Terraforming Mars

[hanelyp]

Just for a fun experiment they should send a crew of politically correct cultural Marxists on a Mars mission and test their social theories while they attempt to establish a colony.

That would be an interesting experiment. How many would actually try to live by their avowed ideas rather than as selfish? How many would die from life support failure when people neglect work before the remainder get a clue?

[williatw]

Sad to say it, but the same complaining will begin all over again on Mars, in my opinion.

Even if you sent a pure racial stock (if there is such a thing) and nothing else, they'd still find ways to divide themselves up. Human nature.

Since there are likely to be multiple private colonies setup if the Mars one people succeed (& probably even if they don't) I would figure there is a likelihood that many of them especially the smaller ones might be composed of those of very similar racial/ethnic/religious backgrounds. A mostly ethnic Mandarin Chinese group, and Irish Catholic group, a mostly Indonesian Muslim group, etc. Therefore most of the inevitable human conflicts would be between these separate colonies.

[williatw]

Sorry Martin Robbins: Mars needs Kirk Not Hofstadter

Clayton Cramer:


Of course this is the same newspaper that marked the 100th anniversary of the invention of the airplane by turning into a commentary about Americans inventing it to kill people.

But all of joking aside Mr. Robbins dream of the liberal beta male colonization of space forgets ignore a basic reality the nature of the Beta Male vs the Alpha male to wit the Star Trek TNG episode Tapestry:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeLrqLP ... r_embedded

The very nature of both space exploration and colonization demands the Alpha male.

The Alpha Male is The person willing to take the chance, risk their life and live it to the full.

The Beta male doesn’t do this, he would like to do this, and on occasion may even rise to the occasion given the right inspiration but as a rule does not.

The Alpha male moves forward, doesn’t let complaint and risk stop him. The Alpha Male is James Kirk

The Beta male is Leonard Hofstadter and he is the type who offers tearful apologies if feminists are offended by his shirt.

Of course in fairness Kirk didn’t spend a lot of time in his shirt.

Star Trek Captain Kirk & his Crew inspired generation of kids & teen to want to go out into space and be like him.

And while some comic book & gaming geeks like myself like the idea that our hobbies are more accepted because of Sheldon & Leonard, the only thing about Leonard boys in school dream of being is laid by Penny.

In fairness there will likely be plenty of Leonards, and Rajs and Howards and maybe even a Sheldon or two on the team that gets the first Mars Colony ship into space.

But the Crew will be Full of Kirks and his crew who will be too busy going boldly where no man has gone before to give a darn what the Martin Roberts of the world think.

http://datechguyblog.com/2015/05/07/sor ... ofstadter/

[Tom Ligon]

Sad to say it, but the same complaining will begin all over again on Mars, in my opinion.

Even if you sent a pure racial stock (if there is such a thing) and nothing else, they'd still find ways to divide themselves up. Human nature.

For example the Hutu "genocide" against the Tutsi in Rwanda. These two groups were not actually different tribes, they were a distinction applied by the Belgians, which was based mostly on height. The Belgians thought the taller natives were smarter. So there may have been a gene or two behind the distinction, but it was not a conventional group distinction. But murderous, nonetheless.

[hanelyp]

http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=6030 ... ent-362601

500 years from now a teacher will be leading a field trip through dilapidated structures adorned with tiny little flags from every country on Earth. The teacher will point at the non-native structures and proclaim them a blight on the environment, a foretelling of endless attacks on the Martian environment that have taken place over the last several hundred years.
...

An intriguing parody of the radical environmentalist mentality. How humanity turning a wasteland into a livable planet is a "blight".

[choff]

Apparently some people think reading to children gives them an unfair advantage, that and two parent families, they argue it should be prevented.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTCWzCn0K20

The same people are also concerned that when humans colonize mars, they will exploit the robots.

[williatw]

Here's the crazy plan to start building an inflatable habitat on the Moon in 2024


Lunar base made with 3D printing

Last year, the European Space Agency (ESA) made history by landing the first ever spacecraft — called Philae — on a comet.

