Since I was a young child Mars held a special fascination for me. It was so close and yet so faraway. I have never doubted that it once had advanced life and still has remnants of that life now. I am a dedicated member of the Mars Society,Norcal Mars Society National Space Society, Planetary Society, And the SETI Institute. I am a supporter of Explore Mars, Inc. I'm a great admirer of Elon Musk and SpaceX. I have a strong feeling that Space X will send a human to Mars first.
Dutch artificial leaf can make medicine from sunlight on Mars
Eindhoven University of Technology has started a revolution. The theory is: focus sunlight with an artificial leaf, create chemical compounds. Leaves do it all the time, but now it’s a way of making medicines, and maybe much more.
The Eindhoven team has found a sort of Holy Grail of chemistry. This idea of a “chemical plant factory” has been around for a while. Photosynthesis is an incredibly efficient process, and copying it has been tried in many different forms.
This is the first time to my knowledge that it’s been made to work, particularly in such a spectacularly useful way. Making advanced medicines can be a particularly demanding process. Complexities, costs and struggling with new processes aren’t a recipe for efficiency, even with modern manufacturing methods.
The artificial leaves are called luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) and the result is a go-anywhere source of energy for chemical processes. The LSCs also include storage capacity, which means they can be ready to go whenever and wherever you want.
Coming up with a DIY, go-anywhere way of doing it is a huge leap forward right out of the original ball park. You could build in most of the processes, particularly the high cost processes, directly in to your LSC.
The LSCs can synthesize medicines, in much the same way leaves do. That rather innocent-looking sentence, however, hides a lot of possibilities. Plants use photosynthesis for energy, but the energy drives a virtual encyclopedia of processes creating literally millions of compounds. A huge amount of modern medicine is derived from plant chemistry, so you can see why this is can be a game-changer in multiple ways.
Artificial leaf as a mini-factory for medicines.
I’m a horticulturalist, sorry to talk shop, but you can see why. There’s a lot more to this basic idea, and it’s all well worth exploring. The theory of adapting plants to grow specific materials has been around for a while, but this is a new, very broad based range of options.
Plant chemistry can be incredibly complex, and incredibly efficient. The physics are basic enough; the amount of energy equals the potential for creating compounds. Plants can produce practically anything. They also contain a lot of elements for their chemistry, and their adaptions allow them to exploit materials in their environments.
This could revolutionize whole industries, too. Other aspects of plant biology, which could also be artificially created, allow them to extract materials, and process those materials. They can process practically anything. Add an LSC, and you simply need to design the way it processes materials.
The LSC idea goes way beyond pharmaceuticals. Any engineer, accountant or scientist in industry will tell you that the energy cost of making anything is one of the big hurdles for cost-efficiency in any industrial process. The energy costs of electricity are one aspect, but the energy costs of physical processes are also an issue. It’s the costs of the processes, in fact, which drives energy consumption, and the costs of energy consumption. So, eliminate that cost, create a direct link to your process with free energy, and you’re saving a lot of money, time, effort and cost-based neuroses.
LSCs couldn’t have timed their emergence any better. There’s a lot of other tech, notably nanotech, just getting out of the bassinet and taking a few positive steps in its own core dynamics. Add nanotech to an LSC, and in theory, you could have a working plant, in both senses of the word.
Bear in mind that all these options are scalable. You could have an LSC the size of France, or one to carry around in your pocket having fun on Mars or elsewhere, as the Eindhoven guys have suggested. Productivity is built in; set it up, let it work, and you’ve got your products.
This could be a huge cost-saver. Even robotic production can’t match the applied cost-efficiencies in this approach. For consumers, it could mean “cheap everything” This is the equivalent of 3D printing for compounds. In fact, you could create your materials with an LSC, and then print them, in any form.
The future is starting to look a lot more practical. These methods allow any kind of manufacturing to drastically improve efficiencies from baseline production to final product. Keep an eye on this LSC tech, because it’s going to be fundamental to a world which needs better methods for everything within 100 years.
