Lifeboat Foundation

Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars: Space, Exploration, and Life on Earth by Kate Greene St. Martin’s Press, 2020 hardcover, 240 pp. ISBN 978−1−250−15947−2 US$27.

While the robotic missions launching to Mars this year have a wide range of science goals, they are widely seen as precursors for eventual human missions to the Red Planet. NASA’s Mars 2020 mission includes an experiment called MOXIE that will demonstrate a way to produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, a capability that will be essential for future human expeditions. NASA’s fiscal year 2021 budget proposal included a request to start work on a Mars Ice Mapper mission, an orbiter that would search for subsurface ice deposits that could be resources for future human expeditions.

Much of the planning for future Mars missions is focused on various capabilities needed to safely transport humans to the surface of Mars and bring them back. But beyond technologies like in situ resource utilization and supersonic retropropulsion are more mundane, but no less essential, matters: How will the crew eat? How will they deal with boredom on the long mission? How will they get along with one another in a confined space?

🔬 The search for ancient life 🔴 Planetary evolution 👨‍🚀 Preparing for future human exploration.

There are so many reasons to study the Red Planet.

New research suggests over three dozen spots on the heated world could be ready to blow.

Interesting.

No word on whether they’ve tried to print chicken nuggets in space, though.

SANTA BARBARA, CALIFORNIA — NASA scientist Philip Lubin is working on perfecting laser technology that could propel a light spacecraft to Mars in as little as three days.

In order for spacecraft to achieve faster speeds, Lubin proposes using an electromagnetic propulsion system that uses light and radiation, rather than the current fuel-based rocket propulsion system.

Continue reading “Laser propulsion: NASA’s laser-powered spacecraft will fly to Mars in 72 hours — TomoNews” »

The United Arab Emirates’ first interplanetary mission successfully took off from the southern tip of Japan on July 20th, sending up a car-sized probe bound for the planet Mars. The spacecraft, called Hope, will now spend the next seven months traveling through deep space, before inserting itself into Mars’ orbit in February.

This week, Jupiter and Saturn appear at their very best, with Jupiter having just arrived at opposition July 14 and Saturn to reach its own opposition July 20.

The first Arab space mission to Mars, an unmanned probe dubbed “Hope”, blasted off from Japan on Monday, in a bid to reveal more about the atmosphere of the Red Planet.

The Japanese rocket carrying the probe developed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Centre in southern Japan right on schedule at 6:58 am local time (2158 GMT Sunday).

The launch of the probe, known as “Al-Amal” in Arabic, had twice been delayed because of bad weather, but the Monday liftoff appeared smooth and successful.

Geneva (AFP)

Astrophysicists on Monday published the largest-ever 3D map of the Universe, the result of an analysis of more than four million galaxies and ultra-bright, energy-packed quasars.

The efforts of hundreds of scientists from around 30 institutions worldwide have yielded a “complete story of the expansion of the universe”, said Will Percival of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.