NASA and other spaceflight programs worldwide should focus on putting people on Mars, not the moon, an advocacy group for space exploration said in a new plan announced today. "The U.S. landed humans on the Moon nearly 40 years ago," said Louis Friedman, executive director of The Planetary Society. "Returning to the moon has not sufficiently excited the public and will require resources that will be badly needed elsewhere in the space program." The plan, "Beyond the Moon: A New Roadmap for Human Space Exploration in the 21st Century," included four key elements:

Future astronauts could benefit from a magnetic "umbrella" that deflects harmful space radiation around their crew capsule, scientists say. The super-fast charged particles that stream away from the Sun pose a significant threat to any long-duration mission, such as to the Moon or Mars. But the research team says a spaceship equipped with a magnetic field generator could protect its occupants. Lab tests are reported in the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. The approach mimics the protective field that envelops the Earth, known as the magnetosphere.

In this day and age, people engage in their right to vote from all over the world. But this Nov. 4, few ballots will have traveled as far as those cast by two NASA astronauts. Commander Edward Michael Fincke and Flight Engineer and Science Officer Greg Chamitoff are living and working onboard the International Space Station. Though they are 220 miles above Earth and orbiting at 17,500 miles per hour, they will still be able to participate in the upcoming election. A 1997 bill passed by Texas legislators sets up a technical procedure for astronauts -- nearly all of whom live in Houston -- to vote from space.

NASA chief Mike Griffin has outlined the punishing lunar endurance mission that would have to be completed before NASA could ever consider sending humans to Mars. Speaking on NASA's future mission priorities at this week's International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow, Scotland, Griffin said that Mars is not automatically the next destination simply because humans have already been to the Moon. "The total human experience on the Moon is less than 27 human working days – on a world that is the size of Africa," he says. "So whether the Moon is a stepping stone to Mars or a place of interest in its own right depends on knowledge we don't have yet." To improve that knowledge, and to test the logistics and human factors of potential Mars missions in the bargain, Griffin proposes an elaborate lunar mission experiment. It would mimic the travel and landing time of a Mars mission by using the International Space Station as a mock Mars spaceship – and the Moon as a surrogate Mars.

A tethered spacecraft will spin through increasingly hi-fidelity testing in a lab, in zero gravity, and eventually space, as part of the next project chosen by the Mars Society. The Mars Society announced Tuesday that the Tethered Experiment for Mars inter-Planetary Operations (TEMPO 3 or TEMPO cubed) is the favorite proposal chosen from members' ideas for the group's next project. The project aims to supplement research on the feasibility of long-term space flight for humans. Mars Society president Robert Zubrin said that while space agencies around the world have "chosen to study the effects of zero gravity on humans with no end in sight," his group seeks to develop technology to provide humans with gravity in space. "Similar problems existed in the past, when aircrews flew at high altitude and low oxygen levels," he said in a news announcement. "The technological solution of providing oxygen was frowned upon by aviation doctors in favor of trying to 'negate the effect' of the low oxygen through medication. Today, flight crews use oxygen at high altitudes, and we expect astronauts to travel with gravity."

4Frontiers Corporation, a NewSpace technology, entertainment & education company, is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $25,000 research grant from the Florida Space Grant Consortium (FSGC), as part of the Florida Space Research & Education Grant Program. This grant will assist 4Frontiers in pursuing its technology roadmap for Mars settlement technologies. The project’s goal is to study the performance of various transparent materials which have been selected as potential candidates for use in future Mars greenhouses. The research will involve the construction of small chambers that incorporate these materials, simulating a Mars greenhouse. The chambers will then be placed within a larger chamber which will simulate the environmental conditions found on the Martian surface. The project will investigate heat transfer and stress performance of these materials under the unique conditions specific to the red planet.

Hyperion Power Generation, a startup building compact nuclear power reactor units that are “about the size of a typical backyard hot tub”, says commercial deployments could start as early as 2013. The release quotes the company’s CEO John “Grizz” Deal, who says the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based startup has advanced development of its device enough to be able to reach that goal. The company says it initially plans to make 4,000 units — each being able to generate 70 megawatts of heat energy, or 27 megawatts of electricity from a steam turbine. That’s the equivalent power for 20,000 homes. There’s also the possibility of linking devices that could produce more power.

The ice and minerals found using a robotic arm in the Martian soil could make it easier for humans to live on the planet in the not-so-distant future. The ice on the northern pole of Mars has been a particularly important find for NASA scientists because robots and astronauts could extract usable, even drinkable, water from it, helping to sustain an extended stay on the Red Planet, according to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "I think the fact that we found water ice means there's a large reservoir of it," Arvidson told Computerworld on Friday. "Water is crucial to us as humans, in terms of keeping us going. Water also is a resource that can be processed, in terms of getting oxygen and hydrogen. Finding that water near the surface is important. When you actually go to Mars, you don't want to take that water with you … the fact that the water is close to the surface is good."

