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One way to get samples on Mars: Send in the Cybertrucks

Six AI-generated images of "Cybertruck on Mars" from Tesla AI Day presentation
These AI-generated images of a “Cybertruck on Mars” were shown during Tesla's AI Day 2022. (Tesla via YouTube)

Tesla’s Cybertruck may look ungainly on Earth, but a pressurized version of the vehicle might be just the thing for gathering up samples of Martian rock and soil for return to Earth. That’s one of the way-out concepts that was discussed in Seattle during the past week’s convention of the Mars Society, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Robotically controlled Cybertrucks could be part of a Mars exploration system that also includes SpaceX’s Starship super-rocket as well as spaceworthy versions of all-terrain vehicles and humanoid robots built by Tesla, according to mission plans suggested by Mars Society co-founder Robert Zubrin, retired NASA engineer Tony Muscatello and business analyst Kent Nebergall.

Zubrin said the Starship-based concept could even accelerate progress toward crewed missions to Mars.

“We use Starship to deliver a robotic expedition that has already examined thousands of samples on Mars, gathered from hundreds of kilometers away by helicopters, and tens of kilometers away gathered by rovers, and then we land the crew to do follow-up exploration, including drilling in well-characterized sites to bring up water and see what the life on Mars is,” he said during an Aug. 8 session.

How way out is that? It sounds like science fiction, but theoretically, at least some elements of the plan could show up in SpaceX’s proposal for reworking NASA’s Mars sample return strategy.

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Fiction Science Club

‘The Expanse’ team explores what happens if aliens win

Black-and-white portrait of Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham
Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham are the authors of "The Expanse" series and "The Mercy of Gods." (Kyle Zimmerman Photo)

In nearly all alien-invasion tales, the puny humans somehow find a way to win — for example, in classic novels like “The War of the Worlds,” or in movies like “Independence Day” and “Battle: Los Angeles.” But in a new novel by the authors of “The Expanse” sci-fi series, the humans lose within the first hundred pages.

“The Mercy of Gods” is the first book in what’s destined to be a trilogy by James S.A. Corey, which is actually a pen name representing a long-running collaboration between science-fiction writers Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. “The Expanse” is their best-known work — consisting of nine novels that lay out a future history of the solar system and encounters between human settlers and alien outsiders.

Those novels inspired a TV series that ran for three seasons on the Syfy cable network — and was then picked up for three more seasons on Amazon Prime Video. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made a memorable splash in 2018 when he announced at a Los Angeles space conference that “‘The Expanse’ is saved” from cancellation.

In this week’s episode of the Fiction Science podcast, Abraham says the idea behind “The Expanse” came from Franck’s imagination. The idea behind “The Mercy of Gods,” which kicks off a trilogy of Captive’s War novels, came from Franck as well.

“When Ty pitched the idea, the thing that I loved about it was this very different kind of not-at-all-triumphalist vision of being a human in a wider galaxy,” Abraham says.

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Titanic explorer’s family sues OceanGate, seeking $50M

OceanGate Titan submersible underwater
OceanGate’s Titan submersible and its crew were lost during an expedition to the Titanic. (OceanGate Photo)

The family of Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet is seeking more than $50 million in damages in a lawsuit targeting Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate and other companies. The suit, filed in King County Superior Court, marks the beginning of what’s likely to be a complicated and drawn-out legal battle in the aftermath of last year’s loss of OceanGate’s Titan submersible and its crew.

Nargeolet, a veteran of more than 35 Titanic dives, was one of the five people aboard Titan who died in June 2023 when the sub underwent a catastrophic implosion during its final descent to the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic. The other victims were British aviation executive Hamish Harding; Pakistani-born business executive Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman; and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who was piloting the sub.

In addition to OceanGate, defendants in the suit include Rush’s estate, former OceanGate director of engineering Tony Nissen and three companies said to have participated in Titan’s construction: Mukilteo, Wash.-based Electroimpact, Sedro-Woolley, Wash.-based Janicki Industries and California-based Hydrospace Group.

