Eighty-five percent of the rocks on the surface of the lunar highlands are anorthite, which contains aluminum as well as a massive supply of oxygen. Smelting aluminum in the quantities necessary to construct and maintain Artemis would produce so much excess oxygen—eight atoms for every two of aluminum—that they would be constantly venting it.
For every kilogram of payload, you need an additional 3.73 kilos of fuel. So a one-way ticket to the moon is calculated to eventually cost about $33,000.
Space tourism will take-off in 2018. As the race between spaceflight companies Virgin Galactic and SpaceX heats up, those who can afford it will be able to travel to low Earth orbit and possibly even around the moon.
In late 2018, tourists will be heading into space and there is a race on to get them there. Virgin Galactic will at last take paying customers beyond the stratosphere. But their efforts might be eclipsed by SpaceX, a company planning to send two tourists around the Moon. Taking them farther into space than any human since 1972.
There is a new breed of would-be astronauts for whom the sky is no limit. But it is not in everyone’s reach. Multi-millionaire entrepreneur, Per Wimmer will be one of the first tourists to go into space with private company, Virgin Galactic.
If it all goes to plan, in 2018, Virgin Galactic will launch Mr Wimmer to the edge of the atmosphere where he’ll be able to look back down on Earth.
But Elon Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX, plans to go one step further on a flyby loop around the Moon. Only 24 astronauts have ever made the almost 240,000-mile voyage to Earth’s nearest neighbour.
Travelling to very distant objects in space such as stars and exoplanets will require very large amounts of thrust to drive rockets to very high speeds in order that we can travel there in a reasonable amount of time. Conventional chemical rockets are unsuitable for this purpose as the thrust they provide is limited by the amount of fuel that they can carry. So far we have only travelled as far as the Moon, and that’s a mere 380 000 kilometres away.
An artist’s impression of a possible FFR design. The large grey fins are for cooling and the crew habitat or payload area is at the far end, pointing away.
Transistors, those tiny electrical switches that process signals and data, are the brain power behind every electronic device – from laptops and smartphones to your digital thermostat. As they continue to shrink in size, computers have become smaller, more powerful, and more pervasive. However, as we look to build squishy, human-friendly machines that have the look and feel of soft natural organisms, we need to look beyond the rigid materials used to create electrical switches and circuits.
Mechanical engineers Carmel Majidi and James Wissman of the Soft Machines Lab at Carnegie Mellon University have been looking at new ways to create electronics that are not just digitally functional but also soft and deformable. Rather than making circuits from rigid metals like copper or silver, they use a special metal alloy that is liquid at room temperature. This alloy, made by mixing indium and gallium, is a non-toxic alternative to mercury and can be infused in rubber to make circuits that are as soft and elastic as natural skin.
Teaming up with Michael Dickey at North Carolina State University, they recently discovered that liquid metal electronics are not only useful for stretchable circuit wiring but can also be used to make electrical switches. These fluidic transistors work by opening and closing the connection between two liquid metal droplets. When a voltage drop is applied in one direction, the droplets move towards each other and coalesce to form a metallic bridge for conducting electricity. When voltage is applied in a different direction, the droplets spontaneously break apart and turn the switch to open. By quickly alternating between an open and closed and open switch state with only a small amount of voltage, the researchers were able to mimic the properties of a conventional transistor.
With a focus on building the archetypal missions for NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket, the U.S.-based Boeing Corporation has outlined their view of what technologies can be used to accomplish humankind’s goal of visiting crews to the Martian system – missions Boeing believes are possible through the combination of the SLS rocket’s lift capability, the bourgeoning Solar Electric Propulsion technology field, and Bigelow’s soon-to-be-tested inflatable habitat modules.
From the Earth-Moon system to Mars:
Continuing from their initial presentation on potential SLS rocket uses beyond the opening two circumlunar missions, the Boeing Corporation has presented their idea of how to execute a phased approach to deep space exploration – with an eye for the eventual goal of landing human beings on the surface of Mars.
While NASA and SpaceX figure out how to get to Mars, they’re also thinking about how the 200-day journey and life on the red planet will affect humans. Astronauts will be dealing with nasty things like muscle atrophy and bone loss, intra-cranial pressure, psychological issues, lack of resources and long-term radiation exposure. NASA and its partners are working on things like “torpor,” a type of space hibernation, and protective Mars cave dwellings with a view. To learn more, Engadget spoke with NASA scientist Laura Kerber and Spaceworks COO John Bradford at the Hello Tomorrow symposium in Paris.
“There are a lot of challenges that are preventing us from even getting there in a healthy state,” said Bradford in a keynote speech at the event. As a human-space-exploration expert, he’s been working on a way to mitigate many of those problems by putting astronauts in a “torpor state” of prolonged hypothermia. It not only reduces the human problems but helps with technical and engineering challenges, too.
On the medical side, it addresses the so-called psycho-social challenges (you can’t get depressed if you’re asleep), reduces intra-cranial pressure, opens up new approaches like electrostimulation to reduce muscle atrophy and bone loss, and even helps minimize radiation exposure.
Have you heard of Dennis Hope? How about The Lunar Embassy of the Galactic Government—no? As space enthusiasts and investors, you really should be familiar with the infamous man who has spent nearly thirty years becoming Earth’s most successful interplanetary real estate agent. As (legitimate) terrestrial governments consider a return to the Moon and the establishment of permanent lunar settlements, however, Hope and his customers may soon face legal challenges from national space agencies and commercial ventures alike.
Science fiction is plagued by the slow march of time. What might have looked sleek and futuristic ten or more years ago might today look fantastic-but-unrealistic at best, or silly and outdated at worst. But whatever the case may be, the bottom line is this: no speculative sci-fi, not even cyberpunk, survives contact with the time period it portrays.
Of course, the point of science fiction isn’t to make our best attempts at clairvoyance. In fact, one may argue that, since the genre’s birth, science fiction is more like a subgenre of fantasy; it draws upon concepts that are simply more plausible to modern sensibilities (and thereby more capable of suspending disbelief) than magic and sorcery. Early works within the genre depict grand feats of science unreachable by the technological constraints of the time period, (such as defeating death, traveling through time, or voyaging through space) and remain unfulfilled to this day. Even today, we make stories that stretch the truth of what humankind is capable of in our near future, enjoyable as they may be.
