Mars One Taking Applications

The Mars One Project will soon begin taking applications for its first Martian colonists.  Already, interest in the slots has been heavy.  Mars One intends to begin the settlement of Mars in 2023 by sending a four person crew to the Red Planet on a one-way trip.  The project is to be funded by various revenue streams, but the main one seems to be fees gained by a reality style television series that will follow the project from the selection of the first candidate colonists all the way through the early days of the first settlement.

OPINION:  I'm sorry, but as of now, I see the Mars One effort as a publicity stunt.  Perhaps the people involved are sincere and committed-- and perhaps they will even succeed.  I hope they do; their success would usher in a potentially remarkable new era in human history.  However, I think they are vastly underestimating the complexity, difficulty, and enormity of the task they've set for themselves.  We don't yet even know yet all the factors involved in living on Mars.  Sending people out with no way back under such circumstances is morally questionable at best.  Basing funding partly on the ongoing success of a television show also seems strange.

Saturn's Ring Rain

A new study finds that water ice particles regularly erode from Saturn's legendary rings, make their way to the planet, and fall into the atmosphere, producing a kind of rain over particular areas of Saturn.

The process seems not to be controlled simply by gravity.  Rather, the eroded particles travel along lines of magnetic force governed by Saturn's magnetic field.  The process does not involve much water, but it is a mechanism by which the ring system can evolve over time.

Comet Won't Hit Mars

NASA had thought that Comet Siding Spring, discovered in January, had a fair chance of slamming into Mars next year.  New calculations, however, say the chance of a collision is remote.

The comet will still come close to Mars, though-- perhaps 66,000 miles close-- so NASA can still try to observe it from relatively close range using the assets it has studying Mars.

Hawking Reiterates

Last week, Stephen Hawking again argued colonizimg space is essential for the long term survival of humanity-- and the not so long term.  He said that unless we move into space, humanity will not last another thousand years.

Climate collapse, war, and asteroid strikes are among the risks to survival as long as humans confine ourselves to Earth.  We need to put our eggs in more than one basket, Hawking and others contend, first on other worlds, and eventually around other stars.

Mars And Back In 30 Days

Researchers at the University of Washington at Seattle are pursuing a rocket design that would open the Solar System to human exploration within reasonable flight times-- including round trips to Mars in as few as 30 days.

Engineers and science fiction authors have known for decades that the key to interplanetary travel is developing nuclear fusion rockets.  The team at UW is working on precisely that, and making progress.  The design relies on powerful magnetic fields that would squeeze tiny amounts of fuel into a state where nuclear fusion occurs, producing vast amounts of energy and driving exhaust out of the rocket at extremely high speeds.

The system could allow round trips to Mars in the 30- to 90-day range, which would lessen many of the problems associated with deep space travel.

Pyongyang's Rockets

North Korea is threatening to attack the U. S. with nuclear-tipped rockets, turning American cities into "seas of fire."  U. S. intelligence, however, is confident Pyongyang has no rocket capable of doing that.  Indeed, the North Korean rocket development program has been marked almost entirely by launch failures.

Of course, American intelligence has also been sure right along that North Korea had no nuclear bombs that would fit on a rocket.  That's almost certainly correct, but over the past couple of days doubts seem to have arisen.  If Pyongyang has deliverable nuclear bombs, South Korea and Japan could be in real danger.

The two technologies that could make mankind the master of the Solar System-- rockets and nuclear energy-- could be used to create a bloodbath.

Asteroid Vs. The Moon

The new NASA budget seeks $105 million to start an effort to bring a small asteroid into lunar orbit, where it would be visited by astronauts-- sort of bringing the mountain to Mohammed.  It's a creative approach that has value for planetary defense, space commercialization, and building a space infrastructure.  What it won't necessarily do is get humans deeper into space than they've ever been.

Some members of Congress, however, argue that the next goal for NASA manned spaceflight should be the establishment of a lunar base by 2022, saying settling the Moon is key to moving out into the Solar System.  That's a strong argument.

Why not bring private enterprise into a comprehensive effort to move out, and do both?