Space Initiatives will receive a NAIC grant for interstellar exploration. Tiny gram-scale interstellar probes propelled by laser light are probably the only technology capable of reaching another star during this century. The availability by mid-century of a laser beamer powerful enough to boost a few grams to relativistic speed is assumed as are laser sails strong enough to survive launch and terrestrial light buckets big enough to catch optical signals from Proxima b.
     The proposed representative mission, around the third quarter of this century, is to fly by the nearest stellar neighbor, the potentially habitable world Proxima b, with a large autonomous swarm of thousands of tiny probes.
     Given extreme constraints on launch mass, onboard power, and coms aperture, it was determined in during work over the last three years that only a large swarm of many probes acting in concert can generate an optical signal strong enough to cross the huge distance back to Earth. The eight-year round-trip time lag eliminates any practical control by Earth. Therefore, the swarm must possess a very high degree of autonomy in order to prioritize which data is returned to Earth. Coordinating the swarming of individuals into an effective whole is the dominant challenge for this representative mission to Proxima Centauri b. Coordination rests on establishing a mesh network via low-power optical links and synchronizing probes’ on-board clocks with Earth and with each other to support accurate position-navigation-timing.
     This representative mission begins with a long string of probes launched one at a time to about two tenths of the speed of light. After launch, the drive laser is used for signaling and clock synchronization. It will provide a continual time signal like a metronome. Initial boost will be modulated so the tail of the string catches up with the head. Exploiting drag imparted by the interstellar medium over the twenty-year cruise will keep the group together once assembled. An initial string of hundreds to thousands of astronomical units long will dynamically coalesce itself over time into a lens-shaped mesh network one hundred thousand kilometers across. This will be sufficient to account for ephemeris errors at Proxima, ensuring that at least some probes pass close to the target.
     A swarm whose members are in known spatial positions relative to each other with state-of-the-art microminiaturized clocks to keep synchrony, can utilize its entire population to communicate with Earth. It can periodically build up a single short but extremely bright contemporaneous laser pulse from all of them. Operational coherence means each probe sends the same data but adjusts its emission time according to its relative position. In this way, all pulses can arrive simultaneously at the receiving arrays on Earth. This effectively multiplies the power from any one probe by the number of probes in the swarm, allowing orders of magnitude greater data return.
     A swarm could tolerate significant attrition enroute, thus mitigating the risk of “putting all your eggs in one basket,” and enabling close observation of Proxima b from multiple vantage points. Fortunately, swarming techniques can be explored and tested now in a simulated environment, which is what is proposed in this work. The innovations required for this mission should have a profound effect on space exploration, complementing existing techniques and enabling entirely new types of missions. Picospacecraft swarms could cover all of cislunar space, or could instrument an entire planetary magnetosphere. There could be a number of such missions well before mid-century, starting in Earth or lunar orbit, but in time extending deep into the outer Solar system. Such a swarm could explore the rapidly receding interstellar object 1I/’Oumuamua or the solar gravitational lens. These could be precursors to the ultimate interstellar mission, but also scientifically valuable in their own right.
Space Initiatives

     The European Space Agency is charting an ambitious course for the future. It is aiming to solidify Europe’s position in space exploration through the “Explore 2040” initiative.
     Josef Aschbacher is the director-general of ESA. He emphasized the need for Europe to increase its space activities during an October 16th address to the International Astronautical Congress 2024 in Milan, Italy. The agency is now developing a strategy to define its future. One key pillar of this strategy is exploration.
     Daniel Neuenschwander is the director of human and robotic exploration at ESA. He said in Milan, “We have a process with our Member States called Explore 2040, which is a perspective at the horizon of 2040 and where Europe can go.”
     Neuenschwander added that “What we want, above all, is to increase the pace and how we conduct programs.” That includes speeding up innovation and developing transportation and infrastructure for exploration. Neuenschwander also revealed plans for a presence in low Earth orbit, before heading to the moon and beyond. He continued, “We want to bring Europeans around the moon and on the surface of the moon… And then the horizon goal is, of course, to bring humans to Mars.”
