Kolonisatie van Mars noodzaak!

[Pilgrim]

The brother and sister behind the Mars One mission

Michael Shulman , CTVNews.ca
Published Monday, April 20, 2015


Siblings Raye and James Kass are acting as advisers to Mars One, a privately-funded mission that plans to dispatch four brave explorers on a one-way trip to establish a permanent colony on the Red Planet.

The first time Raye Kass heard her brother cry was in 2003, when they spoke after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on its return to Earth, killing all seven crew members.

"He said: 'I can't believe they're gone," Raye Kass told CTVNews.ca, recalling a conversation with her brother James who was at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at the time, waiting for Columbia to land.

"When they were one minute late ... he knew something had gone wrong," Raye said.

James had a personal connection to the shuttle crew, having worked closely with them in training for zero-gravity biology experiments.

"All seven of them I could say were friends of mine, which was unusual," James said. "So, I felt very, very discouraged."

Not so discouraged that he would abandon getting involved in such potentially perilous missions, however.

Now, the Kass siblings are acting as advisers to Mars One, a privately-funded mission that plans to dispatch four brave explorers on a one-way trip to establish a permanent colony on the Red Planet.

The pair will be heavily involved in the training and selection of the final 28 to 40 mission candidates. So far, the hopefuls have been narrowed down to 100 people, from an initial crush of more than 200,000 applicants.

Amid the clamor from critics who say the mission will never reach its destination, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp announced last month that the launch timeline will be pushed back two years, to 2026.

The setbacks don't faze Raye and James, however, as they already count themselves among those with doubts about the mission.

When invited to get involved with Mars One, Raye recalls, "I said to myself 'no way, it is a doomed enterprise with unfathomable obstacles to scale.'"

James added, "It seems a rather crazy venture to take people on a one-way mission."

After weighing the risks and rewards they eventually came around to the idea.

"I began to realize that the human condition, by its very nature, is to push through crisis, and we know that history was made when the impossible was made possible," said Raye.

While James says that there's "absolutely" no chance of a launch in the next 10 years, he believes it is better to contribute, than to stand on the sidelines.

"I had my very great doubts about the venture, but I thought if they want my advice, well I don't mind giving it … then I could at least help them," he said.

Between them they bring decades of experience to the table.

James, a nuclear physicist by trade, got his start working on Spacelab-1 in 1980, and has worked closely with astronauts on space shuttle, MIR, Skylab, Salyut and ISS missions.

Raye teaches group theory at the University of Concordia and has been involved in psychological training and experiments for the CAPSULS space simulation held in Canada, the SFINCCS experiment and several other NASA-related projects.

The siblings realised, in 1994, that their combined expertise could benefit astronaut training. That's when James told Raye to submit an application for the CAPSULS space simulation, which involved Canadian space pioneers such as Julie Payette and Dave Williams.

"He said: 'We'll work together, I know a lot about space missions ... and you know a lot about psychology and teams ... and I think we would make a great team,'" said Raye.

They are now looking forward to their roles in the selection and training of the final candidates for the Mars One mission, which will likely see trainees placed in a simulated Martian habitat for several months.

It is during this period that Raye says they will be able to pick up on the trainees' "soft skills," such as leadership and teamwork, that could prove critical to survival if something goes wrong on the journey.

The pair is also planning to provide "explicit" psychological and group dynamic training to the astronauts, something that James says has never been done before. He says that the Mars One crew will need to become "their own psychological experts" in order to deal with the intense feelings of isolation that come with being trapped in a tiny pod hundreds of millions of kilometres away from friends and family.

Not to mention the potential for technical calamity.

"The equipment has broken down, the backup equipment has broken down … and you know you have 30 days of oxygen before you're going to die ... do you go mad? do you kill you fellow man?" James said.

"This is where they will really have to some very good preparation, not only will the right people have to be selected obviously from the technical side, but from the psychological," he added.

Despite the risks and uncertainties, James and Raye want to be a part of the push to colonize the solar system.

"(We) feel we have a role, a mission, a search for excellence here -- that we can really contribute to what possibly will happen," Raye said.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/5things/the-broth ... -1.2334934

[xplosive]

Explore Mars organiseert volgende week The Humans to Mars Summit 2015. Het lijkt een interessant congres te worden.

Van de Nederlandse tak van Explore Mars hoor je de laatste tijd nauwelijks nog meer iets. En het laatste nummer van Voorwaarts Mars dat op hun website prijkt dateert alweer van tweeëneenhalf jaar terug.

Op het congres in Washington D.C. laten ze op 4 mei de film Fight for Space zien, waarvan dit trailers zijn :

[Pilgrim]

Van de Nederlandse tak van Explore Mars hoor je de laatste tijd nauwelijks nog meer iets. En het laatste nummer van Voorwaarts Mars dat op hun website prijkt dateert alweer van tweeëneenhalf jaar terug.

Dat schiet inderdaad niet zo op. Wat zou er aan de hand zijn met ze?

[Pilgrim]

Elon Musk: "Over 11 of 12 jaar kunnen we iemand op Mars zetten"

Stig Geukens, editor newsmonkey | 26 april 2015

"Over 11 of 12 jaar kunnen we iemand op Mars zetten." Dat heeft Silicon Valley-wonderkind Elon Musk gezegd tijdens een podcast met Neil deGrasse Tyson. En als iemand als Musk dat zegt, kan je daar maar beter geloof aan hechten.

Elon Musk is een van de bekendste topmannen in Silicon Valley, dus luisteren de mensen als hij iets te zeggen heeft. Alles wat hij aanraakt lijkt dan ook in goud te veranderen, van PayPal over Tesla tot SpaceX. Ja, Musk heeft met SpaceX ook zijn eigen ruimtevaartbedrijf, en weet dus echt wel iets over het onderwerp ruimtereizen. Zijn bedrijf mag intussen van de NASA al de bevoorradingsmissies naar het Internationaal Ruimtestation ISS uitvoeren, maar Musk droomt van veel langere reizen: die naar Mars.

In een gesprek met radiopresentator Neil DeGrasse Tyson zei Musk dat een Mars-reis één van de redenen is waarom hij met SpaceX is begonnen. Hij vertelt hoe hij jaren geleden een bezoek bracht aan de NASA-website, en maar geen enkele datum vond voor een Mars-missie. Onbegrijpelijk, vond hij toen. "Het leek mij maar evident dat Mars het volgende doel was, nadat we al voet op de maan hebben gezet."



Over 11 of 12 jaar
Intussen zegt de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie dat een bemande missie mogelijk moet zijn ergens na 2030, maar zolang wil Musk niet wachten. Zeker niet aangezien het budget van NASA alleen maar kleiner wordt, en dus ook de kans dat we snel naar Mars trekken. En dus werkt Musk met SpaceX intussen aan zijn eigen Mars-lander. "En ik denk dat we een goede kans hebben om over 11 of 12 jaar iemand naar Mars te kunnen sturen", zo zegt de topman nu.

In januari liet Musk tijdens een AMA-sessie (ask me anything) op nieuwsforum Reddit weten dat SpaceX nog dit jaar de Mars Colonial Transporter zal voorstellen. Dat toestel moet in staat zijn om mensen naar Mars te vervoeren, maar zover zijn we echt nog niet. Wat houdt ons dan tegen? "Het is voornamelijk een geldkwestie", aldus Musk. "De wil om naar Mars te gaan is er, daar zal het niet aan liggen. Maar met de huidige budgetten zal het niet lukken. We moeten de mensen kunnen aantonen dat er een manier is, en dat die manier het land niet failliet zal maken zonder andere belangrijke diensten zoals ziekenzorg op te geven."

