Mars mission Archives - Argyll Free Press

Need an Exciting New Job? Why Not Mars?

June 16, 2016 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

Are you bored of your current position and in need of an exciting new job? Are you a scientist, teacher, engineer, explorer, surveyor, farmer, technician, or geologist? If the answer to both questions is yes, then you should take a look at the latest opening from NASA. If the answer is no, then you should take a look at the most recent job openings at NASA. Either way, everybody will be given a chance to help build a Martian colony.

Astronaut descending into Martian crater

Some lucky few will get to be the first to explore the Red Planet.

With the European Space Agency, SpaceX, and a handful of other private contractors breathing down its neck, NASA is doing everything in its power to get to the Red Planet before anybody else.

To this extent, they have been investing a lot of resources not only in the development of a spacecraft that will take the first men to the planet but also in the study of the planet’s conditions.

Lately, researchers have been looking into dust storm patterns, atmosphere pressure, temperature variation, and other important factors that could affect the stay of the colonists.

This means that the Space Agency is serious about the 2023 manned mission. NASA is so sure that they will be ready by then, that they started advertising opened positions for colonists.

The new campaign is directed towards any person who wants an exciting new job on an alien planet. The colonists will be the builders of a new civilization, so the task is not easy, but it’s also one of the best jobs in the solar system.

Others will get to see if Matt Damon’s potato experiment is accurate.

According to the posters that the Space Agency released, explorers, night shift workers, surveyors, farmers, teachers, technicians, and assemblers are needed for the future Red Planet colony.

The design of the new posters is very retro. The colors remin viewers of the glory days of advertising back in 1950 when the Marlboro Man was considered the peak of marketing techniques.

One of the posters is particularly nostalgia-based. Remember the famous Uncle Sam poster? The one that became a popular culture reference? NASA reinterpreted it and replaced the bearded man in a stars and stripes suit with an astronaut pointing at the viewer telling him or her that “We Need You.”

The NASA astronaut is the new Uncle Sam.

The marketing for the job openings is exquisite, but applicants must remember that the exciting new job comes with harsh conditions, a rare atmosphere, and an overall dusty situation.

Images Courtesy of: NASA

“Destination: Mars” Exhibit Uses Virtual Reality for Space Exploration

April 5, 2016 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

NASA’s “Destination: Mars” is one of the most engaging combinations between virtual reality and space travel, allowing the user to take a tour of Mars with none other by Dr. Buzz Aldrin, the second person on the moon.

Viewers will also be guided by Erisa Hines, driver on the Curiosity Mars Rover, who will present the vehicle as well as real sites on Mars where important discoveries were made.

The virtual experience is based on imagery sent back to Earth by the Curiosity Rover, NASA’s car-sized robot which landed on Mars in August 2012.

The exhibition “Destination: Mars” is based on OnSight, a software tool co-created by Microsoft and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the Mars rover mission operations. Thanks to OnSight, NASA scientists have gained a more intuitive understanding of the area explored by Mars rovers.

Users who take the tour via virtual reality headset see exactly what scientists do when they look at imagery sent by the Curiosity Rover; they can also interact with a 3D simulation of the Martian surface and conduct science experiments from a first-person perspective.

Before OnSight, scientists working on rover operations were required to “examine Mars imagery on a computer screen, and make inferences about what they are seeing.”

Thanks to advancements in virtual reality, research is now done in a new way, allowing scientists to see clearly details of a planet over 100 million miles away from Earth – while sitting in their offices.

Dave Lavery, program executive for Solar System Exploration at NASA Headquarters, said that OnSight has “fundamentally changed our perception of Mars, and how we understand the Mars environment surrounding the rover.”

This is not the first time augmented reality has paired up with NASA to advance science. Microsoft has previously sent their AR headsets HoloLens to the International Space Station, where astronaut Scott Kelly tested it during his stay abroad the station.

Augmented reality creates a mixed reality experience by overlaying digital images on top of the actual environment surrounding you. After Kelly returned to Earth last month, he said VR has “a lot of potential when it comes to space exploration.”