     An important milestone for “Explore 2040” is the upcoming 2025 Ministerial Council meeting. At this meeting member states will determine the future course for Europe in space. These important summit meetings take place every three years to decide the level of commitment of ESA’s member states and which programs they will commit to. Their support is vital for Explore 2040.
     The plan for LEO involves securing a post-International Space Station pathway. This includes a LEO cargo program which, through developing return capabilities, can set the stage for full European human spaceflight capabilities.
     Samantha Cristoforetti is an ESA astronaut. Speaking in Milan, she said that the ESA initial goals include demonstrating end-to-end cargo delivery and return services to the ISS.
    With respect to the Moon, Europe is already providing the European Service Module as part of NASA’s Orion spacecraft. This means that the ESA will already be flying to the moon in some form. The next stage is lunar landing capabilities. For this, ESA is developing Argonaut which is a class of landers for putting cargo on the moon. It is being designed in partnership with Airbus.
     Alexander Gerst is an ESA astronaut. He said that the logistics lander will be critical to enabling international cooperation and sustainable lunar operations. Gerst continued, “Argonaut fills in the gap of how we approach landing on the moon and then being able to operate on the surface, thanks to the one point seven tons of cargo [it can carry].”
     With respect to Mars, ESA plans to proceed with the LightShip program to establish a communication and navigation network around Mars. LightShip is an electric propulsive tug that will deliver one or more passenger spacecraft to Mars, provide communications and navigation services, and be able to carry a range of scientific payloads.
     These ambitious goals indicate that ESA is positioning itself to make the agency instrumental to future space exploration.
     In addition to these commitments, ESA is starting its Moonlight program to provide navigation and communications services around the moon. It will also be commissioning several small lunar missions, depending on the outcome of the 2025 ministerial summit. It is committed to launching the much-delayed Rosalind Franklin rover for a Mars mission and providing the Earth return orbiter for the Mars Sample Return mission with NASA.
      For consideration in the following important Ministerial Council in 2028 will be lunar prospecting and sampling missions, possibly a lunar remote camp, and lunar Gateway cargo return, as well as the possible evolution of the Argonaut lander. A new phase of post-ISS infrastructure development will also be discussed at the Ministerial Council meeting.
     ESA’s plans for Explore 2040 have not been finalized. It is one issue of a broader ESA strategy under discussion.
     Aschbacher told reporters during a press conference on October 24th, “We have discussed the ESA Strategy 2040, which is a document that is being prepared right now.” He continued, “So we have a draft of the document that was presented to the delegations. It was very highly appreciated. We are not yet at the final version. The final version is expected to be prepared for December.”
     ESA’s vision for 2040 depends not only on innovative projects but on the solid support of its twenty-two member states to transform plans into reality.
European Space Agency
 

     The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program nurtures visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions with the creation of radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts. NIAC funded projects study innovative, technically credible, advanced concepts that could one day “Change the Possible” in aerospace. Here is a NAIC Phase I project proposed by Lynn Rothschild at the NASA Ames Research Center.
    Water is literally the lifeblood of human survival and civilization and is critical for our sustained exploration beyond Earth. Mars has plenty of water to sustain our aspirations in the form of subsurface ice. Unfortunately, it is not clean water because it is contaminated by toxic perchlorates. Perchlorate and chlorate are powerful oxidizers that cause equipment corrosion and are hazardous to human health even at low concentrations. It will be necessary to detoxify Martian water to remove these contaminating solutes before it can be used in propellant production, food production, or human consumption. The scale of anticipated water demand on Mars reveals the shortcomings of traditional water detoxification. The purification approaches currently in use on Earth require either large amounts of consumable materials, high electrical draw, or water pretreatment.
