MIT study finds 'Mars One' passengers could die of starvation

by Thor Benson
Amsterdam, Netherlands (UPI)
Oct 11, 2014

Mars One is a nonprofit that has plans to put humans on Mars by 2025, but doctoral students at MIT believe the current plans could put the colonists at risk of starving to death.

The students used public information to simulate the mission and found that under the current plan, which calls for growing crops inside, it will be difficult to grow enough food for the colony while maintaining safe oxygen levels.

"Our habitation simulations revealed that crop growth, if large enough to provide 100% of the settlement's food, will produce unsafe oxygen levels in the habitat. As a result, some form of oxygen removal system is required -- a technology that has not yet been developed for spaceflight," the study says.

Over 200,000 people applied to be part of the one-way mission to Mars, but only 25 to 40 people will be chosen for the mission. The organization plans to produce a reality TV show that will document the lives of the first people to ever go to the planet. They plan to launch an unmanned mission to the planet, in collaboration with Lockheed Martin, by 2017.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/MIT_study_finds_Mars_One_passengers_could_die_of_starvation_999.html.

Venezuela to build satellite "Sucre" in 36 months with China's help

Caracas, Venezuela (XNA)
Oct 08, 2014

The manufacturing and launching of Venezuela's third satellite will take some 36 months with the help of Chinese technology, said the country's head of planning and information on Monday.

The satellite, which was named after the independence hero Antonio Jose de Sucre, will have remote sensing capacities and support such strategic areas as health, energy, food security, border surveillance and agricultural planning, Ricardo Menendez told a press conference.

Minister of Science and Technology Manuel Fernandez also said the satellite is aimed at expanding the nation's capacity of planning and research.

"The Sucre satellite will have a camera with higher definition images which can be taken up to one meter from the surface. It will have greater transmission capacity, memory storage and new generation batteries that will give more power to the satellite," he said.

Menendez announced part of the satellite's production will be finished inside the country, which will set up a design center in the central region in January 2015.

According to Menendez, over 200 Venezuelan technicians have been trained in China and obtained qualifications in such fields as satellite operation.

In the presence of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Sunday, Venezuela signed an agreement with China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) to manufacture the satellite.

Venezuela's first satellite, a telecom satellite named after independence leader Simon Bolivar, was launched from China in 2008.

Venezuela's second satellite, a remote sensing satellite named after independence hero Francisco de Miranda, was launched into space also from China in 2012.

The second satellite is mainly used for the country's land resource inspections, environmental protection, disaster detection and management, crop yield estimation and city planning.

China has aided Venezuela in building and launching all its satellites with its mature technology.

Source: Space Mart.
Link: http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Venezuela_to_build_satellite_Sucre_in_36_months_with_Chinas_help_999.html.

Japan puts new weather satellite into space

Tokyo (AFP)
Oct 07, 2014

Japan put a new weather satellite into space Tuesday in the hope it can improve the forecasting of typhoons and detect volcanic gas plumes.

The successful launch comes the day after a typhoon strafed Japan and just over a week after a volcano killed more than 60 people when it erupted without warning.

The Japanese-made H-2A rocket carrying the Himawari-8 weather satellite blasted into a blue sky at the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Kagoshima prefecture at 2:16 pm (0516 GMT).

The 17 billion yen ($155 million) satellite separated successfully from the rocket and entered its designated orbit, sparking applause at the space center, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) spokeswoman told AFP.

Japan's Meteorological Agency will use the satellite, alongside the Himawari-9, which is to be launched in 2016, for forecasting and to replace its ageing Himawari-6 and -7.

The new satellite "can obtain a satellite image of a typhoon once every 2.5 minutes, against the current pace of once every 30 minutes," an official of the weather agency told AFP.

"Together with improvement in computer-aided analysis, we hope our forecasts of a typhoon's future course will be more accurate," he said.

"As satellite images will become multi-color from the current black and white, it will be easier to observe volcanic gas" which will be helpful for early warnings of a volcanic eruption, he added.

Source: Terra Daily.
Link: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Japan_puts_new_weather_satellite_into_space_999.html.

As spacewalks resume, change is coming to the International Space Station

by Brooks Hays
Washington (UPI)
Oct 7, 2014

Two residents of the International Space Station were able stretch their legs on Tuesday as they took a walk outside their cozy confines to fix the station's orbiting laboratory -- the first spacewalk in months.

NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman and German astronaut Alexander Gerst stepped out into the airless vacuum of space at 8:30 this morning. It is expected to take at least 6.5 hours to finish their maintenance tasks.

This is the first spacewalk for Wiseman and Gerst, but it's unlikely to be the last. With plans to rearrange several of the docking ports on the orbiting space station, the ISS crews will be required to make at least eight more spacewalks in the coming weeks. The station's robotic arm will handle most of the major reorganization work, but the astronauts will need to manually re-route power to the new docking ports.

NASA is live-streaming the spacewalk and the work of engineers at mission control on their website.

The astronauts were relegated to their station confines for the last several months -- unable to venture outside to make repairs or perform any routine maintenance -- because of a suspected problem with the battery that powers the astronauts' spacesuits. New batteries were recently delivered to the station by the unmanned SpaceX Dragon cargo ship.

