Where In Our Solar System Are We Most Likely To Find Life?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ethansiege … find-life/
China plans three missions to the Moon after discovering a new lunar mineral that may be a future energy source
https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-plans- … 17352.html
Chinese boffins suggest launching nuclear Neptune orbiter in 2030 Scientists at top universities in China propose sending a spacecraft powered by nuclear fission to orbit Neptune
https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/29/ … r_neptune/
Space Launch System vs Starship: the battle of the mega rockets continues
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/3211 … -continues
A bill that would direct NASA to return to the Moon and establish a sustained presence was referred to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on Feb. 3, 2017.
Sponsored by Rep. Bill Posey, R-Fla., HR 870 would direct NASA to plan to return to the Moon and develop a sustained presence on the Moon. It has two co-sponsors, Rep. Sheila Jackson, D-Texas, and Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas.
According to Space Policy Online, a similar bill is being readied by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Babin. Its goal, like last year’s attempt, would be to achieve some form of continuity as to avoid a drastic change in direction, similar to what happened in 2010 when then-President Obama canceled the Constellation program in favor of a flexible path. Smith said that the first space-related hearing the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology would likely be in mid-February and look at NASA’s past, present, and future.
When the Obama administration took over in January 2009, it formed what became known as the Augustine Commission to review the human spaceflight plans for the U.S. It found the Constellation program to be behind schedule, over budget and underfunded, and would not meet the goals set forth by President Bush under the current conditions.
In May 2009, the committee made three recommendations for deep space exploration. The first, called “Mars first”, would have seen a crewed landing on Mars. The second, called “Moon first”, would be similar to the Constellation program with a return to the Moon focused on the development of capabilities to enable a Mars landing.
In the 2015 omnibus spending bill, NASA was ordered to develop a prototype habitat by 2018.
Under the agency’s NextSTEP program, it is doing just that. Currently, six companies are competing to develop a prototype deep space habitat that could be used in cislunar space.
However, if there is a massive change, be it to go to the surface of the Moon or directly to Mars, NASA will need additional funding. Will Congress and the president allocate the funds to achieve such a goal? If the past is any indication, the outlook isn’t good.
Additionally, if a change in direction ultimately does happen, does that mean NASA is destined to have its direction changed every 4 to 8 years when presidential administrations change? Only time will tell.
Thats the problem witha new administration that can change direction in a wim.....
]]>The thing is, countries which have lots of Thorium are going to do a lot of research because they want it for Earth. Particularly if they are forced into a anti-Carbon theory of life.
We might as well see the bright side of things, and work with what is "In Season".
I have read about double reservoir salt Thorium reactors. Supposedly the outer reservoir has Thorium in it which gets converted to Uranium, and burned in the inner reservoir. Supposedly it will not run away. Supposedly, if the "Core" overheats, the salt will simply expand out of the inner reservoir, and turn down the reaction. Something like that.
This is a point from your post that I regard as very important.
Quote:
“They are very efficient and robust, and we believe [it] can last for eight years unattended,” says Lee Mason, the principal investigator of the project at Glenn. The system performed better than expected, Palac says, generating 2.3 kilowatts of power at a steady pace.
That would be very good. Perhaps the first 4 years it could generate food, then later Oxygen, and stored water and rocket fuel.
Then perhaps the last 2 years it would host humans.
I think you have things pointed in a good direction now.
]]>Generating power: A power-conversion unit consisting of two Stirling engines, sitting opposite each other, is set up for testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. Pumped liquid metal is used to transfer heat from the reactor to the engines, where it is converted to electricity.
]]>I am thinking that a machine like that would likely end up in a sinkhole, as water was consumed. If it were convertible into a habitat, then after it's primary use, when the humans arrived, they then would not need to dig a hole, but could perhaps shovel dirt over it for radiation protection.
And about the soup, there is no prohibition on making it palatable if possible, and perhaps several types.
I mean what is Yogurt? Why so fussy?
A variation of the scheme might work for other locations, probably not as easily.
Here you go, lets put your bib on!
https://www.newscientist.com/article/21 … ls-and-us/
Video. Spacemen at the end!
https://youtu.be/VZuNdZTIUcc
Quote:
Food made from natural gas will soon feed farm animals – and us
Food from fossil fuels
Calysta
By Michael Le Page
All of the food you’ve ever eaten was made with sunlight captured by plants just a few months or years before you ate it. But some of the energy on your plate could soon come from sunlight captured by plants millions of years ago, thanks to plans to feed livestock with fossil fuels.
A biotechnology company called Calysta, based in Menlo Park, California, is set to announce the first ever large-scale factory that uses microbes to turn natural gas – methane – into a high-protein food for the animals we eat. The factory, which will be built in the US in collaboration with food-giant Cargill, will produce 200,000 tonnes of feed a year.
