Engineers test a replica of NASA’s InSight lander as it lifts a wind shield with its robotic arm, under Mars-style illumination in a testbed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (NASA / JPL via YouTube)
When NASA’s InSight lander touches down on Mars in November, its handlers already will have had lots of practice operating its cranelike robot arm — thanks to an InSight knockoff sitting in a plot of simulated Martian grit back on Earth.
The Mars-style testbed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is the focus of a newly released 360-degree video clip.
JPL’s scientists and engineers use the testbed, set up in a facility known as the In-Situ Instrument Lab, to simulate the terrain in which Mars probes might find themselves.
SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg have something of a space rivalry going on. (Elon Musk via Twitter; Dennis Muilenburg via Boeing)
So what does SpaceX CEO Elon Musk think of Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg’s claim that the first people to set foot on Mars will arrive on a Boeing rocket? “Do it,” Musk tweeted, in one of many two-word comebacks that might have come to mind.
In response, Muilenburg touted the Space Launch System, the heavy-lift rocket that Boeing is helping NASA build for deep-space missions.
“We’re going to take a first test flight in 2019, and we’re going to do a slingshot mission around the moon,” he said. “Eventually, we’re going to go to Mars, and I firmly believe the first person that sets foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing rocket.”
If Musk and NASA stick to their current schedules, the first bootprints on the Martian surface would be left by folks arriving on a SpaceX rocket as much as a decade before the Space Launch System sends a spaceship there.
An artist’s conception shows the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. (SpaceX via YouTube)
Billionaire CEO Elon Musk tweeted out the idea of putting a cherry-red Tesla Roadster on SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket and sending it toward Mars, sparking lots of questions in the process.
Sci-fi author Andy Weir (“The Martian,” “Artemis”) makes a point while Neal Stephenson (“Seveneves,” “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.”) looks on. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
What could be better than hearing a science fiction writer talk about how to create whole new worlds? How about doubling that to two science fiction writers?
That was the case for a Seattle-area appearance by Andy Weir — the author of “The Martian” and “Artemis,” a just-released novel set on a moon colony in the 2080s.
When he showed up at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park on Nov. 30, he brought along Seattle’s own Neal Stephenson, the author of science-fiction novels ranging from “Snow Crash” to “Seveneves” to “The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.”
A standing-room-only crowd of 600 or so heard Weir and Stephenson hold forth on the writing racket. Here are some gems from the conversation:
Recurring slope lineae appear as dark streaks in this picture from the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. (NASA / JPL / Univ. of Arizona / Lujendra Ojha et al. / Geophysical Research Letters)
The findings, published today in Nature Geoscience, are likely to disappoint those who hoped that the features known as recurring slope lineae, or RSLs, point to sources of liquid water beneath the Red Planet’s surface.
“This new understanding of RSL supports other evidence that shows that Mars today is very dry,” study lead author Colin Dundas of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Astrogeology Science Center said in a news release.
Some astrobiologists had hoped that the areas around the RSLs just might harbor subsurface life. That’s why NASA has said the thousands of potential RSL sites, including a smattering of prospects near the Curiosity rover, should be off-limits for the time being due to concerns about contamination.
The report in Nature Geoscience is based on an analysis of 151 streaky features at 10 sites. Nearly all of the streaks appear on slopes that are steeper than 27 degrees, which would be consistent with the behavior of tumbling sand. If the streaks were caused by water seeping from the subsurface, they should be seen on slopes that are less steep, the researchers say.
Moon Express chairman Naveen Jain gestures during a debate with Planetary Resources’ Chris Lewicki and space policy analyst John Logsdon, at right. The Economist’s deputy editor, Tom Standage, stands in as moderator at left. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has famously said he’d like to die on Mars — “just not on impact.” But where will humans live in space? That was the focus of a good-natured debate that took place at this week’s “New Space Age” conference at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.
Chris Lewicki, president and CEO of Redmond, Wash.-based Planetary Resources, took up the case for going to asteroids and Mars. Seattle-area entrepreneur Naveen Jain, co-founder and chairman of Florida-based Moon Express, spoke for the moon.
And John Logsdon, retired director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, argued for the null hypothesis: that humans would, by and large, stick with Earth for the foreseeable future.
“Access Mars” provides 3-D views of the Red Planet as captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover. (NASA / JPL Illustration)
NASA has been offering virtual-reality tours of Mars for years — but now, with Google’s help, the space agency has come up with one of the most accessible tours yet.
“Access Mars” lays out a 3-D terrain for five of the spots scanned by NASA’s Curiosity rover, ranging from its landing site to the place where it’s hanging out now, more than five years later.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk discusses his plan to build a “Big Falcon Spaceship” at the International Astronautical Congress in Australia. Musk followed up with an “Ask Me Anything” chat on Reddit. (SpaceX via YouTube)
SpaceX CEO says he “chickened out” and made the design for the monster spaceship he’s planning to send to Mars a little less monstrous — in order to make the concept a lot more realistic.
He also confirmed that testing for the BFR, euphemistically known as the “Big Falcon Rocket,” would begin with suborbital short-hop tests on Earth.
Artwork shows SpaceX’s BFR launch vehicle blasting off from a floating pad. (SpaceX via YouTube)
Two weeks after SpaceX founder Elon Musk updated his vision for a monster rocket designed to take settlers to the moon and Mars, he’s due to take questions from his fans this weekend during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session.
The precise coordinates for the chat depend on Musk’s schedule, but the Reddit’s SpaceX forum is sure to have the definitive word when it comes.
In the meantime, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell provided further details on Oct. 11 at a forum presented by the Stanford Student Space Initiative, with venture capital guru (and SpaceX board member) Steve Jurvetson hosting a Q&A.
The first answers to that question may well start emerging next week, when government officials and space industry leaders — almost certainly including a SpaceX representative — come together for the first meeting of the White House’s National Space Council.
