The Mars Foundation plans a permanent settlement on planet Mars using near-term technologies and resources already available on Mars: it will be built with the aid of robots and run on nuclear energy, but will utilize materials and building techniques reminiscent of earlier centuries on earth. Designs call for large masonry arches and vaulted ceilings and domed skylights built with bricks baked from Martian soil and stones cut from Martian quarries.

The group believes that materials such as steel, aluminum, ceramic, glass and plastics can be manufactured using Martian resources.

The Martian settlement will be contained within an artificial atmosphere and pressurized using gases found on Mars like carbon, nitrogen and argon. Oxygen will be stripped from water molecules using electrolysis and will also added to the mix.

Conditions on Mars, however, are not exactly colonization-friendly. Morning temperatures on the desert planet can dip can below -76 degrees Farenheit (-60 Celsius) and enormous dust storms sweep across its barren rocky fields at speeds of over 60 miles per hour. Air pressure is a tiny fraction of Earth’s and harmful radiation from solar winds, cosmic rays and solar flares bombard its surface. Add to that a minimum 6-month commute and a communications delay that can reach over 40-minutes.

The group proposes to send small gas tanks ahead that store methane and oxygen extracted from the atmosphere. When the settlers arrive, they can use that equipment and stored gas to build things like steel production plants.

The group envisions Mars as an integral part of a future inter-solar system economy that will be based on the convergence of four frontiers: Earth, the Moon, asteroids, and Mars—including its own rocky satellites, Phobos and Deimos.

Via Space.com.
Image MHP.

ESA's Innovation Triangle Initiative is working on a project to create innovative materials to build deployable structures and booms on spacecraft to support solar panels, antennas and, in the future, solar sails.

Solar panels for energy production on spacecraft are folded during launch and then unfolded once in orbit to many times their launch size. Other spacecraft elements need long booms, which can be folded during launch and then take a much larger final form once in space.

In the future, huge "sails" powered by solar particles could be used to push spacecraft through space. They would have to cover an area of at least 10 000 square metres and need ultra-light and large rigid structures of booms to hold them in place.

Grado Zero Espace came up with the idea of using a smart textile to construct the requested booms.

The nematic elastomer nanocomposites are prepared by spreading carbon nanotubes on to a rubber matrix, with the nanotubes pre-aligned in one direction. The material's properties are different along this direction. When an electric field is applied, the nanotubes try to re-orient themselves and cause a change in shape of the whole rubber composite. This shape change was successfully exploited in a membrane prototype, demonstrating the potential use for reversible and irreversible deployment of structures in space.

Via Eurekalert and ESA.

Gallery of UFO images and government documents at the Black Vault archive of US Government documents obtained under the freedom of information act.

Via Eyebeam < Stunned.

London-based Arts Catalyst has been commissioned by the European Space Agency a research to find out how art might enhance life aboard the International Space Station, which is gradually being assembled in modules.

ESA is looking for projects that can be performed by the astronauts, or that deploy the technology of the space station in some way. Arts Catalyst stresses the realities of the space station: artists might want to focus on the bodies and minds of the astronauts themselves - stuck up there for months on end, trying not to go mad - or the unique architecture of the satellite.

In fact, the Arts Catalyst is thinking more of interiors than exteriors. Art is therapeutic for people on earth - why not for cosmonauts?

Via The Guardian.

Three years ago, the Tate in England launched Tate in Space, a commission inviting architectural practices to design the next Tate gallery in outer space.

ETALAB (Extra-Terrestrial Architecture Laboratory), Softroom and Sarah Wigglesworth Architects.

ETALAB design (picture above) involved changeable form and gravity, liberating the gallery environment from earthly constraints such as context, gravity, mobility and interactivity.

The project also included an international student competition to design an architectural concept for the Tate, and downloadable models to assemble at home.

Related: Zero gravity design.

The Sensitive Objects technology, developed by European Space Agency for spacecraft, is now being used to create small sensors that can make any flat surface interactive.



"Our patented technology is based on recognising the sound waves propagated in an object when it is tapped at a precise location," says Ros-Kiri Ing, President of Sensitive Object.

Just as fingerprints are unique, a tap on a flat surface gives an acoustic signature that is unique for the specific point of impact, as the waves emitted are diffused differently from a tap even a few centimetres away.

"I had the idea of associating this signature with an action and creating a sort of virtual command table. The association is managed by a computer programme that links touch at a specific location to a specific action. A small sensor, the accelerometer, placed nearby, then detects the sound waves and analyses their acoustic signature. If the signature is recognised, the intended action is executed, if not, nothing happens," Ros-Kiri Ing explains.

Sensitive control panels can be placed at any location to create an interactive human-machine interface. They can also be easily moved. If a control panel is located in the shower, with the sensor placed nearby, and needs to be moved to a new position or a new command has to be added, there's no need to touch the sensor, the system can be modified and new sensitive zones can be defined via the computer.

This means that the controls for the lights in a room could be moved without having to change the wiring.

Via Usability in the news < ESA News.
Related: anywhere interactive interface.

Popular Science (via Caveat lector ) has a cover story about Robert Bigelow project to build a 330-cubic-meter orbiting space hotel. Bargain-basement room rate: $1 million a night.

Announced last year, the full-scale mock-ups of the Nautilus space-station module features two 22-foot-diameter inflatable modules.

Developed at NASA as part of a project called TransHab, inflatable space-station modules weigh less, and they launch in a compressed state which allows them to use less-powerful launch vehicles and makes for roomier space stations. After a rocket fires a Nautilus into space, explosive bolts will release the girdle securing the compressed hull, and then the station’s life support system, housed in the core, will inflate the structure with breathable air. Power comes from solar panels.

Bigelow Aerospace is also floating a $50-million prize to entice other companies to create a safe, reliable orbital space vehicle to transport guests to the front door—or rather, the airlock.

If all goes well with orbital tests of one-third-scale modules to be launched at the end of the year, the first habitable Nautilus could be launched in 2008.

See also NASA's inflatable Tumbleweed rover.