Onderzoeker: “Graancirkels worden niet door mensen gemaakt”

Door wie worden graancirkels gemaakt? Wetenschappers houden zich al jaren bezig met deze vraag. Sommigen menen dat er te weinig onderzoek wordt gedaan naar dit fenomeen omdat graancirkels in verband worden gebracht met complotten en UFO’s.

Professor Richard Taylor van de Universiteit van Oregon vindt dat er meer moet worden gedaan om erachter te komen door wie graancirkels worden gemaakt en waarom. “Ik vind het fascinerend dat er ieder jaar overal ter wereld graancirkels opduiken. Dit fenomeen blijft een mysterie,” zei hij.

Wereldwijd zijn er al meer dan 12.000 graancirkels geregistreerd. “Veel wetenschappers zijn huiverig om graanformaties te bestuderen omdat ze bang zijn voor gek te worden versleten,” zei professor Taylor, die zijn eigen onderzoek in 2011 publiceerde in het tijdschrift Physics World.

Elektromagnetische energie

Foto’s van gebogen plantenstengels uit een Deens tijdschrift (1999)

Uit wetenschappelijk onderzoek uit de jaren negentig blijkt dat planten die in graancirkels waren verzameld, konden worden gebogen zonder te breken. Onderzoekers W.C. Levengood en Pat Delgado concludeerden dat de planten waren blootgesteld aan een vorm van elektromagnetische energie.

De Australische verpleegster en graancirkelonderzoeker Megan Heazlewood (foto) geeft lezingen over het fenomeen. Ze doet al 15 jaar onderzoek naar graancirkels, onder meer in Groot-Brittannië, waar ze meer dan 20 formaties heeft bezocht.

Ze begon haar onderzoek in Australië, waar volgens haar tot nu toe 71 graanformaties zijn verschenen. Heazlewood stelt dat graancirkels, die vaak in afgelegen en onherbergzame gebieden verschijnen, niet door mensen worden gemaakt.

Enorme graancirkel verschenen bij oud fort

Enorme graancirkel in Milk Hill, Wiltshire (2001)

Ze hoopt boeren en experts te interesseren in graancirkelonderzoek. “De formaties verschijnen in alle soorten gewassen, zelfs in snijbiet en rijstvelden,” zei ze. De graancirkels die in koolzaad verschijnen vindt ze nog het meest bijzonder.

In het zuiden van Wiltshire is deze week een enorme graancirkel verschenen bij een oud fort. Neil Petherick trof de formatie aan bij Figsbury Ring en maakte er foto’s van met een drone. Hij denkt niet dat de geometrische vormen zijn achtergelaten door UFO’s.

Onhoudbaar

Volgens de Utrechtse hoogleraar Klaas van Egmond is het onhoudbaar om te zeggen dat graancirkels allemaal door mensen zijn gemaakt. De oud-directeur van het Milieu en Natuurplanbureau bracht al veel tijd door in de velden van Midden-Engeland om het mysterie van de graancirkels te ontrafelen.

Volgens de hoogleraar staat de scepsis over graancirkels niet op zich. In de wetenschap bestaan veel meer taboes. Denk aan het bestaan van god of spiritualiteit. “Terwijl de kern van de wetenschap toch is dat je bestudeert wat je niet begrijpt,” zei hij.

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VIDEO: Gigantische ‘UFO-basis’ ontdekt op de zeebodem

ER GEBEURN VREEMDE DINGEN RONDOM YELLOWSTONE SUPERVULKAAN, USA ( VIDEO )

{ http://niburu.co/ }

Underwater Alien Base Found Near Venezuela On July 2016, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of discovery: July 26, 2016
Location of discovery: Coast of Venezuela
Source: Reader at UFO Sightings Daily
Source URL: 

https://www.google.nl/maps/@12.4979647,-70.0186753,2094m/data=!3m1!1e3

Eyewitness states:
Hello, I saw this today, do not know is already known. sorry for my bad English. I'm Dutch :) 

This is a mind-blowing discovery off the coast of Venezuela. An alien base was found using Google online map by a reader that goes by Mario. The base is wide, over 4.8 miles wide by 67 miles long...3X longer if you untangle it. 

Also just above it is a long 4.8 mile wide strip of small black rectangular structures on the bottom of the ocean. I made a close up of one of them so you can see its amazing shape. The close up structure is 1 mile by 1 mile. Amazing proof that aliens do use the bottom of Earths oceans at there personal playground. 
Scott C. Waring
www.ufosightingsdaily.com 

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Six Pointed Star Found In Desert On Google Earth, Saudi Arabia, July 2016, Photos, UFO Sighting News

I put a Star of David over the ancient site. It fits perfectly.

