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Potential toxic chemical on the Martian Soil might preclude life. NASA are running tests on the soil now to see if it actually comes from earth (as it is used in solid rocket fuel) or whether it is native. If native it would preclude the chance of life on Mars. Also I guess it would make growing food for colonists rather hard too. You would have to come up with some sort of water based hydroponics that was transportable / constructible on the surface of the planet. I should actually do some design sketches to see what a Mars colony would look like.

$2 million dollar prize to simulate a private moon landing competition is due to launch later on this year. They have to take off, hover, land and take off again to win the prize money. The entrants have not succeeded for the last two years but are hopeful to get it right this year. One company came close but failed to take off again when a crack was discovered in their engine. Good luck!

I'm not sure that anything "natural" on Mars is possible: from what I read, the lack of a molten core means it can't sustain a proper atmosphere as the solar wind just strips a lot of it. The result being evaporation of all the water due to very low atmospheric pressure. Of course, it's one hypothesis, but seems vaguely logical. A couple of sources seem to lend some credibility to this.

It might provide a blow to any hopes we have of somehow terraforming Mars, but as Mike's mentioned, hydroponics are always possible. From some brief reading, the radiation is about two and a half times higher than that at low earth orbit (ie on the ISS), so that may pose some issues as well.

I think (like colonising the Americas, and killing the indigenous population) it would be a dangerous thing to colonise the planet. I would suspect that a deep bunker would be required initially that would be partly buried in the landscape to act as a natural shielding for living. The main problems for long term living would have to be:

1. Lack of a water supply (which is why locating permafrost would be so important either that or creating a machine that can suck relatively small amounts out of the air and convert to a base water supply)
2. Food production
3. High radiation values and the effect on plant and human life (I suppose that a glass or polycarbonate might well be treatable to cut down on the radiation levels in hydroponic labs - which rely on water again! Number 1 is high up there for a very good reason!)
4. Distance from everything you have ever known! The psychology of the colonists would have to be bullet proof for the environment. I could imagine even craving to see the McDonalds sign for familiarity after a while.

Efficient Plasma powered engines are being tested that convert gasses like Hydrogen injected into an engine that turns it to Plasma, the Plasma is then 'energised' by radio frequencies and then focused using magnets into direct thrust. It could be used for interplanetary journeys. . .

NASA have no money to search the moon properly for water so they are planning to ram a space shuttle into in and study the ejected material. What a dumb ass idea. That takes the engineering 'hit it with a hammer' idea to astronomical proportions.

Spoof of the Blow up the Moon NASA plan

Does it go beyond dumb and end up on the genius side, like some sort of mobius strip of ideas? They've got some really intelligent people working for them (I hope), so there must be some logic to this... right?

The spoof was niiice.

It sounds very difficult to predict and dangerous to me. I suppose it is no worse than smashing atoms together to see what happens but the planetary scale must have more consequences!

Wired are reporting that a team of international scientists are currently unable to come up with a solution to inter-galactic travel. Their current methods of propulsion would require mining the outer planets of our solar system for 20 years for sufficient fuel to make the journey to the nearest star over 4.6 million light years away.

Interestingly the system they suggested above would be able to do the journey in 50 years which is pretty good going as far as I can tell. I suppose, like a lot of technology, it is impossible to do until someone has a seriously clever brain wave. Then it all falls into place. I would think that any live and manned missions to the Moon and Mars would help to boost our chances of inventing this technology.

Another article (that I can't find at the moment) has suggested that NASA's budget is now half of what it was in the 60's. This is when you take account of inflation and other things like that. The American's are sort of worried they are going to lose their space achievers gold star (not that they have been particularly brave with it for the last forty years) to China who have stated they are going to put a man on the moon. Since China is trying to graduate from Made in China to Innovated in China they just might do it too!

I think it'll have to be "little" steps like the moon first, the maybe Mars, then possibly beyond. The fuel issue is major at present: two decades of mining on the outer planets is just crazy. We should colonise within our solar system, then hope scientists come up with something pretty special.

The problem with manned missions is that they need to contain a lot of stuff for doing the landing on any planets, assuming the intention is to colonise them. How about a sort of garden of eden ship, designed as an entirely self-contained environment so that they can take as long as they like to get there? That idea's been around for ages.

The absolute issue (beyond hoping our civilisation survives in its current form without eating itself or causing a collapse of our environment's ability to support us) is getting the hell off this planet: it's only a matter of time before there's an asteroid strike, we get swallowed by the sun when it goes red giant on us, or the molten core gradually stops (see Mars, but this may be just a theory). Of course, if the universe is going to continue expanding and just go through heat death, then we're all shafted anyway, but I like to be a little hopeful sometimes.

Engadget is reporting on a new space buggy with a top speed of 6mph and a range of 625miles on a single charge. Now that is what I am talking about, just need more efficiency and speed on that thing and we could have some sa'weet electric cars!

Yeah, the range is cool, but it's going to take them a long, long time to get anywhere at that speed, even with careful choice of landing site. It's sort of a slow jogging pace.

Then again, you wouldn't want to hit a small natural ramp at a much faster speed, what with the lower gravity and all.

It would be like lowering the gravity on GTA. Jumping from island to island was COOL!

BBC is reporting that a NASA probe has located large quantities of hydrated silica (opel) has been found on the surface. This supports the fact that liquid water was present on the surface and was probably capable of sustaining life. It also says that two missions to find life on the surface are to be launched by NASA in 2009 and the EU in 2016.

Glaciers are detected under the surface of Mars perfect for providing water for colonisation attempts and terraforming! Red Mars was written and published in 1992 therefore I predict that in 2022 we will be starting our attempts in earnest!

oh, great! Lets go ruin ANOTHER planet... its got something we need, now lets go tear it open and get it! Yay.
What the hell is wrong with devoting 10% of the space budget to fixing problems here on earth (and exploring the oceans etc) before sodding off on VASTLY expensive missions to other planets and stars?
sorry, I'm in a strange mood today.