Writer & Geek

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Mars One is a mission started by Dutch entrepreneurs Bas Lansdorp and Arno A. Wielders to put humans on Mars starting with a one-way mission.

{00:48} SpaceX has revived the interest in space. Since the golden age of space back in the 60s and 70s, there has never been such interest in space as we have now. Thanks to Elon Musk, the private sector is taking over space.

{02:07} A little skepticism on the Mars One mission.

{03:42} Founded by Bas Lansdorp and Arno A. Wielders. The project has two entities - Mars On Foundation and Mars One Ventures. The foundation handles the funding and mission development which includes the recruitment of astronauts. Mars One ventures is the monetization part of Mars One Project.

{05:05} - Mars One plans to use existing technologies and borrowing hardware from other companies including SpaceX and Lockheed Martin. They believe no scientific breakthrough are needed for the mission.

{06:37} - How are the Astronauts are chosen for the mission? How the application process works? It is a one way mission.

{08:00} - Mars One have selected 100 personnel for the mission. It will be cut down to forty first. Then further cut down to twenty-four. The group of twenty-four are divided into four groups of six.

{09:22} - How many people applied for Mars One. The scam surrounding it. 200,000 estimated applicants, but later found out to be around 2000 to 4000 apllications.

{10:43} - The group of twenty-four are divided into four groups of six. We can be part of choosing the first group who goes to Mars. Like whaaat??!! Criteria for choosing the astronauts.

{12:29} - How qualified are the founders to take up such an ambitious project? Do they have prior experience in the field of space travel. How is Elon Musk and SpaceX different from Mars One?

{13:18} - People from more than 100 countries funding the programme.

{14:03} - The Timeline of Mars One. The changes it has gone through over the years. Postponing all the plans by eight to nine years.

{15:02} - Explanation on SpaceX Dragon and Falcon Heavy.

{17:10} - Mission objectives of Mars One. Setting up communication satellites.

{17:51} - Mars One public addressess. And our views on the project. The same old feeling of skepticism.

{18:38} - Have Mars One contacted SpaceX to procure the hardware? What was Elon Musk’s response? Reasons why Mars One can be a scam.

{20:53} - Build up to a Matt Damon Joke!

{21:27} - Funding of Mars One. Mars One Ventures takes care of all the funding part. The main sources of revenue generation are as follows:

{24:33} - Acquiring profit through royalty from Astronauts. 75% of the an astronaut’s income through means such as interviews and sponsorship will go to Mars One.

{25:10} - The verdict.

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Sherlock Holmes is one of the most popular fictional characters ever created in the history of fiction by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both of us have read these stories since our childhood and have been fans since then. Many TV and film adaptations have come out and Holmes always is the best detective character out there.

We just ramble about Sherlock Holmes in this episode.

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This is part of a series of episodes on NASA’s Mission to the Moon.

To Moon and Back - Part 1

To Moon and Back - Part 2

To Moon and Back - Part 3

To Moon and Back - Part 4

To Moon and Back - Part 5

{01:30} There are missions that happened before Apollo 11. All these missions had mission objectives that were testing ground for the Apollo 11.

{02:10} Apollo 1 was supposed to be the first manned flight of Apollo Spacecraft. But the astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward “Ed” White and Roger Chaffee died in a fire that broke out in the Command Module during a ground testing.

{04:52} Between Apollo 1 and Apollo 7 which were manned missions, there were a bunch of unmanned missions testing Command Module, Lunar Module and Trans Lunar Ejection.

{06:08} Apollo 7: This was the first manned mission after Apollo 1. The mission was mainly designed to test the CSM and long duration flight in Apollo Spacecraft. Due to a head cold, commander Walter M Schirra was irritable throughout the mission and this led to the crew disobeying the mission control.

{11:54} Apollo 8: First manned mission to leave Earth and orbit another celestial body. During the six day mission, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders orbited the Moon and were the first humans to see the far side of the Moon. Frank Borman fell sick during this mission.

{15:16} Apollo 9: A low earth orbit mission, astronauts spent around 10 days orbiting the earth and tested the LEM in earth’s orbit. LEM was tested by flying out around 100km away from the CSM.

{16:56} Apollo 10: Full dress rehearsal for Apollo 11 mission. Astronauts practised orbiting the moon, tested the LEM by taking it down 15km above the moon’s surface.

Music: Free Stock Music

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On September 2014, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved what no other space agency has achieved - launching a space probe to Mars and being successful in the first attempt. Mangalyaan was a mission accomplished on a budget of under $74 million, cheaper than the total production cost of the movie Martian.

{00:20} Yes, you heard it right! It cost less than a movie about Mars. How did India achieve this feat?

{01:00} 2014 was a great year for ISRO. On September 24th the Prime Minister announced the successful Martian orbital insertion of Mangalyaan. India was the first country to send a space probe to Mars at a low budget as $74 million, less than what it would cost in an auto rickshaw.

{02:55} The inception of the project happened back in 2008. It took around six years to complete. After the success of the Chandrayaan mission to the Moon, next step was a successful interplanetary probe. It was announced by G Madhavan Nair who was the chairman of ISRO. Indian space agency started in 1969. India launched Aryabhatta, the first satellite in 1975. Ove the years, India developed launch vehicles like PSLV - Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and GSLV - Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.

{04:13} Primary objective of Mangalyaan was to successfully insert the space probe into an orbit around Mars. Mars travel is much more complicated than a moon mission because of the distance. The communication takes time while on a Mars mission. Based on the orientation of the antenna, it could take anywhere between 8 - 45 minutes. The journey took 11 months.

