Expedition Space: Space Launch, Events, News

by Brian Berger Elon Musk and XPRIZE recently announced a $100 million prize purse for economically scalable ideas to capture and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2). As of Earth Day 2021, registration for XPRIZE Carbon Removal now open. The hope is to inspire a global industry that will “collectively achieve” gigaton-scale removal of CO2 from Earth’s atmosphere. We urgently need these solutions, as most Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios require CO2 removal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. As badly as we need this Earth-saving industry, it’s also interesting to consider its benefits for another industry: space exploration. Specifically, for contestants seeking an edge, I predict Musk will acquire an XPRIZE solution that: Converts captured CO2 into useful products. Fits inside an 8-meter-diameter compartment. An integrated theory of Elon Musk Elon Musk wants to go to Mars. This is common knowledge. But “going to Mars” is more than rockets. All ...

by Brian Berger T he triumphant landing of the Perseverance rover has inspired all Americans, and indeed much of the world. President Biden should follow it up by launching the program to send humans to Mars. While robotic rovers are wonderful, they cannot resolve the fundamental scientific questions that Mars poses to humanity, which relate to the potential prevalence and diversity of life in the universe. The early Mars was very much like the early Earth; a rocky warm and wet planet with a carbon dioxide dominated atmosphere. Life appeared on Earth virtually as soon as our planet was cool enough for liquid water. Did it appear on Mars, too? If so, did it use the same DNA-RNA information system underlying all life on Earth, or something else? We now know that billions of stars have planets. Is life likely to be found everywhere? Is life as we know it on Earth what life is? Or is it just a particular example drawn from a vast tapestry of possibilities? These are questio...