Take a look at the kinds of protective shelters we’d need in order to live on Mars’ surface. Here’s a hint: the shelters are more stone age than space age.
April 21st, 2010
Urban Farming: Mars, Antarctica Provide Inspiration for Brooklyn Rooftop Gardens Budez.com
Jennifer Nelkin believes that the future of high-end, boutique-quality farming is not in California, sunny Florida, or even the fertile soils of the Hudson Valley. It’s right under our noses. Or more accurately, right above our noses.
As co-founder of Gotham Greens, New York’s first commercial rooftop hydroponics operation, Jenn’s got a lot riding on that future. “I really hope that rooftop gardening is a successful venture, because we’ve borrowed $1.4 million to try and find out.”
Located on the roof of a manufacturing plant in Greenpoint Brooklyn, and equipped with solar-powered pumps that feed nutrient-enriched rainwater to an acre of greenhouse space, Jenn’s goal is to produce greens and herbs to sell to local chefs, retailers (Whole Foods has expressed interest), and direct to the public by as early as this fall.
So how does one get involved with a project like this?
I first met Jenn a few months ago at a dinner party that my friend Joshua Levin of GoodEater.org and I threw for few local food superstars (including our very own Erin), where she regaled us with stories about greenhouses on Mars.
April 21st, 2010
Just 39 days to Mars
With hard work, an immigrant’s dream of spaceflight came true. Now, his ticket to America could be our ticket to the Red Planet. Like many red-blooded American teens coming of age during the 1960s space race, Franklin Chang-Diaz dreamed of chasing cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to the stars.
There was a hitch, of course. Chang-Diaz wasn’t American. He lived outside the United States. And the Costa Rican didn’t even speak English.
No matter. Chang-Diaz would overcome these obstacles and more to fly a record-tying seven missions aboard the space shuttle. Along the way the physicist would also develop a plasma rocket that promises a revolutionary approach to spaceflight.
The rocket, potentially, could blast the next generation of astronauts to Mars in just 39 days, about one fifth of the time required by existing rocketry.
April 15th, 2010
Obama sets Mars goal for America
Barack Obama says it should be possible to send astronauts to orbit the planet Mars by the mid-2030s and return them safely to Earth.
The US president made the claim in a major speech to staff at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
He was laying out the details of his new policy for the US space agency.
Mr Obama said he was giving NASA challenging goals and the funding needed to achieve them, including an extra $6bn over the next five years.
“By 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever crew missions beyond the Moon into deep space,” the President said. “So, we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history.”
And then he added: “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth, and a landing on Mars will follow.”
April 14th, 2010
Obama to outline vision for space program despite astronaut criticism The Sydney Morning Herald
Barack Obama is set to promote his vision for the nation’s human space flight program – including putting a human on Mars – just two days after three Apollo astronauts called the new plans ”devastating”.
In an announcement to be made at Kennedy Space Centre in Florida today, the President will talk for the first time about the upheaval of NASA’s human spaceflight program outlined in his 2011 budget request in February.
It involved cancelling plans to return astronauts to the moon, investing in commercial companies to provide transport to orbit and developing new space technologies.
A senior administration official said Mr Obama would describe a vision ”that unlocks our ambitions and expands our frontiers in space, ultimately meaning the challenge of sending humans to Mars”.
April 14th, 2010
NASA Gets a $6 Billion Booster for Mars and Beyond Fast Company
Find hope in this, NASA, science and Mars fans: President Obama’s new stance on NASA’s funding will likely pump no less than $6 billion into the agency to create a new heavy rocket sooner than we’d hoped. Mars is its target.
Over the previous few weeks we’ve heard rumors about what NASA’s future might look like. All of them seemed attractive compared to the grim reality we’d assumed would happen: The Space Shuttle grounded, the Constellation moonshot program canceled, big delays in getting private space ventures ready to fire humans into space, and huge job losses in NASA and its supporting industries.
Now there’s word that during a big space event tomorrow, Obama will unveil a new vision that includes $6 billion of extra cash for the space agency, on top of its original budget plans, phased over five years. This money has very specific purposes: Firstly it’s going to create 2,500 additional jobs in and around NASA’s Florida installations, and secondly it’ll result in a new large rocket that’ll be key in taking humans to Mars. Spin-off work will include continuing to develop the Orion manned space capsule to act as an emergency escape vehicle for the international space station.
April 13th, 2010
Obama to unveil plans for Mars shot The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
United States president Barack Obama is set to unveil plans to create 2,500 more space jobs and select a design for a rocket to fire astronauts into deep space by 2015, The Washington Post reports.
Mr Obama will deliver what has been billed as a “major space policy speech” outlining the new future for US space exploration when he addresses astronauts, space workers and lawmakers on Thursday at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
His address comes after budget proposals in February revealed plans to axe the expensive and over-budgeted Constellation rocket project, a move that fuelled a storm of criticism from lawmakers and space enthusiasts.
But the Post reported on its website that Mr Obama’s speech would seek to soothe critics and provide more specific details of plans to recreate NASA’s human space exploration program in what a White House official said amounted to a “bold and daring” vision.
April 13th, 2010
NASA: Next stop Mars? Network World
There’s lots of pressure and some speculation that President Obama will throw some sort of manned space flight bone in the direction of NASA when he addresses the space agency’s future plans this week at a Kennedy Space Center address.
What that may be could come in the form of a formal challenge to NASA to make a manned space flight to Mars in say 10 to 15 years a priority. If that were the challenge it would take quite the effort as most of the equipment needed to make such a trip is largely undeveloped.
April 1st, 2010
Google and Virgin announce Mars expedition and colony Project Virgle
Google and Virgin Group today announced the launch of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars.
“Some people are calling Virgle an ‘interplanetary Noah’s Ark,'” said Virgin Group President and Founder Sir Richard Branson, who conceived the new venture. “I’m one of them. It’s a potentially remarkable business, but more than that, it’s a glorious adventure. For me, Virgle evokes the spirit of explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo, who set sail looking for the New World. I do hope we’ll be a bit more efficient about actually finding it, though.”
The Virgle 100 Year Plan’s milestones will include Virgle Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050), and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).
“Virgle is the ultimate application of a principle we’ve always believed at Google: that you can do well by doing good,” said Google co-founder Larry Page, who plans to share leadership of the new Martian civilization with Branson and Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
“We feel that ensuring the survival of the human race by helping it colonize a new planet is both a moral good in and of itself and also the most likely method of ensuring the survival of our best – okay, fine, only — base of web search volume and advertising inventory,” Page added. “So, you know, it’s, like, win-win.”
The original contingent of Virgle Pioneers will be selected by numerous criteria, including an online questionnaire, video submission, personal accomplishments, expertise in scientific, artistic, sociological and/or political fields of endeavor, and inadequate Google and Virgin personal performance reviews.
March 23rd, 2010
Bill Gates, Toshiba in early talks on nuclear reactor
A company backed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Toshiba are in early talks to jointly develop a small nuclear reactor, the Japanese electronics giant said Tuesday.
The Nikkei business daily earlier reported that the two sides would team up to develop a compact next-generation reactor that can operate for up to 100 years without refueling to provide emission-free energy.
The daily said the joint development would focus on the Traveling-Wave Reactor (TWR), which consumes depleted uranium as fuel. Current light-water reactors require refueling every few years.
“Toshiba has entered into preliminary talks with TerraPower,” said Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori. “We are looking into the possibility of working together.”
Gates is the principal owner of TerraPower, an expert team based in the US state of Washington that is investigating ways to improve emission-free energy supplies using small nuclear reactors.