The ESA's next big mission for the history books: Building the first Moon habitat located in the Shackleton crater — a 2.6-miles hole at the lunar south pole.

Last year, ESA released a video describing how it plans to use cutting-edge technology such as 3D printers and inflatable habitats to accomplish this, with the goal of supporting up to four astronauts at a time inside the shelter.

What's more, the future head of ESA, Johann-Dietrich Wörner, recently announced that the agency wants to start construction on the habitat, which it's calling "Lunarville," by as early as 2024.

Europe has never soft-landed anything on the Moon before. Only the US, USSR, and China can lay claim to that feat. ESA hopes to change that very soon: In 2018 it's planning to send a Lunar Lander to the Moon's south pole. The mission will be a precursor to ESA's bigger construction plans.

As early as 2024, provided enough funding is gathered over the next nine years, ESA will then send another spacecraft to the lunar south pole to begin construction of the first lunar base in human history. The lander will contain everything ESA needs to being including an inflatable dome and robots with 3D printers.

First, ESA will deploy the inflatable dome on the surface:





With the dome in place, 3D-printing robots will then build an outer layer around the dome from lunar dirt and dust:

This layer will completely cover the dome, protecting it and future human inhabitants from cosmic radiation and meteor impacts:

Scientists are already testing 3D printers out for this task. In 2013, a UK-based 3D-printing company called Monolite, designed this 1.5-ton structure (pictured below) from material similar to lunar dust.

"First, we needed to mix the simulated lunar material with magnesium oxide," Enrico Dini, founder of Monolite, said in an ESA statement. "This turns it into 'paper' we can print with."




While construction on Lunarville could begin as early as 2024, ESA still has major steps to take before it considers sending astronauts to live in the moon habitat for months at a time.

"A permanent shuttle service needs to be established in the case of medical emergencies," Wörner told the online tabloid Mirror.

ESA said that its lunar base could replace the International Space Station as the new base for astronauts to experience life in deep-space. If this turns out to be the case, the astronauts will only get to enjoy zero-gravity somersaults during the two-day trip to the base.



http://www.businessinsider.com/european ... 024-2015-6

[williatw]

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovers Bigger, Older Cousin to Earth




This artist's concept compares Earth (left) to the new planet, called Kepler-452b, which is about 60 percent larger in diameter



This size and scale of the Kepler-452 system compared alongside the Kepler-186 system and the solar system. Kepler-186 is a miniature solar system that would fit entirely inside the orbit of Mercury.

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the “habitable zone” around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another “Earth.”

The newly discovered Kepler-452b is the smallest planet to date discovered orbiting in the habitable zone -- the area around a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of an orbiting planet -- of a G2-type star, like our sun. The confirmation of Kepler-452b brings the total number of confirmed planets to 1,030.

"On the 20th anniversary year of the discovery that proved other suns host planets, the Kepler exoplanet explorer has discovered a planet and star which most closely resemble the Earth and our Sun," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “This exciting result brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0."

Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than Earth and is considered a super-Earth-size planet. While its mass and composition are not yet determined, previous research suggests that planets the size of Kepler-452b have a good chance of being rocky.


While Kepler-452b is larger than Earth, its 385-day orbit is only 5 percent longer. The planet is 5 percent farther from its parent star Kepler-452 than Earth is from the Sun. Kepler-452 is 6 billion years old, 1.5 billion years older than our sun, has the same temperature, and is 20 percent brighter and has a diameter 10 percent larger.


“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment," said Jon Jenkins, Kepler data analysis lead at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, who led the team that discovered Kepler-452b. "It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent 6 billion years in the habitable zone of its star; longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”


To help confirm the finding and better determine the properties of the Kepler-452 system, the team conducted ground-based observations at the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory, the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, and the W. M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. These measurements were key for the researchers to confirm the planetary nature of Kepler-452b, to refine the size and brightness of its host star and to better pin down the size of the planet and its orbit.


