Manned NASA Mars Mission May Occur as Early as 2031

In Houston, Texas, NASA revealed that a manned mission to Mars may occur in 2031. Estimates of the cost of such a project range from $20 billion to $450 billion. The round trip of the mission is expected to last around 30 months. The spacecraft is planned to be built in orbit, due to the great size that it will need to be for the mission.

Source:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/29/nasa_mars/

Suspended Animation

Read this wikipedia article about Suspended Animation, and think about traveling to mars.

Here's a taste, "In July 2005 scientists at the University of Pittsburgh's Safar Center for Resuscitation Research announced they had managed to bring dogs back to life, most of them without brain damage, by draining the blood out of the dogs' bodies and putting an ice cold solution into their circulatory systems, which in turn keeps the bodies alive in stasis. After 3 hours of being clinically dead, their blood was put back into their circulatory systems, and the dogs were revived by delivering an electric shock to their hearts. The heart started pumping the blood around the frozen body, and the dogs were brought back to life."

Mars Society on Republican Debates

The Mars Society posed a question on the November 29th Republican CNN/YouTube debate. The question was posed to canidate Huckabee and asked, "What is your vision for human space exploration?" Huckabee answered that space was an important part of our society and cited things like GPS being important (including those people who used GPS to get to the debates that evening). Huckabee also joked that perhaps the first person on a rocket to Mars should be Hillary Clinton.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/republican-cnny.html

Discover Magazine Names Its Scientist Of The Year

" DISCOVER magazine has named Dr. David Charbonneau, the Harvard University astronomer renowned for his work with exoplanets, as its 2007 Scientist of the Year, in the December issue that hits newsstands November 13th. DISCOVER's Scientist of the Year award recognizes the researcher who has made the most important contribution to science in the past year.

Charbonneau was co-author of a paper at SPIE Optics + Photonics on the Gemini Exoplanet Discovery Instrument."

Link Here

Blow Up Base??

An inflatable habitat designed for explorers on the moon or Mars is headed for an Antarctic test run, NASA said Wednesday. The habitat is built by ILC Dover and looks like one of those backyard bounce things. It will make it deput on the South Pole early next year. NASA demonstrated the inflatable prototype on Wednesday at ILC Dover's Frederica, Del., facility and deflated and inflated it about ten times. The structure will be deployed in the Antarctic this coming January. The goal: to use just four people and deploy everything in four hours. Working in bulky cold weather gear will also make the deployment more analogous to the challenges facing astronauts clad in cumbersome spacesuits on the moon and eventually on Mars.
The habitat prototype will eventually serve as a multilayered test platform for new technologies such as health monitoring systems, self-healing materials, and protective radiation materials. When not inflated, the habitat can save on space and weight during transportation. This will be very helpful on long trips to the moon and Mars. Lets just hope that this base dosent get hit by an meteor and pop!

First Stage of Mars-500 Preparation Completed

The Mars-500 simulation is underway, with the first stage of preparations concluded, which was announced today. One of the purposes of the first stage was equipment preparation and testing. The main experiment will be an attempt to simulate a manned Mars mission. Mars-500 will be run by the Russian Institute of Biological Problems, and the main stage of the experiment should begin in late 2008.

Source:
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071129/90068605.html

Mars Express Circles Planet 5,000 Times

Mars Express has completed 5,000 orbits of the red planet, just short of four years after it arrived on Christmas day, 2003. The craft has sent back marvellously detailed pictures of Mars' surface, adding to our knowledge of the planet's geological history and evolution.

For more information and to look at this amazing pictures of Mars go to: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/26/mars_express_5000/