Presumptive Republican White House nominee John McCain said Thursday he would like to see a manned mission to Mars as part of a "better set of priorities" for NASA that would better engage the public. At a townhall event in Florida, the Arizona senator was asked about funding for the US space agency's shuttle program, which is due to end in 2010.

Previewing the new exhibit, Facing Mars, at the Ontario Science Centre last week afforded me the double excitement of returning to the Science Centre and being able to go to Mars. Seriously, I was giddy. I've always been fascinated with all things space. In fact, my earliest memory was waking up in the hospital when I was three with a plastic toy space shuttle on my bed. Plus, the timing couldn't be better, because NASA had another hole-in-one shot to Mars last week and Canada's meteorological station is now reporting daily from the red planet.

Dainese may be known for its luxe motorcycle helmets and leathers, but the Italian company recently displayed two pieces of decidedly futuristic apparel at the 2008 Legend of the Motorcycle Concours d'Elegance. In anticipation of NASA's down-the-road Mars landing missions, Dainese has teamed up with MIT for an ambitious project that intends to pressurize an astronaut's body without the usual bubble of air that creates bulky spacesuits. We've seen the suit concept before, but bringing on these bike gurus is just cool—and smart. Ditching the old-school “Moon Man” image, Dainese's futuristic space duds feature a fitted design strung with intertwining black-and-gold filaments. It may look like a sleek bodysuit by Armani, but the filaments actually serve a crucial purpose: They run along Lines of Non Extension (LoNEs) on the human body, which according to chairman Lino Dainese “remain stationary even when we move. If these points are united,” he explains, “the same pressure is established throughout the body.”

Last week, 32 talented candidates gathered at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, with the hope of becoming part of a unique study that will act as a platform for human exploration of the Solar System. The study, called Mars500, is a ground-based simulation of a mission to Mars and back. Two of the candidates, together with four Russian volunteers, will be sealed in an isolation chamber for a total of 105 days starting in October. This is followed by the full isolation period with another two European candidates, which lasts for 520 days starting early in 2009.

If Dr. Robert Zubrin could take a trip to Mars, he would be sure to pack a bread maker in his suitcase. Not just because bread is a pretty reliable expeditionary food, but because the act of cooking, according to Zubrin, seems to help people get along with each other, especially when they are in slightly dire, less than luxurious and more than stressful circumstances. And Zubrin would know, too. He has, after all, led almost a half-dozen mock Mars missions on barren Arctic ice fields and scorching Utah deserts with volunteer teams made up of students, scientists, journalists and anyone else willing to wear fake spacesuits and live in tiny tin-can-like habitation modules for days on end. The simulated expeditions were made, in part, to research ways to live and work on the Red Planet. But they also revealed something else: what personality types might best be suited to make the 35 million-mile journey and who would be better off watching from Mission Control. "Some of these crews have worked out very well," said Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, a 7,000-member multinational group determined to reach what it calls the New World. "Others were at each other's throats."

What will it take to plant booted feet on Martian soil? And what will it take to keep them there indefinitely? We set our sights on the Red Planet. The dream of visiting Mars is as old as the fantasies of sci-fi authors Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ray Bradbury, but it took a giant step forward in January 2004, when U.S. President George W. Bush announced America's intention of returning to the Moon, and using that as a springboard to the Red Planet. The proposed U.S. program – still in its early design stages – kicks off with a series of robotic missions to the Moon, followed by more manned lunar missions around 2020. It also involves a new spaceship, called Orion, based on a combination of technology derived from the space shuttles and the venerable Saturn V – the booster used 38 years ago to launch Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins on their historic voyage to the Moon. That's the Moon taken care of, but it's yet to be determined when the U.S. program is due to crank it up a notch and set its sights on Mars.

The idea, to say the least, was provocative. Back in March Nancy Atkinson wrote a piece for Universe Today about a retired NASA engineer named Jim McLane, who suggested a way to jump-start human settlement of Mars: go before we're sure how to get back. "When we eliminate the need to launch off Mars, we remove the mission’s most daunting obstacle," McLane told her. He said it would not be a suicide mission, but that risks are necessary when you do great things. "I don’t think there would be any shortage of people willing to volunteer for the mission. Lindbergh was someone who was willing to risk everything because it was worth it. I don’t think it will be hard to find another Lindbergh to go to Mars."