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Scientists, designers and engineers across the space industry are working tirelessly to form innovative solutions for traveling to, living on and further understanding Mars.


Mars has long occupied our imagination as a site of wonder and possibility in film — from the high-tech invasion portrayed in The War of the Worlds to Andy Weir’s perhaps more accurate depiction The Martian.

Today, reality is closer than ever to the dreams of science fiction. As early as the 2030s, humans will be able to visit Earth’s planetary neighbor in the most ambitious aerospace mission yet.

The key to becoming an interplanetary species? Cutting-edge materials. Thankfully, scientists, designers, and engineers across the space industry are working tirelessly to form innovative solutions for traveling to, living on, and further understanding Mars.

A space elevator, a technology connecting the Earth’s surface to a space station, would allow for the cost-efficient transport of people and materials. However, a very light yet strong material is essential to making such a technology a reality.

The carbon nanotube is a material that is 100 times stronger, yet four times lighter, than steel, with copper-like high electrical conductivity and diamond-like thermal conductivity. However, previous carbon nanotube fibers were not ideal for extensive use, owing to the small contact area with adjacent carbon nanotubes and limited length they possessed.

Figure 1. Schematic of the structural changes of carbon nanotubes at different annealing temperatures. (Image: Korea Institute of Science and Technology)

What seems like a sci-fi movie can be turned into reality if Japan’s technology is to be believed. Humans can travel across different planets on a train in the near future! Yes, you read that right. Japan has laid out plans in a bid to send humans to Mars and the Moon, according to The Weather Channel India.

Japan has made plans to build a glass habitat structure that would copy Earth’s gravity, atmosphere and topography to make us feel like home.

Researchers from Japan’s Kyoto University in collaboration with Kajima Construction are working on this plan that might shake up space travel, the Weather Channel reported. The researchers announced this last week in a press conference, the EurAsian Times reported.

Multiple angles of Booster 7 experiencing an unexpected ignition during Raptor engine testing.

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Quite the inspirational week this one with the complete set of JWST First Images. Loads of Starship and Starbase news. Last week I mentioned that it was fire time for Starbase, and…WOW… I was not wrong there. SpaceX’s Starship Booster 7 has gone for repair after explosion. Falcon 9 launches for both Starlink and finally CRS-25. We also had the very first launch of Vega C. Rocket Lab firing off another Electron, and more. So enough of this intro. Let’s crack on with it!

Everyday Astronaut — Elon Musk Explains SpaceX’s Raptor Engine!

End Screen Music — Isle of Rain by Savfk.

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This article is an installment of The Future Explored, a weekly guide to world-changing technology. You can get stories like this one straight to your inbox every Thursday morning by subscribing here.

If nuclear fusion was a viable energy source, everything could be electrified. Electricity would be so cheap that projects that seem impossible now could be within our grasp, like commercial space flights, desalinating sea water, or direct air carbon capture.

Now, researchers from MIT say nuclear fusion — the power source of the sun itself — could become a reality by 2035, thanks to a new compact reactor called Sparc.