Above is altered with added contrast, below is original untouched. 

Date of discovery: July 26, 2016
Location of discovery: Ardah, Saudi Arabia
Source: Reader at UFO Sightings Daily
Source URL: 

https://www.google.ae/maps/@20.8619776,54.0851999,1373m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Google coordinates:  20°51'44.54"N  54° 5'17.93"E

This was sent into me this week by a reader here at UFO Sightings Daily. There is a giant 6 pointed star that looks a lot like the Star of David, a Jewish symbol of sorts. This may be an ancient drawing made by a tribe long ago that followed the Jewish faith. Much like the Nazca lines in Peru were made for the gods to see.  It was made from ancient tribes of people placing their structures in this design. Over hundreds and thousands of years, the desert changes very little, so I assume the outlines are sand covering the stone broken walls. Thanks to anonymous for telling me about this. Wow, this really looks like the surface of Mars here.

There is also a giant face directly above it in the mountains, which always means alien were involved and created the face to mark their territory...a cultural thing many alien species follow. 
Scott C. Waring
www.ufosightingsdaily.com

Anonymous Eyewitness states: 
Hi, please see these structures and explain them, they are in the empty quarter, the largest sand dune desert in the world. 

Two more ancient structures below not far way from the star.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

Onondaga County, NY UFO Sighting

Location: Onondaga county, NY
Date: 7/17/2016
Submitted by Sylvia

Witness report:

I was taking nature photographs and found this object in one of them. It is in the upper left hand corner. A cropped picture shows it as well. Can anybody help me identify what this is??

Related Posts:

1. Daytime UFO sighting over New York
2. Photo of a UFO over Harvard, MA
3. UFO filmed over Texas
4. Flying saucer over Toledo, Ohio?

{ http://reports.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Ancient Aliens: The Mysterious Nine S11E08

Ancient Aliens – The Mysterious Nine
History Channel, Season 11, Episode 8
8th July 2016

In 2013, former Canadian Minister of Defense, Paul Hellyer, made a shocking claim–that there is a federation of extraterrestrial beings monitoring and guiding humanity. But why would such an esteemed politician make such a controversial announcement? Ancient Astronaut theorists believe evidence can be found throughout history to prove his claims are true. Stories of emperors, kings and pharaohs consulting a pantheon of nine gods can be found in virtually every culture across the globe. Even channeling sessions conducted by CIA scientists in the 1950s connected with an otherworldly group of entities called “The Nine” — extraterrestrials here to influence the events on Earth. Could there be an intergalactic council of nine secretly working behind the scenes, dictating the course of humanity?

{  http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

The Disclosure Controversy with Jim Marrs, Linda Moulton Howe and Laura Eisenhower

Jimmy Church Radio, Fade To Black, was broadcast live this from Contact in the Desert 2016 at Joshua Tree California this past weekend.

Like a revolving door of the who’s who of Ufology, one guest after another passed through the studio, sitting with with Jimmy Church in fascinating and often controversial dialogue.

Jim Marrs, Linda Moulton Howe, and Laura Eisenhower discuss the upcoming US election.

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Ancient Aliens: The Wisdom Keepers S11E07

Ancient Aliens – The Wisdom Keepers
History Channel, Season 11, Episode 7
24th June 2016

The Aborigines of Australia are the oldest, continuously surviving society on Earth. The stories preserved in their oral tradition are said to date back over 60,000 years, to an era they call the “Dreamtime” and contain fascinating descriptions about how life began and our planet was seeded by extraterrestrials. Linguistic experts have just discovered that many of these indigenous legends can be scientifically verified by examining the geological record. Ancient Astronaut theorists propose that if the Aboriginal’s oral traditions are indeed this accurate, then perhaps the tales they tell about sky gods visiting Earth in large, fire-spewing crafts are true as well. Could the ultimate evidence about our extraterrestrial past be found within the sacred stories, sites, and rituals of Australia’s Wisdom Keepers?

{ http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Bright flying saucer hovering above Daytona Beach, Florida 20-Jul-2016

Here’s a new video of a bright disc-shaped object in the sky above Daytona Beach. This was filmed on 20th July 2016.

Witness report: Saturn like object hovering 1 mile away. Bright blinking colored lights. Hovered then turned south and moved away slowly then VERY fast.
My wife and I were at a hotel on the beach in Daytona Beach Florida on 7/20/16. The hotel is on SR A1A about 2.0 miles south of US 92. The time was 8:52 PM and it had just turned dark.

We were sitting in the lawn area overlooking the ocean when we heard several people in a parking lot next to us to the south speaking loudly and pointing to a blinking object in the sky. The object was about ½ mile south of our position, at about a 30–45 degree angle from our position, hovering over the beach at maybe 500’ (?). From our position it looked small maybe about the size of a penny held at arm’s length.