Raket hergebruiken
En dus is de conclusie voor Musk duidelijk: ruimtereizen moeten goedkoper worden. En dat is meteen ook hetgeen waar SpaceX momenteel hard aan werkt. Het bedrijf bestaat nog maar 12 jaar, maar is er wel al bijna in geslaagd om als eerste een raket na de lancering terug te laten landen. Eerder deze maand ging het pas op het allerlaatste moment mis, maar een volgende poging zal al een grote kans op slagen hebben. "Dit jaar zal het nog lukken", aldus Musk.

En als SpaceX daar in slaagt, dan ligt de weg naar goedkopere ruimtereizen wagenwijd open. Momenteel kost een lancering nog minstens 60 miljoen dollar, maar volgens Musk kan dat bedrag gereduceerd worden tot 200.000 à 300.000 dollar. De grootste kost is namelijk de raketmotor, die momenteel maar één enkele keer gebruikt wordt alvorens in de oceaan te pletter te storten.

De vraag is natuurlijk of dat SpaceX in staat stelt om helemaal alleen naar Mars te reizen. Goedkopere lanceringen zouden ook het NASA-budget ten goede komen, waardoor het extra middelen kan inzetten op een Mars-missie. Mogelijk vormen de twee organisaties al een team voor de Red Dragon-missie. Die onbemande missie moet over zeven jaar al naar Mars vliegen, om vervolgens bodemmonsters terug naar de aarde te brengen.

http://newsmonkey.be/article/40091

[Pilgrim]

Studenten ontwerpen meubilair voor op Mars

Geschreven door Caroline Kraaijvanger op 28 april 2015



Studenten van Rice University hebben – met behulp van NASA – wel heel bijzonder meubilair ontworpen. Het meubilair is bedoeld voor gebruik op Mars of de maan of een andere verre bestemming.

De studenten bedachten een stoel en tafel voor gebruik door astronauten. “We moesten ons richten op de dagelijkse activiteiten van de astronauten en niet op hun slaapgewoonten of iets dergelijks,” vertelt student Rey Amendola. “Wanneer we nadachten over wat astronauten elke dag doen en wat voor soort meubels ze nodig hebben, kwamen we uit bij stoelen om op te zitten en tafels om aan te werken, te relaxen of te eten.”

Lastig
Het ontwikkelen van meubilair voor gebruik in de ruimte is nog niet zo eenvoudig. “Je hebt heel weinig ruimte, dus je kunt niet zomaar elk meubelstuk de ruimte insturen,” vertelt student Laura Blumenschein. “En dan zit je ook nog met de beperkte zwaartekracht.” Op de maan is die zwaartekracht vergelijkbaar met een zesde van de zwaartekracht op aarde, op Mars met een derde van de zwaartekracht op aarde.


Een stoel voor gebruik op Mars. Afbeelding: Jeff Fitlow / Rice University

Licht en niet zo sterk
Zowel de stoel als de tafel kunnen als een plat pakketje de ruimte ingestuurd worden. En zowel de stoel als de tafel zijn een stuk lichter en minder sterk dan tafels en stoelen die we hier op aarde gebruiken. “Dat klinkt misschien als een negatief punt, maar wanneer je het gewicht van de meubels (en dus de kosten van het vervoer, red.) probeert te beperken, is dat juist positief,” legt Blumenschein uit.

Multifunctioneel
De stoel en de tafel moeten aan de grond worden vastgemaakt om ook bij beperkte zwaartekracht te blijven staan. De stoel is verstelbaar en kan gebruikt worden als een ‘gewone’ stoel en als ligstoel. De tafel kan ook worden aangepast aan de behoeften van de astronauten: zo kunnen ze aan de tafel zitten, maar deze ook verhogen, waardoor ze aan de tafel kunnen staan. Bovendien kan de tafel aan andere tafels gekoppeld worden, waardoor een grotere tafel ontstaat.

Op basis van hun onderzoek komen de studenten nu met ideeën voor ruimte-meubilair. Of NASA – dat het project begeleidde – de ideeën letterlijk mee de ruimte in gaat nemen, is nog onduidelijk.



http://www.scientias.nl/studenten-ontwe ... r-op-mars/

[Hans v d Mortel sr]

Ik vind dat opgeblazen plaatje van de stoel enorm irritant en onnodig.

[Pilgrim]

Het was niet kleiner joh.

[Pilgrim]

Mars One CEO: 'If There's a Terrible Accident, We Won't Show It Live on TV'

By Lucy Draper, 12/18/14

According to Bas Landorp, the co-founder and CEO of Mars One - the company that wants to send a team of volunteers on a one-way trip to the red planet, and make a TV show out of it - the NASA Curiosity Rover's discovery of methane emissions on Mars, makes it more important than ever to send humans to our planetary neighbour.

"These kind of discoveries help to make a good cause for a human mission because look how little a Rover does when compared to two people with pickaxes and a laboratory on Mars, he says. "There's so much more humans can do than the Rover, that's why it's so important to explore the planet."

"The search for life on Mars will be much more efficient with humans on the planet."

The Dutch entrepreneur set up Mars One in 2012 with the primary aim of taking humans to the red planet by 2025. The plan is to send a team of four volunteer astronauts to establish a colony, with four more to follow two years later. However, there is no return flight - the first humans to set foot on Mars would also be the first to die there.

There was an open application process for anyone who thought they could take on such a challenge and the project received over 200,000 replies which are now being whittled down to find the final four who will, in theory, become the first humans to set foot on Mars. "I'm proud to say this was the most popular job application of all time," Landorp says.

People from 140 countries signed up for the chance to be chosen for the first mission, sending in short videos in which they explained why they wanted to go on the mission, as well as filling out a long online form describing themselves, their achievements and what they hoped to gain from the project. The Mars One website explains that they are looking for people who "show five key character traits: resilience, adaptability, curiosity, ability to trust others, and creativity/resourcefulness."

Melissa Ede, a transgender taxi driver from Hull, England, who is about as far away from the usual North American ultra-normal stereotype of an astronaut as it's possible to imagine, is one of the lucky few to make it through to the second stage of the selection process. Explaining her reasoning for signing up she said: "I can make history. One of my childhood dreams was to be in history books alongside people like Joan of Arc". Vinod Kotiya, a married father of one from Delhi, who has also reached the next stage says he has always dreamed of being an astronaut. "You don't have to have a PHD, anyone can join," he told Live Mint. However, the chance to make his mark is also clearly part of the appeal: "I'm going to be part of history by doing this. It will be a great achievement. In my lifetime on Earth what can I do? I have to do this job, and someday I have to die here; it's better to die there and contribute in the history of human survival."

Landorp explained that he is not heavily involved in the selection process: "I haven't been very involved with picking the volunteers. We're working with a man who has selected astronauts for NASA so I'm happy to leave it in his capable hands."

The entrepreneur is aware that the mission - which is estimated to cost just $6 billion, considerably less than NASA's estimate - seems farfetched and unachieveable to many, not least Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield who recently questioned both the mission and the reasoning behind it saying: "It's not a race, it's not an entertainment event."

