Posts tagged Mars

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Posted 3 weeks ago
We Have Always Lived On Mars - A great short story by Cecil Castellucci, posted over at Tor books. It’s a quick read, but paints a vivid image of what life on an isolated planetary colony with limited resources might be like. There are difficult choices to be made by its inhabitants, and worrisome parallels between their experiences and those of us today on planet Earth, which after all is still an isolated planetary colony itself; at least until we do at last spread our wings to reach other worlds. Nina, one of the few descendants of human colony on Mars that was abandoned by Earth, is surprised to discover that she can breathe the toxic atmosphere of the Martian surface.  The crew, thinking that their attempts at terraforming and breeding for Martian adaptability have finally payed off, rejoice at the prospect of a brighter future.  But Nina’s about to unlock the mystery of the disaster that stranded them on Mars… and nothing will ever be the same. There’s an interesting twist at the end too, read the full story at tor.com. Zoom

We Have Always Lived On Mars - A great short story by Cecil Castellucci, posted over at Tor books. It’s a quick read, but paints a vivid image of what life on an isolated planetary colony with limited resources might be like. There are difficult choices to be made by its inhabitants, and worrisome parallels between their experiences and those of us today on planet Earth, which after all is still an isolated planetary colony itself; at least until we do at last spread our wings to reach other worlds.

Nina, one of the few descendants of human colony on Mars that was abandoned by Earth, is surprised to discover that she can breathe the toxic atmosphere of the Martian surface.  The crew, thinking that their attempts at terraforming and breeding for Martian adaptability have finally payed off, rejoice at the prospect of a brighter future.  But Nina’s about to unlock the mystery of the disaster that stranded them on Mars… and nothing will ever be the same.


There’s an interesting twist at the end too, read the full story at tor.com.

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Posted 6 months ago

TROY Mars Mission - TROY is a Mars mission architecture based on the Skylon SSTO currently in development in the UK. The work is the result of a feasibility study, which was intended to showcase the capability of the Skylon launch vehicle to enable large scale human exploration missions. 

The Troy mission is envisaged to be performed in two parts - an unmanned, precursor mission, and the later manned mission. Using SKYLON, the elements for the Troy ships are delivered to an Orbital Base Station, where the components are assembled. These components are designed to fit into the SKYLON payload bay, and have as much commonality as possible. […] Three Precursor Ships would be sent, forming three bases on Mars which would enable the rovers to reach more than 90% of the Martian surface.

The Earth Departure stages of the Precursor Ships would not achieve escape velocity, and would return to the vicinity of the Orbital Base Station after a period of 50 days, where they could be recovered and re-used in the Manned Ships. 
Atmospheric processors at each of the three bases would collect gases, separating and storing them for use by the explorers and to provide propellant for the ferry vehicles.

At the end of the exploration phase, the crews would use the Ferry vehicles to leave the surface and dock with the orbiting missions ships, and from there begin the journey home. Once in the vicinity of the Earth, the return capsules would separate and perform an aerobraking manoeuvre in order to slow down to the point where they could dock with waiting SKYLONs for return to earth.

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Posted 9 months ago

Branson catches Mars Fever - Virgin Galactic CEO Richard Branson announced he wants to build a colony on Mars, and live there. He also plans to offer “discounted” 2 hour space flights at $200,000 a seat. Watch the whole CBS interview video to get his take on these and other topics.

Branson says the two-hour flights are just the beginning of his intergalactic efforts. “I think over the next 20 years, we will take literally hundreds of thousands of people to space and that will give us the financial resources to do even bigger things,” he said.

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Posted 9 months ago
Master of Mars - io9 has published a great audio interview with scifi legend Ray Bradbury. Over the span of an hour, Ray talks about space exploration, love, the universe, and everything in between. The interview was conducted when Ray Bradbury was 89 years old, and although long it’s well worth listening to the whole thing. We’ve gotta reinvest in space travel. We should’ve never left the moon. We’ve gotta get back to the moon and build a firm base there, so that sometime in the next 40 years we can take off and go to the planet Mars. We’ve gotta become Martians. I’m a Martian - I tell you to become Martians. And we’ve gotta go to Mars and civilize Mars and build a whole civilization on Mars and then move out, 300 years from now, into the universe. And when we do that, we have a chance of living forever.

Master of Mars - io9 has published a great audio interview with scifi legend Ray Bradbury. Over the span of an hour, Ray talks about space exploration, love, the universe, and everything in between. The interview was conducted when Ray Bradbury was 89 years old, and although long it’s well worth listening to the whole thing.

We’ve gotta reinvest in space travel. We should’ve never left the moon. We’ve gotta get back to the moon and build a firm base there, so that sometime in the next 40 years we can take off and go to the planet Mars. We’ve gotta become Martians. I’m a Martian - I tell you to become Martians. And we’ve gotta go to Mars and civilize Mars and build a whole civilization on Mars and then move out, 300 years from now, into the universe. And when we do that, we have a chance of living forever.

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Posted 10 months ago
India aims for Mars - Mars fever continues to spread, with India announcing their own first spacecraft to the red planet. Following the success of the ISRO’s recent Moon mission, the planned mission to Mars would make India the sixth country to send a spacecraft to Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor (after the  US, Russia, Europe, Japan and China).   The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is expected to launch a Mars Orbiter as early as November next year with a 25kg scientific payload. A rocket will blast off from the south-eastern coast of India, dropping the satellite into deep space, which will then travel onto Mars to achieve orbit, a senior scientist said. ISRO scientists expect the satellite to orbit at less than 100 km (62 miles) above Mars.  Zoom

India aims for Mars - Mars fever continues to spread, with India announcing their own first spacecraft to the red planet. Following the success of the ISRO’s recent Moon mission, the planned mission to Mars would make India the sixth country to send a spacecraft to Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor (after the  US, Russia, Europe, Japan and China).  

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is expected to launch a Mars Orbiter as early as November next year with a 25kg scientific payload. A rocket will blast off from the south-eastern coast of India, dropping the satellite into deep space, which will then travel onto Mars to achieve orbit, a senior scientist said. ISRO scientists expect the satellite to orbit at less than 100 km (62 miles) above Mars.