STEPHEN HAWKING: WE HAVE 100 YEARS TO LEAVE EARTH

Yummy, Helium 3 is gooood!
(WTF should I comment about that)

Believe, they're planning it. Whether or not they have the technological sophistication to carry it out is a different matter. They would no balk at lossing some lives in the attempt.

The only roach in the pudding is that very few physicists are actually convinced that 3He will be usable for fusion reactions. So far, experiments have not shown a net increase of energy while making the heavier "non-radioactive" products.

Yeah, I agree, it's iffy. But they are planning for it--probably on a contingency basis.

Reminds me of the Sci-Fi movie "Moon" (which is kind of about that subject, but I'd give too much away if I went into detail).

Excellent movie.

https://futurism.com/japans-space-agency-going-moons-mars-2024/

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is planning to explore the moons of Mars during the 2020s. The goal is to take samples from below the surfaces of the moons so researchers can discover the origins of the moons.
In the coming decades, the world’s largest space agencies hope to mount some exciting missions to the Moon and to Mars. Between NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), there is simply no shortage of proposals for Lunar bases, crewed missions to Mars, and robotic explorers to both.

However, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has a different mission in mind when it comes to the coming decades. Instead of exploring the Moon or Mars, they propose exploring the moons of Mars! Known as the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission, the plan is to have a robotic spacecraft fly to Phobos and Deimos to explore their surfaces and return samples to Earth for analysis.

The spacecraft would be deployed sometime in the 2020s, and would be tasked with two main objectives. The first would be to help scientists determine the origins of Phobos and Deimos, which has been a subject of debate for some time. Whereas some believe that these moons are capture asteroids, others have argued that they were created when fragments ejected from Mars (due to giant impacts on the surface) came together.


Phobos and Deimos, photographed here by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, are tiny, irregularly-shaped moons that are probably strays from the main asteroid belt. Image Credit: NASA
As Dr. Masaki Fujimoto, a Professor at JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) and the Team Manager of the MMX mission, told Universe Today via email:

MMX will land on Phobos and acquire samples of at least 10 grams from more than 2cm below the surface. Analysis of samples returned to Earth will clarify the nature of the asteroid that led to the formation of the moon. Deimos observations will be limited to flyby imaging, but combined with ground data to be obtained for Phobos, we should be able to constrain its origin in a substantial manner.
The second objective focuses on the characterization of conditions both on and around the moons of Mars. This includes surface processes on Phobos and Deimos, the nature of the environment in which they orbit, and the global and temporal dynamics of Mars atmosphere — i.e. dust, clouds and water vapor.

“Airless bodies such as asteroids are exposed to space weathering processes,” said Dr. Fujimoto. “In the case of Phobos, an impact event on the surface releases many dust particles. Unlike an asteroid in the interplanetary space, dust particles will not be simply lost but will orbit around Mars and return and hit the Phobos surface. This is regarded as the reason that Phobos has a very thick regolith layer. Knowing this process is to know the attributes of returned samples better.”

Japan’s Space Agency Will Be Going to the Moons of Mars in 2024
Artist’s impression of the MMX spacecraft in launch configuration. Image Credit: JAXA/ISAS
Another major objective of this mission is to learn more about small bodies coming from the outer Solar System. As the outermost rocky planet, Mars’ orbit marks the boundary between the terrestrial planets — which have solid surfaces and variable atmospheres (ranging from super-thing to dense) — and the gas and ice giants of the outer Solar System that have highly dense atmospheres.

Because of this, studying Mars’ moons, determining their origin, and learning more about the Martian orbital environment could teach us a lot about the evolution of the Solar System. Not only does such a mission present opportunities to study how planets like Mars formed, but also the process of by which primordial materials were transported between the inner and outer Solar Systems during its early history. As Dr. Fujimoto explained:

These small bodies were the delivery capsules for water from outside the Frost Line to the Habitable Zone of the solar system, where our planet is situated. Earth was born dry and needed delivery of water for its habitability to be switched on at all. It is likely that one of the (failed) deliveries led to the formation of Phobos, and, sample analysis will tell us about the failed capsule.