Could the whole project turn out to be the world's most elaborate prank? "I think that anyone who hears about a private enterprise from Holland who want to go to Mars does not think it's real, which is a very logical reaction," Landorp says. "But if people spend five minutes on our website, if they look at our contacts: we have Nobel prize winner as an ambassador, a former NASA chief on our advisory board. These people are not there because it's an April Fool's joke."

Unlike Richard Branson, who has said he will be on the first commercial flight of his Virgin Galactic space ship, Landorp has not volunteered to go on the first mission of his project, ruling himself out as unsuitable: "Certainly I thought about it. When I first started Mars One I was aiming to be on the first mission. But I realised I am not the right type of person. We need to find the best of the best and I am definitely not one of them."

He also said he has yet to get his girlfriend to sign up: "Maybe I'll go when there are 20 or 30 people there. I'd want to bring my family too - I have a son but I need to convince my girlfriend to come with me."

The project will cost an estimated $6 billion, a good part of which will be raised by the proposed reality TV programme which will "exclusively follow the selection and training of the world's first one-way astronauts to Mars" according to a Mars One press release.

However, Landorp was quick to distance himself from this term: "First of all, I don't like the term 'reality TV'. In principle it's a good term but nowadays it means the Kardashians and Jersey Shore and of course those aren't real.

"I prefer to compare the mission to the Olympic games. We select the best of the best for a near impossible task. They will do things that almost no one else can do - just like the Olympics," he continued.

Landorp conceded that there are dangers attached to the mission: "Exploration will always be dangerous and it will be our responsibility to only show things to the audience that we think are fair to the other stakeholders. If there's a terrible accident, we won't show it live on TV."

However, he emphasised that Mars One is, "not a death mission, it's an exploration mission. These people are going to live." He also compared the mission both to those who first emmigrated to America - "That was a one way ticket on a boat, they weren't preparing to return to Europe - and also to the risks of climbing mountains: "The risk will be between climbing Mount Everest, where the fatality rate is 2.5% and climbing K2 which 25% of people don't come back alive from. Somewhere in between those two will be our human mission to Mars."

"There is no progress without risk and I am ready to accept that risk," Landorp concluded.

http://europe.newsweek.com/mars-one-ceo ... -tv-293120

[Pilgrim]

Hersens Marsgangers in gevaar door straling

Geplaatst op: 02 mei 2015

Astronauten die naar de planeet Mars gaan, zullen te maken krijgen met hersenschade door kosmische straling. Daarvoor waarschuwen Amerikaanse onderzoekers in de Britse krant The Guardian.

De onderzoekers van de Universiteit van Californië bekeken wat er met muizen gebeurt, als die worden blootgesteld aan stralen met bepaalde deeltjes die veel energie bevatten. De dieren bleken minder goed te functioneren, omdat hun zenuwstelsel wordt aangetast. ,,Dat is geen goed nieuws voor astronauten die op een twee- of driejarige trip naar Mars worden gestuurd'', aldus onderzoeker Charles Limoli.

Op Mars krijgen astronauten namelijk een soortgelijke lading deeltjes om hun oren. Hun capaciteit om onderzoek te doen wordt daardoor negatief beïnvloed en op lange termijn kan blijvende schade optreden.

Rode planeet
Volgens de onderzoekers is het gevaar niet onoverkomelijk, maar moet het wel worden onderkend en aangepakt, voordat mensen naar de rode planeet kunnen.

De Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie NASA zou in de jaren 2030 mensen naar Mars willen sturen. Het Nederlandse project Mars One wil al eerder mensen voorgoed naar Mars sturen en selecteert inmiddels kandidaten.

http://www.bndestem.nl/algemeen/special ... -1.4896272

[Pilgrim]

Waarom we mars moeten koloniseren. De eerste reden is het belangrijkste!

5 undeniable reasons humans need to colonize Mars — even though it's going to cost billions

By Jessica Orwig, april 21, 2015

Establishing a permanent colony of humans on Mars is not an option. It's a necessity.
At least, that's what some of the most innovative, intelligent minds of our age — Buzz Aldrin, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson — are saying.

Of course, it's extremely difficult to foresee how manned missions to Mars that would cost hundreds of billions of dollars each, could benefit mankind. It's easier to imagine how that kind of money could immediately help in the fight against cancer or world hunger. That's because humans tend to be short-sighted. We're focused on what's happening tomorrow instead of 100 years from now.

"If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before," Hawking said in 2008 at a lecture series for NASA's 50th anniversary.

That brings us to the first reason humans must colonize Mars:

1. Ensuring the survival of our species
The only home humans have ever known is Earth. But history shows that surviving as a species on this tiny blue dot in the vacuum of space is tough and by no means guaranteed.

The dinosaurs are a classic example: They roamed the planet for 165 million years, but the only trace of them today are their fossilized remains. A colossal asteroid wiped them out.

Putting humans on more than one planet would better ensure our existence thousands if not millions of years from now.

"Humans need to be a multiplanet species," Musk recently told astronomer and Slate science blogger Phil Plait.

Humans need to be a multiplanet species. — Elon Musk

Musk founded the space transport company SpaceX to help make this happen.

Mars is an ideal target because it has a day about the same length as Earth's and water ice on its surface. Moreover, it's the best available option: Venus and Mercury are too hot, and the Moon has no atmosphere to protect residents from destructive meteor impacts.

2. Discovering life on Mars
Nye, the CEO of The Planetary Society, said during an episode of StarTalk Radio in March that humanity should focus on sending humans instead of robots to Mars because humans could make discoveries 10,000 times as fast as the best spacecraft explorers we have today. Though he was hesitant to say humans should live on Mars, he agreed there were many more discoveries to be made there.

One monumental discovery scientists could make is determining whether life currently exists on Mars. If we're going to do that, we'll most likely have to dig much deeper than NASA's rovers can. The theory there is that life was spawned not from the swamps on adolescent Earth, but from watery chasms on Mars.

The Mars life theory suggests that rocks rich with microorganisms could have been ejected off the planet's surface from a powerful impact, eventually making their way through space to Earth. It's not a stretch to imagine, because Martian rocks can be found on Earth. None of those, however, have shown signs of life.

"You cannot rule out the fact that a Mars rock with life in it landing on the Earth kicked off terrestrial life, and you can only really test that by finding life on Mars," Christopher Impey, a British astronomer and author of over a dozen books in astronomy and popular science, told Business Insider.

3. Improving the quality of life on Earth
"Only by pushing mankind to its limits, to the bottoms of the ocean and into space, will we make discoveries in science and technology that can be adapted to improve life on Earth."

British doctor Alexander Kumar wrote that in a 2012 article for BBC News where he explored the pros and cons of sending humans to Mars.

At the time, Kumar was living in the most Mars-like place on Earth, Antarctica, to test how he adapted to the extreme conditions both physiologically and psychologically. To better understand his poignant remark, let's look at an example:

During its first three years in space, NASA's prized Hubble Space Telescope snapped blurry pictures because of a flaw in its engineering. The problem was fixed in 1993, but to try to make use of the blurry images during those initial years, astronomers developed a computer algorithm to better extract information from the images.

