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Could be stimulating to watch the episodes during a ACT meeting as a base for brain storming. Especially interesting for YGTs or RFs with no space experience. The episodes will be repeated starting form 17 feb. Will be available in german and french

announcement of broadcast of documentation about Terraforming Mars on the 19th of November (with nice videos)

Please give the title of at least one Sci-fi novel in which terraforming was mentioned ;)

The scientific rationale behind it is that at km-depth there could be a) water resources (which could support a biosphere) and b) understand the formation of Mars. I would argue that an efficient drilling (robot) is also valuable for possible developing underground habitation (caves) at some point. This paper mentions two drilling concepts, but we could come up with many more (bio-inspired) probably. Daniel already came up with a nice one.. microwave drilling Also, the NASA InSight probe to Mars in 2016 is using a DLR-designed 'Mole' drill that is designed to reach a depth of... 5 meters

In this case I was thinking more about a smaller and controlled digging effort.. not ablating a football field sized hole

Nice one! plenty of examples in nature for this

Regarding our discussion on resource self-sufficiency of a Mars colony. Would it ever be possible (from a resource perspective that is..) A NASA report on availability of resources. A self-sufficiency trade study described in Boston (1996) identifies the mission duration at which the development of local life support resources becomes advantageous. Within 30 days, without recycling, or with the equivalent leakage, it becomes advantageous to derive oxygen from local resources. The time constants for water and food are about 6 months and 3 years, respectively.

I guess it depends on the number of astronauts that have to be supporte ... 3 years for food looks like a lot

NASA and ESA spacecraft have gathered new information about the basic properties of the comet's nucleus (not 67p) and directly detected the effects on the Martian atmosphere. Dust from the comet impacted Mars and was vaporized high in the atmosphere, producing what was likely an impressive meteor shower. Eight different types of metal ions have been detected, including sodium, magnesium and iron. The satellites will now continue to look for long-term perturbations to Mars' atmosphere.

A nice study on the soon cancelled-before-it-began hit TV show "MarsOne" (or, how it should be called, "How to make someone else rich while slowly dying on Mars").

We finally have an understanding of how Mars transformed from a once habitable, Earth-like planet, into the dry world we see today. NASA researchers have just announced that Mars' once rich atmosphere was stripped away by solar winds in the early days of the Solar System, causing the planet to dry out.

Sounds like an interesting building material. Unlike concrete, after use it can simply be molten down (at seemingly reasonable temperatures) and used again to build different parts. Crack in the wall? Just iron it out (literally)! A group at Northwestern University wants to solve an engineering challenge now to prepare for the future: it's turning Mars-like soil into concrete. And, in turn, that concrete requires very little (if any) water. It's just the thing we may need to make life on Mars sustainable.

Life could have had much more time to evolve on mars than previously thought...

interesting stuff ... I like this quote "When a man tells you about the time he planned to put a vegetable garden on Mars, you worry about his mental state. But if that same man has since launched multiple rockets that are actually capable of reaching Mars-sending them into orbit, Bond-style, from a tiny island in the Pacific-you need to find another diagnosis. That's the thing about extreme entrepreneurialism: There's a fine line between madness and genius, and you need a little bit of both to really change the world. All entrepreneurs have an aptitude for risk, but more important than that is their capacity for self-delusion. Indeed, psychological investigations have found that entrepreneurs aren't more risk-tolerant than non-entrepreneurs. They just have an extraordinary ability to believe in their own visions, so much so that they think what they're embarking on isn't really that risky. They're wrong, of course, but without the ability to be so wrong-to willfully ignore all those naysayers and all that evidence to the contrary-no one would possess the necessary audacity to start something radically new."

married in a stable relationship? here comes your ticket for a swing-bye of Mars

The loss rate of Mars' original atmosphere apparently has been quantified through isotope ratio measurements. Should be useful for climate engineering studies (Isabelle & Markus ?)

Hydrothermal deposits on Mars may provide the best opportunity to find Martian biosignatures. Ruff and Farmer report that silica structures created by biotic and abiotic process in hot springs at El Tatio, Chile resemble those found in Gusev crater, thus making it an ideal location for future missions.

Researchers from Alterra Wageningen UR were able to grow and harvest ten different crop species on Mars and moon simulant. 'The total above ground biomass produced on the Mars soil simulant was not significantly different from the potting compost we used as a control' researcher Wieger Wamelink said. I wonder if the taste was as disappointing as that of normal dutch veggies :P

Rocket entrepreneur Elon Musk believes he can get the cost of a round trip to Mars down to about half a million dollars.

and in the headlines again ...

For those who can't wait to be on Mars... ;-) - Oh and for those who want to see some REALLY cool panorama's: the moon @ http://www.panoramas.dk/moon/apollo-17.html

A habitable settlement will be waiting for the settlers when they land. The settlement will support them while they live and work on Mars the rest of their lives

"no political mumbo jumbo, no taxpayer's money" real work!

Interesting read if you're interested on the kind of coding that goes into something like the Curiosity rover. :) btw.. nice fill-packet being sent by Curiosity: "Elvis has Spirit. The answer is 42....END\r\n"

This is too funny...

How I wish I would have been tougher with the guy when he showed up here ....

you should have told him that we're very into it, if they could only make a small deposit in our account and we'll send them a lot of money later

165000 people have applied and the founders of Mars One still seem enthusiastic. Wouldn't it be great if they actually could pull it off..?