Mars or Bust

I’m old enough to remember July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the moon. It was the greatest trip anyone had ever taken.

Courtesy Google Images

Bas Lansdorp and Arno A. Wielders are co-founders of the nonprofit Mars One Project. These men have a vision that the next greatest trip ever taken will be to Mars.

The Mars One Project is soliciting volunteers for a one-way trip to the red planet. Their goal is to have four people travel to Mars and establish a base by 2023.

These four intrepid souls would be followed every two years by more colonists bringing supplies.

Courtesy Google Images

According to the Mars One Project’s website, the plan is built upon existing technologies available from proven suppliers. The roadmap is:

1. Send supplies to the general location of a settlement site
2. Send a rover to scout a permanent settlement site
3. Send living and life support units and a second rover
4. Send the settlers

It’s a lofty endeavor and there are detractors. According to The Register, the Chinese government, via its state run media, has raised concerns. They are branding the Mars One Project a hoax, claiming that BasLansdorp has admitted that a Mars landing in 2023 is unlikely. BBC News reports that Dr. Veronica Bray, from the University of Arizona's Lunar and PlanetaryLaboratory, says, “I have no doubt that we could physically place a human being on Mars. Whether they'd be able to survive for an extended period of time is much more doubtful.”

More than 80,000 people have submitted video applications. 80,000 plus people are willing to risk their lives in an attempt to be the first humans to set foot on Mars.

Even if I was in my twenties and craved excitement, I wouldn’t volunteer …it’s a one way trip! And talk about high risk? The Marstronauts are going to be on their own. There won’t be any rescue … once they are there, they are there...Forever! Think about it … no physicians. If their food and water supplies are contaminated, there’s no ready replacement. If the life support were to fail …

Nope, I think I’ll stay right here on Earth.

However, I’m glad there are people willing to take risks like this. It’s daring people like the Marstronauts that blaze a path to discovery. And, I have to admit … how cool would it be to colonize Mars?

I know I have no desire to leave this planet, but would you volunteer for a trip to Mars? Why or why not? Leave a comment below.

Lake Vostok: Poland Springs – Eat Your Heart Out

There is a host of research bases located in Antarctica and they are run by a number of different countries, including the United States, China and Russia.  People at these stations study everything from weather to aeronomy, the study of the upper atmospheric regions of the Earth and other planets.  Antarctica is a chosen spot for research because the region is probably the most unspoiled area in the world with the cleanest air on earth.

The oldest station is Mawson Station.  It’s Australia’s oldest continuously inhabited Antarctic station having run since 1954.

There are hundreds of subglacial lakes of varying sizes under Antarctica’s miles-thick sheet of ice.  The Russians are the first to drill into one of those lakes.  Lake Vostok is under the Russian’s Vostok Research Station and on Sunday, 2/5/12, the Russians tapped into the lake.  There was a mixture of anticipation and trepidation within the scientific community leading up to the accomplishment.

The Russians used a combination of chemicals to prevent the five inch diameter drill hole from refreezing as they drilled.  Bear in mind, the coldest temperature ever recorded, -128.6 degree Fahrenheit below zero, was recorded at Vostok Station.  The use of the chemicals had some scientists concerned about the possibility of contaminating the lake.  To reduce the chance of contamination, the Russians completed the project, sans chemicals, by heating the drill.  The Huffington Post reported that the lake’s water pressure pushed any drilling liquids away from the lake.

Unfortunately, winter has arrived in Antarctica and the exploration of Lake Vostok has been suspended.

This is an exciting accomplishment.  The subglacial lakes are considered pristine environments because they haven’t been exposed to Earth’s atmosphere in millions of years.  Scientists wonder if life exists in any of these waters.  If so, they theorize there’s a chance that life could be present in the frigid waters of Jupiter’s moons.

I’m hopeful that life, even a single celled organism, is found in a sample from one of these lakes.  Maybe, that will help fuel some renewed interest in space.  If there’s even a remote possibility that there’s life “out there,” we need find it.

What do you think; does life in an earthly subglacial lake equate to alien life on a distant planet?

Russian Drill Penetrates 14-Million-Year-Old Antarctic Lake - Wired Science 2/6/2012