Lifeboat Foundation

Between the dust storms, thin atmosphere, and frigid temperatures, future Mars colonists are going to have it rough. But they won’t even get a chance to battle the Martian elements unless we figure out a way to supply them with life-giving oxygen. It may seem impossible to do so organically on the barren red planet, but a new Science paper suggests a single Earth organism might be able to do the trick.

In the paper, published Thursday, an international team of researchers report that cyanobacteria, a huge family of tiny organisms that thrive in extreme environments, show promise as oxygen sources for future Mars colonists. Because they are photosynthetic, cyanobacteria thrive on carbon dioxide and energy from the sun, burping up oxygen as a byproduct — just like plants. They’re the ideal fresh air source for Mars, as long as they don’t demand too much sunlight.

“This might sound like science fiction, but space agencies and private companies around the world are actively trying to turn this aspiration into reality in the not-too-distant future,” said study co-author and Australian National University Emeritus Professor Elmars Krausz, Ph.D., in a statement published Wednesday.

Continue reading “Scientists Investigate Bacteria That Could Make Oxygen for Future Martians” »

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What if all the galaxies, stars, planets — everything — stopped moving away from everything else? #WhatIf

With private companies turning their attention to the riches of asteroids, the first trillionaire could be made in space. Andrew Glester explores the challenges of mining space rocks.

Hooray for Juno!

Though NASA’s Juno spacecraft has probed Jupiter’s secrets for nearly two years, the $1 billion mission was set to crash into the planet’s clouds in July. Now, however, the agency has confirmed Business Insider’s previous report that Juno will get three additional years of flight.

A race is on to mine billions of dollars in resources from the solar system’s asteroids, fuelling our future among the stars.

Zoë Corbyn

What did they find out?

NASA’s Curiosity rover has uncovered the best evidence yet that life may have once existed on Mars.

Continue reading “Breakthrough in search for Martian life as Curiosity finds organic matter and seasonal methane” »

A new space era is dawning and will be upon us by the early 2020s. In the face of emerging novel threats and vulnerabilities, whether the self-defense doctrine allows us to counter the threat before the attack occurs can make the difference between peace and war.

President Trump unveiled the America First National Space Strategy on March 23 covering both commercial and civil space, and national security space. This important document has drawn few comments, which are typified by the observation of Spacepolicyonline.com founder and editor Marcia Smith that “the Trump strategy contains little that is new.”

Indeed, most of the national security provisions, which are the focus of this article, are only different in rhetoric but not in substance from those of the Obama administration and it’s predecessors. However, that they are the same is fine because they are equally essential for the new space era.

NASA shared the results of two new studies made possible by the Curiosity rover, and they could both help us determine whether Mars hosted life.