, said Barkl, a member of the ASU/CUTN Lab2Moon team. It blows my mind every time I think about it.

During phase one of the challenge, TeamIndus received 3,000 entries from across the globe explaining a range of experiments to catalyze the evolution of humankind from growing plants on the moon to investigating the lunar subsurface.

Twenty-five teams were shortlisted in the competition to build prototypes of their concept, including the ASU/CUTN Lab2Moon team who are eager to determine if photosynthesis can take place on the moon with its very hostile conditions.

The premise of our mission is taking cyanobacteria a really robust and primitive life form and placing it on the lunar surface to see how it affects the photosynthesis process, Barkl said. If cyanobacteria can photosynthesize and thrive on this surface, we can use it as a means of potentially producing energy, food or even possibly terraforming another planet.

The ASU/CUTN Lab2Moon team has been developing a strategy for putting their mission on the moon, from outlining power requirements to maintaining a safe environment for the bacteria. As they start to develop a full-on prototype of their project, they have to meet TeamIndus three criteria: be the size of a regular soda can, weigh less than 250 grams and connect to the spacecrafts on-board computer.

Its a unique challenge to coordinate between the two universities, Barkl said. Were halfway around the world and our colleagues are 12.5 hours ahead. Well message them while theyre trying to sleep or theyll message us when were in class. The time coordination is hard, but its going well.

During the development stage, the team has broken down responsibilities for the members at each university. Santosh and Sukanya Roychowdhury from CUTN will be developing the space capsule and testing it for space-grade readiness, structural integrity and its ability to withstand pressure and temperature. Barkl, Aidan McGirr and Autumn Conner from ASU will determine how to configure the electronics with the on-board computer, prepare the cyanobacteria and test the capsules sensors.

Our mission is very heavy in science and data because were going to have about nine sensors whereas several other teams have only two or three, Barkl said. We have two main groups of sensors: one for maintaining a relatively friendly environment for the cyanobacteria and one for measuring the output of photosynthesis as the function of radiation on the lunar surface.

Members of the Arizona State University and the Central University of Tamil Nadu Lab2Moon team (from left) Autumn Conner, Jonathon Barkl and Aidan McGirr along with Rakshith Dekshidar (right), a graduate student in electrical engineering, who has been helping the team configure the space capsule's sensors and electronics systems.

After their second design review with TeamIndus, the ASU/CUTN Lab2Moon team was invited to the final stage of the competition. The team will showcase their prototype to an international team of judges in Bangalore, India, on March 13, where theyll find out who gets to fly with TeamIndus to the moon this year.

We see professors from the School of Earth and Space Exploration all the time getting research grants from NASA and winning different missions. Its inspiring to think, Wow, I can go to space too, Barkl said. ASU has never had a student mission of this caliber. We want to prove that not only are the faculty doing amazing science, but so are the students.

Although Barkl is a student in the Department of Physics, he considers himself an honoree member of the School of Earth and Space Exploration. The research being conducted in the school was the reason he decided to attend the university and what inspired him to pursue this competition.

The ASU community has really been a huge support for us, Barkl said. Its a humbling experience to work with so many inspiring researchers who are so supportive and answer all our questions. If we had three years to research these questions, we could probably figure them out on our own. But with such a short turnaround time, they have really helped us make this project possible.

The teams mentors include Lindy Elkins-Tanton, planetary scientist and director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration; Philip Christensen, geologist and geophysicist; Scott Parazynski, retired NASA astronaut and current professor of practice; Ferran Garcia-Pichel, dean of natural sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Mark Jacobs, dean of Barrett, The Honors College and professor in the School of Life Sciences; Mark Naufel, director of strategic projects at the university; and Scott Smas, program manager of ASUs Space Technology and Science Initiative.

ASU has provided us with funding, supplies, facilities and mentorship, Barkl said. Having access to all these resources has pretty much changed the game for us.

Barkl and McGirr, an astrophysics major, want to use the Lab2Moon project to kick off a miniature space agency and private, student-run organization at ASU where students can take what they are learning in the classroom and apply it in a meaningful way to advance space technologies.

What I look forward to most is being able to say Ive contributed to the goal of human colonization on other planets, Barkl said. And we want to prove that students can do meaningful work in the space sector too.

To learn more about the ASU/CUTN Lab2Moon mission, visit the teams website and Facebook page.