    Could we make the perchlorates just vanish? This is the innovative solution we propose here, taking advantage of the reduction of chlorate and perchlorate to chloride and oxygen being thermodynamically favorable, if kinetically slow. This is the promise of our regenerative perchlorate reduction system. It can leverage synthetic biology to take advantage of and improve upon natural perchlorate reducing bacteria. These terrestrial microbes are not directly suitable for off-world use. However, their key genes pcrAB and cld, which catalyze the reduction of perchlorates to chloride and oxygen, have previously been identified and well-studied. This proposal exploits the prior work done studying perchlorate-reducing bacteria by engineering this perchlorate reduction pathway into the spaceflight proven Bacillus subtilis strain 168, under the control of a robust, active promoter. This solution is highly sustainable and scalable. Unlike traditional water purification approaches, it outright eliminates perchlorates rather than filtering them to dump somewhere nearby.
The goal for this Phase I project is to explore whether this approach is feasible through the following objectives.
     Engineer the genes PcrAB and cld into B. subtilis 168 under the control of the strong promoter pVeg. Test and quantify the efficacy of perchlorate reduction under the modeled conditions.
     Develop B. subtilis strains that secrete the enzymes to test intracellular versus extracellular efficacy.
     Carry out a trade study comparing the performance of biological water detoxification from the modified bacteria to traditional engineering approaches in terms of mass, power, and crew time.
     Draft a plan to include this technology in human Mars missions. Develop this detoxification biotechnology to facilitate more efficient solutions to natural and particularly industrial terrestrial perchlorate contamination on Earth. It will also promote the potential of using life rather than only industrial solutions to address our environmental problems. This may spur further innovations for other terrestrial environmental challenges such as climate change. The detoxification system will be launched as inert, dried spores stable at room temperature for years.
     Following arrival at Mars, spores will be rehydrated and grown in a bioreactor that meets planetary protection standards. Martian water will be processed by the bioreactor to achieve perchlorate reduction. Processed water can then be used as is or further purified as required.
Martian Regolith

     Physical infrastructure on the Moon will be critical to any long-term human presence there as both America and China are gearing up for a sustained human lunar presence. A self-deploying tower is one of the most essential parts of that physical infrastructure. These towers can hold numerous pieces of equipment, from solar panels to communications arrays. The more weight they can support in lunar gravity, the more capable they become. It’s important to understand the best structural set-up for these towers, which is the purpose of a recent paper by researchers at North Carolina State University and NASA’s Langley Research Center.
     Several technologies are critical for that structure, which was developed under NASA’s Self-Erectable Lunar Tower for Instruments project. One of the most important technologies is the material used to construct the tower. The researchers studied two types of material: the corrugated rollable tubular boom and collapsible tubular mast.
     COROTUB is a patented technology that was designed for use with small satellites. It would allow a CubeSat to deploy an antenna many times its size while still being rolled into a relatively compact package. Adapting the same technology to deploy a boom mast for use on the Moon is an obvious next step.
     CTM is commercially available from Opterus. It is designed to roll flat into a shape similar to the shape of a roll of tape. Once deployed, it is capable of supporting a payload attached to the top of the mast. Its design is much simpler than COROTUB’s, but they have almost equivalent weight limits.
     However, one of the most important features of these towers doesn’t lie in the boom material itself but in the supporting structure which is a cable. The research paper considers designs with and without supporting cables that could counteract the force of the instruments at the top of the boom, forcing them to slouch to one side. Picture a giant sunflower with its pedals bending to one side, but on the other side, there’s a metal cable holding it in place.
     The systems with this supporting cable structure perform better by pretty much every metric the authors used. The methods they utilized included a type of mathematical analysis known as the Rayleigh-Ritz method. This technique is typically used to calculate loads on structures. However, the math for those structures on the Moon is different from the same types of structures on Earth. For one, much less gravity and no wind would require additional support which may be counterintuitive.     However, the system must survive massive temperature differences based on whether it is day or night the Moon. For now, those did not seem to be part of the calculations used in the analysis.
