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Promo Video Update

Well, the recent rain has delayed work on the promo video. We had planned to shoot at Lordsburg Playa, New Mexico, in order to get the look of a Martian landscape. An inch of rain this week has left standing water, ’cause that’s what desert playas do.

On Mars, the atmospheric pressure at the surface is so low that liquid water would boil away immediately. Here on Earth, we’ll have to wait for the slower process of evaporation.

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SLS

A long but interesting article on the questionable future of the NASA Space Launch System.

SLS: to be or not to be, or to be something else entirely
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Buzz on Mars vs the Moon

Just as appropriate today, with NASA turning its attention back to the Moon, as it was eight years ago.

“The agency’s current Vision for Space Exploration will waste decades and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reach the Moon by 2020—a glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago. Instead of a steppingstone to Mars, NASA’s current lunar plan is a detour. It will derail our Mars effort, siphoning off money and engineering talent for the next two decades. If we aspire to a long-term human presence on Mars—and I believe that should be our overarching goal for the foreseeable future—we must drastically change our focus.”

-Buzz Aldrin (Popular Mechanics interview, January 5, 2010)

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Solar Wind (Slight Return)

Circling back to my note on solar wind and the Martian atmosphere.

In the note, I described how the solar wind interacts with the ionosphere of Mars to create an induced magnetosphere. Recent data from ESA’s Mars Express mission suggests that this induced magnetosphere actually protects the Martian atmosphere from the ion loss expected to be caused by that same solar wind. Thus, the long held idea that the solar wind blew away Mars’ atmosphere is now in question.

The article below outlines an alternative hypothesis. Rather than losing atmosphere to the solar wind, maybe Mars can’t hold onto one because its gravity is just too weak.


Leaky atmosphere linked to lightweight planet

Leaky atmosphere linked to lightweight planet

The Red Planet’s low gravity and lack of magnetic field makes its outermost atmosphere an easy target to be swept away by the solar wind, but new evidence from ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft shows that the Sun’s radiation may play a surprising role in its escape.

phys.org phys.org
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Starman Update

“According to the revised data, Rivkin says, it will take the Tesla about 18.8 months to complete one trip around the sun. This means that the car will reach its farthest distance from Earth in about half that time. The Tesla will cross the orbit of Mars twice per orbit, so Musk is still fulfilling his wish to send his Tesla “to” Mars—it’ll just take a little longer between visits.”


Where Is Elon Musk's Space Tesla Actually Going?

Where Is Elon Musk’s Space Tesla Actually Going?

The payload of SpaceX’s recently launched rocket overshot its planned orbit near Mars.

The Atlantic The Atlantic