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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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New research published in Nature Communications estimates a cost of $8 billion to ship the required 30 tons of methane and liquid oxygen to Mars to use as fuel for a single launch with a 500-ton payload. With financial support from NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, the authors of the new paper have come up with a very different solution, in which key ingredients needed to produce the propellent can be sourced directly on the Red Planet. Pamela Peralta-Yahya, associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is a co-author of the study. The research was also covered at Space.com, Futurism.com, SlashGear, Daily Mail, The Weather Channel, Universe Today, The Hill, New Atlas, IGN.com, and The Science Times.
