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Full program for the Australian Space Health Symposium 4th/5th Oct 2020

The complete program for the inaugural Australian Space Health Symposium is now available! Click here to download

This unique event is presented by the ad astra vita project and Mars Society Australia and brings together presenters and panellists from the world’s leading space sciences companies, organisations and universities. 

Registration for this event is free and still open via this link

Program highlights include:

Day 1 (Monday 5 October)Day 2 (Tuesday 6 October)
• Australian Space Agency overview
• Being a NASA flight surgeon
• Space4Health
• Space surgery
• “How to live on the Moon and Mars”
• Draft Constitution for Off-Earth Settlement workshop...
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Possible Life on Venus – What does it mean for Australia as we learn more about life in the Solar System?

Mars Society Australia congratulates Prof. Jane Greaves and her team from Cardiff University for their remarkable and historic research published today in Nature Astronomy indicating the strong possibility of microbial life in the clouds of Venus.


This unexpected discovery not only has enormous implications for further exploration and search for life throughout the Solar System but also for the investigation into the origins of life on Earth.

While Venus seems at first too inhospitable a place for life to survive, recent discoveries have identified it in other extreme environments on Earth that were also considered too harsh. These include both hot and acidic environments.  Some of the earliest signs of life on Earth were found in the Pilbara region of Western Australia in old hot spring deposits dating almost 3.5 billion years.

"Our Solar System has numerous other words which could harbour life. Spacecraft have explored and searched for...

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Inaugural Australasian virtual Space Health Symposium

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To celebrate aWorld Space Week 2020 the ad astra vita project and Mars Society Australia have joined forces to present an inaugural Australasian virtual Space Health Symposium (including Human Rights in the Space Environment) to be held on Monday 5 October and Tuesday 6 October 2020 via Zoom (free registration).

We are excited to feature Human Rights in the Space Environment as the key plenary session on Day 2. That human space exploration is both expensive and dangerous is a given, but it also represents a unique set of circumstances where human beings are totally dependent on what is provided for them in order to be able to survive. However, as the good health (both physical and psychological) of expeditioners is...

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China’s successful launch of Mars mission seals global era in deep-space exploration

Tianwen-1 is the second of three spacecraft set to take off this month for the red planet.

A Chinese spacecraft is on its way to Mars after launching successfully from Hainan Island in southern China. The mission — named Tianwen-1, which means ‘questions to heaven’ — is the country’s first attempt to land on the red planet.

The 5,000-kilogram spacecraft, which contains a lander, orbiter and rover, blasted off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center aboard a Chinese Long March-5 rocket at 12:41 p.m. local time on 23 July. Some 36 minutes later, the craft was successfully put on its trajectory towards Mars.

You can read more about this ambitious spacecraft here.

 

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Australian Space Agency to fund development of locally-designed space suits

Congratulations to MSA member, Dr James Waldie for receiving funding from the Australia Space Agency to help develop  the next generation of space suits in a major international collaboration involving NASA and the European Space Agency.

The $844,000 Australian Space Agency grant will develop three types of compression space suits, each designed to protect astronauts from the physical strains of space. Two of the designs will be developed as advanced prototypes and one as a concept.  

Human bodies in weightless space, once unloaded of gravity, also weaken. Astronauts lose muscle and up to 2 per cent of their bone mass every month while in space.

With future missions, such as those to Mars, likely to take well over two years to complete, protecting people from these health...

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Testing Mars hardware. The view from 30km up.

View of western New South Australia from 30km up. Mars Society member Steve Hobbs is busily readying hardware for Earth orbit and beyond.

One way to simulate Mars like conditions to test components on the Earth’s stratosphere some during high altitude balloon flight provided by Robert Brand and his company, Thunderstruck Space. 

Make sure you click on the image for the full size view.

 

 

 

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Mars 2020 Photo Competition

Do you like taking photos of the planets? Whether you're an expert planetary astrophotographer, just starting out or even like to simply photograph or draw the nightsky, the upcoming Mars 2020 Opposition is a great time to get out under the stars and look up at Mars!

The Mars Society Australia is running a competition to see who can produce the best image of Mars in 2020 as well as other categories. 

If you'd like to find our more details on how to enter simply visit this page.

Happy Mars 2020 imaging!

 

 

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Call for nominations for MSA Board


The Mars Society Australia (MSA) is calling for nominations for directors. Directors are appointed for a initial term of two years and half the board is elected every year.

MSA is an organisation of like-minded people that provides educational and public outreach, engineering projects and scientific research related to the planet Mars.  You can read more about the MSA here:

https://marssociety.org.au/about 

Our board of directors help run day to day operations as well as strategically plan and mange the society's endeavours.

If have an interest in Mars and would like to contribute to the MSA, please consider nominating as a director.  While professional experience in business and science is highly regarded, formal qualifications are not required. The MSA's board is typically made up of people with differing professional experience and interest who share one thing - a passion to better our...

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MSA Heads into space!

Mars Society Australia member Dr Steve Hobbs has commenced a Mars Society Australia project that would enable Steve that would fly a cubesat, most likely from the ISS.

The cubsat would carry a red edge spectrometer and demonstrate the technology for future application to planetary cubsat and rover missions and for Earth observation.  It builds on previous experience with flying payloads from high altitude balloons in near space conditions. 

The project would be in partnership with the Centre for Cubesats, UAVs, and their Applications. More details can be found on their website -  www.cuava.com.au.

An Australian national agency, Geoscience Australia, has also contributed funding towards this project.  www.ga.gov.au

The Mars Society Australia needs further donations from members and supporters to help get this new mission into space. 

The project goal...

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Mars Society Australia director nominated for "Academic of the Year" award

Mars Society Australia director Dr. Rowena Christiansen from the University of Melbourne was today nominated as a finalist for the "Academic of the Year" in the 2020 Australian Space Awards.

Congratulations Rowena for this recognition and everyone in the Mars Society Australia wishes you the best of luck for the awards night on the 26th March.

Space Awards

 

For a full list of finalists, please see here. 

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