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Mars

SPACE: Robot Bees on Mars

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Mars - robot bees

NASA has two teams of researchers working to design a robotic bee that can fly on Mars. The space agency announced the project on March 30. It’s in its early stages, but the idea is to replace modern rovers — which are slow, bulky and very expensive — with swarms of sensor-studded, fast-moving micro-bots that can cover much more ground at a relatively low cost. Literally called Marsbees, the little bots are “flapping wing flyers of a bumblebee size with cicada-sized wings,” NASA officials wrote. By Rafi Letzter – Full Story at SOURCE

SPACE: NASA Forgets About Lesbians

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Mars - pixabay

NASA apparently floated sending an all-female crew to Mars – and people have pointed out the slight sapphic issue with that plan. Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut to go to space, made the revelation during at an event during the New Scientist Live festival in London. Sharman, who was part of private British space programme Project Juno, said the report highlighted concerns about male and female astronauts having sex during the 18-month trip to Mars. Because of this, NASA allegedly said that all-female crews would be best because women work better as a team. NASA proposed this idea because women were … Read more

SPACE: Mars is Made of Swiss Cheese

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Mars

Yeah, ok, so not really. But it sure seems that way in a new image from NASA, which also shows a mysterious pit: This observation from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show it is late summer in the Southern hemisphere, so the Sun is low in the sky and subtle topography is accentuated in orbital images. We see many shallow pits in the bright residual cap of carbon dioxide ice (also called “Swiss cheese terrain”). There is also a deeper, circular formation that penetrates through the ice and dust. This might be an impact crater or it could be a collapse … Read more

SPACE: Virtual Flight Over Mars

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Mars

Although Donald Trump has signed a bill authorizing money to fund future exploration of Mars,tourism to the Red Planet is still a long way away. Still, a person can dream, and one Finnish filmmaker is making that dream look like reality. Jan Fröjdman spent three years turning photos taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter into a four and a half minute travelogue of the planet’s surface. By David Moye – Full Story at The Huffington Post

Where No Gay Has Gone Before: Back to the Moon?

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How many of you have wanted to go to the moon?  Everybody?  Well, we’re all nerds here so I’m not surprised. What is a surprise is NASA’s announcement that there is the possibility of astronauts returning to the moon as early as next year.  2018 is the fiftieth anniversary year of Apollo 8, which was the first spacecraft to reach and orbit our natural satellite.  Commander Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders left Earth’s orbit, circled the moon a few times and returned home safely. Acting NASA administrator Robert Lightfoot said last month he wants to fast-track the heavy-lift … Read more

Where No Gay Has Gone Before: Mars Needs Interior Decorators

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It probably goes without saying that the first homes on Mars will be built for substance rather than style, so what will these humble abodes look like? Since the first settlers on the Red Planet will not be able to rely on Earth for resources, houses must be self-sustaining, providing oxygen, water and food. In other words, ugly.  Imagine an igloo made from red brick.  But that doesn’t mean they have to be uncomfortable.  Maybe some nice window treatments, an accent rug, throw pillows here and there…The possibilities are endless!   I realize that at first we won’t have to … Read more

Trailer: LIFE

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Life trailer

The first trailer for LIFE, a sci-fi thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds, has just been released. Based on a script penned by Paul Wernick (Deadpool, Zombieland) and directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), LIFE follows a group of six astronauts/scientists aboard the International Space Station who retrieve the first known sample of life on Mars. However, what they first believe to be a simple organism turns out to be more intelligent (and dangerous) than they expected. Fans of eerie sci-fi films thrillers will undoubtedly see some allusions to LIFE‘s cinematic antecedents (Sphere, for instance, comes to mind). But … Read more

President Obama: We’re Going to Mars

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President Barack Obama

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my grandfather’s shoulders, waving a flag as our astronauts returned to Hawaii. This was years before we’d set foot on the moon. Decades before we’d land a rover on Mars. A generation before photos from the International Space Station would show up in our social media feeds. I still have the same sense of wonder about our space program that I did as a child. It represents an essential part of our character — curiosity and exploration, innovation and ingenuity, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible and doing it before anybody else. … Read more

Are We Colonizing Mars?

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Mars - Space X

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has unveiled a video providing some tantalizing details of his plans for getting humans to Mars and beyond. Musk provided details of his plans during a speech on Monday at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico. As Mashable puts it, Musk “envisions a world in which people could pay about $200,000 for a ticket to ride on a spaceship that would deliver them to their new homes on Mars in about 90 days under good conditions.” He expects that around 1 million people would need to go to Mars in order to … Read more