background: Dawn Colony mission badge
Water on the Moon
I want to quickly follow up that Moon vs Mars video with this. With the recent confirmation of water ice on the surface at the Moon’s poles, some interesting possibilities open up.
Here’s a fascinating study that explores the logistics and economics of water mining on the Moon. Once again: these things are going to happen sooner than we expect.
Video clip 06: Mars has what we need
Not to mention a 24 hour day and enough atmosphere to provide some modest protection from solar radiation and stabilize daytime temps to between -50C and 10C.
It’s not a paradise, but we can work with it.
background: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Moon Direct
We don’t need to go to the Moon in order to go to Mars. But, if we’re going to go to the Moon, then let’s go to the Moon, not an orbit around it. And let’s dig in and make it stick.
Here’s a plan for doing just that with existing tech.
The New Atlantis Video clip 05: Luck
We need a backup.
background: NASA/JPL-Caltech animation showing known asteroids from 1999 to the present.
https://images.nasa.gov/details-JPL-20180716-ASTRDSf-0006-All%20Known%20Asteroids%202018-Feature%20version.html
Creepy sounds…
A collection of creepy sounds from throughout our solar system.
NASA Video clip 04: Mars is waiting…
background: NASA/JPL/MSSS; processing and mosaic: Olivier de Goursac, 2013 (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Martian-Sunset-O-de-Goursac-Curiosity-2013.jpg)
Space mining
The dry matter-of-fact tone of this article, and the report it refers to, reinforces that this stuff is coming sooner than we all expect.
Video clip 03: Unmanned
Our unmanned efforts in space deserve great credit, but they aren’t enough.
background: NASA Juno Mission Collection 2 excerpt (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/multimedia/junoanimations.html), NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center MAVEN animation (https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11024)
Video clip 02: Apollo Memory
Next up: a hazy memory of the Apollo era.
Background video footage: Apollo 11 montage from NASA