Nasa to mars

NASA's Mars rovers have sent back haunting images of rugged hills and ridges and rock-strewn fields. The space agency's next Mars visitor will have a lot less to look at it. The InSight mission is scheduled to touch down on the red planet Nov. 26 and NASA is aiming for an intentionally dull-looking landing spot. Elysium Planitia is a lava plain located near the equator. It's relatively smooth and free of rocks that could upset the three-legged lander. "If Elysium Planitia were a salad, it would consist of romaine lettuce and kale -- no dressing," InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt said in a news release Monday. "If it were an ice cream, it would be vanilla."  While NASA equates the landing spot to a stadium parking lot, the humdrum landscape is really the perfect place for InSight. Unlike NASA's famous Opportunity and Curiosity missions, InSight isn't a rover capable of rolling around. It'll stay in one spot to investigate the interior of Mars, … [Read more...] about NASA to park InSight lander on a perfectly dull patch of Mars

If humans begin to travel to Mars in the next few decades, the one-way travel time of several months is going to make a long-haul international flight on Earth seem like a joyride.  Fortunately, one company is working to make it much easier to not just fall asleep on long interplanetary trips, but to hibernate through most of them. Atlanta-based SpaceWorks has received two rounds of funding from NASA to investigate the feasibility of making a staple of science fiction a standard for actual space exploration. NASA, which this week celebrated its 60th anniversary, plans to spend its next few decades taking us to the Red Planet. "Fourteen days is the point we have pretty high confidence that we can get to," said John Bradford, SpaceWorks president and former NASA engineer. That's two weeks straight with the body's core temperature lowered by around 9 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). The point of going hypothermic like that is to induce a sleep state called torpor … [Read more...] about For that long, long trip to Mars, plan on a lot of hibernation

If humans begin to travel to Mars in the next few decades, the one-way travel time of several months is going to make a long-haul international flight on Earth seem like a joyride.  Fortunately, one company is working to make it much easier to not just fall asleep on long interplanetary trips, but to literally hibernate through most of them. Atlanta-based SpaceWorks has received two rounds of funding from NASA to investigate the feasibility of making a staple of science fiction a standard for actual space exploration. NASA, which this week celebrated its 60th anniversary, plans to spend its next few decades taking us to the Red Planet. "Fourteen days is the point we have pretty high confidence that we can get to," John Bradford, SpaceWorks president and former NASA engineer, told me over the phone. That's two weeks straight with the body's core temperature lowered by around 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius). The point of going hypothermic like this is to … [Read more...] about How a trip to Mars could be just a series of long naps

Bill Nye is just a few years older than NASA, which turns 60 Monday. That means he grew up along with the space agency as it first sent humans into orbit and to the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. The mystique of the Apollo program helped inspire Nye to pursue a career in science and engineering, and later as an author, TV personality and famed "Science Guy."Today Nye is still all of the above, but he's also now CEO of the Planetary Society, a nonprofit co-founded by Carl Sagan with the mission to empower people around the world to advance space science and exploration. I reached out to Nye to ask him what NASA has meant and continues to mean to him personally, as well as how the Planetary Society aims to work with the space agency in the years to come. Below is an abridged version of his responses. How has NASA inspired you over the years? Armstrong and Aldrin walk on Earth's moon. It was amazing. Like so many of my generation, it had a tremendous influence on me. I became a … [Read more...] about Bill Nye wants NASA to take humans farther into space

SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, have been telling us about their audacious plan to build a city on Mars for a few years now. But so far the plan has been short on details of how such a Martian metropolis might be set up.SpaceX's Paul Wooster, principal Mars development engineer, provided a few tidbits Friday on where the first people SpaceX sends to Mars will actually live. The SpaceX plan calls for an unmanned, robotic mission to Mars as soon as 2022, followed by the first human flight to the red planet a few years later. It's been a little unclear whether robots would set up a habitat for the first people to arrive or if those initial Martian visitors would become the planet's first construction workers. Speaking at the 21st annual Mars Society Convention in Pasadena, California, Wooster reiterated what Musk has said in the past, noting that building up a presence on the surface of Mars is "something where a lot of people beyond SpaceX can really contribute."   … [Read more...] about SpaceX reveals where the first people it sends to Mars will live