Mars Mission Selects 100 Finalists

The Mars One mission has named the 100 finalists for its proposed one-way trip to colonize the red planet.

More than 200,000 people applied to Mars One in 2013, hoping to be chosen to colonize Mars. Applicants had to be at least 18 years old, healthy and between 5'2" and 6'3" tall, as well as fulfilling various personality requirements such as exhibiting adaptability, resiliency, and resourcefulness. During the next round of the selection process, the number was whittled down to 660 during a series of interviews and tests, while the next round will give the remaining 100 people a chance to train in teams in an earthbound copy of the future Mars outpost. The plan is to film the final Mars One training period for a reality TV show, although there's already been a predictable amount of interest in the candidates. Last week the Guardian released a mini-documentary interviewing three of the applicants, pointing out the intrinsic strangeness of applying for a one-way trip to Mars—an incredibly dangerous mission that will, at best, result in extreme social isolation.

Six teams of four will be the final finalists and the "entire world" is supposed to vote on the team that will actually go. The mission has a planned launch date of 2024. British physicist Ryan MacDonald filmed himself getting the email notice that he's been selected.

Orion Launches Successfully

Via the Guardian:

Friday’s launch went smoothly, and cameras mounted on the rocket beamed back stunning pictures of the Earth as Orion blasted into the sky. The mission could have huge implications, despite its brief four-and-a-half-hour duration. Orion will fly farther than any spacecraft made for astronauts has in decades, about 3,600 miles (5,800km) above the Earth’s surface, and is a test case for a capsule that NASA hopes will one day land on Mars. As its second orbit comes closer to the planet, the Orion capsule will separate and re-enter the atmosphere, eventually splashing down into the Pacific off the coast of southern California, from where it will be recovered.

Buzz Aldrin: Get Your Ass To Mars

Yesterday Buzz Aldrin, the lunar module pilot of Apollo 11 and the second person to walk on the moon, held a Q&A on Twitter about his time as an astronaut. Aldrin closed the session with the above question. See the responses. Some of those viewing the video feed were curious about Aldrin's t-shirt, which he's selling on his website. The slogan is a quote from the original Total Recall.

NASA Spacecraft Orbits Mars

Via the New York Times:

NASA’s latest Mars spacecraft, Maven, arrived Sunday evening to study the mystery of what happened to the planet’s air. After a 33-minute engine firing, mission controllers received acknowledgment at about 10:25 p.m. Eastern time that Maven was in orbit around Mars. After a six-week period to turn on and check systems on the spacecraft and to move it to its final orbit, Maven — the name is short for Martian Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution — is to take detailed measurements of the dynamics of Mars’s upper atmosphere. But first, it will have a sideshow, taking observations of a comet that, by rare happenstance, will make a close flyby of Mars on Oct. 19, passing within 82,000 miles. Mission managers have arranged to activate Maven’s eight scientific sensors by then.

Muslim Leaders Declare Martian Fatwa

Details.

Confirmed: Mars Once Had Water

The Mars Curiosity rover has at last confirmed what astronomers have long believed.

The landing site of the Mars rover Curiosity was once covered with fast-moving and possibly waist-high water that could have possibly supported life, NASA scientists announced Thursday. While planetary scientists have often speculated that the now-desiccated surface of Mars was once wet, Curiosity cameras provided the first proof that flowing water was present on a least one part of Mars for “a long time.” Curiosity team scientists determined that flowing water was once present near the Gale Crater landing site based on the telltale size, shape and scattering of pebbles and gravel nearby. The roundedness of the pebbles is especially significant, they said, and strongly suggests that the rocks were carried down a roughly 25-mile stream or river and were smoothed along the way.

NASA Launches Mars Rover

Los Angeles Times reports:

With the roar of an Atlas 5 engine, NASA on Saturday began its boldest venture yet to another planet — sending the Mars Science Laboratory on an eight-month journey expected to provide more detailed information about whether the Red Planet is, or ever has been, hospitable to life.Its payload was the rover Curiosity, the largest and most sophisticated in a series of robotic vehicles that NASA has sent to Mars. Built at JPL, Curiosity is a six-wheeled, one-ton vehicle the size of a compact car that is bristling with an array of sophisticated scientific gadgets. Its mission, NASA officials have stressed, is not to find life on Mars, but to find out whether life ever could have existed there in the form of microbes, tiny organisms that are abundant on Earth. It also will try to find further evidence to suggest whether astronauts could survive on Mars, part of NASA's long-term plan to send a manned mission there.

VIDEO: The clarity of modern launches is amazing.

A Tweet From Mars: "We Have ICE!"

JMG reader Rafael tips us to the news that the Mars Phoenix Lander has found evidence of water ice on Mars. Fascinating.

The confirmation that water ice exists in the area directly surrounding the lander is big and good news for the Martian mission. NASA's stated goal for the Mars Phoenix was to find exactly this -- water ice -- and then analyze it. With the latest news, the first step is accomplished. All that's left now is to get the water into the Phoenix's instruments, a task which has occasionally proven more difficult than anticipated.

Oh, and how did the Phoenix send the news? Via its Twitter account.

"Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" the Mars Phoenix Lander tweeted at about 5:15 pm.