La planète sauvage (1973) dir. René Laloux
(Source: thelonelysnail, via stylepoetjar-deactivated2016041)
1975 NASA concept art by Don Davis takes us to a future space colony in the form of a “Stanford torus” that can house tens of thousands of humans. It was first proposed in a 1975 NASA study at Stanford University where experts gathered to speculate on designs for future space habitats. Using centrifugal force, a doughnut-shaped torus structure that is 1.8 km in diameter could rotate once per minute to provide between 0.9g and 1.0g of artificial gravity on the inside of the outer ring. A system of mirrors would direct sunlight to the interior to make it the well-lit paradise you see here. (NASA)
I just really wanna smoke out and talk to the high school teachers and college professors that saw the potential in me and the patience to listen to me.
In first grade Jessica Meir made a drawing of herself standing on the moon. Turns out she underestimated her own ambition: Today, at 38, Meir could become the first human to touch down on an even farther destination: Mars. A next step for man? Yes, and a giant leap for womankind.
The mission itself is at least 15 years away—it will take that long to build and test every last piece of equipment. But it’s already the most hotly anticipated space-exploration effort ever. Governments around the world—in China, Europe, and Russia—have plans in the works to at least land robots on Mars, while in the U.S., private companies like SpaceX are partnering with NASA on a human mission and plotting their own commercial trips. And unlike the 1960s race to the moon, this time women are playing pivotal roles—building rockets, designing space suits, and controlling the remote rovers that are already sending momentous insights back from Mars.
A human landing will not, to put it mildly, be easy. The shortest route to our planetary neighbor is 35 million miles. Just getting there will take six to nine months; a round-trip, two to three years. “This will be the longest, farthest, and most ambitious space-exploration mission in history,” says Dava Newman, Ph.D., NASA’s deputy administrator. Once they’ve landed, the astronauts will have to navigate giant dust storms, temperatures that can plummet to minus 284 degrees Fahrenheit in winter, and an atmosphere filled with cancer-causing galactic radiation. If their equipment fails? NASA won’t hear an SOS for 10 minutes. And there’s no turning back. “It’s not like the moon; that’s a three-day trip,” says Jason Crusan, director of advanced exploration systems at the agency. “When you go to Mars, you’re going. You can’t abort.”
And yet the pull is irresistible: The rovers have revealed a land of swooping red dunes and craters. Evidence of water—not just ice, but actual flowing water—has surfaced, and water is often considered a sign of possible life. “Mars can teach us so much about the past, present, and future of our own planet,” says Meir. “That’s a phenomenal thing.”
Also phenomenal? For the first time NASA’s latest class of astronauts is 50 percent female. A fearless group, Meir and her colleagues Anne McClain, 36, Christina Hammock Koch, 37, and Nicole Aunapu Mann, 38, have already flown combat missions in Iraq, braved the South Pole, and dived under thick layers of ice in Antarctica. Last fall they gave Glamour exclusive access to watch them train at NASA’s facilities in Houston—and talked about their epic adventure.
(Source: glamour.com)
(Source: streetartnews.net)
SpaceX CRS-3 Dragon flies beneath the ISS, over the Dubai Coastline.
Source: https://imgur.com/Su0YWko
(via all-the-space)