     COROTUB and CMT are also not the only potential designs that could solve this problem. Project LUNARSABER was developed Honeybee Robotics. It is a one hundred- and – ten-yard-tall mast that would solve a problem similar to the one addressed by COROTUB and CMT-based towers. While it remains to be seen which technology is ultimately used on the Moon, the fact that more than one organization is looking into this technology is a good indication of promise.

     A student team at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs looked at the use case of a space elevator on Ceres. They found that it could be done with existing technology. The findings of the team are published in the journal 2024 Regional Student Conferences.
     Every space elevator design has three different components. These include an anchor, a tether, and a counterweight. Each of these would require its own technologies.
     The anchor is simple enough. The problem is how the system interfaces with Ceres. The surface of Ceres is primarily made of clay, which is relatively good for existing anchoring technologies. The force the anchor needs to withstand is only around three hundred newtons, which is much lower than the force on Earth, given Ceres’ small mass.
     There have already been asteroid anchoring technologies suggested for other missions that can provide up to five hundred newtons of force resistance, so an anchor on Ceres should prove no real challenge.
     The tether for a space elevator is where the technology falls short on Earth. No material known to science can cope with the forces exerted on the tether of a passively controlled space elevator when it is tied to Earth. However, the closest existing material, something space elevator enthusiasts mention as almost a holy grail, is carbon nanotubes.
     In the analysis for the space elevator on Ceres, tethers once again came out ahead. However, the limitation of actually creating a long tether will still be a major problem for any space elevator design for Ceres.
     The counterweight is much simpler, as it can be just a big solid mass. However, its mass is proportional to the necessary length of cable. The heavier the mass, the shorter the cable has to be. The tradeoff between having a heavier counterweight and a shorter cable is another design issue when considering these systems.
     Calculations from the student team show that, with only a little more technological development, all three main space elevator systems could be ready for installation on Ceres itself. The big question is what advantages does it have? It could function as a launching point for accessing other asteroids in the asteroid belt.
    Ceres also has water relatively near the surface. This would be helpful for all kinds of human exploration, either as rocket fuel or biological systems. It’s also well placed to get things back to Earth by using Jupiter as a gravity assist.
     But before it can provide any of those advantages, someone is going to have to provide funding for it. Estimates of the total cost of the system total about five billion dollars. This is not too far out of the range of larger-scale space exploration projects. However, it is more than most countries are likely willing to spend for a grand infrastructure project that hasn’t yet proven its benefit.
     So, for the time being, any space elevator will remain in the realm of science fiction. But research like this and other ongoing technological improvements is how we will eventually move forward to that future.

Part 2 of 2 Parts
     Bio-based materials are also being used to develop a new ally for sustainable construction on Earth. Dr. Anna Sandak is an associate professor at the University of Primorska, in Koper, Slovenia, and deputy director and head of the materials department at the Slovenian InnoRenew Centre of Excellence. She is an expert in materials science with a special focus on wood.
     InnoRenew was established in 2017 with the help of the E.U, and additional international and national funding to build on Slovenia’s strengths in forestry and wood research. The goal was to investigate innovative renewable materials for sustainable building.
     In 2022, Sandak and her InnoRenew research team were awarded a five-year EU grant to further develop a bio-active living coating system for use in the construction industry. They are developing a “live” biofilm which will be able to protect various built surfaces, including concrete, plastic and metal. The purpose of this living skin is to protect construction materials and make buildings more resilient and sustainable. By using living organisms, researchers are creating new functionalities that cannot be found in conventional materials. Sandak said, “Instead of using synthetic chemicals, biocides and mineral oils that are not always environmentally friendly, we are focusing on developing natural solutions.”