This is obviously the case when the capture idea turns out to be correct. Even for the case of giant impact, the scale of the impact is considered to be not too gigantic to alter fully the materials, implying that sample analysis would tell us something about the impactor asteroid.
As it stands, the probe is scheduled to launch in September 2024, taking advantage of the fact that Earth and Mars will be at the nearest point to each other in their orbits at this time. It will arrive around Mars by 2025, conduct its studies for a three-year period, and then return to Earth by July of 2029. Once there, it will rely on a suite of scientific instruments to conduct surveys and obtain samples.


Artist’s concept of the MMX spacecraft in orbital configuration, with its scientific instruments indicated. Image Credit: JAXA/ISAS
These instruments include a Neutron and Gamma-ray Spectrometer (NGRS), a Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRS), a Wide Angle Multiband Camera (WAM), a Telescopic Camera (TL), a Circum-Martian Dust Monitor (CMDM), a Mass Spectrum Analyzer (MSA), and a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) instrument.

Details on the mission profile and the instruments were included in a presentation made by Dr. Fujimoto and the MMX Science Board members at the recent 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. The mission profile and information on the objectives were also made available in an abstract that was issued in advance of the upcoming European Planetary Science Congress 2017.

The mission will also leverage some key partnerships that JAXA is currently engaged in. These include an agreement reached with NASA back in late March to include the Neutron and Gamma-ray Spectrometer (NGRS) in the MMX’s instrument suite. And in April, JAXA and the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) signed an Implementation Agreement (IA) that would allow the French national space agency to participate in the mission as well.

If all goes as planned, JAXA will be spending the next decade gathering information that could bridge findings made by Lunar and Martian missions. Whereas lunar research will reveal things about the history of the Moon, and Martian missions will offer new insights into Mars’ geology and evolution (and perhaps if life still exists there!), the MMX mission will reveal things about the history of Mars’ moons and the early Solar System as a whole.
Other proposals that JAXA is currently working on include the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) and SPICA, two missions that will explore Jupiter’s Galilean Moons and conduct infrared astronomy (respectively) in the coming decade

https://sputniknews.com/environment/201705291054099395-mars-clouds-atmosphere/

The sky over Mars may soon be shrouded by clouds: a scientist from the Russian city of Arkhangelsk has just patented a novel invention for creating an atmosphere on Mars. According to the researcher, it will help to control the weather on the Red Planet making colonization possible.

Aleksandr Popov, a member of the International Academy of Science, already has eight patents, and all of them are associated with the exploration of Mars. His latest invention is called "Method of heating up the Mars' atmosphere."

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, has just unveiled plans to land on a Martian moon.
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The inventor has proposed using Mars' polar caps, which are composed of solid carbon dioxide and ice. According to Popov, about once every two years, these polar caps begin to "melt" — changing into a gaseous state. Meanwhile, the ice remains on the surface. "With the help of a concentrated solar power system, it can be converted into steam, which is further transformed into a mist or clouds," he told the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
In addition, the scientist has also patented a method for forming an ozone shield in the Martian atmosphere. While other scientists offer more knowledge-intensive methods attempting to create an Earth-like atmosphere on Mars, Popov offers a simple solution: fill it with carbon dioxide, which will increase the temperature and create a more favorable environment.

Mars
© PHOTO: PIXABAY
No Oxygen? No Problem! Mars’ Volcanoes May Have Created Conditions Ripe for Life
Popov suggests using an iron rope releasing nitric acid; during Martian dust storms, dust particles will charge the cable with electricity by friction. An electrical discharge created in the atmosphere will trigger the decomposition of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide and oxygen, leading to the creation of an ozone layer.
The researcher believes that the colonization of Mars is just around the corner, and may even begin in some 20-30 years. Currently, the scientist is working on improving the efficiency of his inventions and on making them more affordable and practical.

That Russian proposal sounds like the joker wants to dump a bunch of CO2 into the atmosphere. That would be disastrous for Martian colonization--it would take tens of thousands of years to scrub it out again with plant life.

He prolly don't gots no rocket ships.