The Kepler-452 system is located 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. The research paper reporting this finding has been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.


In addition to confirming Kepler-452b, the Kepler team has increased the number of new exoplanet candidates by 521 from their analysis of observations conducted from May 2009 to May 2013, raising the number of planet candidates detected by the Kepler mission to 4,696. Candidates require follow-up observations and analysis to verify they are actual planets.


Twelve of the new planet candidates have diameters between one to two times that of Earth, and orbit in their star's habitable zone. Of these, nine orbit stars that are similar to our sun in size and temperature.


“We've been able to fully automate our process of identifying planet candidates, which means we can finally assess every transit signal in the entire Kepler dataset quickly and uniformly,” said Jeff Coughlin, Kepler scientist at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who led the analysis of a new candidate catalog. “This gives astronomers a statistically sound population of planet candidates to accurately determine the number of small, possibly rocky planets like Earth in our Milky Way galaxy.”


These findings, presented in the seventh Kepler Candidate Catalog, will be submitted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. These findings are derived from data publicly available on the NASA Exoplanet Archive.


Scientists now are producing the last catalog based on the original Kepler mission’s four-year data set. The final analysis will be conducted using sophisticated software that is increasingly sensitive to the tiny telltale signatures of Earth-size planets.


Ames manages the Kepler and K2 missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation operates the flight system with support from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa- ... n-to-earth

[williatw]

Why this woman is willing to risk her life for a one-way ticket to Mars
Mars One plans to send people to Mars by 2026 on a $6 billion dollar budget. 200k people applied, and they are down to 100 finalists.


In "Citizen Mars," we go in depth with five of the finalists for the Mars One mission: everyday people determined to be the first to colonize the Red Planet. Through interviews and extensive verite that spans India, Egypt, South Africa, Italy, and the U.S., discover the obsession with the future, adventure, and space that’s propelling them to leave everything – and everyone – behind.



http://features.aol.com/video/why-woman ... rousel|dl1

[Diogenes]

Why this woman is willing to risk her life for a one-way ticket to Mars
Mars One plans to send people to Mars by 2026 on a $6 billion dollar budget. 200k people applied, and they are down to 100 finalists.


In "Citizen Mars," we go in depth with five of the finalists for the Mars One mission: everyday people determined to be the first to colonize the Red Planet. Through interviews and extensive verite that spans India, Egypt, South Africa, Italy, and the U.S., discover the obsession with the future, adventure, and space that’s propelling them to leave everything – and everyone – behind.



http://features.aol.com/video/why-woman ... rousel|dl1

Seems like a very expensive, complicated, long and painful way to kill yourself.



Let's just say i'm skeptical that due diligence will be performed in making this idea work out the way it's proponents intend.

[williatw]

Seems like a very expensive, complicated, long and painful way to kill yourself.
Let's just say i'm skeptical that due diligence will be performed in making this idea work out the way it's proponents intend.

Well as I have previously stated I think (if they are not a scam) the plan is 1) raise the funds somehow an establish the colony show everyone they are legit. 2) Once they are broadcasting live from Mars and up and running much more investment capital it is understood will be made available; the colonists will have announced their independent sovereignty from Earth by then, renouncing their citizenship of whatever country they are from. 3) The Bank of Mars the largest tax shelter in history will then have been created. This will be how Mars is developed (as Musk envisions perhaps); if it succeeds there would be many imitators.

[krenshala]

"Afraid for your money?! Fear not! Open an account in the First Bank of Phobos!"

... couldn't resist sharing the pun, even if I probably should have.

[williatw]

Elon Musk Says SpaceX Will Send People to Mars by 2025

Nobody can accuse Elon Musk of not shooting for the stars.

The SpaceX and Tesla founder said this week that he personally wants to visit space within the next five years and thinks that his company will send somebody to Mars by 2025.

Speaking at the StartmeupHK Festival in Hong Kong this week, Musk said that he had already taken parabolic flights to prepare for space, but had not done much else.

