Tuesday, January 14, 2014

New Science, NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station Aboard Orbital-1 Mission - will this lead us on to Mars?

Orbital has begun cargo flights to the International Space Station.
Now we want to extend the life of the ISS to 2024.
What next?
- LRK -

-----------------------------------
Jan. 9, 2014
RELEASE 14-009
New Science, NASA Cargo Launches to Space Station Aboard Orbital-1 Mission


Another NASA commercial space partner officially has begun contracted cargo flights to the International Space Station. Dozens of new NASA investigations and other science experiments from across the country are headed to the station aboard Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus spacecraft as part of the agency's commercial partnerships with U.S. aerospace companies.Mars One,
The launch aboard Orbital's Antares rocket took place from NASA's Wallop's Flight Facility in Virginia Thursday, at 1:07 p.m. EST.
The Orbital-1 mission began the company's first contracted cargo delivery flight to the station through a $1.9 billion NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract. Orbital will fly at least eight cargo missions to the space station through 2016.
....
-----------------------------------

And we can extend the life of the ISS to 2024.
- LRK -

-----------------------------------
NASA: International Space Station Operations Extended to 2024

NASA announced today that the Obama administration has approved NASA’s request for an extension of operations for the International Space Station for an additional four years to 2024. This means work on board the orbiting laboratory will continue at least for another decade.
“I think this is a tremendous announcement for us here in the space station world,” said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate, speaking during a press briefing today, “ and also for all of human spaceflight and for our international partnership.”

“This is a tremendous gift the administration has given us,” he added later.

...
-----------------------------------

Is this enough to help continue a quest for putting humans on Mars?
- LRK -

-----------------------------------

It is Mars One's goal to establish a human settlement on Mars. 

Human settlement of Mars is the next giant leap for humankind. Exploring the solar system as a united humanity will bring us all closer together. Mars is the stepping stone of the human race on its voyage into the universe. Human settlement on Mars will aid our understanding of the origins of the solar system, the origins of life and our place in the universe. As with the Apollo Moon landings, a human mission to Mars will inspire generations to believe that all things are possible, anything can be achieved. - See more at: http://www.mars-one.com/mission#sthash.FobHxY3A.dpuf
...
-----------------------------------

When you read Red Mars you see that not all is well with those that are on Mars.  I think this is worth considering.
- LRK -

-----------------------------------
...
Plot

Red Mars — Colonization

Red Mars starts in 2026 with the first colonial voyage to Mars aboard the Ares, the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built (interestingly, from clustered space shuttle external fuel tanks which, instead of incinerating in the atmosphere, have been boosted into orbit until enough had been amassed to build a ship and also used as landing craft) and home to a crew who are to be the first hundred Martian colonists. The mission is a joint Russian-American undertaking, and seventy of the First Hundred are drawn from these countries (except, for example, Michel Duval, a French psychologist assigned to observe their behavior). The book details the trip out, construction of the first settlement on Mars (eventually called Underhill) by Nadia Chernyshevski, as well as establishing colonies on Mars' hollowed out asteroid-moon Phobos, the ever-changing relationships between the colonists, debates among the colonists regarding both the terraforming of the planet and its future relationship to Earth. The two extreme views on terraforming are personified by Saxifrage "Sax" Russell, who believes their very presence on the planet means some level of terraforming has already begun and that it is humanity's obligation to spread life as it is the most scarce thing in the known universe, and Ann Clayborne, who stakes out the position that humankind does not have the right to change entire planets at their will.
...
-----------------------------------

Donald F. Robinson suggested that I read Robinson's earlier short story "Green Mars" which is a story about a group that are climbing the largest mountain in our solar system.  Mars has been terraformed and our 300 year old lead character misses the original red Mars. 

I ordered a book of Science Fiction stories which included "Green Mars" and have read a most thrilling story. Do you really want to try and make another Earth?

-----------------------------------
Green Mars
Green Mars is a novella published for the first time in 1985 in collections. It was published as a stand-alone story in 1988.

It is not to be confounded with the novel of the same name. The novella does not take place in the same universe as the Mars trilogy. It tells of the climbing of the tallest volcano of the Mars (and of the solar system), Olympus Mons.
...
From The Mars Man, interview with Mary Branscombe, SFX #14, July 1996:
To avoid confusion, it’s worth remembering that although many of his books are set on Mars, not all of them are on the same Mars. In particular, the original Green Mars - a novella about climbing Olympus Mons that deals with the now-familiar themes of the ethics of terraforming Mars and the memory problems of longevity - seems to be set in a slightly different universe. “Yes, I wrote that mainly to stake a claim - at least a moral claim - on the name. I thought Green Mars was such a good name, such an obvious name. And when I heard about Olympus Mons, this enormous volcano, I just had to write about climbing it.” It turned out to be a sensible precaution; he’s since heard that Arthur C. Clarke considered using it as the title for his collection of articles on terraforming Mars (now called The Snows of Olympus).
...
-----------------------------------

Well I am still having trouble getting back to reading the Mars trilogy as I just got another book of Kim Stanley Robinson stories.
I will look at the characters with an eye towards how humans might survive in space and why they might want to live there for it is humans that are saying they want to go there.  If not then maybe just continue to send in the robots.
- LRK -

-----------------------------------
The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson Paperback
Adventurers, scientists, artists, workers, and visionaries — these are the men and women you will encounter in the short fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson. In settings ranging from the sunken ruins of Venice to the upper reaches of the Himalayas to the terraformed surface of Mars itself, and through themes of environmental sustainability, social justice, personal responsibility, sports, adventure, and fun, Robinson's protagonists explore a world which stands in sharp contrast to many of the traditional locales and mores of science fiction, presenting instead a world in which Utopia rests within our grasp.

From Kim Stanley Robinson, award-winning author of the Mars Trilogy, the Three Californias Trilogy, the Science in the Capital series, The Martians, and The Years of Rice and Salt, comes The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson. These twenty-two stories, including the Nebula Award-winning "The Blind Geometer," and World Fantasy Award winner "Black Air" represent The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson.
...
-----------------------------------

When does science fiction become science fact?

Self driving cars, hmmm.
Three big semi-trucks munched each other in front me on my home today coming down the Altimont Pass  road on I-580..
[well 10 cars ahead of me]
Self driving cars: Tesla promises autopilot by 2016

- LRK -
------------------------------------------

Thanks for looking up with me. 
- LRK -
 
============================================

WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

============================================
Posted by at
Labels: ,