It turns out the algorithm was eventually shared with a medical doctor who applied it to the X-ray images he was taking to detect breast cancer. The algorithm did a better job at detecting early stages of breast cancer than the conventional method, which at the time was the naked eye.

"You can't script that. That happens all the time — this cross pollination of fields, innovation in one, stimulating revolutionary changes in another," Tyson, the StarTalk radio host, explained during an interview with Fareed Zakaria in 2012.

It's impossible to predict how cutting-edge technologies used to develop manned missions to Mars and habitats on Mars will benefit other fields like medicine or agriculture. But we'll figure that out only by "pushing humankind to its limits" and boldy going where we've never been before.

4. Growing as a species
Another reason we should go to Mars, according to Tyson, is to inspire the next generation of space explorers. When asked in 2013 whether we should go to Mars, he answered:

"Yes, if it galvanizes an entire generation of students in the educational pipeline to want to become scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians," he said. "The next generation of astronauts to land on Mars are in middle school now."

Humanity's aspirations to explore space are what drive us toward more advanced technological innovations that will undoubtedly benefit mankind in one way or another.

"Space is like a proxy for a lot of what else goes on in society, including your urge to innovate," Tyson said during his interview with Zakaria. He added: "There's nothing that drives ambitions the way NASA does."

5. Demonstrating political and economic leadership
At a February 24 hearing, Aldrin told the US Senate's Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness that getting to Mars was a necessity not only for science, but also for policy.

"In my opinion, there is no more convincing way to demonstrate American leadership for the remainder of this century than to commit to a permanent presence on Mars," he said.

If Americans do not go to Mars, someone else will. And that spells political and economic benefit for whoever succeeds.

"If you lose your space edge," Tyson said during his interview with Zakaria, "my deep concern is that you lose everything else about society that enables you to compete economically."

NOW WATCH: ELON MUSK: Here's How We Can Fix Mars And Colonize It

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/5-undenia ... 00959.html

[Hans v d Mortel sr]

Waarom we mars moeten koloniseren. De eerste reden is het belangrijkste!

Dus professor Hawking maakt zich zorgen om het voortbestaan van de mens. Nou nou, toe maar! Nu is Hawking toevallig geen groenteboer, maar een typische universman. Op het idee om grote bevolkingsgroepen (negers, moslims) te steriliseren was hij blijkbaar nog niet opgekomen. Kanker zou best weleens een natuurverschijnsel kunnen zijn dat het oprekken met allerlei kostbare hulpmiddelen van de ouderdom wil tegengaan. Maar, inderdaad. Wanneer dit niet meer gaat lukken op deze aarde kun je natuurlijk ook quasi weer van voor af aan beginnen. Met een verse mens op Mars. Dat kan, na grondige selectie. Als ik Hawking was zou ik eerst een paradijs op Mars bewerkstelligen met daarin een pratende slang. Eens kijken wat er dan van de nieuwe pure zuivere mens alsnog terecht komt.

Over 1000 jaar is dan het verhaal van de ark van Noach uit de bijbel vervangen door de shuttle van Stephan.

[mercator]

Dus professor Hawking maakt zich zorgen om het voortbestaan van de mens

Dan is prof. Hawking een zeer grote domoor ipv een groot wetenschapper. Ik zie echt niet in waarom een bepaald species zou MOETEN blijven bestaan. De dinosaurussen zijn ook uitgestorven en niemand mist ze. Als Hawking nu zou gezegd hebben de menselijke BESCHAVING zou moeten blijven bestaan kan ik me daar nog iets bij voorstellen. Maar daarvoor moeten we helemaal niet naar Mars of waar dan ook maar moeten we het fokgedrag van de zwarten en moslims aanpakken.

Ook grappig is de visie van de astronaut Aldrin die vindt dat de Amerikanen naar Mars moeten om het prestige van Uncle Sam op te krikken. Terwijl de Amerikaanse steden in handen vallen van luie en plunderende zwarten en latino's kunnen de o zo superieure blanken dan op een kluitje gaan zitten op Mars [icon_lol.gif]

[Pilgrim]

De nieuwe 'Hof van Eden' komt op Mars...

[Pilgrim]

Mars One finalist Kaye defends program in face of criticism

By Kali Shulklapper on April 7, 2015



Following criticism that Mars One’s mission to the Red Planet may not be written in the stars, senior Laurel Kaye defends the mission’s validity.

Kaye—a physics major from Long Island, N.Y.—is one of 100 finalists for a project to send humans on a one-way trip to Mars. Mars One, the Netherlands-based nonprofit group, will hold the final round applications this year, ultimately selecting 24 people to colonize the Red Planet in teams of four starting in 2024. Joseph Roche—an astrophysicist at Trinity College’s School of Education in Dublin and one of the 100 applicants—recently spoke out about the project, hinting that the entire project may never happen. But Kaye was quick to fire back at Roche’s remarks, which claim that the company is focused only on earning money and unconcerned with regards to safety.

“Mars One has not given me any reason to believe that our safety is not a chief concern, and if at a later time point I feel that human health or safety is being neglected, I would certainly remove myself from the program,” Kaye wrote in an email Wednesday.

It’s extremely important to be aware of all the potential dangers this mission entails, Kaye said, adding that she will not go if it appears too dangerous by the end. She added that she is willing to accept a certain amount of risk, but expects the technologies to be tested and subjected to criticism by the larger scientific community.

In an interview with Metro, a newspaper based in London, Roche also commented that the selection process was “not rigorous enough to reach the requisite standard of more traditional astronaut selection programmes."

Kaye, however, said that the selection process is far from over.

“Of course the selection process has not yet been rigorous enough, which is why it is not over but will continue for the next ten years,” she said. “The people who have made it this far are in no way ready and very likely might not be fit to become astronauts, myself included.”

She added that selection thus far has simply been a process of vetting people who are healthy, enthusiastic and well-educated individuals worthy of proper training and examination. Teams of four will be training, preparing and selected throughout the next ten years, she said.

Roche claims that Mars One ‘chose’ candidates purely for their ability to gain publicity and earn money, stating that “candidates were urged to do interviews for money, with the company saying: ‘If you are offered payment for an interview then feel free to accept it. We do kindly ask for you to donate 75 percent of your profit to Mars One.’"

Kaye responded that she, along with every other round three candidate, received this email—but added that the message was preceded by reminders not to feel pressured about accepting interviews.

“They ask kindly and I think that it is very appropriate of them to ask,” Kaye said, adding that the group deserves intellectual credit. “Any time someone makes money off of their idea, I don’t think it is improper to kindly ask for a portion of it.”

She added that regardless of Mars One's statements, she has never been offered any sort of money for interviews and has not given Mars One any kind of payment since the inexpensive application fee in 2013.

“I’m just another college student trying to pay off my loans and wouldn’t even think of donating,” she said.

Roche also addressed the implausibility of the Mars One mission, urging the company to support “more viable space missions.”

Kaye, however, argued the plausibility of Mars One’s claim that humans have the technology to get to Mars and set up a settlement, adding that she will need to see it confirmed over the next several years of planning, testing and critiquing.

Such a mission would lead to amazing advances in science and technology in many domains, such as human health, geophysics, sustainability, agriculture and space travel, Kaye added. The mission also has huge implications for humanity, she said.

“What does it say about us that we can work together as a global community and build the technology to send people to Mars?” she asked. "There is so much to gain in the attempt alone.”

