Category Archives: Living in Space

Moon dust may not be as dry as thought

Speaking of the Moon, there are indications that there could be minute but non-zero amounts of water in lunar dust created by solar wind protons smacking into mineral molecules and freeing oxygen, which would in turn combine with the protons (i.e. hydrogen) : Space Dust Possible Source Of Water On Moon And Maybe Even Life On Other Planets – IBTimes.com –

Researchers from the University of Hawaii, Manoa, the University of California, Berkeley, and California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used state-of-the-art electron microscopes to get a close-up look at particles of interplanetary space dust. What they found was that solar wind radiation had changed the outer rims on the silicate minerals in space dust to water, something scientists previously believed to be the case but weren’t able to prove because of limited technology.

Their study, published in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that the water found on interplanetary dust forms from the reaction of solar wind and oxygen in the silicate mineral grains. Solar wind, which bombards the particles with ionized hydrogen atoms, reorganized the atoms in the dust particles, leaving oxygen more available to react with hydrogen to create water. Researchers say the implications of finding water on the rims of space dust are huge.

Video: Space to Ground – update on ISS activities

This NASA video gives a brief update on what has been happening on the International Space Station and what’s planned for the coming weeks:

Video: Studying Fire In Space (FLEX-2)

An interesting discussion of combustion research in microgravity:

Caption:

Public Affairs Officer Lori Meggs at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama talks about a “cool” flames experiment in space. Meggs speaks to Vedha Nayagam, co-investigator for the FLEX-2 combustion experiment.

You never want to hear about a fire in space, but for this experiment, that’s exactly what had to happen. The FLEX-2 experiment burned different types of fuel droplets and showed us how flames behave without gravity, so that we may learn better ways to extinguish flames in space — information that could lead to improved environmentally friendly fuels on Earth.

Read more about FLEX-2…http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sta…

ESA’s Mars simulation in Antarctica & Utah + NPR report on Mars settlement

The European Space Agency is carrying out an experiment involving interactions between two simulated Mars bases – one at the Concordia station in Antarctica and one at the Mars Society‘s Mars Desert Research Station in Utah: Connecting Mars to Mars: Concordia joins Mars Desert Research Station telesurgery experiment – Chronicles from Concordia

The exercises included simulated telesurgeries: ▶ Anesthesia sim session at MDRS – YouTube

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Here’s a NPR news segment about the potential for Mars settlements and discusses the HI-SEAS Mars base simulation in Hawaii and the Mars One organization: Mars Or Bust: Putting Humans On The Red Planet – NPR.

Video: A Mars One crew candidate

A brief snippet of a BBC interview with Ryan MacDonald, who passed the first cut in the selection by Mars One of the applicants for their first crew  : ‘I really want to live on Mars’ – Ryan MacDonald – BBC