Casual Astronomy, Spaceflight News and Lower California Weather

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Mars One, a private space venture from the Netherlands, hopes to send astronauts on a one-way journey to Mars. .... the startup has declared its intention to colonize the Red Planet by 2023.

Founded by Dutch entrepreneur, Bas Lansdorp, Mars One lays out a detailed timetable for human settlement on the planet:

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Elon Musk, the billionaire founder and CEO of the private spaceflight company SpaceX, wants to help establish a Mars colony of up to 80,000 people by ferrying explorers to the Red Planet ....

In Musk's vision, the ambitious Mars settlement program would start with a pioneering group of fewer than 10 people, ....

Life on Mars was once referred to something we were trying to discover. Now it’s something we’re trying to create. And the possibility of putting humans on Mars is a goal that could be reached in the not-too-distant future. Mars One, a private space venture from the Netherlands, plans to start colonies on Mars by 2023. And Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX, recently revealed his vision of building a colony on Mars the size of a small city.

But how much would it cost to send humans to the Red Planet?

Neo Mammalian Studios explores this in a new infographic (created for Paydayloan). The conclusion? It’s expensive, but far from impossible. Here’s the breakdown:

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NASA and private sector experts now agree that a man or woman could be sent on a mission to Mars over the next 20 years, despite huge challenges.

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.... NASA’s William Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, ....

“For us in NASA, we typically do a lot of design reference mission analysis. We do a lot of concept work. We do a lot of things, and then we typically ask industry how they can participate or be part of that activity.

“We thought that this time, instead of doing it the typical way, we would kind of turn that around a little bit. We would ask the industry first through this Space Act Agreement what they are interested in; (where) they see interest in doing exploration throughout the solar system; where they see human presence that makes sense; where they see potential commercial markets."

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NASA is banned by Congress from any contact, collaborations or partnerships with China, primarily due to concerns about technology transfer. Republican congressman Frank Wolf has been leading that charge.

“I understand Congressman Wolf’s concerns, but I think his approach is counter-productive,” Kulacki said. [Gregory Kulacki is China program manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists.]

“Banning contact between NASA and potential counterparts in China only gives greater authority to the more nationalistic elements within the Chinese space community, and it minimizes the voices of a very large internationalist constituency within the Chinese space community,” he said.

“The ban really strengthens attitudes that are not conducive to better relations between the United States and China and it weakens the position of those who take a more positive attitude toward the United States,” Kulacki added.

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Quoting RobDaHood:
… Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
-Ulysses
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Moving off Earth.

Brings to mind several books I loved when I was young.

The Man Who Sold the Moon
and
The Greening of Mars

among them.

Quoting RobDaHood:
460. LowerCal
A true shame that we lack the national will to do what China is doing...with our $$$.

The U.S. Air Force and SpaceX have signed an agreement allowing the commercial space transportation firm to eventually compete for launch contracts of the military's most expensive and sensitive satellites.

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SpaceX won contracts for the launch of two Air Force satellite missions in December. A Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket will launch the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, a joint project headed by the Air Force and NOAA, in late 2014. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy booster, a powerful rocket scheduled to debut in 2014, will loft multiple experimental satellites into different orbits on the Air Force's Space Test Program 2 mission in 2015.

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O'Neill: In a recent guest article you wrote for Discovery News (Don't Let Them Hijack Our Dreams, May 7, 2013), you expressed concern for the diminishing interest in space and the media's obsession with reporting negative news. Do you have any advice for parents hoping to perhaps "shield" their kids from a lot of the negative press, while highlighting amazing scientific progress?

Chiao: I definitely hear you. What we do with our kids is talk to them about things that are happening in the world and some of the cool breakthroughs you read and hear about in science. And we do actually shield them quite a bit because, by accident, we raised them without television, which helps an enormous amount!

What happened when my wife and I got married a little over nine years ago, we kind of merged our homes and between the two of us we had these two old TVs with the big tube in them, so we actually sold a lot of our stuff, including the old TVs in a garage sale with the intention of buying a new flat screen. Back then, the best TVs to get were the big plasmas, but we never got around to going out and buying one.

So we got used to living without a TV and then a couple of years later when we had kids. So we've by and large been shielding our kids from the 24 hour news cycle and the pounding home of every tragedy and crime that's committed.

So from this, we've been able to accentuate the positive news, helping them to focus on the important and positive events that are going on to get them thinking about lots of different things. But, it is a bit drastic to say "hey, get rid of your television!" because probably most people wouldn't do that. But think about what you want your kids to see rather than them being constantly exposed to all the negative stuff. Unfortunately it seems to be human nature that we are drawn to the negative, tragic and heartbreaking stories.

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