Source: Space-Travel.
Link: http://www.space-travel.com/reports/As_spacewalks_resume_change_is_coming_to_the_International_Space_Station_999.html.

Cyanide fog marks winter's onset on Saturn moon Titan

Paris (AFP)
Oct 01, 2014

A cyanide cloud formed over Titan's south pole as the strange moon of Saturn entered its seven-year winter in 2009, astronomers reported on Wednesday.

An enigma of the Solar System, Titan is studded with lakes of liquid hydrocarbons and a choking nitrogen-methane atmosphere, according to data sent back by a US-European scout mission.

The satellite and its mother planet are so far from the Sun -- 1.4 billion kilometers (886 million miles) -- that each season on Titan lasts seven Earth years instead of three months.

Reporting in the journal Nature, scientists led by Nick Teany at the University of Bristol in western England, said the US orbiter Cassini first spotted a cloud over Titan's south pole five years ago.

Two years of observation found the cloud comprised icy particles of hydrogen cyanide.

The discovery showed that the onset of winter on Titan is sharp and brutal even in this extremely cold region of space.

"Titan's south pole must be extremely cold to allow hydrogen cyanide to condense," a university press statement said.

"In fact the upper atmosphere must have cooled by over 50 degrees (Celsius or 90 degrees Fahrenheit) in less than a year to reach a blisteringly cold minus 150 C."

Source: Saturn Daily.
Link: http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Cyanide_fog_marks_winters_onset_on_Saturn_moon_Titan_999.html.

Europe shortlists four sites for 2019 Mars mission

Paris (AFP)
Oct 01, 2014

The European Space Agency (ESA) said on Wednesday it had identified four potential sites for landing a rover on Mars in 2019 in its boldest exploration yet of the Red Planet.

The landing is the second part of a two-phase endeavor called ExoMars, a project between ESA and Russia's Roscosmos space agency to look for evidence of life on Mars.

In the first step, an orbital probe will be launched in January 2016, arriving nine months later, to look for atmospheric traces of methane gas, a telltale sign of the existence of microbial life.

It will also send down a small stationary lander called Schiaparelli, designed to test technologies for the second phase -- a six-wheeled rover, designed for launch in 2018 with touchdown in January 2019.

The four shortlisted sites for the 2019 landing are located in features named Mawrth Vallis, Oxia Planum, Hypanis Vallis and Aram Dorsum. All are relatively close to the planet's equator.

"The present-day surface of Mars is a hostile place for living organisms but primitive life may have gained a foothold when the climate was warmer and wetter, between 3.5 billion and four billion years ago," ExoMars project scientist Jorge Vago said in a statement.

"Therefore our landing site should be in an area with ancient rocks where liquid water was once abundant. Our initial assessment clearly identified four landing sites that are best suited to the mission's scientific goals."

An ESA orbiter, Mars Express, has been circling the planet since December 2003.

Its achievements include high-resolution stereoscopic imaging of Mars' surface and confirmation by ground-penetrating radar that a vast cache of frozen water lurks beneath the surface at the south pole.

Source: Mars Daily.
Link: http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Europe_shortlists_four_sites_for_2019_Mars_mission_999.html.

Russia prepares militarization of Arctic

By Ed Adamczyk
Oct. 21, 2014

MOSCOW, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Russia has begun a large-scale militarization of the Arctic Ocean region, with a military command structure planned by 2017.

It comes after recent discoveries of oil and natural gas reserves under the ocean floor, and the possibility a potential Northern Sea Route -- an alternative to the Suez Canal -- could soon be established as global climate change causes melting of Arctic ice.

Former Soviet bases are being reactivated, a 6,000-soldier permanent military force will be established in the northwest Russia's Murmansk region, and radar and guidance systems are planned in the area, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Col. Oleg Salyukov said, "For the defense of national interests in the Arctic, a multiservice task force will be formed. A motorized rifle arctic brigade is now being formed in the Murmansk region. The second arctic brigade will be formed in 2016 and will be stationed in the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region," a reference to the Arctic Circle area east of the Ural Mountains, RIA Novosti reported earlier this month.

Combat missions were simulated recently during the full-scale "Vostok 2014" military exercises.

While the oil and gas reserves in Arctic are claimed by some to represent 17 percent to 30 percent of the world's total, some are skeptical of Russia's plans.

"It is consistent with the stance of the Russian state, which only understands the word 'force' in military terms. But you must keep it in proportion; it is still only a symbolic battle. Take a look at the map and you will soon see that 6,000 men spread over such a huge area is not much," said military analyst Alexander Golts of the Russian news website Yezhenedelny Zhurnal.

The Arctic area is governed by international maritime treaties, and Canada, which also has extensive territory in the region, routinely conducts military exercises there. Since the start of the Ukraine conflict, relations between Russia and Ukraine have deteriorated significantly.

Source: United Press International (UPI).
Link: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2014/10/21/Russia-prepares-militarization-of-Arctic/2741413894698/.