Now regaeding manned missions this is completely another fairytale. They built for that purpose a new fully digital spacecraft with Lunar and Mars landing capability. Russians told that Moon is an ideal test ground for Mars landing rehearsals.

I’ve posted links on this before but later will dig them up and repost h

http://phys.org/news/2013-06-moon-health-astronauts.html

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1930

The official Web site is gone. I think the timeline is a bit much and I wonder about their idea that a written constitution would keep the generations together and behaving, but it is one of the first serious Worldship plans I recall seeing and felt it needs to at least be looked at again.

The fine Martian dust combined with the exhaust flare of landing rockets will make a very potent sandblasting effect. A manned landing vehicle will need a powerful thruster to touch down all that tonnage safely.

That might not be a problem for the first few manned missions to the Red Planet, but what happens when a base is set up? The landing zone will have to be placed fairly far away in order not to sandblast the base, its external equipment, and any unfortunate astronauts who happen to be outdoors at the time.

It is not an unsolvable problem, to be sure, but it might be an issue during the critical times in establishing a permanent base. If a base failed, I can see whoever funded it being quite reluctant to dole out more money – especially if it is a corporation where the bottom line is all.

And the Moon (can we please call it Luna since there are hundreds of moons in our Sol system) has its own big problems with gritty surface dust. Just ask the Apollo astronauts who were only there for three Earth days at the most.

Some details here:

http://www.4frontierscorp.com/dev/assets/Anita%20and%20Dick%20-%20Requirements%20for%20Space%20Settlements%20on%20the%20Moon%20and%20Mars.pdf

“Russians will have a family of reusable new generation manned Lunar landing vehicle by 2018 and they have plans for manned mission around 2024.”

With all due respect, Dmitri, will they have learned by then from the problems with Phobos-Grunt?

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/phobos_grunt.html

I predict that should the Chinese or Russians set up a manned base on the Moon that they will create a large illuminated representation of their national flags or some other recognizable symbol of their culture across the lunar surface that will be visible from Earth without optical aid.

Perhaps that will spur NASA or American businesses to do something about the situation. It always seems to be that we need a kick in the pants to get moving and then we go gangbusters, at least for a while.

“Cosmic Evolution Tends to Extinguish Species that Advertise Themselves” — The Dangers of Messaging ET

“Evolutionary selection, acting on a cosmic scale, tends to extinguish species which conspicuously advertise themselves and their habitats,” according to Adrian Kent, Centre for Quantum Computation, University of Cambridge.

Science fiction writer and astrophysicist Dr. David Brin echoed Kent’s thesis with his reponse to the recent Lone Signal announcement of METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) “beams” to the Gliese 526 solar system.

In his Brinstorming Science 2.0 blog, Brin updated his 2006 article on METI (aka active SETI), writing: “Recently, several groups, ranging from radio astronomers in Argentina and Russia all the way to the web advertising site Craigslist, have declared that they intend to commence broadcasting high-intensity Messages to ETI… or METI… an endeavor also known at “Active Seti.

“Their intention is to change the observable brightness of Earth civilization by many orders of magnitude, in order to attract attention to our planet from anyone who might be out there.”

Specifically, Brin is responding to the “Lone Signal” project that believes that crowd sourcing messaging to intelligent life (METI) is the ideal approach to establishing a stable, cohesive, and well-resourced interstellar beacon on Earth. Anyone with Internet access to compose and transmit messages to strategically targeted stellar systems.

Launching June 18, 2013, Lone Signal’s unfettered access to the broadcasting capacity of Jamesburg Earth Station in Carmel, CA allows them to target the closest known stars suspected to harbor potentially habitable planets orbiting in their circumstellar habitable zones — otherwise referred to as “Goldilocks zones.”

Full article here:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2013/06/cosmic-evolution-tends-to-extinguish-species-that-advertise-themselves-the-dangers-of-messaging-et.html

To quote:

Let there be no mistake, Brin says, “METI is a very different thing than passively sifting for signals from the outer space. Carl Sagan, one of the greatest SETI supporters and a deep believer in the notion of altruistic alien civilizations, called such a move deeply unwise and immature. (Even Frank Drake, who famously sent the “Arecibo Message” toward the Andromeda Galaxy in 1974, considered “Active SETI to be, at best, a stunt and generally a waste of time.)

Sagan — along with early SETI pioneer Philip Morrison — recommended that the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand.