I suspect that the Tsar Vladimir Putin is not spending a bunch of money on their space agency. Perhaps this joker just wants to get a cut by taking out patents on the intellectual property.

https://futurism.com/nasa-just-released-their-latest-plans-to-get-humans-to-mars/
These details on just how NASA plans to bring humans to the Red Planet came via an article published on the organization’s official website on March 28. While the agency may be treading lightly in the publicity department these days due to the political climate, it has already received a clear mandate from the government to get humans to Mars by 2033.
“There’s now a sense of urgency,” according to NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. “The hope is we’ve created enough of a framework that folks can see that there’s a real plan worth executing. But also, it’s not so defined that it if some piece changes, the entire plan gets thrown away and we start all over again.”

A Gateway and a Transport
NASA has been busy preparing for next year’s test flight of its Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft. Both the SLS and the Orion are critical elements of NASA’s new plans, which still follow the basic program the agency previously outlined. During the 2020s, NASA will focus on learning how to live and work in lunar orbit. Then, by the 2030s, it will start heading to Mars.
The first phase of NASA’s plan is to build what it’s calling a deep space gateway (DSG), which would essentially be a small space station orbiting the Moon. The plan is to assemble it over the course of three SLS flights and have it completed by 2025. The DSG is meant to be staffed on a continuous basis and could sustain a crew of four, with the Orion docked, for 42 days, according to Planetary.org. It would have a propulsion module, a habitation module, and perhaps an airlock for spacewalks.

The DSG (left) and the DST (right). Image credit: NASA
The DSG would serve as a space port or launch base for potential lunar landing missions, as well as for a deep space transport (DST) spacecraft. This is phase two of NASA’s plan. Planetary.org reports that the DST would be able to support a crew of four for as long as 1,000 days at a time. Between missions, supply and refurbishing runs would be done at the DSG.
The DST would be massive, with a predicted bare weight of about 41 metric tons. The plan is to launch it into lunar orbit in 2027 via a single SLS mission. “There’s really no [other] vehicle today, or even planned, that can launch 41 metric tons (to the Moon) in one piece,” said Gerstenmaier. “We think that that is the minimum size for this Mars-class transport.” If all goes well up to that point, NASA expects the DST to survive three trips to Mars and back.
Despite the agency’s understated approach to sharing its plans for Mars, Gerstenmaier is confident that NASA is well-equipped to pull them off. “There’s nothing this agency cannot do,” he said. “If you can give us a clear direction and give us reasonable resources, this agency and its contractor base will accomplish what you want.”

https://phys.org/news/2017-03-nasa-magnetic-shield-mars-atmosphere.html

In answer to this challenge, Dr. Jim Green – the Director of NASA's Planetary Science Division – and a panel of researchers presented an ambitious idea. In essence, they suggested that by positioning a magnetic dipole shield at the Mars L1 Lagrange Point, an artificial magnetosphere could be formed that would encompass the entire planet, thus shielding it from solar wind and radiation.


