A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience
NASA’s MOXIE could make breathing in Mars a reality. The space agency’s new invention can turn Martian air into oxygen, making it a game-changer for future Mars explorations.
According to Popular Mechanics’ latest report, it is impossible to breathe on Mars since its atmosphere is around 1% the density of Earth’s. Will this be beneficial for Elon Musk’s planned ‘Mars City?’
Continue reading… “Elon Musk’s ‘Mars City’ Expects to Use This NASA Box That Turns Mars’ Air into Oxygen”Nüva city located at Tempe Mensa, Mars
With plans for the first ‘Martian sustainable city’ ready to go, it’s now just a question of time before humans live on Mars.
The new design overall contains five cities – the capital is called Nüwa. The vertical city has homes, offices and green spaces, all built into the side of a cliff to protect inhabitants from atmospheric pressure and radiation.
The oxygen is largely produced by plants, food is 90 per cent plant-based and the energy comes from solar panels.
Continue reading… “PLANS FOR THE FIRST SUSTAINABLE CITY ON MARS UNVEILED”airbus premiered the first satellite factory in space
Airbus has been selected by the European Commission to study spacecraft production in space under the Horizon 2020 Program.
The PERIOD (PERASPERA In-Orbit Demonstration) project focuses on orbit satellite assembly and production. This € 3 million A / B1 phase contract will last two years to continue with a demonstrator in orbit.
The “Orbit Factory” that PERIOD will bring to life will lead the construction of main components such as antenna reflectors, assembly of spacecraft components and direct replacement of satellite payloads in space.
This will lead to the future production of large structures in orbit. Manufacturing in direct orbit will revolutionize how space systems are designed, built and operated. It has significant advantages over the traditional approach where everything is manufactured on Earth and then transported into space, because there will be no restrictions and launch requirements for products built in space. (Launcher mass and volume limitations, structural strength to withstand launch)
Continue reading… “Airbus Becomes the Pioneer of the First Satellite Factory in Space”WITH THE MOON’S LOW GRAVITY, YOU COULD BUILD INCREDIBLY TALL TOWERS.
by VICTOR TANGERMANN
Scientists have come up with an ambitious new idea to provide bases on the Moon’s surface with solar power, New Scientist reports: massive, kilometer-high towers constructed from lunar concrete and almost entirely covered in solar panels.
The team, led by Sephora Ruppert from Harvard University, suggest in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper that the towers could be constructed by mixing lunar soil and heating it to bind it together, not too dissimilar from regular concrete.
“We choose concrete as the capital cost of transporting large masses of iron or carbon fiber to the Moon is presently so expensive that profitable operation of a power plant is unlikely,” the researchers write in the paper. “Concrete instead can be manufactured in situ from the lunar regolith.”
Continue reading… “HARVARD SCIENTISTS PROPOSE SUPER-TALL TOWERS TO POWER MOON BASE”On the way to its lowest and final orbit, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft captured this dramatic image of Ceres’s limb.IMAGE BY NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
The tiny, frigid world Ceres amazes with evidence of recent ice volcanoes fed by the remnants of an ancient underground sea.
Tucked into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the dwarf planet Ceres is a small world that holds big surprises. A slew of new research from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft advances the case that—in its own cold, salty way—Ceres is a geologically active body, with ice volcanoes and surviving pockets of an ancient ocean.
About a year’s worth of data collected by Dawn from late 2017 through late 2018—during its final orbits before running out of fuel—show that the dwarf planet probably has briny liquid seeping out on its surface, as well as mounds and hills that formed when ice melted and refroze after an asteroid impact about 20 million years ago.
The idea that liquid water could persist on Ceres—a world that’s less than a third of the moon’s width—would have once seemed outlandish. But now that humankind has seen it up close, we know that frigid, tiny Ceres is geologically alive.
Continue reading… “Dwarf planet closest to Earth is geologically alive”SATELLITE MELT
byVICTOR TANGERMANN
THAT’S ONE WAY TO DO IT.
As we speak, thousands of small pieces of debris are cluttering Earth’s orbit. Even entire derelict satellites are drifting through space, having long fulfilled their purpose. In fact, an astonishing 60 percent of our planet’s roughly 6,000 satellites are no longer in operation.
That’s a problem, as any collision could end in disaster — or the dreaded knock-on effect known as Kessler syndrome, a cascade of collisions generating new pieces of dangerous space debris that could render Earth’s orbit uninhabitable.