** Contact information appears below. **

Text & Images:

http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/2013/06/19/professor-finds-prehistoric-rock-art-connected-maps-cosmological-belief/

UT PROFESSOR FINDS PREHISTORIC ROCK ART CONNECTED; MAPS COSMOLOGICAL BELIEF

It is likely some of the most widespread and oldest art in the United States. Pieces of rock art dot the Appalachian Mountains, and research by University of Tennessee, Knoxville, anthropology professor Jan Simek finds each engraving or drawing is strategically placed to reveal a cosmological puzzle.

Recently, the discoveries of prehistoric rock art have become more common. With these discoveries comes a single giant one — all these drawings and engravings map the prehistoric peoples’ cosmological world.

The research led by Simek, president emeritus of the UT system and a distinguished professor of science, is published in this month’s edition of the journal Antiquity at http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/087/ant0870430.htm. The paper is co-authored by Nick Herrmann of Mississippi State University, Alan Cressler of the U.S. Geological Survey, and Sarah Sherwood of The University of the South.

The researchers proposed that rock art changed the natural landscape to reflect a three-dimensional universe central to the religion of the prehistoric Mississippian period.

“Our findings provide a window into what Native American societies were like beginning more than 6,000 years ago,” said Simek. “They tell us that the prehistoric peoples in the Cumberland Plateau, a section of the Appalachian Mountains, used the rather distinctive upland environment to map their conceptual universe onto the natural world in which they lived.”

Simek and his team analyzed 44 open-air art sites where the art is exposed to light and 50 cave art sites in the Cumberland Plateau using nondestructive, high-tech tools, such as a high-resolution laser scanner. Through analysis of the depictions, colors and spatial organization, they found that the sites mimic the Southeastern native people’s cosmological principles.

“The cosmological divisions of the universe were mapped onto the physical landscape using the relief of the Cumberland Plateau as a topographic canvas,” said Simek.

The “upper world” included celestial bodies and weather forces personified in mythic characters that exerted influences on the human situation. Mostly open-air art sites located in high elevations touched by the Sun and stars feature these images. Many of the images are drawn in the color red, which was associated with life.

The “middle world” represented the natural world. A mixture of open-air and cave art sites hug the middle of the plateau and feature images of people, plants and animals of mostly secular character.

The “lower world” was characterized by darkness and danger, and was associated with death, transformation and renewal. The art sites, predominantly found in caves, feature otherworldly characters, supernatural serpents and dogs that accompanied dead humans on the path of souls. The inclusion of creatures such as birds and fish that could cross the three layers represents the belief that the boundaries were permeable. Many of these images are depicted in the color black, which was associated with death.

“This layered universe was a stage for a variety of actors that included heroes, monsters and creatures that could cross between the levels,” Simek said.

Interestingly, weapons are rarely featured in any of the art sites.

Simek said the scale of the rendering is most impressive, noting the Cumberland Plateau was a sacred setting, spanning hundreds of miles, in which individual sites were only parts of a greater conceptual whole.

Contact:

Whitney Heins
+1 865-974-5460
wheins@utk.edu

Photo:

http://www.utk.edu/tntoday/wp-content/uploads/cave-art.jpg

Caption:

This art features a bird holding ceremonial maces and a ceremonial monolithic axe transforming into a human face.

Credit:

Jan Simek, Alan Cressler, Nicholas Herrmann, and Sarah Sherwood/Antiquity Publications Ltd.

Incidentaly:
The more we learn about Mars the less I like it as a colony site, it’s advantages over the Moon as great as we might like to think.

Mars atmosphere is so tenous meteorites regularly strike its surface at
high kinetic energy. If you were impacted 1mm sized iron piece you
can bet it woudn’t just leave a bruise.
The power yield from solar power is half that of Earth.
The soil of Mars is fairly reactant and fine.
There is a significant temperature gradient. (materials degradation)

Its three great advatages are ,plentyfull raw materials , more gravity.
Atmosphere. (on balance it’s only useful in aerobraking)

A location on the moon chosen at the right place could support
10-20 thousand colonists. While mars could easily support millions
it’s distance will make it cost prohibitive to colonize there in the near future.

Don’t know much about ambitious plans of China, probably there is a significant one as they have bough all the former Soviet space technology and developing for their need. I think Moon is quite possibly high on their agenda as it allows to make its mark in history and world around.

Russians will have a family of reusable new generation manned Lunar landing vehicle by 2018 and they have plans for manned mission around 2024.

Roscosmos asks from NASA for a seat to the ISS $70mln, all inclusive.

Sarah Brightman will be next space tourist to the ISS. The start will be in 2 years and she will spend 10 days on the ISS. Cost – $50 mln.