"I don't think it's that hard, honestly," he said. "It's not that hard to float around."
Personal space travel ambitions aside, Musk also talked about how important it was for mankind to reach Mars. He said that SpaceX is planning to reveal its next-generation spacecraft at September's International Astronautical Conference in Guadalajara, Mexico.

That could be the next step toward eventually sending human beings to the Red Planet — something Musk said he thinks will happen by 2025. It's an ambitious goal considering that NASA's current plan is to send humans to Mars in the 2030s.

Regardless of who gets there first, Musk thinks it's vital for mankind to create a self-sustaining city on Mars to protect against human extinction, and also to inspire people. "This would be an incredible adventure," he said. "It would be exiting and inspiring, and there need to be things that excite and inspire people

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/e ... 25-n506891



Starts at about 27 min:

2016 StartmeupHK Venture Forum - Elon Musk on Entrepreneurship and Innovation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIRqB5i ... e&t=27m45s

[williatw]

Could a Mars colony become a nation?

If so, could said new nation become part of another nation on Earth, and what implications would that have?



Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

Could a Mars colony become a nation? That question was posed by Michael Byers, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia in a Washington Post article. Byers’ answer to his question was yes. A body of international law has evolved over time that recognizes the rights of people to self-determination. That right is one reason a lot of former European colonies are now countries. The other reason is that the locals were often prepared to fight for that right and, after World War II, the Europeans were too exhausted to do much about it. Indeed, going back farther in history, the United States was born when the American colonies decided that they didn’t want to be part of the British Empire anymore and fought a bitter war to make their desires stick. Thus, if the majority of the inhabitants of a Mars colony were to declare independence, they should have it, in Byers’ view.

Self-determination in practice

To be sure, the right to self-determination has not been universally recognized. It took the fall of the Soviet Union to make countries out of the Ukraine (now under attack by Russia), Kazakhstan, and a number of other places that used to be Soviet Republics. The Kurds have been fighting for independence for decades but haven’t achieved it because Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and now the Islamic State object. The Catalonians want their own country, but the Spanish object. The Palestinians want their own country, but at the cost of the Israeli's losing theirs. Indeed, the Canadian province of Quebec at one time wanted to break away and start a French-speaking republic in North America, but the Canadian government objected since it might have meant the breakup of the country.


To illustrate how sticky things might be, let us suppose at some future date that SpaceX’s Elon Musk establishes his private Mars colony and, after a while, it declares itself a country. What would be the territory of that country? Would it encompass the entire planet or just land around the settlement that it could reasonably control? What if some other group landed on another part of Mars and declared itself to be a country as well? That is the sort of situation that starts wars if they are allowed to go out of control.

If the right to self-determination supersedes the Outer Space Treaty, as Byers suggests, a loophole is created through which a great deal of mischief can be made. The Outer Space Treaty forbids those countries which have signed it from claiming celestial bodies such as the moon or Mars as sovereign territory and placing military weapons on the same, but suppose the following scenario:

A group of colonists land on Mars (or the moon, for that matter) and declares themselves an independent state, applying for recognition by the United Nations, and so on. Let us go further and suggest that this new country enters into a series of treaties with a great power on Earth, including free trade, mutual defense, and giving companies from said Earth country leasing rights for minerals. The Earth country establishes a military base on Mars to help the new nation defend itself, a clear violation of the Outer Space Treaty, but consistent with the new nation’s right to self-determination.

Let us go further in this thought experiment and suggest that the Mars Republic, in the fullness of time, applies to be a state of the United States or a province of China. That would be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty some would say. But the Martians have the right to self-determination others would say. The Americans would point to the examples of Texas and California. Newt Gingrich, who once imagined creating new states of the Union, smiles wherever he might be at the time. Some might conclude that someone has done an end run around the Outer Space Treaty and someone might be right,

In short, we have a look at some of the foreign policy tangles of the latter part of the 21st Century.

http://us.blastingnews.com/opinion/2016 ... 51477.html