Blog #10

My Topic

                       Elon Musk, the founder of the first commercial space flight company, SpaceX, has announced, on November 16, that SpaceX will spend $500,000 (per trip) on sending a grand total of 80,000 men to the martian soil.  Obviously, all of those men won't be sent to Mars at one time.  The project includes sending men overtime, and with each trip to Mars, will include the ability to have man sustain itself.  Musk has said that the entire project will cost $16 billion, and some of it will have to be offset by government agencies.  Elon has also said out of the whole project, the majority of the money will be funding the beginning, which is sending large amounts of supplies so that the astronauts can begin to develop a base on Mars.  

                         Luckily,  SpaceX has already tested the, "Grasshopper"  rocket on 2 different occasions.  Both tests was sending a unmanned, reusable, rocket up into outer space and successfully retrieving back from space.  Along with successfully docking the Dragon rockets with the International Space Station,  I have no doubt that SpaceX is leading the world in space exploration, and could one day very well overtake government agencies in the involvement of space exploration!  To read on about SpaceX and their plan for the future, you can read an article at:   http://io9.com/5963349/spacex-founder-unveils-plan-to-send-80000-people-to-mars

Blog #9

My Topic:  Should Space Travel be Government or Public Funded

                   In my opinion, the journey to Mars as well as other space destinations should rely on the effort of both, but mainly the public.  Public figures like SpaceX, Mars One and Dennis Tito, (who claims he will be able to send a man and women to Mars and back to Earth by 2019), are the one's who should provide the actual rocket designs and the funding, when government agencies, mainly NASA, carries out the mission.  The bottom line is, as shown by the number of delays made by NASA, space travel should be up to the public.  Even right before the lunar landings happened, dreams of sending a man to Mars began sprouting among the public.  However that dream has been delayed for over 40 years now.  

                  With the arrival of SpaceX (who has recently docked their first unmanned supply spacecraft with the International Space Station) and Mars One (who has already collected some funds for every section of the entire Mars project), the progress of space travel will accelerate, and will one day, probably, be able to carry humans to Mars.  In conclusion,  the mission of travelling to Mars shouldn't be entirely held by the government.  If you wish to see more about what crazy things are going on in the race to Mars, here is a link: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/27/17120657-going-to-mars-in-2018-concept-is-so-crazy-and-simple-it-just-might-work?lite

Blog #8

My Topic

                Some of the difficulties of colonizing on the martian soil involved the sun, the surface temperature and the thinness of the martian atmosphere.  First of all, Mars is far too cold to be habitable for humans.  The surface temperature from about -87 Celsius in the early morning, to -20 Celsius in the afternoon.   Next, the atmosphere is too thin to block the surface from anything harmful that comes from outer space.  Harmful affects include, solar radiation,  solar winds and just about anything that comes from the sun that involves heat.  

                 How NASA plans on dealing with the inability of the martian atmosphere is by terraforming it.  The process of terraforming includes slowly melting the dry ice polar caps, that way carbon dioxide flows upward resulting in a thicker and more habitable atmosphere.  NASA plans on melting the polar caps by using a heat mirror from outer space to reflect the suns heat downwards. Once the atmosphere can protect the surface from the harmful effects, it will be time to start engulfing the surface with plants.  Since plant life takes in carbon dioxide, it exhales oxygen which is what we, humans, breathe in.  Humans exhale carbon dioxide and then it turns into a cycle making Mars habitable for humans to explore! 

Here we have one of the polar caps, which is dry ice.