     Sandak continued, “We are adding a new dimension to materials that has not existed before—life. In nature, cells have many fantastic properties which are very difficult and costly to achieve in synthetic materials. Living materials are more environmentally friendly, they can self-heal, have the potential to clean air and come at a lower cost. They have a huge potential, grow fantastically, have a high survival rate and don’t need many nutrients. Fungi are fun.” Like the AM-IMATE project, Sandak’s team works primarily with fungi.
     Fungi can already be found on construction sites but are usually not desirable because they can damage materials. However, Sandak’s team works with a specific fungus that isn’t harmful and doesn’t degrade materials. She said, “We are using the “good guys” to stop the “bad guys” from spreading.”
     To ensure their research makes it to practice, the scientists are creating a biocoating that is not only practical but also visually appealing. They are currently testing it on a variety of materials and working on adding different colors. “Because aesthetics is important in architecture.” The resulting product is designed to be a water-based coating that can be sprayed, brushed or rolled onto a wide range of surfaces.
     The ARCHI-SKIN project will run until 2027. According to Sandak, the research is progressing quite rapidly. It won’t be too long before their coating can be applied to the first buildings. She added that “I believe it will be possible to use our solution within the next decade.”
     Both projects are yielding valuable fundamental knowledge about microorganisms. However, as both project coordinators say, the main outcome of the research should be real-life applications.
     Sandak explains that “We want to make our world a better place. I believe we will definitely start to see many more applications for bio-based materials, such as in buildings and the built environment, as well as consumer products. As our understanding of these materials develops, more and more applications will follow.”

Part 1 of 2 Parts
    Scientists are using biological matter to create unique new materials that are able to adapt to their environment and repair themselves. The idea of living materials has been a staple of science fiction for decades. It is in the process of becoming real in the near future.
     For Dr. Kunal Masania is an associate professor of aerospace structures and materials at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. He said, “I have always been greatly inspired by this. Through my research, I try to bring a kind of magic to people’s lives.”
     Masania is working with what he calls “living materials,” for use in the aerospace and transportation sectors. These living materials are literally alive. They contain microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria which give them the ability to sustain their integrity and self-healing.
     These living materials are part of a five-year project called AM-IMATE. Masania was awarded a grant from the European Union in January 2023. The research team is investigating the potential of biological organisms to be integrated into innovative new materials for use in industry and engineering.
     Masania added, “The goal is to make engineered structures that can behave like living organisms, able to sense and adapt to mechanical stress.”
    The material Masania is developing is a composite that integrates living fungi cells and wood. It consists of a hydrogel and mycelium which is a root-like structure of a fungus that normally lives underground. Masania continued, “We chose to work with fungi because fungus is a really robust organism, it is tolerant to harsh conditions and is relatively easy to cultivate.”
     Fungal cells have a great ability to connect. Mycelium can grow into a vast sensing network that allows signals to be sent throughout the organism. The scientists can distribute only a few cells throughout the material, and these cells will reconnect and form a sensing network.
     In order to produce these living materials, Masania has developed a special 3D printing method and a new 3D printing ink. He said, “We are making good progress in this regard, and we are already able to 3D print our material.”
     Biological materials could improve the performance and durability of critical structures that are used in areas like aerospace and transportation. Masania and his team are exploring the use of their composites as the core material for the interior of airplanes.
     Masania said, “Our materials are very lightweight and more sustainable than currently used materials. Right now, the interior of aircraft is made largely of plastic and metal. If we replace these, we no longer have to rely on fossil fuels and we can offer better end-of-life solutions. If we use living materials, the aircraft components could be dismantled and returned to nature. It could be very interesting for building in space and on other planets. Our living materials could form the basis of new habitats because you could use the local materials and bind them together using the fungi.”
Please read Part 2 next

     Increased interest and investment in space exploration are driving efforts to develop the technologies needed to make the moon a viable home for humans. Developing lunar infrastructure requires building materials which would be costly and inefficient to launch from Earth. This has led to research into the in-situ processing and use of raw materials naturally found on the Moon’s surface. One major challenge with this approach will be the huge amount of power that lunar resource processing will need.