Besides strategically partnering with Microsoft, NASA has also done the right thing involving Dr. Buzz Aldrin in the “Destination: Mars” project. He has proved to be one of the most convincing advocates for the efforts of landing humans on Mars.

With virtual reality, sending humans to Mars in the 2030s can become a more inclusive experience, allowing the public to follow the experience the astronauts will have as they study the Martian surface.
Image Source: Mars-One

The Slow Trek of Humanity Towards Planet Mars

March 14, 2016 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

It appears that NASA is quick on its toes with planning and delivering its envisioned mission to Mars. Even if it was only recent that they announced their plans to have manned missions leaving for the Red Planet by the year 2030 the very latest, preparations are already on the way. And while funding the mission, calculating the best time for the mission, building the necessary space craft, gathering the resources necessary and so on are the very basic steps of such a mission alone, preparation entails a little more than that.

In order to send human beings to the surface of the much sought after red planet, humanity must rely on the capabilities of landers and probes that will perform detailed surveys of landing sites, climate conditions, geological information and other facts such as these. One of such landers is NASA’s InSight Mars Lander that is preparing to be sent out by May 2018.

Originally, the InSight Mars Lander was scheduled to be launched from the surface of Earth and sent towards its trek to the red planet this year – next month, in fact – but certain technical issues prevented it from doing so and postponed the mission by a considerable amount of time. To be more exact, a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument convinced NASA to postpone the mission, with scientists having the certainty that they will be able to rework the seismometer’s system and have it finished by 2017.

After that, preparations will once again begin until May 5^th, when the launch is believed to be possible. If everything goes according to plan and the lander is successfully launched into outer space on the calculated date, it should arrive on Martial surface by November 26^th, 2018, six months and three weeks after its departure.

InSight stands for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport and is specialized in understanding how planets’ geology formed while also collecting seismology and climate data from both above and below Mars’ surface.

NASA’s InSight is not the only spacecraft planning to depart and study the workings of the currently inhabitable Mars. However, the craft has an entire team made of researchers and engineers from across the globe, uniting their efforts to ensure humanity delivers some of its representatives to the red planet as the next step in our long-term exploratory mission.

Image Source: 1

Everybody Wants to Go to the Red Planet

February 25, 2016 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

It would seem that everybody wants to go to the Red Planet under NASA’s fosterage. Or at least that’s what the number of applicants says, even if ‘everybody’ is an overstatement. Still, following NASA’s advert that it’s looking for its next class of astronauts that will most likely get to go to Mars in person over the next couple of decades, no less than 18,300 Americans have signed up to the program to become an astronaut.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration opened the position just two months ago and an astounding number of people already submitted their resumes. While the enthusiasm for the mission is surely flattering for both NASA and humanity as a whole, the ‘new class of astronauts’ will only be able to be comprised of 12 people, which one could say is a little less than the number of applicants.

This huge amount of interest is relatively hard to explain, especially when one looks at the numbers and realizes this time around the number of applicants is three times larger than the number recorded for the hiring session that NASA held 4 years ago.

And yet, the prerequisites of being an astronaut are not to be taken lightly, and it’s still surprising that so many are qualified to put forward their resumes and recommendations in order to hope for a chance to be one of the very few who will embark on what is probably the most important mission of mankind up to this point in time.

The selection process will drag on for a shocking 18-month period and it’s far from your regular job interview kind of system. Testing, background checks, health verifications and even more than just that are some of the stages of the interview that applicants will be taken through in order to become one of the few.

The lucky ones who end up being selected will have a long trek of trials and tribulations ahead of them before they can even step foot into a space craft and leave for milestones as close to our planet as the International Space Station. The ones who make the cut will have to undergo 2 years of initial training that involves practicing on simulated spacecraft systems, spacewalking, learning how to speak Russian and many more.

A realistic trip will not happen until the early 2020s most likely, however. And before the Mars Mission will even have a chance to happen, there will be plenty of other manned missions planned for NASA astronauts, including ISS boarding, two commercial crew space crafts under U.S. companies brands as well as the Orion deep-space exploration vehicle.

