Adding a touch of realism

You wanted Martians, you've got 'em, mate.

British, French and Italian scientists will travel to Antarctica so they can waste money pretending they're at a Mars base.

Someone should remind them that it gets boring down there and their fellow, more terrestrial-minded colleagues may not be above a joke, so be prepared when answering the door.

Mars and Beyond

Your call can't be connected

According to this 1932 report, a reflective upper layer of the Earth's atmosphere precludes establishing radio communications with Mars.

That and the planet being a still-born, dead husk of a world, but the layer doesn't help.

Douglas conjunction-class Mars mission

Beyond Apollo looks at Douglas's 1965 study for getting to Mars fast.

I miss the days when talk of a manned Mars mission was something taken seriously.

Space tucker

What?  No Tang?

We've got some hard facts about that Mars mission simulation that NASA wants to run on a lava bed in Hawaii.  Apparently, the purpose is to find the ideal menu for Mars-bound astronauts.

Doesn't seem that hard a task to me.  Lay in some ship's biscuit, bully beef, a few wheels of cheese, dried peas, sauerkraut, jam, tea, bacon, porridge, Bovril, tinned butter, tinned milk, powdered eggs, lime juice, beer, and an ample supply of rum* and and you're set.

Oh, and the shrimp cocktail, of course.

*Pemmican, cocoa and Kendal mint cakes will also be available for landing parties on Mars.

Mars time

If you meet someone who needs to know the time on Mars so badly that he sports this watch and he doesn't work for the jet Propulsion Laboratory, then for heaven's sake don't go to the pub with him.

He's likely as not to get drunk and pull off his face.

SpaceX Dragon's ultimate mission is Mars colonization

The private spaceflight company SpaceX declared that 2012 would be the "Year of the Dragon" - a play on the current cycle of the Chinese calendar and the upcoming tests of SpaceX's Dragon space capsule. For a time, it seemed as if SpaceX was regretting that slogan. Dragon was chosen as one of five competitors for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contest to develop a cargo/passenger craft to service the International Space Station. The Dragon program had enjoyed considerable success and was scheduled to be the first private spacecraft to visit and, if all went well, dock with the International Space Station (ISS). Unfortunately, with the need for more testing of the Dragon capsule delaying the launch from its original February 7, 2012 date to late March or even into April, it looked as though the Year of the Dragon was starting a bit late. .. Continue Reading SpaceX Dragon's ultimate mission is Mars colonization

Fragments of Phobos Grunt crash into the Pacific Ocean

Russia's 13-ton (11.8-tonne) unmanned Phobos-Grunt interplanetary space probe that was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on November 9, 2011 has reportedly burned up in the Earth's atmosphere. According to Russian Air and Space Defence Forces, the spacecraft was destroyed on Sunday, January 15th, 2012 at 1745 GMT as it made an uncontrolled re-entry and broke up 775 miles (1,250 km) west of Chile in the South Pacific... Continue Reading Fragments of Phobos Grunt crash into the Pacific Ocean

Russian Mars probe trapped in orbit

Hope is fading for the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars, as the probe has been trapped in low Earth orbit since Wednesday. The 13-ton (11.8-tonne) unmanned spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on November 9, atop a Ukrainian Zenit-2 booster. Baikonur ground control lost track of the probe when it failed to appear in its predicted orbit. According to the Russian Space Agency, the Phobos-Grunt's engines failed to fire twice, leaving the probe in a low, rapidly decaying orbit. Despite continuing efforts, ground control has been unable to get the probe to respond to commands and can only receive telemetry data from it. If the Russians are unable to regain control, the Phobos-Grunt is expected to make an uncontrolled re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, along with its 8.3 tons (7.5 tonnes) of highly toxic propellant and radioactive cobalt-57... Continue Reading Russian Mars probe trapped in orbit

SpaceX Dragon to Mars

NASA is looking into using the SpaceX Dragon for a Mars mission that could be cheaper and more efficient.

As I've said before, the real Space Age will begin the same way the Age of Exploration did; not with quirky and expensive experimental vehicles built for specific mission, but with general commercial craft that can do the job in their stride.

Faking it

How they shipped all this to Mars dominates the first third of the film.

I see that the European Space Agency's fake Mars mission is about to end.  That means it's time to dust off that screenplay I've been working on.