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Starliner crew might have to return in a Dragon in 2025

View of Boeing Starliner craft docked to International Space Station
An image captured through the window of a SpaceX capsule shows Boeing’s Starliner capsule at the International Space Station. (NASA Photo)

Continuing concerns about the thruster system on Boeing’s Starliner space capsule may lead NASA to decide against letting astronauts take the craft back down to Earth from the International Space Station, mission managers said today.

In such a scenario, the two astronauts who rode to the ISS in Starliner for the capsule’s first crewed test mission in June would fly back down in a SpaceX Dragon capsule next February.

“We haven’t approved this plan,” Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, told journalists during a teleconference. “In other words, we’ve done all the work to make sure this plan is there.”

Going ahead with the contingency plan would require shuffling arrangements for the next crew that’s due to take a Dragon to the ISS, known as Crew-9.

That crew would be cut back from four to two astronauts. Starliner’s test pilots, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, would remain on the station for Crew-9’s tour of duty and return to Earth with Crew-9 as part of the regular rotation.

This week NASA pushed back Crew-9’s scheduled launch to no earlier than Sept. 24 to accommodate potential changes. Because of the parking arrangements at the station, the Starliner capsule would have to undock from the station before the Crew-9 launch and make an uncrewed, robotically controlled descent and landing.

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Mars Society plots a high-tech course to the Red Planet

Two crew members at Mars Desert Research Station in Utah
Crew members conduct a simulated survey at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah. (Mars Society Photo)

What’s the best route to the Red Planet? Hundreds of people are converging on Seattle this week to consider that question at the annual convention of the Mars Society. And the answer may come, at least in part, from an array of tech startups.

“The route to get to Mars is commercial,” James Burk, the nonprofit advocacy group’s executive director, told me. “The new-space sector is critically important to Mars exploration, both robotic and human.”

Burk said the Mars Society’s 27th annual convention is expected to bring at least 250 to 300 people to the University of Washington starting Aug. 8. “We’ve offered it for free to students at U Dub,” he said. Dozens of sessions are planned, focusing on topics ranging from NASA’s Mars exploration strategy to private-sector concepts for Mars settlements.

There’ll also be an update on the society’s plans to establish a Mars Technology Institute, potentially in the Pacific Northwest. The institute’s objective would be to foster startups that could develop the technologies needed for a long-term campaign of Mars exploration and settlement — and make money in the process.

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First Mode gets specific about its clean-tech layoffs

Opening ceremony for First Mode Seattle factory
First Mode CEO Julian Soles speaks at the February opening of the company's Seattle factory. (First Mode Photo)

Seattle-based First Mode is reporting that 65 of its workers in Washington state are being laid off in a move that follows through on a previously announced plan to trim back operations at the clean-tech company.

The layoffs were cited in a notice filed today with the state’s Employment Security Department. The reported job reductions represent nearly 40% of First Mode’s Washington state workforce in Seattle and Centralia.

First Mode produces powertrain conversion kits that are designed to reduce carbon emissions for mining trucks and other heavyweight vehicles, potentially including railway locomotives.

Back in January, the company said that it would put less emphasis on hydrogen-battery powertrains and more emphasis on hybrid diesel-battery powertrains — and that it would have to reduce its workforce to adjust to changing market conditions.

About 20% of First Mode’s U.S.-based workforce was laid off in January. Last month, First Mode said it would have to make further cuts in preparation for seeking further investment.

“Despite efforts to revisit non-labor costs, significantly reducing recruitment, and terminating most contract labor to avoid headcount reductions, we still are not able to achieve the cost basis required and therefore must propose headcount reductions going forward,” First Mode CEO Julian Soles said in an email that was sent to employees in advance of today’s notice.

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Boeing names its next CEO amid mounting losses

Kelly Ortberg
Kelly Ortberg will become Boeing’s president and CEO. (Credit: Univ. of Iowa Center for Advancement via YouTube)

Opening up a new chapter in its century-long history, Boeing says its next CEO and president will be Kelly Ortberg, a 64-year-old aerospace executive who previously held the CEO post at Rockwell Collins, now a subsidiary of RTX.

Citing an unidentified source, The Seattle Times reported that Ortberg will be based in Seattle, the city where Boeing was founded. That suggests there’s a chance that Boeing’s headquarters will move back to Seattle — 23 years after the base of operations was moved to Chicago, and two years after it was moved again to Arlington, Va.