Kaye said she has encountered her fair share of people who say it is not going to happen, and that she herself does not doubt the potential failure of the mission. Rather, she remains optimistic about the possibility of expanding boundaries.

“Sure, it might not happen in a decade, or possibly even three, and it might not happen through Mars One, but sending humans to Mars?” she said. “I believe firmly in human ingenuity and the human drive to do amazing things such as search for cures to diseases, find sustainable energy solutions and to take people to where they have never been before.”

Criticism is vital and it is what enables our scientific society to function, but there is nothing useful that comes from being obstinately close-minded, Kaye added. She urged people not to have too narrow a picture of success.

“I am not afraid of this mission’s failure because I don’t see an end to the project as a failure,” she said. “If one fifth grade girl is inspired to go into science because she sees that people are trying to get humans to Mars, then that is a success in my mind.”

http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2 ... UkDV2ccR9A

[Pilgrim]

Mars One founder on why sending people to die on another planet is the ultimate brand opportunity

6 May 2015 - posted by Jennifer Faull

Red Bull’s sponsorship of Felix Baumgartner’s record breaking space jump has been dubbed by many as the most successful marketing stunt in history. Eight million people tuned into the live-stream and estimates at the time put the value of the exposure at over £100m for the energy drink brand.

But Bas Lansdorp wants to go where no man, or brand, has gone before. Mars.

Lansdorp is founder of Mars One, a not for profit organisation which aims to establish a permanent settlement on the red planet by 2026. Financing the operation is complex. Mars One has estimated it will cost $6bn to send the first crew up, $4bn for each subsequent manned mission. To acheive this, it is primarily reliant on (unnamed as yet) private investors with “media exposure” – comparable to the Olympic Games – cited as the main stream of providing ROI.

"The Olympic Games in London, which lasted only three weeks, yielded more than $4.5bn from broadcasting rights and sponsorships. The revenues from media exposure are estimated to be the equivalent of 10 Olympic Games between today and the first year after human landing,” claims the website.

Criticisms of the project's feasibility and the way in which it has sourced the potential crew aside, sending people on a one-way trip to Mars – returning is costly and complex – is a far more difficult proposition to sell to brand marketers.

“Space is inherently dangerous. But there are also brands that sponsor the Volvo Ocean Race where people die every now and again [Hans Horrevoets was killed in 2006],” Lansdorp tell The Drum. “You have to be clear about the risks and explain why it’s worth it taking those risks [...] I don’t doubt something will go wrong. That’s how space exploration works.”

So why should brands take the risk?

“This is one of the most exciting things that will happen in the 21st century. We’re not sure if Mars One will make it, or if [another organisation] will make it, but people will be sent to Mars in the 21st century. When we look back on this time, we’ll remember it for the fact that humans left the planet. That’s why it’s interesting for companies to attach themselves to it. We want to communicate this grand story to people all around the world.”

Lansdorp claims to have already held talks with one of the world’s biggest car companies and a global beer brand. He declines to name them, or detail what the deal might have entailed, but explained that although it was “too early” for them to commit their interest is encouraging.

Sponsorship and product placement agreements could be on the cards for brands as a more immediate opportunity lies in a planned documentary series.

Negotiations with international broadcasters are ongoing since Endemol-owned Darlow Smithson Productions – behind the popular Big Brother series – backed out last year. But Lansdorp revealed eight 50 minute episodes will follow teams as they train and complete challenges until the first crew leaves.

“We’re going to build a copy of the Mars outpost and each year the teams will be “locked up” for a certain period of time. They will not know how long so they can’t count down. They will have all the same restrictions, like communication, and medical facilities and we’ll give them challenges to overcome. Life support systems will breakdown for example and we’ll see how they deal with these challenges,” Lansdorp explained.

“We want the whole world to know who [the people going to Mars] are. We don’t want them to be four random pilots but to be our TV friends going to Mars.”

Overseeing the selection of the crew is chief medical officer Norbert Kraft who has work with NASA as wel as the Russian and Japanese space agencies. Lansdorp himself will not be a part of the crew going to Mars.

“We hope the mission will succeed but what matters is the story of trying to achieve the almost impossible. Of progress. Of inspiration. And if we succeed that’s a great bonus and if we don’t it’s still a very inspiring and creative story,” he said.

Lansdorp is set to address marketers at the Festival of Media Global in Rome this week (10-12 May).

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/05/06/ ... pportunity

[xplosive]

De Mars missie van de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten :



Mohammed naar Mars!

[Pilgrim]

In dat filmpje wordt ook nog even gerefereerd aan het (fictieve) gouden tijdperk van de Islam, het glorieuze islamitische verleden toen het Midden Oosten - dankzij de Islam ( [icon_lol.gif] ) - het centrum was van wetenschap en vooruitgang. Een verleden dat in werkelijkheid nooit heeft bestaan!

[Pilgrim]

NASA looft een prijs uit voor mensen die met een héél goed idee komen dat gebruikt kan worden m.b.t. de kolonisatie van Mars. Het beste idee is volgens mij: GEEN Moslims op Mars!! Helaas zal dit beste idee geen prijs krijgen volgens mij.

NASA Wants Your Ideas for a Mars Colony

Brian WuMay 08, 2015



Mars is seen as the next frontier for humans. Ever since astronauts first walked on the Moon in 1969, scientists and space enthusiasts alike have dreamed of one day exploring the Red Planet. While we work on new rockets to get us to Mars, scientists are already hard at work thinking about how to build a sustainable colony on Mars. What do we need to survive? That's the question NASA is asking the public in its latest competition.

The challenge asks for written submissions detailing what explorers will need to colonize a new planet. The space agency is offering a total of $15,000 in prize money to be split between three winners of the contest.

This latest competition from the space agency is broad, but there are many challenges facing planetary colonization. NASA lists ""shelter, food, water, breathable air, communication, exercise, social interactions and medicine" as potential topics for participants seeking to advance humanity and winning a little money in the process. With rockets only able to carry so much weight, NASA is pushing for innovative solutions that can be used in the future when a mission to Mars is ready to blast off.

"We're not going to get humans to Mars until at least the mid-2030s, and the world is going to change by then," NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said in a recent interview. "So how do we make sure that the path we're choosing has enough flexibility, so that as technology develops we can adapt what we're doing? That way, if someone figures out how to do something much better, you can adapt without starting from square one or making costs go way up."

Manned missions to Mars may be decades away, but NASA is already making progress toward achieving that goal. Mars rovers and orbiting probes are feeding the agency more information every day and the Orion capsule is getting closer and closer to being ready for a mission in space. In an effort to battle budget cuts, NASA has also turned to private enterprise and other countries to fill in the gaps. According to Stofan, other countries don't need a push to collaborate on a mission to the Red Planet.

"With the mission to Mars, the whole world wants to get involved," Stofan said. "So we actually have 13 different space agencies from around the world working on the global exploration road map. That helps us because we don't have unlimited resources. And it's a benefit to all the other countries that want to participate."

While turning to the international community makes the journey to Mars an International mission, NASA turning to the public makes the project a collective effort by all.

http://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/61 ... colony.htm

[Pilgrim]

Behalve de moslims is er geloof ik nog een groep uit de Homo Sapiens die we beter niet op Mars kunnen toelaten; socialisten (in alle variaties)! Hieronder een artikel over de afkeer van de (s)linxen over het koloniseren van de ruimte. Dat is volgens hen maar Westers neokolonialisme. Stel je voor dat er op Mars een tweede ‘Noord-Amerika’ ontstaat, als een nieuwe supermacht (en dat is trouwens precies wat ik wil). De linkse zelfhaat strekt zich nu uit tot ver in de ruimte.