Naturally, Green and his colleagues acknowledged that the idea might sounds a bit "fanciful". However, they were quick to emphasize how new research into miniature magnetospheres (for the sake of protecting crews and spacecraft) supports this concept:
NASA proposes a magnetic shield to protect Mars’ atmosphere
The proposed method for creating an artificial magnetic dipole at Mars’ L1 Lagrange Point. Credit: NASA/J.Green
"This new research is coming about due to the application of full plasma physics codes and laboratory experiments. In the future it is quite possible that an inflatable structure(s) can generate a magnetic dipole field at a level of perhaps 1 or 2 Tesla (or 10,000 to 20,000 Gauss) as an active shield against the solar wind."
In addition, the positioning of this magnetic shield would ensure that the two regions where most of Mars' atmosphere is lost would be shielded. In the course of the presentation, Green and the panel indicated that these the major escape channels are located, "over the northern polar cap involving higher energy ionospheric material, and 2) in the equatorial zone involving a seasonal low energy component with as much as 0.1 kg/s escape of oxygen ions."
To test this idea, the research team – which included scientists from Ames Research Center, the Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Colorado, Princeton University, and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory – conducted a series of simulations using their proposed artificial magnetosphere. These were run at the Coordinated Community Modeling Center (CCMC), which specializes in space weather research, to see what the net effect would be.
What they found was that a dipole field positioned at Mars L1 Lagrange Point would be able to counteract solar wind, such that Mars' atmosphere would achieve a new balance. At present, atmospheric loss on Mars is balanced to some degree by volcanic outpassing from Mars interior and crust. This contributes to a surface atmosphere that is about 6 mbar in air pressure (less than 1% that at sea level on Earth).
NASA proposes a magnetic shield to protect Mars’ atmosphere
At one time, Mars had a magnetic field similar to Earth, which prevented its atmosphere from being stripped away. Credit: NASA
As a result, Mars atmosphere would naturally thicken over time, which lead to many new possibilities for human exploration and colonization. According to Green and his colleagues, these would include an average increase of about 4 °C (~7 °F), which would be enough to melt the carbon dioxide ice in the northern polar ice cap. This would trigger a greenhouse effect, warming the atmosphere further and causing the water ice in the polar caps to melt.
By their calculations, Green and his colleagues estimated that this could lead to 1/7th of Mars' oceans – the ones that covered it billions of years ago – to be restored. If this is beginning to sound a bit like a lecture on how to terraform Mars, it is probably because these same ideas have been raised by people who advocating that very thing. But in the meantime, these changes would facilitate human exploration between now and mid-century.
"A greatly enhanced Martian atmosphere, in both pressure and temperature, that would be enough to allow significant surface liquid water would also have a number of benefits for science and human exploration in the 2040s and beyond," said Green. "Much like Earth, an enhanced atmosphere would: allow larger landed mass of equipment to the surface, shield against most cosmic and solar particle radiation, extend the ability for oxygen extraction, and provide "open air" greenhouses to exist for plant production, just to name a few."
These conditions, said Green and his colleagues, would also allow for human explorers to study the planet in much greater detail. It would also help them to determine the habitability of the planet, since many of the signs that pointed towards it being habitable in the past (i.e. liquid water) would slowly seep back into the landscape. And if this could be achieved within the space of few decades, it would certainly help pave the way for colonization.
In the meantime, Green and his colleagues plan to review the results of these simulations so they can produce a more accurate assessment of how long these projected changes would take. It also might not hurt to conduct some cost-assessments of this magnetic shield. While it might seem like something out of science fiction, it doesn't hurt to crunch the numbers!

I'm glad to see that NASA is finally paying attention to protecting crews on long space flights. As recently as 2014, they were blithely stating that current space craft technology could protect the crew on a long voyage. That's BS, because all of our activities to date have been within the earth's rather spacious magnetosphere, except for a few days of each moon mission, and those were timed to avoid if possible, heavy solar flare activity. Just thirty minutes of the radiation storm from a solar flare could kill an entire crew not better protected than what was offered by early space craft.

What is disturbing is that those idiots are suggesting a thicker Martian atmosphere by releasing the CO2 in the Martian polar caps. That would mean thousands and thousands of years living underground. Of course, maybe they like that idea because then they'd have a population much easier to control.

Have you considered the magnetic dipole idea?

Intellectuals predicting environmental apocalypse are a dime a dozen. Adam Smith (1776) mentions them as a century-old phenomenon. So far, such prophesies have proven false for as there have been human intellectuals.

This article is a good example of why laypeople should not accept such claims on the authority of the scientists making them. We should apply critical thinking of our own. In particular, we should ask questions like, how is Hawking's claim refutable? (It isn't, at least not by anyone alive now.) What is Hawking's evidence for an apocalypse in 1,000--10,000 years? And what is his evidence that investing in space travel will end up saving more human lives than, say, investing the same money in, say, a vaccine for Malaria? Maybe the upcoming BBC movie will contain some, but as of now, I'm not seeing much.

Steven Hawking has every right to drum up interest for his movie with provocative statements. But we shouldn't sheepishly treat it as science. It is not.

Can you please define what you mean by "alternative economic systems?" For example, do you consider the Scandinavian welfare states to be alternative systems or a variant of capitalism?

It's not accepting his time table that caused me to start the thread. I just want to see us go to Mars. I am already probably not going to live to see it, but I would love to see real progress in that direction.