Ortberg will take the helm on Aug. 8 after a trying five years for the aerospace giant. Fatal crashes of Boeing’s 737 MAX jets in 2018 and 2019 led to a worldwide grounding of the plane, and eventually to the firing of then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg. His successor, David Calhoun, was charged not only with getting the MAX back in service, but also with repairing Boeing’s tarnished image and weathering a new set of supply-chain challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although the 737 MAX is flying again, Calhoun’s efforts fell short. A fresh controversy arose this January when a door plug flew off an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX in flight. In May, Calhoun announced his intent to retire.

Today Boeing posted a loss of $1.4 billion for the second quarter, compared with a loss of $149 million a year earlier. Boeing’s losses have added up to more than $25 billion since the start of 2019.

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Elon Musk’s views on artificial vision get a reality check

Cat images simulating artificial vision
Side-by-side images show a 45,000-pixel rendering of a cat image at left, and a simulation representing an image rendered by 45,000 electrodes in a brain implant at right. (Credit: Ione Fine / University of Washington)

If Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain-implant venture succeeds in its effort to create next-generation brain implants for artificial vision, the devices could bring about a breakthrough for those with impaired sight — but probably wouldn’t match Musk’s claim that they could provide “better than normal vision,” University of Washington researchers report.

In a study published today by the open-access science journal Scientific Reports, UW psychologists Ione Fine and Geoffrey Boynton point out that the brain’s vision system relies on complex interactions between neurons that don’t directly translate into a pixel-by-pixel picture.

“Engineers often think of electrodes as producing pixels, but that is simply not how biology works,” Fine said in a news release. “We hope that our simulations based on a simple model of the visual system can give insight into how these implants are going to perform. These simulations are very different from the intuition an engineer might have if they are thinking in terms of a pixels on a computer screen.”

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Stealthy aviation startup is getting ready for takeoff

Jake Armenta and Ian Lee at Antler Portfolio Summit
Outbound Aerospace’s founders, Jake Armenta and Ian Lee, take the stage at the Antler Portfolio Summit. (Photo Courtesy of Jake Armenta)

The founders of Seattle-based Outbound Aerospace want to shake up the aviation industry with a blended-wing airplane design that takes advantage of advances in 3D printing and lightweight materials. And they’ve received a commitment of up to $500,000 to help get their idea off the ground.

Outbound aims to take advantage of the same kind of rapid innovation that propelled SpaceX to its leading role in the launch industry. So, would it be too much of a cliche to call it “the SpaceX of aviation”?

“Everyone says they’re the SpaceX of, you know, ‘Z,’” said Jake Armenta, a former Boeing engineer who’s one of Outbound’s founders and its chief technology officer. “But I really hope that we can harness a lot of that energy in our company.”

Even though Outbound hasn’t yet emerged fully from stealth mode, Armenta has recently been sharing more information about the venture and its vision for the future, thanks to a string of positive developments.

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How a brainstorm could unlock mysteries of the mind

Jerome Lecoq in Allen Brain Observatory's lab
Allen Institute researcher Jerome Lecoq sets up a microscope in the Allen Brain Observatory. (Allen Institute Photo)

The Allen Institute’s OpenScope program lets scientists study the weird workings of the brain — for instance, how magic mushrooms work their psychedelic magic on neurons, how memories of the past influence perceptions of the present, and how the brain’s visual system interprets motion and texture.

But one of the program’s leaders, neuroscientist Jerome Lecoq, says he’s really excited about an experiment that hasn’t yet been fully defined. It’s a study that could support a theory about the mechanism by which sensory data is fed into our consciousness — to modify our view of the world, and perhaps to modify our behavior as well.

The experiment is being fine-tuned online by an international community of researchers, through an open-source process that the Seattle-based Allen Institute fittingly calls a “brainstorm.”

“You can just go and follow us on Twitter and visit the Google Doc,” Lecoq says in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast. “We’re going to meet in two weeks and a half in Boston at a conference and discuss this experiment. The document is very open. If you have a good idea, please chime in.”

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