That’s why Russian physicist Egor Loktionov is suggesting a highly unusual intervention: using space-based lasers to melt non-operational satellites into plasma, the Academic Times reports.
Continue reading… “RUSSIAN SCIENTIST PROPOSES USING LASERS TO MELT SPACE JUNK”By Brad Bergan
We’re one step closer to round-trip space tickets.
One of the most ambitious space startups — Axiom Space — has completed a $130 million Series B funding round, confirming investor confidence in the company — which NASA tapped to add privately-manufactured space station modules to the International Space Station (ISS), according to a Tuesday press release.
Crucially, Axiom Space also plans to build the first entirely-private space station once it’s finished with NASA’s ISS addition.
Continue reading… “World’s First Commercial Space Station Project Just Raised $130 Million”SPACE FARMING
“COVID AND THE CLIMATE CHANGE REALLY OPENED OUR EYES TO THE FRAGILITY OF FOOD SECURITY IN BOTH THE DEVELOPING AND THE DEVELOPED WORLD.”
Private space company Nanoracks recently signed a deal with investors in the United Arab Emirates to build orbital greenhouses and grow extremely-resilient crops out in space.
It sounds like an unusual idea, to say the least. But Nanoracks CEO Jeffrey Manber told Space.com that he believes any crops capable of surviving the extremes of life in space could go a long way toward solving looming food security crises here on Earth — and pointed to scientific evidence support that hypothesis.
Continue reading… “NASA CONTRACTOR SIGNS DEAL TO BUILD GREENHOUSES IN EARTH’S ORBIT”Cape Canaveral: After hurtling hundreds of millions of miles through space since last northern summer, three robotic explorers are ready to hit the brakes at Mars.
The stakes — and anxiety — are sky high.
The United Arab Emirates’ orbiter reaches Mars on Tuesday, followed less than 24 hours later by China’s orbiter-rover combo. NASA’s rover, the cosmic caboose, will arrive on the scene a week later, on February 18, to collect rocks for return to Earth — a key step in determining whether life ever existed at Mars.
Continue reading… “Three robotic spacecraft set to arrive at Mars this month”
The number of satellites being put into orbit is always increasing, and many researchers and scientists worldwide fear the amount of space junk that will accumulate in orbit around the Earth. A Japanese company called Sumitomo Forestry is working with researchers from Kyoto University to develop the first satellites made of wood by 2023. Sumitomo Forestry says that it has started research on tree growth and the use of wood materials in space.
The partnership between the company and the University will start by experimenting with different wood types in extreme environments on Earth. According to the partners, wooden satellites would burn up in the atmosphere without releasing harmful substances or raining debris onto the ground. Kyoto University Professor Takao Doi says there is concern that all satellites that reenter the Earth’s atmosphere burn and create tiny alumina particles that float in the upper atmosphere for many years.
Continue reading… “Japanese researchers are developing satellites made of wood”by Mari Yamaguchi
Officials from Japan’s space agency said Tuesday they have found more than the anticipated amount of soil and gases inside a small capsule the country’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft brought back from a distant asteroid this month, a mission they praised as a milestone in planetary research.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said its staff initially spotted some black particles sitting on the bottom of the capsule’s sample catcher when they pulled out the container on Monday. By Tuesday, scientists found more of the soil and gas samples in a compartment that stored those from the first of Hayabusa’s two touchdowns on the asteroid last year.
“We have confirmed a good amount of sand apparently collected from the asteroid Ryugu, along with gases,” JAXA Hayabusa2 project manager Yuichi Tsuda said in a video message during an online news conference. “The samples from outside of our planet, which we have long dreamed of, are now in our hands.”
Continue reading… “Japan’s space agency finds ample soil, gas from asteroid”by Sandra Erwin
Lt. Gen. Thompson: SpaceWERX will “help us ensure the Space Force can tap into cutting edge space technologies.”
WASHINGTON — Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, announced Dec. 7 the opening of a technology accelerator office that will work with commercial companies in the space industry.
Known as SpaceWERX, the new organization will be the “space arm of AFWERX,” Roper said during a virtual event in a joint appearance with Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center.
Thompson said SpaceWERX will be located at the SMC campus in Los Angeles and will be led by Lt. Col. Rock McMillan.
Continue reading… “Space Force opens SpaceWERX technology accelerator in Los Angeles”