Behalve het woord ‘liefde’ is er geen ander woord in de geschiedenis zo misbruikt als het woord ‘progressief’. Het betekent ‘vooruitstrevend’ maar behelst door de socialisten precies het tegenovergestelde. Het is pure achteruitgang! Je hoeft alleen al te kijken naar het omhelzen van de Islam, want de Islam is de grootste reactionaire kracht in de geschiedenis van de mensheid. Socialisten hadden altijd hun grote mond vol over ‘reactionair’ m.b.t. het Christendom, maar met de Islam is dat kennelijk helemaal geen probleem meer. Ook op Mars zal het socialisme een remmende factor zijn, dus laten we dat alsjeblieft bij voorbaat uitsluiten. Ik ben trouwens wel blij met deze afkeer van links van ruimtekolonisatie want het verhindert ze dat ze bij de eerste pioniers komen en dat er daardoor dus geen mensen op Mars komen die niet uit het juiste hout gesneden zijn.

The Left has found a new reason to hate the space program

Mark Whittington, Houston Space News Examiner | May 8, 2015

Space Blogger Rand Simberg noted on Friday in Pajamas Media that the Left has discovered a new reason to hate efforts to colonize the high frontier of space. Whereas what Simberg called “social justice warriors” used to oppose NASA’s space program because it diverted funding from social welfare program, they now oppose all efforts, government or private, to expand the human race beyond the Earth because, apparently, it is inherently evil. One called such efforts “White Colonialism Interstellar Manifest Destiny B—s--.”

To be sure, the exploration of space and its eventual settlement has long been justified using the model of the expansion of the American frontier from the 1600s to the 1800s. Decades ago, the settlement of North America was considered almost universally as a good thing. But, more recently, the Left had painted the process as evil, mainly because of the damage it did to the Native Americans, who settled the Americas thousands of years before. Hence, the idea of “manifest destiny in space”, to coin a phrase used by Mars settlement advocate Robert Zubrin, causes people on the Left to leap the lengths of their chains.

Space has changed since the days since politicians such as William Proxmire and Walter Mondale used to inveigh against NASA on the floor of the Senate. For one thing, the social welfare programs they used to advocate have been thoroughly discredited. For another thing, government space agencies are not the sole players in the space business. While many companies are still reliant on government contracts and subsidies, commercial space has become a collection of independent players. When SpaceX’s Elon Musk muses about creating a private Mars settlement, he is given a respectful hearing and is not dismissed out of hand.

One of the salient facts that tends to interfere with the leftist narrative concerning space settlements is that no intelligent life exists anywhere else in the solar system besides Earth. The moon and Mars are virgin territories, ready to be settled and exploited for the betterment of humankind.

Another fact that interferes with the narrative is that not all would-be space settlers are white. China has great aspirations concerning the economic exploitation and settlement of space. China has an imperial tradition of its own. Those who governor the Middle Kingdom also remember how a Chines emperor stopped deep water exploration soon after the death of the great navigator Zeng He, who sailed as far afield as Africa. Thus, China missed out on the great age of exploration that started in the 15th Century which made the countries of Europe global superpowers and created the United States. China does not mean to miss out on the age of space exploration.

The hostile attitude by the Left toward space might be seen as just another curiosity were it not the fact that it has affected space policy. President Barack Obama, a man of the Left who has sneered at the idea of American exceptionalism, crippled NASA’s space exploration program. While a Mars mission remains, scheduled for 20 years from now, it is likely that the president canceled President George W. Bush’s Constellation space exploration program because the idea of Americans exploring and eventually settling space would be far too exceptional for his blood.

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-lef ... ce-program

[Pilgrim]

Ook feministen hebben kennelijk een problem met het koloniseren van Mars.

Feminists worry that colonization of Mars will be rife with sexism and racism

Ryan Carrillo, May 13, 2015

Social Justice Warriors Take Fight To The Final Frontier: Mars!

An article in the Guardian last week asked “How can our future Mars colonies be free of sexism and racism?” In it the author, Martin Robbins, is concerned that Mars will just be another oppressive white male patriarchy, and that our desire to conquer the red planet is akin to the ideology of manifest destiny.

Robbins says:

Manifest Destiny. But historically, this kind of attitude has come with two big problems.

Firstly, destiny is rarely great for the people already at the destination. When Africans moved north to colonise Europe they obliterated the Neanderthals. When Europeans seized the New World, its cultures were virtually extinguished. Luckily the only population on Mars that we know of is a handful of rovers, but no doubt we’ll start a war anyway, before dragging them into some form of slavery or oppression. It’s just what we do.

How we start a war when there is no life on Mars is a concept I’m still trying to wrap my head around but it must be true because, “It’s just what we do.”

But the worst part is just how white the whole endeavor is going to be. “To paraphrase Douglas Adams: “Space is white. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly white it is.” It’s also very male and European. Women in space-colony fiction have generally been presented as sexy walking vaginas, whose main purpose is to provide the male astronauts with a place to dock their penis at night. This being necessary in order to “ensure the survival of the species,” says Robbins.

So the reason we must worry about sexism in space is because of science-fiction from the 1950s? Attitudes have progressed since then. Take Ripley from the Alien franchise or any of the female characters in the cult hit Firefly. What about an entire Star Trek series with female Captain Janeway of Voyager? If it’s science fiction that we’re going by, the evidence just doesn’t support the conclusion that females in space are just seen as “penis docking stations” to paraphrase.

Robbins attempts to back up her claim by quoting a comment made by the director of Russia’s top space medical institute, Professor Anatoly Grigoryev, back in 2005. Grigoryev said “After all, women are fragile and delicate creatures; that is why men should lead the way to distant planets and carry women there in their strong hands.”

It’s not a secret that Russia remains a largely chauvinistic society but Grigoryev comes from a different time. He was 61 when he made that comment and is now 71.

Robbins also forgets to mention that those comments received a strong response from Art Dula, an American space lawyer who’s been chief counsel for space commercialization projects for over 20 years. Dula said,

Grigoryev should either apologize immediately or face the consequences.

“Discrimination against women would make his organization, and any organizations whose activities it controls, possibly including the Russian Federal Space Agency, ineligible to contract with or receive funds from the U.S. government or any U.S. government contractor,” Dula said in a statement e-mailed to MSNBC.com.

He said the U.S. government should tell Russian space officials that, “if Mr. Grigoryev meant what he said, then the U.S. will not provide funding, nor can they expect to meet and work with NASA personnel or contractors.”

These concerns are already being tackled.

Space programs are not without their hiccups with sexism however. In 1999-2000, during an isolation chamber test that had an international crew including 32-year-old Judith Lapierre, a Ph.D. health sciences specialist. The test ran for 110 days and less than a month into Lapierre’s run she was twice forcibly french-kissed by the Russian team commander. It appears these incidents are isolated to dealing with the Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems, directed by Grigoryev.

It wouldn’t be a feminist article without mentioning rape though. “The first woman to be raped in space has probably already been born,” notes Robbins. The narrative of rapists lurking around every corner, or in this case every pod, doesn’t fly however.