The methane-made food has already been approved in the European Union for feeding to farmed fish and livestock such as pigs. Calysta is seeking approval in the US, too – and not just for farm animals. “We want to take it all the way to cats and dogs, and potentially even humans,” says the head of Calysta, Alan Shaw.
In September, Calysta opened a small facility in Teesside in the UK to produce up to 100 tonnes a year of feed for farmed fish. Unibio, a rival biotech company based in London, opened a similar-sized facility in Denmark in October. Both companies want to rapidly scale up production.
Warming up
Is turning fossil fuels into food for livestock a good idea? That depends on what you think is most important when it comes to protecting the environment.
If done on a large scale, the process would reduce the demand for land to grow food for livestock, as well as the demand for fish meal to feed to farmed fish. “You need millions of tonnes to have an impact,” says Shaw.
But it would also increase emissions of carbon dioxide, accelerating global warming. “Using fossil fuels as an energy source as opposed to sunlight is not very environmentally sound,” says Bob Rees, who studies greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture at Scotland’s Rural College in Edinburgh, UK.
The technology might one day also feed explorers of other planets. For instance, SpaceX head Elon Musk’s plans for Mars exploration include generating methane and oxygen for making rocket fuel. Some could be used to make food, too. “We have been in touch with SpaceX,” says Shaw.The process relies on microbes that feed on methane. These methane-munching methanotrophs essentially “burn” methane (CH4) to get energy, producing CO2 and water as waste products. Some of this energy is then used to combine other methane molecules to make more-complex carbon molecules – food, in other words.
This ability first evolved billions of years ago – it likely predates photosynthesis – and today methanotrophs can be found wherever there’s methane to feast on, from cold seeps on the sea floor to ponds and marshes.
Some biologists think that “dark food” from these methanotrophs plays a much bigger role in many ecosystems than thought.
Methane explosion
Calysta is using a bacterium called Methylococcus capsulatus. The bacteria are grown in vats, fed methane, and are then dried and turned into pellets.
The idea was first explored in the 1980s by Norway’s state-owned oil company, Statoil, which in the 2000s built a plant capable of producing 10,000 tonnes of feed a year. But at the time, gas prices were high and the product had not been approved in the EU. The plant was closed, and the technology was sold to Calysta.
With approval now in place and natural gas prices lower, Shaw is betting that the technology is ready for the big time – and rival company Unibio thinks so, too.
Both companies are promoting the process as having environmental benefits. Shaw has said it “heralds a new era in the race to sustainably feed the world’s growing population”. Unibio’s website goes further, claiming a “52% cut in CO2 emissions”. So are they right?
Calysta commissioned a report on the environmental impact of methane-derived food from the Carbon Trust, which advises governments and companies on how to reduce emissions. The report compared how much land is needed, how much water is used and how much CO2 is emitted by the various ways of producing feed.
It concluded that when methane from a fossil source is used, several times as much CO2 is produced per tonne of feed than by almost all other ways of making feed. Only chicken blood meal has higher average CO2 emissions per tonne of feed.
Unibio’s claim is based on the fact that after the feed has been made – but not eaten – only half as much CO₂ will have been emitted into the atmosphere than if the gas were just burned, or flared.
Release fate
But this is only half the story: in the long term, just as much CO2 will be released. “Any carbon that is fixed into a food substance is going to be released as CO2 back into the atmosphere eventually,” says Rees. “That claim really does not make any sense at all.”
“It is true that animals respire CO₂ in their metabolism, just as humans do. Our calculation does not take this into consideration,” says the head of Unibio, Henrik Busch-Larsen. “We believe the CO₂ calculation compared to gas flaring is valid but acknowledge it has to been seen in the context mentioned above.”
In theory, carbon emissions could be greatly reduced by using methane from a renewable source, such as biogas from farm waste or landfill sites. This would reduce emissions to levels comparable to those for feeds made from wheat or soya, for instance.
“Feeds that have lower carbon emissions, lower land use and lower water use are absolutely needed,” says Tom Cumberlege of the Carbon Trust, one of the authors of the report.
The catch is that there are no big and cheap sources of biogas. “It’s just not going to happen,” says Shaw. The US factory will use natural gas from a conventional source, not from fracking.
On the plus side, the report concluded that Calysta’s feed has tiny water and land use requirements compared with all the other methods of producing feeds. Some may think this is even more important than cutting carbon emissions.
The technology cannot be expected to do everything, Shaw says. “I’m addressing a food security issue and saving the oceans and not cutting down rainforests for soya,” he says. “Taking fish out of the sea that you then feed to other fish, that is unsustainable.”
Read more: Massive vats of fake meat brewed in goo could change how we eat
I am thinking that rather than drilling and then melting water, a better method could be to warm the ground below with microwaves, and perhaps also passive solar heat. Maybe the machine could be a passive solar heat collector.
Then the vapors of water passing upwards would be suctioned into a condenser.
In-situ and then some.
Perhaps this method would be able to support scouting missions as well.