Top photo: The moon photographed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team at ASU. Photo by NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

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ASU students compete for a journey to the moon - Arizona State University

Indiana Daily Student

Mars, Tomb of Futurism: The Hopes of Success Are Dependent on Cyborg Humans Futurism After all, the colonization of space is tangentially connected enough to other themes associated with technological progress that they're ordinarily all lumped together under the general banner of Futurism. In an increasingly divisive political climate ... Carnival of Space 499Next Big Future Why SpaceX Won't Turn Us Into A Multi-planetary SpeciesScience 2.0 Multi-billionaire CEO plans to launch space missionThe Campus Daily Beast -Asia Times -SpaceX -SpaceNews all 132 news articles »

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Mars, Tomb of Futurism: The Hopes of Success Are Dependent on Cyborg Humans - Futurism

1. Universe Today - 7 Questions For 7 New Planets Artist's concept of the TRAPPIST-1 star system, an ultra-cool dwarf that has seven Earth-size planets orbiting it. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

2. Universe Today - Rise of the Super Telescopes: The European Extremely Large Telescope

3. Supernova condensate - If only there was an Earth-like planet conveniently nearby for us to actually visit...

4. Supernova condensate - Exactly how big is the TRAPPIST-1 system?

5. Universe Today - Some Active Process is Cracking Open These Faults on Mars. But What is it?

6. Universe Today - What the Oldest Fossil on Earth Means for Finding Life on Mars

7. Nextbigfuture - An inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind and allow the Martian atmosphere to thicken overtime.

Mars atmosphere would naturally thicken over time, which lead to many new possibilities for human exploration and colonization. According to Green and his colleagues, these would include an average increase of about 4 C (~7 F), which would be enough to melt the carbon dioxide ice in the northern polar ice cap. This would trigger a greenhouse effect, warming the atmosphere further and causing the water ice in the polar caps to melt.

By their calculations, Green and his colleagues estimated that this could lead to 1/7th of Mars' oceans the ones that covered it billions of years again.

"A greatly enhanced Martian atmosphere, in both pressure and temperature, that would be enough to allow significant surface liquid water would also have a number of benefits for science and human exploration in the 2040s and beyond," said Green. "Much like Earth, an enhanced atmosphere would: allow larger landed mass of equipment to the surface, shield against most cosmic and solar particle radiation, extend the ability for oxygen extraction, and provide "open air" greenhouses to exist for plant production, just to name a few."

These new conditions on Mars would allow human explorers and researchers to study the planet in much greater detail and enable a truly profound understanding of the habitability of this planet. If this can be achieved in a lifetime, the colonization of Mars would not be far away.

The proposed Lagrange point system would not require massive amounts of superconducting cable with gigawatt generators. It would be a much smaller shield between the Sun and Mars. 2 Tesla magnets are easily produced.

8. Nextbigfuture - In 2014 at a SF and comic convention Joe Flanigan (who played John Sheppard on the Stargate Atlantis show) revealed that he and a group of investors tried to lease the rights to the Stargate Franchise.

There was an verbal agreement on terms for a ten year deal but it could not be concluded because of the bankruptcy of MGM.

It would have been 20 episodes filmed in Europe with rights pre-sold. They would then come back to the American Networks.

9. Nextbigfuture - SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. Spacex expects to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and Spacex expects more to follow. Additional information will be released about the flight teams, contingent upon their approval and confirmation of the health and fitness test results.

Spacex would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASAs Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission. In addition, this will make use of the Falcon Heavy rocket, which was developed with internal SpaceX funding. Falcon Heavy is due to launch its first test flight this summer and, once successful, will be the most powerful vehicle to reach orbit after the Saturn V moon rocket. At 5 million pounds of liftoff thrust, Falcon Heavy is two-thirds the thrust of Saturn V and more than double the thrust of the next largest launch vehicle currently flying.

10. Nextbigfuture - Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelows company makes in-space habitats. One (the BEAM adds 16 cubic meters of living area to the ISS) is now attached to the International Space Station and he and his company are developing permanent, stand-alone habitats to serve as private space stations in orbit around the Earth, ready to house private astronauts.

Bigelow has talked with United Launch Alliance Chief Executive Tory Bruno about using the company's Atlas V 552 rocket, which has an extra-wide payload fairing, to deliver the B330 into orbit.

United Launch Alliance is developing an advanced upper-stage vehicle, ACES, to provide in-space propulsion.

Two ACES in tandem could be used to move the B330 into a low lunar orbit. They orbit within 75 kilometers of the lunar surface

Bigelow has spoken SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell about using the company's Dragon 2 spacecraft to transport astronauts to the B330 in deep space.

By 2020, NASA and commercial astronauts could be living and working in lunar orbit inside a functional space station that would be about half of the volume of the international space station.

It is time for America to return to the Moon this time to stay, Bezos said in response to emailed questions from The Post. A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this.

Blue Origins proposal, dated Jan. 4, doesnt involve flying humans, but rather is focused on a series of cargo missions. Those could deliver the equipment necessary to help establish a human colony on the moon unlike the Apollo missions, in which the astronauts left flags and footprints and then came home.

The United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has also been working on plans to create a transportation network to the area around the moon, known as cislunar space.