According to an article by our own Avens O’Brien, 6% of men are rapists, which leaves 94% of the male population as upstanding, or at least not rapey, potential Mars candidates.

Robbins finishes up by quoting a D N Lee article in Scientific American about the problems Lee sees with space projects. “When we look around and see a homogenous group of individuals discussing these issues – issues that command insane budgets, we should pause. Why aren’t other voices and perspectives at the table? How much is this conversation being controlled (framed, initiated, directed, routed) by capitalist and political interests of the (few) people at the table?”

“The last thing we need is to wake up in 50 years and find that a bunch of #gamergate nobheads are running Mars,” concludes Robbins.

I’m not going to get into the whole GamerGate thing, that’s an entire article on itself, but for argument’s sake let’s say they were a problem, what of it? If it was Gamergaters that invested their time, money, and risked their lives to colonize Mars, what say do you have in the matter at all? If you don’t want them running it then build your own space program and start your own colony.

Social justice warriors have a tendency to try and inject themselves in other people’s projects and spaces, latching on like some sort of parasitic face-hugger from Aliens. Why aren’t other voices and perspectives at the table? Because SJWs, you have nothing to do with their projects and add no value.

You’re not investors, or scientists, or engineers and in cases like Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, you have no say in a private enterprise.

http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/femin ... nd-racism/

http://www.theguardian.com/science/the- ... and-racism

[Pilgrim]

Roadmap for Manned Missions to Mars Reaching 'Consensus', NASA Chief Says

By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | May 06, 2015

Despite skepticism from Congress concerning NASA's asteroid-capture project, space agency chief Charles Bolden said "consensus is emerging" about that mission and other steps in NASA's plan to send humans to Mars.

"This plan is clear. This plan is affordable, and this plan is sustainable," Bolden said Tuesday (May 5) at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington, D.C., which is hosted by the nonprofit Explore Mars, Inc.

Bolden cited several steps NASA is taking to achieve its stated goal of getting humans to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s. For example, one NASA astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut recently embarked on a one-year mission on the International Space Station to investigate the physiological and psychological effects of long-duration spaceflight. [5 Manned Mission to Mars Ideas]

Additionally, NASA is building a spacecraft (called Orion) and a rocket (called the Space Launch System) to get astronauts beyond Earth orbit for the first time since the Apollo moon missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Orion launched on its first unmanned test flight last December, and the capsule and SLS are scheduled to fly together for the first time in 2018.

Bolden acknowledged that critics have asked the agency to "cease and desist" from the asteroid-capture mission, which aims to pluck a boulder off a space rock and drag that piece into orbit around the moon, where it can be visited by astronauts by 2025. Detractors have charged that this project is a distraction from getting people to Mars, but Bolden countered that it's actually a stepping stone to the Red Planet.

"We really are trying to demonstrate we can develop the technologies and the techniques to help commercial companies, entrepreneurs and others get to asteroids and mine them," Bolden said. The agency also plans to test solar electric propulsion during the asteroid mission as a potentially cheaper way to take astronauts through the solar system.

Time is of the essence
Bolden kicked off the annual three-day summit, which examines the options for sending humans to Mars. As several speakers pointed out, this year's conference occurs during a period of renewed interest in manned Mars exploration.

For example, Dennis Tito — who, in 2001, became the first private citizen to fly to the International Space Station — is leading a project called Inspiration Mars, which aims to launch two people on a flyby mission around the Red Planet in 2021. The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One aims to start a Red Planet colony, with the first settlers arriving in 2027. Hollywood is even getting in on the trend, as a movie based on Andy Weir's book "The Martian" (Broadway Books, 2014) will hit theaters in November.

However NASA chooses to get to Mars, the agency will need to back up that plan with a strategy that includes a launch schedule, related hardware development and an architecture sophisticated enough for cost estimation, Scott Hubbard said in another presentation. Hubbard is the former NASA "Mars czar" who reorganized the agency's robotic Red Planet exploration program after it suffered several high-profile failures in the 1990s. He now works at Stanford University and is a member of the NASA Advisory Council.

NASA also needs to update its 2009 Mars Design Reference Architecture to reflect current technology , Hubbard said, adding that NASA should act quickly to harness the wave of public interest.

"If you don't lay out this plan, you will create uncertainty in partners and decision-makers," he said. Others in the Mars exploration community will seize the opportunity if NASA misses it, Hubbard added.

[Zie de video op de site of hier.]

The human touch
NASA is already exploring Mars today with several robotic missions, including the Curiosity rover that landed in 2012, the Opportunity rover that just passed a marathon's worth of driving since arriving in 2004 and several spacecraft in orbit.

As successful as these robotic explorers have been, they cannot compete with humans in terms of ingenuity, speed and resourcefulness, said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for the science mission directorate.

In a panel, Grunsfeld cited a conversation he had with Steve Squyres, a Cornell University geologist who is principal investigator of Opportunity's mission. Squyres estimated that if he were on the Martian surface, he could have accomplished Opportunity's original 90-day mission in just 20 minutes.

"One of the purposes of people is to fix the rovers when they break, or fix the Hubble [Space Telescope] when it breaks," said Grunsfeld, a former NASA shuttle astronaut who visited the telescope three times during his career.

The Humans 2 Mars Summit began Tuesday and continues through Thursday (May 7). You can watch the Mars exploration summit live on Space.com, courtesy of Explore Mars, Inc.

http://www.space.com/29323-nasa-manned- ... plans.html

[Pilgrim]

Mars One Execs Dispute Criticism of Red Planet Colony Mission

By Elizabeth Howell, Space.com Contributor | May 11, 2015

Higher-ups at Mars One are disputing allegations by a former astronaut candidate that the colonization effort judges its applicants unfairly and is unable to finance itself.

Mars One is a nonprofit organization that aims to establish a human settlement on the Red Planet via a series of one-way trips. While its finances are not fully firmed up yet, Mars One representatives have said they will use capital from private investors, coupled with sponsorship deals, to bankroll the project. In March, the organization pushed back its first manned Red Planet landing by two years to 2027, citing a delay in investment funding.

That same month, Joseph Roche — an astrophysicist with Trinity College Dublin who was among 100 finalists vying to be a Mars One astronaut — was quoted extensively in a story published by Medium and wrote an article for The Guardian newspaper. In both publications, Roche said that the top candidates helped finance Mars One, and that the organization's astronaut selection process is flawed. (Roche is no longer a finalist, Mars One officials said.)

Roche declined an interview with Space.com, saying his statements in the March 18 Guardian article reflect all that he wants to say to the media at this time.

"After completing the interview stage, I felt that the selection process was not rigorous enough to reach the requisite standard of more traditional astronaut selection programs," Roche wrote in the article.

Roche's article came a month after The Guardian ran a list of "Top 10" candidates for Mars One who were selected by organizers based on the number of "points" each candidate had garnered during the selection process. Roche said these points were based on how much money the candidates donated to Mars One.

"I think that the shortcomings of the selection process, coupled with their unwillingness to engage and collaborate with the scientific community, means that the time might have come for Mars One to acknowledge the implausibility of this particular venture," Roche wrote. "They could then perhaps turn their efforts towards supporting other exciting and more viable space missions."