The Planetary Post - 2016: A Magnificent Year for Space Exploration: Space exploration had a very exciting year, from Scott Kelly's record-breaking Year in Space aboard the ISS to a launch to an asteroid and much more in between. Robert Picardo takes a look back at some of the space science highlights of 2016.
The Mars 160 crew recently completed its 80-day simulation at the Mars Society’s Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in southern Utah. The team carried out a sustained program of field exploration in the Mars-like terrain at MDRS while operating under many of the same constraints that future astronauts on the Red Planet would encounter. Each member of our Mars 160 crew has written a final report, 'departing words' from MDRS, the first half of their mission. The crew is scheduled to participate in a second 80-day simulation at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) in northern Canada beginning June 2017.
Enclosed is the final report of the Mars 160 crew commander with a link to the other crew reports.
Final Report (Final Words) Alexandre Mangeot, Crew Commander Mars 160 (MDRS)
For me, the mission started a while ago, a year and a half ago actually. At that time the roles were unclear. But the time passing, my role shifted few times before being assigned as Commander. It is a strange feeling to have desired this position for so long and them boom this is happening. And while you are still dreaming you just see the bright side without worrying too much about the responsibilities. But soon enough you realize the duty that now is yours and just hope for that everything will be fine.
I never thought that my presence in the Crew would be worth if I just come without any project. I thought it was expected from me to assume my role of commander and still conducted personal projects. And projects, I had plenty. So I took one (actually I started with four different technological projects), an ambitious one, and I worked on it during 6 months before the actual mission even started. But over here my prime duty is not to make my own personal project working. My prime duty is to make sure that everyone works toward the same goal. That may sound easy, but it is not. It requires a lot of attention and dedication.
On a seven people crew you cannot count on the inertia of a massive crew, so you have to be careful of every detail. This was demanding. Especially because I spent 6 months designing my spacesuit interface and nothing was working how it was supposed to; but despite that I had to stay focus on the crew dynamic rather on my project. It is hard to have sacrificed a lot of personal time for a project and not being able to give proper attention when it is supposed to work. But at the end of mission while I was discussing with mission Director Shannon Rupert I could have come without a project to conduct because Commander is a full time job. So for the Arctic, I do not intend to come back without project but I must make sure that it will not require too much time so I can fully focus on my responsibilities.
For the mechanical engineer and hybrid rocket scientist that I am, starting a project that aims to develop a spacesuit user interface is challenging in more than one way. Learning everything that needs to be learned in electronics and software development in order to design something that works (somewhat) in a 6 month timeline is far from being easy and without pitfall. But I also had to manage my budget and the logistics of all the components. So quite obviously, I made decisions in the development process that turned out to give me so much hard time during the mission attempting to make the hardware or/and the software working. I was not anticipating that because I am too optimistic – the proof is that I brought enough material to make 4 interfaces. So during my little despairs I was preparing for the worse: nothing will be working by the end of the mission. Hopefully, there were enough small victories here and there to keep the motivation alive and for pursuing the goal with the little time I could spare. It ends-up that the last EVA performed in sim was dedicated to the ultimate test of the interface. I remember that I delayed this EVA by one hour because all my checklist board was not all green. I was torn by the fact that I was messing with the schedule. But I also remembered that you do not launch a rocket if someone says “no go”. And this was the best decision. Because now I can be very happy to announce that during this EVA everything behaved like it was supposed to be. I have the navigation data, the temperature and humidity inside and outside the helmet, the ambient atmospheric pressure, the light measurements from infrared to ultraviolet, the battery voltage, and even my heartbeat rate!
Yes, for those who read my SSUIt project entries, the SPI line was operational on this EVA. So in addition of rewriting/reviewing 11 000 lines of code for the second version of the software, I was able to make progress and push a little bit further the features. So for the Arctic, I will have much better hardware architecture thanks to the lessons I have learnt and an interface ready to go.
To read final reports from other Mars 160 crew members, please click here.