The Blue Moon spacecraft could carry as much as 10,000 pounds of material and fly atop several different rockets, including NASAs Space Launch System, the United Launch Alliances Atlas V or its own New Glenn rocket, which is under development and expected to fly by the end of the decade, the company said.

12. Nextbigfuture - Total global satellite plans could have around 20,000 satellites in low and mid earth orbits in the 2020s

The FCC had given companies until March 1 to disclose whether they also had plans to use the same V-band that Boeing had applied for in November of last year.

The five companies SpaceX, OneWeb, Telesat, O3b Networks and Theia Holdings all told the FCC they have plans to field constellations of V-band satellites in non-geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services in the United States and elsewhere. So far the V-band spectrum of interest, which sits directly above Ka-band from about 37 GHz to the low 50 GHz range, has not been heavily employed for commercial communications services.

* Boeing has a proposed global network of 1,396 to 2,956 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites for providing connectivity. * SpaceX, for example, proposes a VLEO, or V-band low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellation of 7,518 satellites to follow the operators initially proposed 4,425 satellites that would function in Ka- and Ku-band. * OneWeb told the FCC it wants to operate a sub-constellation of 720 LEO V-band satellites at 1,200 kilometers, and another constellation in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) of 1,280 satellites. * Canada-based Telesat describes its V-band LEO constellation as one that will follow closely the design of the Ka-band LEO Constellation, also using 117 satellites (not counting spares) as a second-generation overlay. * a 2015 proposal from Samsung outlined a 4600-satellite constellation orbiting at 1,400 kilometers (900 mi) that could bring 200 gigabytes per month of internet data to "each of the world's 5 billion people"

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Carnival of Space 499 - Next Big Future

Excitement has been building all afternoon about an announcement by Elon Musk and SpaceX, and the story is finally out: two private citizens have contracted with SpaceX to be the first humans to make a deep-space trip in 45 years. The mission will be the second crewed use of the SpaceX Dragon Crew vehicle, following two tests to the ISS under NASA's Commercial Crew Program -- an un-crewed test later this year, followed by taking a crew early in 2018.

SpaceX already has a contract with NASA for three cargo and one crewed mission a year.

Unlike the NASA missions, this lunar circumnavigation will use SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy booster, which SpaceX developed privately. It will be launched from Pad 39A, the same pad used by the Apollo and Space Shuttle missions.

This announcement seems to steal a march on NASA and the acting head of NASA, Robert Lightfoot. On February 15, Lightfoot announced a study to determine whether the first test of the Orion and Space Launch System could be used to send two people to the Moon:

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Elon Musk and SpaceX Announce Return to Moon - PJ Media

What thorny ethical issues await us once we make it to Mars? A composite image of the red planet, composed by processing about 1000 Viking Orbiter red- and violet-filter images have been to provide global color coverage at a scale of 1 km/pixel.

Every summer for the past 20 years, Pascal Lee has traveled to the remote Canadian Arctic to pretend hes on Mars. This cold, dry, pockmarked and essentially lifeless environment is one of the closest to the red planet that you can find on Earthmaking it a great practice ground for driving Mars rovers.

Lee, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute in California, is the director of the NASA Haughton Mars Project, where he uses this analog Mars environment to investigate scientific questions concerning how humans might threaten life on other planets we colonize.

For example, if humans travel to Mars, would microbes transferred from our bodies thrive on Martian soilthreatening native Martian microbes and disrupting native ecosystems? Recent results from Lees research suggest the answer to that is no, at least not on the surface of Martian soil: Mars harsh climate and high UV radiation would kill off many of the microbes we may accidentally bring from Earth.

But the Haughton Mars Projectalong with other Mars analog study sites in Antarctica and the Atacama Desert in Chilealso inadvertently bring to light numerous ethical questions of how we should behave as interplanetary colonists. As humans accelerate their space travel capacity and aim tocolonize Marsin the next several decades, these questions are becoming less lofty and more immediately urgent.

Here's another scenario: If humans were to land on Mars and were somehow lethally threatened by Martians, should humans attack the Martians? In his personal opinion, Lee says the answer would be yes. If at some point it came down to either me or the microbe on Mars thats going to survive, Im probably not going to hesitate, he says.

Yet these are not simple questions to address, and are not within the realm of the Haughton Mars Project to answer. The International Council for Science, consisting of 142 countries, has organized a Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) to help answer some of these questions and a United Nations Outer Space Treaty, in place since 1967, also helps streamline some of the ethical and legal implications that this issue raises.

But the treaty is meant to protect the safety of humans and scientific evidence of life on other planets, not to protect the environments or ecosystems of those planets. Moreover, the contents of the treaty are just guidelines: They are not laws, and the legal implications of not following them remain unclear, says Catharine Conley, head officer at NASAs Planetary Protection Office.

The peer pressure approach has, up until now, worked, she says, explaining that its in space agencies best interest to work together since they often rely on each other for collaboration and advancement. But now, as more private companies like SpaceX enter the field to visit Mars, the playing field has changed.

