Mars 2025: NASA to Put Human-like Robot on the Moon

NASA's Project M

Recently NASA asked President Obama for $150 billion to send another man to the moon. Due to the current economic recession, such funds are unavailable. Instead, for $200 million + $250 million for the rocket, the US is sending a human robot to the moon.

The NASA and General Motors Built Robonaut [written about a few months earlier on OE Tech] will be sent to the moon in about 1000 days. The Robonaut [top half] was sent to the international space station last Wednesday.

"Project M also draws on other NASA projects that were already under way, including rocket engines that burn liquid oxygen and methane — a cheap and nontoxic fuel combination — and an automated landing system that could avoid rocks, cliffs and other hazards." New York Times

Sources: [New York Times] [NASA Project M Video]

Mars 2025: The Quest to make Halo Suits

The Sarcos XOS 2 Exoskeleton 

Mars, here we come!

This suit is the closets we have come so far to designing the Iron Man suit, but within the next few years a exoskeleton spacesuit will be developed.

Sources: [CrunchGear]

Mars 2025: Water on Mars

NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has found that most of the CO2 in the atmosphere has come from volcanic eruptions a few million years ago, but it is clear that this carbon dioxide has "almost certainly reacted with liquid water" suggesting that the water surface on Mars existed more recently than the 20 million years ago, which was the previous estimate. The "Phoenix Lander's data suggest that water-iduced weathering of Martian rocks has mainly occurred in ow temperature areas" also suggesting the water survived on Mars in the cold and dry areas.

Sticking with the goal of landing a US manned ship on Mars by 2025, the survival of water [the essence of human life] in cold and dry areas of Mars may give insight into possible human dwelling areas on Mars.

Source: [Gizmodo]

Step 1 - in Designing Spaceship Reflector Shields

According to the British science firm Appleton Lab, a tiny magnet can be used to protect a spaceship from cosmic rays that the sun produces:

Because the solar wind is a plasma made up of charged particles, it too carries a magnetic field. When the solar wind's field meets the rocks' mini-magnetosphere, the two fields clash, exerting a force on each other. Something has to give. Because the solar wind's field is created by free-moving particles, it is the one that yields, altering its orientation to minimise conflict with the mini-magnetosphere's field.

Some parts of the solar wind shift more easily than others. The positively charged protons have nearly 2000 times the mass of the negatively charged electrons, so the latter are much more easily deflected. The electrons stay at the surface of the magnetic bubble, while the positive charges penetrate further in.

This separation of positive and negative charges generates intense electric fields up to a million times stronger than the magnetic fields that created them. Subsequent solar wind particles hit these electric fields and are strongly deflected. The result is a shielding effect far more powerful than the magnetic field alone might be expected to provide.

The firm is currently working with NASA to test their theory.


Source: [Gizmodo]

Mars 2025: 18 Year Old Creates Space Navigation System for Intel

Award winning 18 year old Erika DeBenedictis has created a software navigation system that would allow the vessel to navigate our solar system by finding the "fastest and most fuel-efficient transit routes." She was the Intel Society for Science and the Public grand prize winner, earning her $100,000.

Source: [Smart Planet] [BCSSA]

NASA and GM Team Up To Build Robonaut2

MARS 2025

Theses Robonaut2 was designed to compete with Japanese Honda Asimo, and gives us a possible glimpse at the future of robotics. I want to note that the Honda Asimo and the Toyota Robot Violinist are both automobile companies while the Robonaut is a joint NASA anad GM project, thus suggesting the interest in a robotic, human-like, astronaut. The name, "Robonaut2," combines both robot and astronaut, clearly alluding to the clear fact that mankind will walk on Mars by 2025.

Sources:
[Gizmodo] [Engadget] [Crunch Gear]

Mars 2025: Ion Rockets

Getting to Mars in 39 Days...

"Currently, a return journey to Mars can take up to two years, with crew members having to wait a full year for the planets to realign, but with ion propulsion -- which uses electricity to accelerate ions and produce small but longevous thrust -- ships can get there within a reasonably tight 39-day window. Ion propulsion rocket engines were first deployed successfully by NASA in the Deep Space 1 probe in 1998, and the latest iteration's successful Earth-bound testing has led to plans for a flight to the moon and use on the International Space Station as test scenarios for the technology."

source: Engadget

Mars 2025: The First Crew

The Possible First Men and Woman to Land on Mars

Here at OE Technology we strongly believe the technology to land human life on mars already exists, it just needs to be adapted for suitable application. When imagining humans living on Mars or the Moon, it seems pretty logical that robots would be used to build shelters for human visitors. This technology is already under major development:

Honda Asimo

VS.

Toyota Robot Violinist