Image Source: 1

NASA Is Hiring Astronauts for the Mars Mission

February 13, 2016 By Deborah Campbell Leave a Comment

Applications are now open for anyone ambitious but qualified as NASA is hiring astronauts for the Mars mission – whenever that will happen. While original plans involved the year 2020 for the first manned mission to the surface of the red planet, it may not happen until several years later, depending on how well funding the mission from the public and federal resources goes.

Regardless, NASA has decided that a manned mission to the planet of promise is the next biggest step in human evolution and achievement. And because the organization came to the conclusion that it cannot afford to focus on both a potential Mars mission as well as another landing on the Moon, it seems to have, after all, chosen that Mars should be the next destination for mankind.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is therefore placing all their efforts in raising funds for the Mars mission and training its future team of astronauts to be. For the first time in four years, NASA is hiring the next generation of astronauts; however, only one of them could eventually actually go to the Red Planet.

The team of astronauts would be training at Johnson Space Center in Houston; and that’s no easy feat. Anyone hoping to leave in a space shuttle for another planet one day needs to have excellent physical condition to begin with, but also a hefty amount of specialized training. That includes things such as spending a long time underwater and performing tasks in what is very similar to a zero gravity scenario, understand and train in the harsh conditions of outer space as well as prepare for a real life, real scale shuttle launch.

But being an astronaut is not only about being physically and mentally fit for the trip. NASA is currently looking for individuals who have a bachelor’s degree in math, science or engineering, with experience or with a military background as the minimum requirements.

NASA also places a lot of emphasis on communication skills. A 2 years long mission on a space craft requires a high degree of communication skills and teamwork, especially if you take into account that the individuals who will be joining need to be able to work together comfortably in the tight confines of a space ship.

Even though the next class of astronauts is only looking for 8 to 14 people, more than 6,100 applicants have already shown their interest in the mission.

Image Source: 1

NASA Can Only Afford One Mission to Either Mars or the Moon

February 5, 2016 By Kenneth Scott Leave a Comment

Despite initial aspirations and hopes for mankind to both step on the Moon again or venture to the next planet in line, NASA can only afford one mission to either Mars or the Moon. Former director of National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center, Tom Young, has taken the time to talk about the reality of achieving these longtime goals of humanity.

It is a known fact that the reason NASA hasn’t sent any human expeditions out to the Moon for 44 years for example. Manned missions such as that not only take a huge amount of time and preparation to get going, but are also ridiculously expensive (billions of dollars at least) and right now not much else than a reason for humans to be able to say they stepped on a different planet or satellite, depending on case.

Although NASA has been actively advertising its ‘Journey to Mars’ campaign and also considering returning to the Moon for the first time in decades, Tom Young has openly stated that it’s very clear to him and the NASA organization that doing both is not something they can afford, having to focus their attention on just one of the two options.

While the moon has been a dreamed-of destination for mankind for decades, Mars still remains that one place where our species has yet to set foot on. A trip to Mars is a lot more difficult than it sounds on paper for a wide variety of reasons, beyond the mere financial and technological limitations. A trip to Mars would have to be done only at specific moments throughout Mars’ and the Earth’s movement along their orbits to minimize the time it actually takes for a spacecraft to reach it. At best, a flight to Mars could take 6 months. At worst, nearly 2 years.

NASA released a report called ‘Pathways to Exploration’ in 2014, in which it realistically stated that a manned expedition to Mars would be possible in the next 20 to 40 years, with the base expense of half a trillion dollars for it. Tom Young also made a point regarding the dire need for humanity to not give up their ambition for manned outer space exploration, but not at the cost of making frivolous plans, especially when so much money is at stake.

However, another ‘back-up’ plan that NASA has thought of is ‘a pit stop at the moon’ in humanity’s quest to reach further parts of our solar system. Instead of making the direct trip from Earth to Mars, establishing a moon base could help humans learn how to survive in alien worlds and develop technologies that would allow them to be more prepared for more ambitious plans such as Mars.

Image Source: 1

Categories