Elon Musk says we need to colonize Mars so that there will be humans who survive the next war.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Humans must prioritise the colonisation of Mars so the species can be conserved in the event of a third world war, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk said on Sunday.

“It’s important to get a self-sustaining base on Mars because it’s far enough away from Earth that [in the event of a war] it’s more likely to survive than a moon base,” Musk said on stage at SXSW – just days after Donald Trump announced plans to meet the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, in an attempt to defuse rising nuclear tension. 

“If there’s a third world war we want to make sure there’s enough of a seed of human civilisation somewhere else to bring it back and shorten the length of the dark ages,” Musk said, responding to questions from his friend Jonah Nolan, co-creator of TV show Westworld.

You know just a year or so ago I would have said this is hyperbolic and a severe overreaction.

Now I am simply hoping that Musk has enough time to solidify his plans before it is too late. 

NASA has discovered liquid water on Mars. Just thought you should know that this morning.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Potentially life-giving water still flows across the ancient surface of Mars from time to time, NASA scientists said Monday in revealing a potential breakthrough in both the search for life beyond Earth and human hopes to one day travel there. 

While the discovery doesn't by itself offer evidence of life on Mars, either past or present, it does boost hopes of that the harsh landscape still offers some refuge to life. 

"The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water, gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA.

So that is just one of the things that science has discovered this week.

But remember there is no reason to focus on teaching it to our children, or spending tax payer money on it, after all its not like it provides answers to any of the important questions about our origins or the survival of our species or anything.

In fact Rush Limbaugh does not even believe that NASA found anything.

Stephen Hawking announces project to use 100 million dollars in search for alien life.

Courtesy of The Washington Post: 

On Monday, famed physicist Stephen Hawking and Russian tycoon Yuri Milner held a news conference in London to announce their new project: injecting $100 million and a whole lot of brain power into the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, an endeavor they're calling Breakthrough Listen. 

"We believe that life arose spontaneously on Earth," Hawking said at Monday's news conference, "So in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life."

Okay while the skeptic inside of me wonders if this one hundred million would not be better spent on education, or feeding the poor, or fighting climate change the twelve year old boy inside of me has a prepubescent chubby at the very thought of discovering life out in space.

I don't think I mention it very often, but on my bucket list is to be around long enough to witness the discovery of life on other planets.

It seems more than logical that it must exist, so all we have to do is locate a few space amoebas and I can die a happy man.  (Well actually it will take a bit more to die completely happy but trust me you don't want to hear about that.)

We are all Africans.

If image does not expand click here.

All of us, every single one of us, well except those people still living in Africa, are descendants of immigrants who bravely left their homeland to explore the world.

And yet today immigrants are the most vilified group on the planet.

Borders, territories, state lines are all the creation of man, and an attempt to lay claim to that which can never be owned and which should be open and accessible to every human on the planet without regard to their place of origin.

Because ultimately let's face it, THEIR place of origin, is OUR place of origin.

The 25th anniversary of "The Pale Blue Dot."

Courtesy of Penny4NASA:

NASA’s Voyager spacecraft captured one of the most memorable images in the history of space exploration 25 years ago today. 

On Feb. 14, 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft was commanded by NASA at the suggestion of Carl Sagan to turn its camera around and take a picture of Earth one last time before it headed on its way out of the solar system. The photo is now widely recognized as the “Pale Blue Dot.”

Actually I'm a day late. The anniversary was yesterday, but I am such a fan of that video and this picture...

 ...that I could not let the anniversary pass without comment.

Personally I think there should be a way to mandate that religious, political, or business leaders be forced to watch that video whenever they begin to get a little too arrogant or feeling self important.

I find it to be quite humbling, and at the same time inspirational.

Someday we will break our bonds to this planet and courageously head off into the vastness of space to forge a new future. I can only imagine the wonders that lay before us which are as yet undiscovered and feel a little jealous that I will not be among those to witness them for the first time.

Watching this literally fills me with joy.

If we could only shed ourselves of our crippling insecurities, and shake off the chains of superstition, just imagine how much farther we would be down the path of understanding.

Everyday we should ask ourselves what we want to learn today.

And the answer should always come back "Everything."

The Story of us.

I thought you could use a little inspiration this evening.

Every step we take forward into our future, is one more step away from the fear and uncertainty which once frightened us into accepting supernatural explanations for the natural miracles all around us.

We are explorers, we are creators, we are humans. And we have just begun to show what we can do.

Government shutdown breaks NASA and delays planned Mars mission until 2016. Okay now I'm pissed!

Courtesy of Slate:  

The United States government is shut down. The ramifications of this are both broad and deep, and I urge you to read the numerous articles on Slate covering this news. 

