To Mars and Beyond

As a young girl reading OMNI magazine, I couldn’t imagine saying no to a one way trip to explore space. I’m a little older now and would ask more questions, such as the ones posed in Cosmic Logic on MSNBC. It discusses a paper written by Dirk Schulze-Makuch, Washington State University and Paul Davies, Arizona State University for The Journal of Cosmology about the real life logistics for Mars colonization. They aren’t the first researchers to consider the real life logistics of space travel. For several years, NASA has asked researchers and industry to come up with solutions for everything from cryogenics to remote healthcare to the politics of joint military/scientist ventures. It might not be Stargate but it made my heart jump a little bit when I played the free multi player on-line Moonbase Alpha game developed by NASA and the U.S. Army to realistically simulate space colonization. The game is fun to play but at first I was frustrated because you couldn’t carry the whole toolbox with you to fix pipes. But Frank pointed out that there is no magic bag of holding in real-life and this game is an accurate depiction of the challenges colonists will face. Among the many experts required, they will need good cartographers, engineers, biologists, mechanics, and especially welders with a steady hand.

Recent Mapstodon posts

Loading Mastodon feed...

Archives

Categories