Martian test run in Austrian ice caves!

These amazing photographs are of a simulation experiment in ice caves located underneath Dachstein mountain in Austria that are serving as a test environment for space suits. Why would we need to test space suits in a cave? you ask. Well, so when we go to MARS we can see if perhaps life found a way to thrive underground.  

As you can see from these last two images, the trial also includes some rover robot testing. Pretty cool!

See caves are a great place for microbes to hang out because they benefit from a protected habitat that shields them from cosmic radiation, which is a known buzzkill when it comes to biology.

From Spiegal:

A dozen experiments are being conducted simultaneously in the caves. For example, the Magma Mars rover developed in Poland is navigating an ice surface. On board, it is carrying the Wisdom radar system, which is to be used on the next European Mars mission. The system can be used to analyze rocks at a depth of up to 3 meters (almost 10 feet). "Here in the ice, we can even examine as far as 10 meters deep," says project worker Stephen Clifford of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.

Without a doubt, though, the most spectacular test object is the "Aouda.X" Mars space suit. Tester Daniel Schildhammer is currently making his way in the space suit simulator through a giant cavern that is dotted with rocks. The shining silver suit, which weighs 45 kilograms (around 100 pounds), is also one of a kind, and is named after a Jules Verne character. In his classic novel "Around the World in 80 Days," the book's hero, Phileas Fogg, falls in love with the Indian princess Aouda.

Researcher Gernot Grömer, an astrophysicist at the University of Innsbruck goes on to talk about what makes caves ideal test environments.

"We've known for some time now that there are caves on Mars. And if there actually was life on its surface once, then they would have been the ideal places to retreat to." In astro-biological terms, there is certainly something to that: Cave systems, with their constant temperatures, elevated levels of humidity and, in particular, the protection they offer from cosmic radiation, seem the perfect refuge for simple life forms seeking a retreat. Still, the impressive images Dachstein has to offer were certainly a very pleasant side-effect for all the stakeholders.

Even got a little Jules Verne in there! Great stuff. Reminds me of another post a ways back.

This all is helping me close in on an idea I've had since that initial post on the crystal caves. Just amazing that we have these incredible images and research like this is actually being conducted. I'm in awe!


Image sources:
Spiegel Online
blog.oewf.org

Props to Boing Boing

NASA, DARPA: Colonization is a 1-Way Trip, Sign Up Now!

NASA and DARPA (it's not just a made-up shadow org from Lost!) want you to know that they're ready to colonize space. They're collaborating on a joint venture to develop a 100-year spaceship that would take humanity into the firmament and establish permanent, extra terrestrial human colonies.

From Pop Sci:

"The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds,” Worden [a guy at NASA] said, according to a Singularity University blog that covered the event. “Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired.” (Worden added that he was fired by President George W. Bush.)

 Rock collecting would be a big hobby on Mars! Image: NASA.

Love that last part. So the real question here is: would the settlers ever get a chance to come home? No.
Next question. Seriously, this means they're shipping your ass off to MARS, some moon to be terraformed, or some inhabitable exoplanet, packing a lunch, and leaving you at the door of the school house. Forever.

They'll totally send you care packages of raw materials, equipment, and Soylent Green though. Hopefully, FedEx has a Red Planet

They would get periodic supply missions, but they would be expected to fend for themselves for water, shelter, nutrients and mineral/chemical processing. They would be expected to develop some kind of homegrown Martian industry, which could ultimately serve as a hub for an expanded colonization program. Plus, leaving some people on another planet would probably ensure that we’d want to go back, to visit them and see what they created.

Such a mission would save money, the authors say, because the prohibitive costs (in dollars and payload) of a manned Mars mission are mostly associated with bringing the astronauts home.

Oh, and that last point is the main reason it's a one-way gig--cost. See, coming back is expensive, and it's easier to cut costs if you just stay put. But you'll be a totally cool SPACE PIONEER. And a HERO to all humanity.

So....not you've got that going for you!

• UPDATE: I added a video of NASA's Pete Worden speaking about the project
• Full article on Pop Sci
• Tip of the hat to Boing Boing for providing some keen perspective and daring people to sign up!
• Another article at MSNBC

Space Junk Threatens to Smash Us to Bits!

Image: space junk that fell to Earth on a farm in Australia in 2008. Ouch! Via: Sydney Morning Herald

Well judging by what the news has to say, there's plenty of actual space junk to keep me inspired for many more Random Space Finds posts. NASA even set up an office and full-time junk tracker to keep an eye on all that detrius. Wired has an excellent feature story on the pollution of space--at least that space immediately around our planet and the man charged with tracking it all, Donald Kessler. He wrote a paper clinching the argument for keeping one eye on the sky that painted a "nightmare scenario". Here's some choice quotes:

Spent satellites and other space trash would accumulate until crashes became inevitable. Colliding objects would shatter into countless equally dangerous fragments, setting off a chain reaction of additional crashes. “The result would be an exponential increase in the number of objects with time,” he wrote, “creating a belt of debris around the Earth.”

At age 38, Kessler had found his calling. Not that his bosses had encouraged him to look into the issue—”they didn’t like what I was finding,” he recalls. But after the paper came out, NASA set up the Orbital Debris Program Office to study the problem and put Kessler in charge. He spent the rest of his career tracking cosmic crap and forming alliances with counterparts in other nations in an effort to slow its proliferation. His description of a runaway cascade of collisions—which he predicted would happen in 30 to 40 years—became known as the Kessler syndrome.

Image: actual map of space junk orbiting our Pig Pen-like planet, via Discovery.com 

Kessler is now in his 70s and he was of course proven frighteningly correct. And just in case you were skeptical about how much space crap is floating around up there:

The operations center moved quickly to double its computer capacity. By early 2010, it was keeping a close eye on 1,000 active satellites, 3,700 inactive satellites and rocket pieces, and another 15,300 objects the size of a fist or larger—a level of awareness that revealed a much higher daily average of 75 possible collisions. And that’s ignoring the danger posed by the estimated half-million smaller pieces of debris the size of a marble or larger. Too small to track from the ground, each of those tiny projectiles is capable of severely damaging a satellite.

There's even a testing range in White Sands, NM that tests how dangerous our leftovers in the black can be:

...technicians operate a cannon that uses gunpowder and pressurized hydrogen to fire plastic slugs at shields and panels. Just like real space junk, the projectiles can approach speeds of 5 miles per second. [Emphasis mine, as if it need it!]

Duck and cover folks!

• Read the whole, fascinating article on Wired.com.
• Oh, and a quick rundown on Discovery.com about what the government plans to do about it.
• Here's more on that poor guy in Australia pictured above.

My new Sci-Fi blog!

I've got a few irons in the fire, and one of them is Exonauts! my new blog about developing ideas for sci-fi RPGs and writing. Exonauts are explorers and adventurers cavorting to/from/around/on exoplanets--it's as simple as that. Instead of creating a campaign based on a single world, I thought it might be cool to do one from a an adventuring perspective where any world could be one of many destinations. So how would these exonauts be equipped, what would they find, where would they go? That's what the new blog is all about....

Have a look for yourself.