{06:57} The secondary objective was to explore Mars using remote sensing technology and to study the moon Phobos of Mars. The Mars orbiter was around the size of an auto rickshaw and weighed around 1337kg. 856kg was propellant. The space agency had to miniaturise the spacecraft to reduce the cost. Powered by three solar panels and a lithium ion battery for backup. The spacecraft was developed in Bangalore.

{09:30} Initially GSLV was planned as a launch vehicle, but due to setbacks in testing, GSLV could not be used due to time constraints. So ISRO had to go back to PSLV, which was used in the launch of Chandrayaan. There is a very narrow launch window to Mars. If the chance is missed, it would be 24 months before another window opens up.

{10:56} PSLV satellite is used to launch a smaller payload into a low earth polar orbit. Normally used for weather satellites to enable them to be able to scan the earth during a 24 hour period. GSLV is used for heavier payload missions with the capability to put a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, that is, an orbit in which the satellite appears to maintain a relatively fixed position over a point on the surface of the earth. Used for communication satellites. PSLV was less powerful compared to GSLV. ISRO used Hohmann’s transfer methodology to send the spacecraft to Mars.

{13:45} The low earth orbit of the spacecraft is modified into highly elliptical orbit by providing thrust at the perigee point. Multiple such boosts were planned and eventually, the orbit becomes so much elongated that it leaves earth’s sphere of influence and moves into a heliocentric orbit. In the case of Mangalyaan, the path of the spacecraft was calculated in such a way that when it intersects Mars’ orbit, they would meet at the point.

{16:31} To ensure continuous communication and data transfer from the spacecraft, 32 ground centres were setup around the world. Sriharikota, Port Blair, Indonesia, Brunei and Canberra were few of the locations. Post the launch, communications control moves from Shriharikota to Port Blair, then to Brunei and to Indonesia. After Indonesia till Canberra, there are no land masses to setup a tracking station. So ISRO decided to use two navy vessels to act as ground stations to track the spacecraft.

{19:00} To contain the mission well within the budget of $74 million, so they used gravity assisted flight to get to Mars using the Hohmann’s transfer method. After the launch, the craft spent around 25 days in earth’s orbit undergoing Hohmann’s transfer. There were some challenges during the 4th earth bound manoeuvre, so ISRO had to burn extra fuel during the remaining orbits. Apart from this, due to the high noise ratio of signals back from Mangalyaan, ISRO developed indigenous deep space network antenna.

{22:41} The engine was not used for around 298 days in the harshness of the space. There was a concern about the engine not starting as the spacecraft neared Mars. Test firing of the engine was done for 3.968 seconds less than two days before entry into Mars orbit.

{24:37} Since the probe moves to the dark side of Mars, solar panels could not provide any power. The lithium ion batteries provided backup power. Also, all the communications are cut off when the craft moves to the far side of Mars. So pre-instructed commands were given to the spacecraft a day in advance with the list of things to do while on the far side.

{26:04} India achieved the unique goal of successfully launching a spacecraft to Mars in the first attempt. India also became the fourth country to attempt a launch to Mars. it also became the first country to send a space probe to Mars from Asia and it was the cheapest mission ever to Mars. The lifetime of Mangalyaan was supposed to be six months, but it is still going strong after three years.

{27:05} The Mangalyaan team also won the 2015 Space Pioneer award in the category of Science and Engineering which awarded by US based National Space Society. Mangalyaan made India a forerunner in the race to Mars.

This is an autorickshaw!

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3D printing has been a buzz on the internet since past few years, especially in the past 8-10 years. But the process surprisingly was around since 1980s! Surprised? So are we. 3D printing was invented by Chuck Hull in 1983 and he called the process Stereolithography. This was the beginning of Additive Manufacturing. All the traditional methods of manufacturing was a process of removing raw material to create the end product. Additive manufacturing on the other hand laid down the material layer by layer to create the final product.

In an additive process, the 3D model of the object is sliced down into 2D layers of material and successive layers of material are laid down until the final product is created. Much like layers of salami :wink:. Each of these layers can be seen as a thinly sliced horizontal cross-section of the eventual object. In this way, there was less wastage of material.

“With 3D printing, complexity is free. The printer doesn’t care if it makes the most rudimentary shape or the most complex shape, and that is completely turning design and manufacturing on its head as we know it.”

3D printer reads CAD data of the product that you or a product designer has created and converts that 3D model into thin slices of 2D sections. The printer then lays down material layer by layer to create intricate and complex designs. Material can either be molten and laid down in layers or can be fused post laying down by molting afterwards. Depends on the type of printer being used.

3D printers have been used since long to create prototypes but since then have been used to create final products as well. Much of this can be attributed to the fact that printers have been costing less. You may get a decent printer for around $300 these days. The design capabilities range from products ranging from few millimeters across to objects that are meters across.

It’s nice that 3D printers let us do all this, but are there any real practical advantages? Oh yes there are and few of these are already out there. 3D printing is already been used in fashion, medicine and various other industries. In medicine, 3D printing offers great advantages over conventional way of manufacturing products.

3D printing has been used in creation of orgran replacement parts. With this technology it is easy to create complex and porous parts which enable body tissues to grow into these and hence reduce the chance of rejection by the body. In fashion, 3D printing has helped in design and production of clothing and footwear.

3D printing has some defiitive advantages over traditional manufacturing methodologies:

But in spite of all the above stated advantages, there are certain limitations as well:

One big application of 3D printing technology in the future might be in the form of e-commerce. Today, you purchase a product and wait for it to be delivered to you. Imagine a future where you place an order, download the blueprints to your computer and then print it out using your home 3D printer and that, might be the future.

This would be perfect for products that are made of one material like plastic objects.

Cody Wilson’s documentary on YouTube

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