Self-Deployable Habitats

European engineers are working on habitats to be used on the Moon and Mars that will build themselves, with little or no direct human input.

The habitats could also be used as temporary housing in disaster areas on Earth.

Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos announced this morning that Blue Origin will build rockets in Florida and launch them from Cape Canaveral.

The company will spend $200 million getting set up on the Space Coast.

Space Hub

DARPA, the advanced projects agency of the Pentagon, is proposing a robotic space transportation hub in geosynchronous orbit to repair and refuel spacecraft, among other things.

Such a hub, DARPA argues, would make space operations more efficient and less costly.

Water

There is water throughout the Solar System, from perpetually shadowed crater floors in the polar regions of Mercury to the outer reaches of the Oort Cloud.  It bodes well for human interplanetary expansion.

Of course, water is also everywhere in the universe, which argues for an abundance of life.

Red Dragon

Researchers say using a modified version of SpaceX' Dragon cargo capsule to fetch a soil sample from Mars is technically feasible.

Red Dragon, as the idea is called, could launch in 2022.

Big Ice

Researchers have discovered a chunk of  water ice just below the surface of Mars that's about 130 feet thick and as large as California and Texas combined.

Quite apart from what that might say about Mars' past, it probably bodes well for the future colonization of the planet,

Landing On Europa

NASA is considering adding a small, low-cost lander to its 2020s Europa multiple flyby mission.

We should know by the end of this year whether such a lander is viable.