Since space is my place, though, I want to remind you that the shutdown means NASA is grounded. A staggering 97 percent of NASA employees have been furloughed. This means all nonessential science has been stopped dead. 

To me, all science is essential, so perhaps I should give some details. So much work has been halted that it’s far easier to say who is going to work today. Basically, it's only people involved in International Space Station operations—ensuing the safety of humans currently in space is a clear priority—as well as people who make sure NASA property is protected. (UPDATE, Oct. 1, 16:00 UTC: To be clear, operations for missions currently underway are also being continued.) 

What this really means, though, is that about 17,500 NASA employees are staying home today. Out of 18,000 NASA employees. 

This may severely affect future missions. Any mission not already underway will have its work halted. As an urgent example, up until today NASA scientists and engineers were busily preparing the Mars MAVEN mission for its scheduled launch on Nov. 18. That work must cease, and the ramifications are not good: Launching a probe to another planet is beholden to the laws of physics as much as to those of Congress. Mars and Earth must be in the right positions for the spacecraft to launch, and those windows only occur every 26 months. If MAVEN doesn’t launch, it’ll be 2016 before worlds align again. The cost for this will be large; people will have to find other work (where it’s unclear if and when they can go back to the old mission and how much time it will take to get back up to speed). It’s a physical risk to wait as well; the spacecraft will have to be transported and stored, and every trip on Earth increases the chance of a problem. The critical malfunction of the NASA Galileo probe was almost certainly due to a delay in launch. 

The government shutdown also means all NASA outreach is offline, and that includes all websites and social media. 

I know what you are thinking, "Come on Gryphen with so many people suffering from the shutdown surely NASA is not that important of a concern"

Au contraire mon frere, it is VERY important.

It is my firmly held belief that our prime directive as human beings to explore the world and universe around us, and anything which interferes in that is actively impeding our progress and our destiny.

And this is especially relevant now since the Mars Rover recently discovered water on Mars.

That's right, freaking water, on freaking Mars!

Look folks this government shutdown is wrong and hurtful for a whole slew of reasons, but in my mind the fact that it interferes with our ability to discover, learn, and explore may be the most painful reason of all.

Perhaps an uncomfortable truth, but a truth nonetheless.

Actually I think we would still find things to fight about, after all we are only human, but the hindrance to science and the vilification of others by religion is well documented.

And the truly sad part is that it not only continues today, it is oppressing entire continents, and teaching hate to an entirely new generation.

Final thought of the day.

It is truly frightening how often the latter is true.

Don't you think?

Neil deGrasse Tyson debunks the idea of privatizing space exploration: "From where I sit there is a lot of delusional thinking there."

The only way the private sector would have funded a mission to Mars is if the planet was simply oozing with oil. Any possible life on the planet would have been of no interest unless they could put it in a cage and charge admission for people to look at it.

These latest pictures from the Mars rover Curiosity have me a little concerned that we are not welcome.

But then again I can hardly blame them.

Isn't this the problem with America? That we ALWAYS  invade foreign places and then act insulted that they are not thrilled to have us there proselytizing our religious beliefs and trying to get them to eat Big Macs?

And does anybody have ANY doubt we will do the exact same thing if we DO find life on Mars?

Are you watching? Tonight we should ALL be filled with Curiosity.

Courtesy of NASA:

Its approximately 352 million mile (567 million kilometer), 36-week journey from Earth nearly complete, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft and its Curiosity rover are "all systems go" for touchdown in Mars' Gale Crater tonight at 10:31 p.m. PDT (1:31 a.m. EDT Aug. 6). This morning, flight controllers decided to forgo the sixth and final opportunity on the mission calendar for a course-correction maneuver. The spacecraft is headed for its target entry point at the top of Mars' atmosphere precisely enough that the maneuver was deemed unnecessary. In addition, this afternoon, mission controllers determined that no further updates are necessary to the onboard information the spacecraft will use during its autonomous control of MSL's entry, descent and landing. Parameters on a motion tracker were adjusted Saturday for fine-tuning determination of the spacecraft's orientation during its descent.

Any minute hour now Curiosity should be touching down. (Sorry I got a little overly excited.)

I will update this post as new information comes in.

As our VP would say, "This is a big fucking deal!"

Update: Here is where the first images taken by Curiosity will show up. (NASA.)

Update 2: Here is the first image to arrive from Curiosity. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Update 3: Transmitter turned off as Curiosity makes its approach. Only about an hour left until touch down.

Update 4: It is down! It landed safely! Let's give a round of applause for science.

NASA rocks!