Disputing allegations
When reached by Space.com, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp said that Roche misunderstood the financing situation, as many candidates among the 100 finalists have not contributed any money at all. Money to date has come from a 2013 financing round, Lansdorp has said publicly. (Mars One has not disclosed how much this round raised.)

Two finalists on Mars One's list backed Lansdorp, telling Space.com that they were not ordered to contribute money to be eligible for selection, although the organization did encourage everyone to chip in through voluntary purchases, such as buying T-shirts.

"It seems clear to me from the documentation on the website before the selection, before the process began, that Mars One has stated there will be no consideration for candidate selection based upon their material participation", said Peter Degen-Portnoy, a finalist in the Boston area.

Sonia Van Meter, who lives in Austin, Texas, said she paid only a $37 application fee to participate. (That fee varied by country.)

Mars One has a production company that is "in negotiation with international broadcasters" to showcase the next stage of selection, which will likely see the finalists do team challenges sometime this summer to see how they work in groups, Lansdorp told Space.com. A new deal is forthcoming and is expected to be closed by summer, he added.

"We’ve closed a deal with a consortium of investors; the deal is signed, but it's only done when the money is in the bank", Lansdorp said. "Documents need to be prepared and approved and modified, and that's taking a lot longer than I expected."

Should the deal close, the money will be enough for Mars One to continue for roughly 2.5 years through the training and selection process, he added.

As for the selection process, both Lansdorp and Kraft told Space.com that the interviews — which winnowed down the list from more than 1,000 people to 100 — were short because the selection process isn't complete.

So far, Kraft said, the interviews have been brief and focused on general knowledge to test how willing the candidates are to learn, and if they understand the concept of risk.

The next round will be more rigorous, Lansdorp and Kraft said. Van Meter said she expects this to be the case.

"So far, they are looking at us, I think, as people, and I think the next step, in Round 3 or 4 — which they haven't talked about terribly much — we know it's going to be considerably more intensive," she said.

Split opinions
Until Mars One shows that it has closed a significant financing deal, it's difficult to know if the organization is capable of making it to the Red Planet, said space policy expert John Logsdon.

"They haven't shown any evidence that they have funding of a magnitude able to buy the hardware to get people to the Martian surface, or even to conduct the precursor robotic missions they contracted for," Logsdon, a professor emeritus at The George Washington University, told Space.com.

Logsdon said that, given this situation, he is astounded by the amount of media coverage Mars One receives. He added that an organization such as Explore Mars — another nonprofit — has more carefully thought through logistical and financing issues, which Logsdon heard about when he participated in the organization's Humans to Mars Summit earlier this year.

http://www.space.com/29361-mars-one-col ... fense.html

[Pilgrim]

Prachtige tekeningen van de Zweedse kunstenaar Ville Ericsson over een futuristische kolonie op Mars.


Swedish concept artist Ville Ericsson has revealed his amazing drawings of a futuristic colony on Mars. He envisions a large dome-like structure (shown) being used to house a city on the surface.


Scientific studies have shown that growing crops in Martian soil shouldn't be a problem. In the drawings it is suggested that, inside a large dome, vegetation could take hold to partially terraform the surface

Lees hier meer:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... ed-it.html

[Ali Yas]

Heeft iemand al eens zitten rekenen aan de logistieke omvang van dit project? Zulke reuzenconstructies zijn op Aarde al niet echt makkelijk, laat staan op Mars waar je noch de mankracht, noch de machines noch de materialen ter plaatse kunt optrommelen. Daar komt nog bij dat een koepel waaronder je wilt kunnen rondlopen zonder ruimtepak een druk van tenminste 500 gram per vierkante centimeter moet kunnen weerstaan. Zo'n constructie wordt niet licht en zeker ook niet groot. Gelukkig maar dat kunstenaars zich aan de technische 'details' niet hoeven te storen, anders zouden ze zulke mooie plaatjes niet meer durven tekenen. Een rode lucht is trouwens ook niet zo aantrekkelijk als een blauwe.

[Pilgrim]

Heeft iemand al eens zitten rekenen aan de logistieke omvang van dit project?

Ja. Robert Zubrin beschrijft dit in zijn boek ‘The case for Mars’ vanaf pag. 177. Ik kan het hier niet even plaatsen omdat mijn scanner het nu even niet doet. Ik zal daarom een klein stukje overtypen:

We don’t have to burrow underground to protect ourselves from radiation (as on the moon) because the Martian atmosphere is dense enough to shield people living on the surface against solar flares. The planet’s surface will be open to us, and, even during the base-building phase, large inflatable structures made of transparent plastic protected by thin, hard-plastic ultraviolet- and abrasion-resistant geodesic domes could be readily deployed, rapidly creating large domains for both human habitation an eventual crop growth.

De rest kan je ook lezen op internet (inclusief cijfers):

https://books.google.nl/books?id=NC8XZE ... on&f=false

En hier nog een stukje uit zijn boek:

But on Mars there is an atmosphere thick enough to protect crops grown on the surface from solar
flare. Therefore, thin-walled inflatable plastic greenhouses protected by unpressurized UV-resistant
hard-plastic shield domes can be used to rapidly create cropland on the surface. Even without the
problems of solar flares and month-long diurnal cycle, such simple greenhouses would be impractical
on the Moon as they would create unbearably high temperatures. On Mars, in contrast, the strong
greenhouse effect created by such domes would be precisely what is necessary to produce a temperate
climate inside. Such domes up to 50 meters in diameter are light enough to be transported from Earth
initially, and later on they can be manufactured on Mars out of indigenous materials. Because all the
resources to make plastics exist on Mars, networks of such 50- to 100-meter domes could be rapidly
manufactured and deployed, opening up large areas of the surface to both shirtsleeve human
habitation and agriculture. That’s just the beginning, because it will eventually be possible for humans
to substantially thicken Mars’ atmosphere by forcing the regolith to outgas its contents through a
deliberate program of artificially induced global warming. Once that has been accomplished, the
habitation domes could be virtually any size, as they would not have to sustain a pressure differential
between their interior and exterior. In fact, once that has been done, it will be possible to raise
specially bred crops outside the domes.

http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~meech/a281/h ... s_case.pdf

Gelukkig maar dat kunstenaars zich aan de technische 'details' niet hoeven te storen, anders zouden ze zulke mooie plaatjes niet meer durven tekenen.

Hier heb je nog meer mooie plaatjes die uitgegeven worden door SpaceX van Elon Musk zelf.

Everybody wants to go to Mars these days, not least of all Elon Musk, who might very well be hoping to retire there after he turns into a cyborg. But for those of you who haven’t jumped on the bandwagon yet, SpaceX just dropped some travel posters of the Red Planet to entice you.

http://gizmodo.com/spacex-just-dropped- ... 1704855680

Een rode lucht is trouwens ook niet zo aantrekkelijk als een blauwe.

Werkelijk? De zonsop- en zonsondergangen zijn in ieder geval wel blauw. Dat is weer eens wat anders.

Op de Rode Planeet zijn de zonsondergangen soms blauw getint, blijkt uit een recente foto van marswagen Curiosity. Het kiekje is geschoten vanaf de mast van de verkenner, kort na een zandstorm. Waar stof in de lucht op aarde een rode verkleuring veroorzaakt, leidt dit op Mars tot een blauwzweem.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/bee ... ~a4024430/