The premise is that just before the fake mission to Mars was about to begin, the Mars simulation gear develops a glitch that would have meant scrubbing the mission.  Fearing embarrassment and  a loss of credibility, ESA tries to cover up for the failure of the fake mission by actually sending the team to Mars to send back videos from the "fake" red planet.  Unfortunately, now that the "mission" is over, the crew knows too much and has to be shut up.  Permanently.

I think it's got box office potential.

The Day We Land on Mars

The red planet as seen from 1955–the time when the idea of life on Mars was only opposed by a "few dissenters".  And we're not talking bacteria.

I particularly like this quote:

We should quit trying to think up logical, sensible reasons for space travel.  There are no such reasons.  If we ever reach mars it will be because we were lured there by that same vague but irresistible urge that led men to make one assault after another on Mt Everest: "Because it's there."

I've heard this sentiment time and time again over the past forty years and it never made sense to me–and bear in mind that I'm a vocal advocate of manned space travel.  "Because it's there" is all very well and good if you're doing something pointless like climbing Mount Everest or sailing around the world in a bucket, but if you're asking the public or investors to sink the cost of a large war to land a man on another planet for the hell of it, then you need to step back and look at what you're doing.

Go to Mars? Great.  I'm for it.  Just give me a solid reason to back it that justifies the cost and I'm there.  Otherwise, I say do a Joker, pile up the money and set fire to it.  You'll be doing about as much good.

I'm particularly amused by the magazine's stilted and convoluted argument for sending prostitutes to Mars.  If you want jolly wagons in space, man, just spit it out and be done with it.  Or, perhaps, he should have read C S Lewis's "Minstering Angels" first to see how it would more than likely work out.

Martin-Marietta Mars Rover

Or we could wait until we can build proper walkers.

Cyberneticzoo.com looks at the Martin-Marietta Mars Rover of 1986.

I love these old walking machine concepts.  They're the sort of things that engineers come up with when they're unwilling to tell their bosses that the technology is a generation behind the requirements.

Project Troy

The chaps at Reaction Engines keep one step ahead of the game by not only working on their Skylon shuttle, but also a Mars mission proposal so their little skylark actually has a place to go and a job to do.

It looks very cool with a Collier's mission feel about it and I think it has a much better chance of success than some of the more anemic proposals put forth in recent years. This could get to Mars, though what's the point of doing so is another question. It's a shame that the Mars of '50s sci fi is dead and gone. It would have made the trip worth the ticket fare.

Mars methane

The planet Mars produces far more methane than the Earth.

In other news, Marvin is asked to go easy on the cabbage.

James Kirk, Call Your Service

Headline from Slashdot:

Mars Robot May Destroy Life It Was Sent To Find

Yep. It was only a question of time.

An Alternative

From a New York Times article on a Russian Mars mission simulation:

On Tuesday, six people will be voluntarily locked into a cloister of cramped, hermetically sealed tubes woven inside a Moscow research facility the size of a high school gymnasium. They will eat dehydrated food, breathe recycled air and be denied conversation with practically everyone else but one another. And they must stay inside for 105 days.

Interesting, but if the Russians wanted to save a bit of dosh, they'd just have their volunteers temp for Microsoft.

Mars "Colony"

I'm sure that the simulated Mars colony in Hanksville, Utah has its heart in the right place and it does look kind of cool from the outside.

Inside, however, it is less than impressive; looking more like the sort of site huts that I kicked around in during my archaeology days. Somehow, I doubt that plywood will be a major construction material on Mars, nor do I think that hammers and nails will be in great demand.

But my favourite is the fact that the "astronauts" don "spacesuits" before doing an "EVA", or as we call it on earth, putting on silly overalls before going outside. No doubt it's all jolly fun, but wake me when they relocate the camp to the top of Mount Everest or the bottom of Lake Superior and then I'll be more impressed.

Red Planet Rumours

There are rumours that a White House briefing indicates that a major announcement is going to be made about life on mars.

I don't see what more needs to be said. While the original BBC series was pretty good, it's pretty obvious that the American version on ABC will be a dry disappointment.

Garden Mars

I used to be less than convinced about the necessity for colonising Mars, but the latest results of the NASA Phoenix probe has me looking forward to the day when we can expect to see our skies dark with the annual return of the asparagus fleet from the red planet.