March 11, 2008

Mars Foundation™ News Roundup for March 2008

As the year is already three months in, it is high time a mini-news roundup is posted on MarsHome.org. So here it is - a quick rundown of news, announcements and Mars settlement-related articles from the web. If you have any comments or questions feel free to leave a message at the bottom of this post or use our online contact form.

In a flurry of activity over the last six months, the Mars Foundation has stepped up a gear and hope 2008 will be a successful period for developing our "Mars Homestead" designs. The Hillside Settlement design, our flagship concept, is currently doing the rounds in national conferences and remains our primary focus. The Plains Settlement project began development in 2007 and the Foundation hopes to formalize some final designs over the coming months (we will keep you posted on developments). Also, we have developed some exciting new collaborations and begun new work with individuals from around the globe. We now have a broad spectrum of specialists ranging from computer aided designers (CAD), architects, graphic designers, physicists, geochemists, biologists, software engineers, project managers to structural engineers; complementing our broad base of enthusiasts, contributors and donors. Although we have an amazing team so far, we always need more contributors from all facets of society. After all, settling humankind on Mars will be a global effort, involving not only the companies and agencies with money to spend, but will come down to individual willingness to aid our development as a race on the Red Planet.

If you want to get involved with the Mars Homestead Project, please contact us, detailing your interests and skills. We will be delighted to have you on board!

If you are in the position to become a donor and support to our Mars settlement design concepts, we would be overjoyed to hear from you. Please visit our Donations Page for more information.

Announcements

May 25-28: Join us at The International Space Development Conference (ISDC)!
This annual meeting of the National Space Society (NSS) will take place in Dallas, Texas on May 25-28. Speakers will include John Carmack (Armadillo Aerospace); astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Rusty Schweickart, and Shannon Lucid; Steve Squyres (principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission); author Ben Bova; Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin and many more.

See several technical tracks, exhibits, space hardware and interact with the largest groups of space industry leaders, trendsetters, activists and supporters in recent memory. For additional information and to register visit: isdc.NSS.org/2008.

The Mars Foundation is an affiliate of ISDC. Drop by our Mars Foundation/Mars Homestead table during breaks, and say hi. If you would like to help at the table, describing Mars Settlement plans please send us a message.

See you there!

March 8th: Teenagers Learn about Living on Mars
A group of Middle School and High School students learned what it might be like to live in the first settlement on Mars. This was a presentation and lively discussion, lead by Bruce Mackenzie, at MIT, last Saturday (March 8th). It was part of the High School Studies Program (HSSP), run by the Educational Studies Program of MIT ESP.

Although we didn't take any photographs of the event, the image above shows one of the many topics discussed: how to grow food, whether to use soil based agriculture, or use a gravel-bed hydroponic system shown in the image. (The image is by Bryan Versteeg, for the Mars Foundation, and the Plains Settlement proposal.)

Bruce's next scheduled presentation and discussion group is planned for Saturday, March 22nd at MIT.

If you would like to lead similar discussions in your local schools, most schools welcome such offers. We can help you with materials to get discussion started, so contact us and we will reply as quickly as possible.

The Mars Encyclopaedia, Marspedia: Nearly 200 articles and counting!
If you would like to be involved in building the Marspedia™ wiki, the online Mars encyclopaedia resource, you can! Anybody who has an interest in Mars-related articles or Mars settlement can contribute, adding information on plans for future exploration, geology, science, fiction, legend, and history of the Red Planet.

This month's Marspedia featured article is "Greenhouses". Greenhouses will be of special significance to the future of any self-sustaining Mars colony. Without plants, manned settlements will not be able to farm and therefore thrive. Greenhouse technology will be critical to the wellbeing of a Mars colony, no matter what its size.

This Marspedia article was started in November 2007 and it continues to grow as Marspedia contributors continue to add new information and edit old text. Come and join us and help us enrich the web with this unique Mars-based collaborative resource!

Mars on the web...

Here are some stories with special significance to future Mars settlement causing a buzz on the Internet...

The question of sending mankind to Mars (or any other planet for that matter) has been hanging over us for generations. Only now, in the past few decades have we had the technology to send humans into space, almost routinely. Now, the time is getting close to not only send mankind to other planets, but for us to actually build an outpost on Mars. Naturally, the biggest issue facing mission planners is risk. The higher the risk, the lower the likelihood of mission success. In a thought provoking interview with ex-NASA engineer Jim McLane by Nancy Atkinson on the Universe Today space news website, many of these issues are addressed. McLane discusses how a one-man, one-way mission may address some of these issues, citing the "spirit of the lone eagle" as being the ultimate, but necessary sacrifice. As you can guess, this superb article caused quite a stir in the science blogs...

Next up, the ultimate observation of a "real time" geological event was observed last week by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Looking down, hundreds of miles above the surface, the MRO High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) captured a series of Mars avalanches happening along an escarpment in the north polar region. This event has never been captured before, giving HiRISE scientists a superb opportunity to analyse what triggered this event and understand how active Mars geology actually is. In a Mars settlement perspective, this will have massive implications for site planning of Mars settlements – keeping clear of escarpment cliff faces will surely be a priority!

And the next mission to arrive at Mars will be the Phoenix Mars Mission, descending to the surface in May this year. In a show of international collaboration, ESA's Mars Express will help out NASA's two orbiters (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey) on welcoming the speeding Phoenix into the Martian atmosphere. Acting as a backup to the NASA orbiters, the Mars Express will provide some essential communications to the lander. The Phoenix lander is intended to look for life on Mars and to "scout" for possible landing sites for future manned missions. Phoenix continues to be the Mars Foundation's "Featured Mars Mission".

Finally, bad news for the hope of finding liquid water just under the surface of Mars. As previously reported on MarsHome.org, the discovery of what looked like gullies recently carved out by a sudden rush of water gave hope that Mars may still have underground supplies of liquid water. Unfortunately, analyses of suspected liquid water channels appear to show the gullies were actually carved out by dry debris flow (i.e. small landslides). Finding a source of water to supply Mars colonies just got harder...

If you have any news you think we might be interested in, please send us a message and we'll feature your news item, or space blog.