     Lunar regolith is the moon’s top layer of soil and dust. A research team from the University of Waterloo’s Laboratory for Emerging Energy Research is looking into processing regolith into usable materials for life support, energy generation and construction. This research includes investigating the use of defunct satellite material as a fuel source when mixed with lunar regolith.      The International Astronautical Federation has published two papers on the regolith research.
     Connor MacRobbie is a Ph.D. candidate who is supervised by professors Dr. John Wen and Dr. Jean-Pierre Hickey in Waterloo’s Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering. He said, “Lunar regolith contains lots of metallic dust embedded with oxygen. Because it already contains oxygen, we can utilize it, without the need for atmospheric oxygen, to produce thermal energy. This is called a thermite reaction, which is useful in space because there is no readily available oxygen.”
     The LEER team carried out experiments using simulated “lunar” regolith synthesized and supplied by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration agency. Tests were performed on different fuel and oxidizer compositions and with varying particle sizes to regulate the energy release rate of a space-based thermite for either heating or manufacturing.
     Wen, who is the director of LEER, said, “The results demonstrate the viability of the moon’s topsoil to power lunar development, enabling humans to explore and inhabit the moon’s surface. We’re now continuously working at better extraction of metal and other useful material from the regolith as well as designing automated processes, in collaborations with Canadian and international researchers, to facilitate in-situ resource utilization and support the circular space economy.”
     A potential threat to humanity’s future travels in space is the millions of bits of fast-moving debris that exist between Earth and the Moon’s orbits. The European Space Agency compares a collision with a one-centimeter particle of space debris traveling at 10km/s to that of a small car crashing at 40 km/h. The LEER research team is working to deal with this problem by recycling defunct satellite material into a fuel source for space development.
     MacRobbie said, “Defunct satellites have enormous potential value. They’re made up of many useful materials, including aluminum, which, when added to lunar regolith, can produce a thermite reaction and generate heat.”
     Using the thermite reaction to repurpose salvaged space debris can also provide materials for developing and maintaining solar satellite systems in space, ensuring power for further space exploration.
     MacRobbie added that “Our research is turning science fiction into reality. Our goal is to help build the infrastructure and technology that will allow sustainable human settlement on the moon—and beyond.”

     Researchers have designed a state-of-the-art walking robot called E-Walker to take on the difficult task of space construction. A robot prototype has already been tested on Earth by assembling a twenty-five-meter Large Aperture Space Telescope. The telescope would usually be built in space.
     A smaller-scale prototype of the same robot has also been created and shows promise for large construction applications on Earth, such as maintenance of wind turbines.
     The team’s findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI.
     Researchers have been working on In-Space construction for a while. China and Russia intend to construct a Moon base, while space cement is now ready and could be used in construction projects on the Moon and Mars.
     Building, maintaining, and servicing large construction projects could not be any more difficult or more needed than in space, with the potential exception of deep-ocean projects. Conditions are extreme, and human-made technology deteriorates quickly in space.
     This is where robotics and autonomous systems could play a vital role. They have already proved useful for servicing and maintenance missions. In addition, they have assisted the space community to conduct ground-breaking research on various space missions.
     Manu Nair is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Lincoln corresponding author of the recent study. He said, “As the scale of space missions grows, there is a need for more extensive infrastructures in orbit. Assembly missions in space would hold one of the key responsibilities in meeting the increasing demand”.
     In their paper, Nair and his colleagues described an innovative, dexterous walking robotic system that can be used for in-orbit assembly missions.
     As space missions keep evolving and pushing new boundaries, so do their maintenance and construction projects. Space agencies and companies keep launching bigger and more complex projects such as the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope has newer and larger apertures than any seen before. This trend is only set to continue.
     Assembling such telescopes on Earth is impossible due to the limited size of current launch vehicles. This is the reason that more of these telescopes need to be assembled in orbit. This is where autonomous robots, like the one designed by Nair’s team, could be utilized.
