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As the global population ages, there is increased interest in living longer and improving one's quality of life in later years. However, studying aging - the decline in body function - is expensive and time-consuming. And despite research…
The task of designing a city-state of one million residents on the planet Mars seemingly approaches the limit of perceived human ingenuity. A city-state on Mars of this capacity requires us to conform to and master the simplest aspects of…
The lunar surface is a compelling location for large, distributed optical facilities, with significant advantages over orbital facilities for high spatial resolution astrophysics. The serious development of mission concepts is timely…
In recent years, the Moon has emerged as an unparalleled extraterrestrial testbed for advancing cuttingedge technological and scientific research critical to enabling sustained human presence on its surface and supporting future…
Detecting massive satellites of extrasolar planets has now become feasible, which led naturally to questions about their habitability. In a previous study we presented constraints on the habitability of moons from stellar and planetary…
Motivated by efforts to return humanity to the Moon, three cases are reviewed for X-ray astronomy from the lunar surface: (1) Facilitation of ambitious engineering designs including high throughput telescopes, long focal length optics and…
In this paper, a control approach called Artificial Neural Tissue (ANT) is applied to multirobot excavation for lunar base preparation tasks including clearing landing pads and burying of habitat modules. We show for the first time, a team…
The habitability of exoplanets can be strongly influenced by the presence of an exomoon, and in some cases the exomoon itself could be a possible place for life to develop. For moons outside of the habitable zone, significant tidal heating…
The rapid growth of cislunar activities, including lunar landings, the Lunar Gateway, and in-space refueling stations, requires advances in cost-efficient trajectory design and reliable integration of navigation and remote sensing.…
Mars exploration motivates the search for extraterrestrial life, the development of space technologies, and the design of human missions and habitations. Here we seek new insights and pose unresolved questions relating to the natural…
Water has been stored in the Martian mantle since its formation, primarily in nominally anhydrous minerals. The short-lived early hydrosphere and intermittently flowing water on the Martian surface may have been supplied and replenished by…
The ever-expanding catalog of detected super-Earths calls for theoretical studies of their properties in the case of a substantial water layer. This work considers such water planets with a range of masses and water mass fractions (2 to 5…
Early Mars climate research has well-defined goals (Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group 2018). Achieving these goals requires geologists and climate modelers to coordinate. Coordination is easier if results are expressed in terms of…
A technologically mature colony on Mars can produce and deliver at least 1 million tons of liquid hydrogen per year to one or more propellant depots at Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Production of 1 $kg$ of hydrogen at Marian colony and its…
Habitability is a measure of an environment's potential to support life, and a habitable exoplanet supports liquid water on its surface. However, a planet's success in maintaining liquid water on its surface is the end result of a complex…
Rising interest in Mars colonization from both private and public sectors necessitates a renewed discussion about sovereignty in space. The non-appropriation principle of the Outer Space Treaty currently prohibits any sovereign claims to…
NASA mandate is a human mission to Mars in the 2030s and sustained exploration of Mars requires in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Exploiting the Martian water cycle (alongside perchlorate salts that depress the freezing point of water to…
The architecture of a large interstellar spaceship, which is capable of serving as a living environment for a population over many generations, is mainly dictated by the needs of said population in terms of food, water and breathable gases.…
Due to its absence of an atmosphere and relative geological inertness, the Moon's surface records past impacts of objects from the Solar system and beyond. We examine the prospects for discovering extrasolar material near the lunar surface…
We investigate the habitability of hypothethical moons orbiting known exoplanets. This study focuses on big, rocky exomoons that are capable of maintaining a significant atmosphere. To determine their habitability, we calculate the incident…