Marines carry in the casket of former astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn during a ceremony to celebrate his life, Dec. 17, 2016, at The Ohio State University in Columbus.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
The life of John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, was celebrated at a public memorial service Saturday (Dec. 17), at Ohio State University in Columbus.
Glenn, who died on Dec. 8 at age 95, was remembered by his family, his friends and by colleagues from his careers as a Marine Corps pilot, original NASA astronaut, four term U.S. Senator and adjunct professor at the college bearing his name. The ceremony followed a Marine-led procession from the statehouse, where he was only the ninth person to lay in repose in Ohio's history.
"There are those here today who have known Sen. Glenn for 60, 70 or even 90 years, but most of us knew him long before actually met him," said Michael Drake, president of Ohio State University, home to the John Glenn College of Public Affairs since 2006. "We knew [Glenn] though news reports and flickering images of events that were among the most spectacular that we have ever witnessed." [John Glenn: An American Hero's Greatest Moments]
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A record-setting test pilot and veteran of two wars, Glenn was selected to be among NASA's first seven astronauts in April 1959 and launched into orbit on board the Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7 on Feb. 20, 1962. He returned to space 36 years later aboard the shuttle Discovery, setting the record for the oldest person to fly in space.
Vice President Joe Biden smiles and looks at Annie Glenn, widow of former astronaut and Senator John Glenn, as Glenn's son David recounts humorous stories about his father.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
"Our nation was proud of the achievement, and proud of our brave and dashing hero," stated Drake. "But more than that, we cared about him personally. We prayed for him personally, for his family, his happiness and for his safety. The mission captured our minds, but John Glenn won our hearts."
"'He came out of the heart of the country, and he stole America's heart,'" said Vice President Joe Biden, repeating the words that Secretary of State John Kerry told to him to describe Glenn. "He gave what I think is probably the best description of John Glenn I've ever heard, and I knew John for 40 years."
"I think John defined what it meant to be America, what it meant to be an American [and] what we were about, just by how he acted," said Biden. "[He had] always a belief in tomorrow." [In Photos: John Glenn, First American in Orbit]
"When the Marines play 'Taps' on the bugle at Arlington [National Cemetery] for our friend, we can look deep into the heavens and know with certitude that John believed it was right, that future generations of Americans will look deep within the heavens and understand how to explore, how to serve, how to love."
"They will come to understand that if we are looking fo
r a message to send about our time here on Earth or what it means to be an American, it is the life of John Glenn, and that is not hyperbole," Biden said. "God bless you, John."
Amid psalms and prayers, choir performances and video clips featuring Glenn describing his own life's experiences, those who knew him well recalled his legacy.
"He invited us up to his level, where we discovered what an American could do," said retired Marine Corps General Jack Dailey, director of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. "He once said that he had been a Marine 23 years and it just wasn't enough. We had John for 95 great years and it still wasn't enough."
"Colonel John Glenn has made his last takeoff and he'll be missed, but never forgotten," Dailey said.
"It's fitting that this day we also mark the 113th anniversary of the Wright brothers' first powered flight," stated NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle-era astronaut. "Just as John advanced the frontiers of aviation, so too we will follow his legacy to us — to travel farther in space."
"John made us look up, not only to the sky thinking that we might actually be able to see him up there, but toward the higher purpose that we, as a country, are always striving to achieve," said Bolden.
The two-hour ceremony concluded with remembrances by Glenn's son and daughter, David and Carolyn ("Lyn"), as their mother and Glenn's wife of 73 years, Annie, looked on from the auditorium's front row.
"We really were not ready to say goodbye to him yet," said David Glenn. "His mind was sharp as a tack but his body was failing him and this had to be."
"Folks from around the world [and] from all walks of life remember and honor you, dad," said Lyn Glenn. "You lived many lives in one life — with honesty, grace, belief in our country and the honor of public service."
"I am proud and so grateful to say you're just my dad," she concluded. "Thank you dad, I love you. Godspeed, dad.”