     Nair said, “Although conventional space walking robotic candidates are dexterous, they are constrained in maneuverability. Therefore, it is significant for future in-orbit walking robot designs to incorporate mobility features to offer access to a much larger workspace without compromising the dexterity”.
     The newly-proposed robot is called the E-Walker. It is a seven-degrees-of-freedom fully dexterous end-over-end walking robot. This means that it is a limbed robotic system that can move along a surface to different locations to perform tasks with seven degrees of motion capabilities. The researchers compared it to the current Canadarm2 and the European Robotic Arm which are based at the International Space Station.
     Nair added that “Our analysis shows that the proposed innovative E-Walker design proves to be versatile and an ideal candidate for future in-orbit missions. The E-Walker would be able to extend the life cycle of a mission by carrying out routine maintenance and servicing missions post assembly, in space”.
     More has yet to be accomplished before the new E-Walker is shipped off to space. The current research was limited to the design engineering analysis of a full-scale and prototype model of the E-Walker. Nair explained, “The E-Walker prototyping work is now in progress at the University of Lincoln; therefore, the experimental verification and validation will be published separately”.

     Science fiction authors have dreamed for decades of terraforming Mars for human habitation. Previous studies have suggested that it would take enormous effort and centuries to accomplish this. New studies suggest that just a few specks of particles added to Mars’s atmosphere would heat it by over fifty degrees Fahrenheit in months. This would potentially make it hospitable for liquid water.
     This new terraforming method relies on resources easily procurable from Mars. The basic concept is to manufacture small rod-like particles using Martian dust which is a material rich in a lot of iron and aluminum. Such artificial particles could trap the escaping heat of the Sun and scatter some of the light back to the surface. This would boost the weak greenhouse effect of Mars. The result would be to warm the planet to an extent far greater than previous proposals that would either require shipping gases from Earth or mining rare minerals on Mars.
     Colin McInnes is a space engineer at the University of Glasgow who was not involved in the study. He said, “It’s not that often you get some quite new, innovative idea for terraforming. The gap between Mars’s current state and its habitability may be much less of a chasm than we usually envision.”
     This research team from the University of Chicago and the University of Central Florida created particles approximately the size of commercially available glitter that can trap heat much better than the dust on the surface of Mars. These engineered nanoparticles in very small amounts could bring with them optical effects that are far beyond any conventional expectations.
     Edwin Kite is a planetary scientist at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study. He said, “You would still need millions of tons to warm the planet, but that’s five thousand times less than you would need with previous proposals to globally warm Mars. Calculations suggest that pumping these particles continuously at 30 liters per second could warm Mars by as much as more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit with discernible effects within months. The warming would also be reversible, stopping within a few years if the particle release was stopped.”
     The researchers caution that much work remains. It’s still not clear how quickly the engineered dust would fall out of Mars’ atmosphere. As the planet heats up, water could begin to condense on the particles. It would drop back to the surface as rain, another layer in the already complex climate.
     Kite said, “Climate feedbacks are hard to model.” A great deal more data would be required both from Mars and from Earth if impacts were to work as expected. Any actual implementation would need to proceed slowly and reversibly.
     This method represents a huge step forward in research on turning the desert planet into a potential abode as the Earth’s sister. The study under discussion concerns warming Mars to temperatures at which microbial life could survive and perhaps even sustain the raising of food crops. Kite concluded, “This research opens new avenues for exploration and potentially brings us one step closer to the long-held dream of establishing a sustainable human presence on Mars”.
     The study is titled “Feasibility of making Mars habitable with artificially created global warming using only current technology.” It utilized Northwestern’s high-performance Quest computing facility as well as the University of Chicago Research Computing Center. Other co-authors of the study include Ramses Ramirez of the University of Central Florida and Liam Steele, formerly a postdoctoral researcher at UChicago, now with the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.