And they mention Mars in the video, so I win! Ha Ha.
Chemosynthesis! Little nuclear reactors, Thorium?
]]>Or are you soup Nazi's?
No soup?
<blockquote> Thorium reactors can be an export from the Moon to provide megawatts of power for space ships and to be delivered to Mars to provide power on the surface there.</blockquote>
If we consider the Boston Dynamics Robots could eventually be used to do physical manipulations on the Moon, then the idea of making such power plants from Moon materials, to provide for space needs, is not a diversion from Mars.
https://medium.com/@TheLeadingEdge/bost … .gmidn19vi
And here is some helpful news:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor … 8601a918aa
Quote:
7. Yucca Mountain finally begins accepting nuclear waste. Nuclear power is currently hampered by strong government headwinds. The Yucca Mountain storage facility for spent nuclear fuel is essentially ready to accept spent fuel but the Obama administration and Obama’s Senate ally Harry Reid have blocked Yucca Mountain from accepting spent fuel. Some states have enacted laws prohibiting the construction of new nuclear power facilities until Yucca Mountain is available to accept spent fuel. Expect the Trump administration to streamline the opening of Yucca Mountain, relieving states and local communities from the burden of storing spent nuclear fuel.
8. Next-generation nuclear power surges forward. Nuclear power faces many obstacles in addition to spent fuel issues. Energy economics and excessive government regulation make traditional large nuclear power plants uncompetitive with coal and natural gas power. However, there is substantial promise for small, next-generation nuclear reactors utilizing new technologies. For example, many scientists, economists, and environmentalists see tremendous promise for small molten salt reactors powered by thorium. Any new nuclear technologies, however, must receive government scrutiny and approval. To date, the federal government has been dragging its feet studying and approving new nuclear reactor designs. Expect the Trump administration to prioritize removing government obstacles to new nuclear power designs, which coincidentally would provide more emissions-free power.
One thing I have wondered about is if a reactor could be put down on an ice body, say at Utopia Planetia.
An unpersoned mission. Set down, melt water under the soil layer. Of course the Reactor/Robot would have to be able to float on dirt, ice and water. It would then have it's own source of power, water under it, and the Martian atmosphere to do chemistry with.
If this were possible, then this would be precursor to a personed mission. Fuel, Oxygen, water, and food could all be made available in advance of any human arrival.
The food would likely be from microbial fermentation. Say Methane and Hydrogen, maybe CO for the Microbes food, Oxygen for the Oxidizer. The "Soup" could be containerized and frozen. That might require some robotics, but I would think that a reflective package of frozen soup would keep rather well on the surface of Utopia Planetia, for a suitable period of time.
So the humans would have a light weight lander, perhaps one that could afford to hop a bit, if they did not land precisely at the location of the reactor at first. If they made it to the reactor/robot, they would do an inventory to confirm that the life support was as desired. If not they would leave, but most likely they would not have come at all if they did not believe that the food, water, Oxygen, and rocket fuel were not there. And of course the reactor would supply electricity.
So this thing could be growing "SOUP" for 5 to 10 years before the arrival of any humans.
]]>EVIDENCE FOR A LARGE, NATURAL, PALEO-NUCLEAR REACTOR ON MARS
Map of Martian Thorium at Mid-Latitudes
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/molten-sa … -day-mars/
Thorium Molten Salt Breeder reactors for Mars colonies and other applications
Advanced Nuclear Fuels for More Capable and Sustainable Exploration
Thorium in Space – And a New Idea
High Efficiency Nuclear Power Plants Using Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor Technology
]]>A mission to the Jovian moons is one that I would like to see, followed by one to the Saturnian moons.
]]>Then there is Titan, a most unusual moon.
The problem re: Titan is distance and travel time to the objective. In order to get a realistic science return, there would by necessity be a nuclear reactor involved as part of the payload. Power = data return. The Jovian environment is about the furthest we can go without reliance on an exotic onboard propulsion system for the probe. Yes, I agree that Titan is scientifically interesting, but very little has been done in regard to the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter. They're big enough to be considered planets, were they in orbit about the Sun and not around Jupiter. Ganymede and Callisto are both larger than Mercury, although less dense. There is some evidence of subterranean oceans on both these moons, making them "very interesting" w/r to ongoing manned exploration of our solar system. Ganymede is still within the Jupiter Van Allen belts, but Callisto is NOT, making it suitable for a distant human outpost on our way to the stars.
]]>We've been stuck in LEO for 50 years! Any use of the SLS should be, considering the cost, have much more ambitious goals. We certainly don't need it for the ISS, since both SpaceX and Orbital ATK have that covered. The "planned" asteroid fragment retrieval seems to be an awful waste of capability in contrast to dollars spent; there needs be a more ambitious scientific purpose in mind!
Well there is the next generation telescope. The SLS could lift a large telescope which may be able to find extrasolar planets, that would be well worth an SLS.
]]>