When you have other entities included that dont have those same long term science objectives, it gets more complicated, says Conley.

Under the current treaty guidelines, federal governments are responsible for the behavior of both their space agencies and nongovernmental space entities in their country. So a company like SpaceX must be authorized to launch by a government agency before lift offbut if it accidentally or intentionally fails to comply with the treaty guidelines at some point in flight, another country could theoretically sue the U.S. government or take other legal actions, says Conley.

Despite general good intentions and hard work to keep spacecraft free of contaminants, Conley says the biggest threat humans pose to other planets is what we dont knowor what we think we know, but dont. While research from the Haughton Mars Project suggests limited microbial transfer from rovers to Mars soil, other dynamics could exist on Mars or other planets that researchers havent even thought to anticipate.

For certain types of Earth organisms, Mars is a gigantic dinner plate, says Conley. We dont know, but it could be that those organisms would grow much more rapidly than they would on Earth because they have this unaffected environment and everything is there for them to use.

So far, most of the attention to these ethical issues has focused on Mars, the most realistic subject of colonization in the near future. But other types of planets may bring up new concerns. You can invent all kinds of scenarios, but the problem is currently its all open because no one has explored these things before, says Conley, referring to the legal implications of contaminating Mars or another planet. So until you have a case, you cant decide what to do. But of course from the standpoint of planetary protection, as soon as you have a case, something has already gone wrong.

There are also dangers that fall beyond the realm of planetary protection. Take energy production: In order for humans to live on another planet, we will need to develop a way to produce electricity. A substance calledperchlorateexists in relatively high quantities on Mars (and also on Earth in bleach and other substances), making up about 1 percent of all the dust on the red planet. This highly energetic salt could potentially offer a good source of energy for humans on Mars, but not if humans accidentally introduce a microbe that eats it up before we have a chance to use it, says Conley.

Unfortunately, the guidelines put in place by the Outer Space Treaty wont necessarily prevent this type of mistake from happening. The guidelines are strict on keeping spacecraft clean when looking for life on other planets, but less stringent for spacecraft traveling to a celestial body for other reasons. This is because planetary protection guidelines exist to preserve scientific evidence of extraterrestrial lifenot the environments of other planets, saysGerhard Kminek,the planetary protection officer at the European Space Agency.

Working groups of COSPAR, including thePanel on Potentially Environmentally Detrimental Activities in Space, do explore how space activities might disrupt other planets environments. These panels report to the United Nations with their findings. But again, they only offer guidelines, not laws, says Kminek. So its up to international space agencies to recognize the importance of building best practices in spacecraft sanitation and keeping up with the sometimes onerous standards set by the Outer Space Treaty.

If you do it badly once, that might be enough to compromise any future investigation related to life, says Kminek. And thats why there is strong international consensus making sure there are no bad players around.

The standards for travel also differ from one celestial body to another. For instance, Mars atmosphere is thick enough that it will burn off certain microbes upon entryallowing spacecraft sanitation standards to remain laxer than they would be for vehicles landing somewhere with a very thin atmosphere, like Jupiters moon Europa, Kminek says.

That is, at least based on our understanding of these celestial bodies right now. During the Apollo missions to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s, we learned how unforeseen obstacles can cause critical problems in space travel. On the Moon, the threat lunar dust posed to astronauts was underestimated until it started getting stuck in the crevices of their face and in their zippers, jeopardizing the integrity of their spacesuits, saysMargaret Race, a colleague of Conleys at the SETI Institute.

Had they been up there a little longer, their spacesuits would not have worked, Race says.

Late astronaut and engineer Eugene Cernan, the last man to have walked on the Moon, stated the enormity of the dust problem during anApollo 17 technical debriefin 1973: I think dust is probably one of our greatest inhibitors to a nominal operation on the Moon, he stated. We can overcome other physiological or physical or mechanical problems except dust.

Humans also didnt do a good job limiting the transport of material from Earth to the Moon or vice versa, says Race. The Moon is lifeless, so this had little consequence on either celestial body. But if the Moon harbored life and a transfer of species did occur, the consequences would have been far greater. If there were life on the Moon, we would have it here now, she says. We did the best we could at the time, but we didnt understand.

While space engineering has come a long way since the Apollo missions, plenty of work remains to determine the best practices in protecting life on other planets from humans, says Conley. And when we do finally land on Mars, the advancements will need to continueeven if it appears that scientists have sufficient knowledge of human threat to other planets.

My response to that is, as soon as you eat your first candy bar, do you stop brushing your teeth? says Conley. We should keep doing it. Because, in the end, what we dont know willend up being the most dangerous threat humans pose to these other worlds.

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When Humans Begin Colonizing Other Planets, Who Should Be in Charge? - Smithsonian