It looked like a sphere with a ring around it, kind of like the planet Saturn. It had a lot of lights on it many different colors. Very bright white/silver, green maybe others, not sure. The white/silver lights were constant and there were others blinking. There was a violet one on the bottom that blinked a lot slower than the others, maybe once every second. The others were faster.

The object hovered for about a minute that we observed. It then slowly turned west then south arcing slightly as it did. It then headed south slowly then VERY quickly picked up speed and continued south down the beach until we lost sight of it.

My wife noted there was a small plane approaching the object from the north and when the plane got really close, the object turned and quickly sped away. As my wife said “it hauled butt”.

I had difficulty getting my phone camera to focus in the dark but managed to snap one picture as soon as I saw it, then started video recording for 30 seconds or so. I turned off video so I could snap another picture. When I turned it off the object had started its turn. I turned the video back on until I lost sight of it.

We are not sure what this was. It was definitely not a plane or helicopter. It couldn’t have been a drone as the drone would have to have been a big one, at least 10-15 feet in diameter. No other logical explanation to what we saw.

Author (source: MUFON)

https://youtu.be/nK8cvLVTd2U

 { http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Marsrover Curiosity kan nu zelfstandig laserstralen schieten

Tim Kraaijvanger

Marsrover Curiosity is uitgerust met een laserinstrument om laserpulsen af te vuren op stenen. Hierdoor verdampt een klein beetje materiaal van de steen, waarna de samenstelling geanalyseerd kan worden. Vanaf nu kan Curiosity het ChemChem-laserinstrument zelfstandig gebruiken.

Tot juli 2016 is het ChemChem-laserinstrument al meer dan 350.000 keer gebruikt. Dankzij deze honderdduizenden afgeschoten laserpulsen weten astronomen nu veel meer over de omstandigheden waarin de stenen zijn gevormd. Hierdoor leren wetenschappers meer over het verre verleden van Mars.

VIER JAAR OP MARS

Curiosity is alweer vier jaar op Mars en rijdt in de Gale-krater. Deze krater bevindt zich nabij de evenaar en is zeer droog. Tenminste: nu is dat zo. In het verleden was dat wel anders. Miljarden jaren geleden waren in de krater meren te vinden die een prettig onderkomen kunnen zijn geweest voor microben. Het is dan ook een zeer interessante plaats om onderzoek te doen.

De afgelopen jaren kozen wetenschappers op aarde de doelwitten voor het ChemChem-instrument, maar dat verandert nu. Curiosity selecteert vanaf nu zelfstandig welke stenen interessant zijn om te ‘zappen’. “Dit is handig, want als er vertraging is in de communicatie tussen de aarde en de rode planeet, dan kan Curiosity gewoon doorgaan”, vertelt ingenieur Tara Estlin van NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Algoritme
Marsrover Curiosity maakt gebruik van een algoritme om interessante stenen te selecteren. Dit algoritme is geprogrammeerd door wetenschappers. Een interessant doelwit moet aan enkele voorwaarden voldoen. Zo kijkt de rover o.a. naar de grootte en helderheid van stenen. De criteria kunnen worden aangepast wanneer de wetenschappelijke doelstellingen veranderen of wanneer Curiosity een ander gebied bereikt.

Marsrover Curiosity op de rode planeet.

“Om een laserpuls goed af te vuren, moet Curiosity stilstaan, waarna wetenschappers op aarde de parameters finetunen”, zegt Estlin. Dat kan natuurlijk sneller. “Dankzij AEGIS (de software, red.) kan Curiosity objecten nu snel identificeren en in een keer goed raken.”

Niet volledig zelfstandig
Overigens is het niet zo dat Curiosity vanaf nu alles zelfstandig doet. Wetenschappers kunnen het ChemChem-laserinstrument nog steeds vanaf aarde besturen en de Marsrover opdrachten geven om bepaalde stenen te beschieten.

Bronmateriaal:

"NASA Mars Rover Can Choose Laser Targets on Its Own" - NASA

{ https://www.scientias.nl/nieuws/ }

The largest underground lake in the US is under Tennessee, discovered by a 13 yr old boy

Deep inside a mountain near Sweetwater in East Tennessee is a remarkable body of water known as The Lost Sea. Listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as America’s largest underground lake, the Lost Sea is part of an extensive and historic cave system called Craighead Caverns.

The caverns have been known and used since the days of the Cherokee Indians.

One of the cave’s earliest visitors was a giant Pleistocene jaguar whose tracks have been found deep inside the cave. Some 20,000 years ago the animal apparently lost his way in the darkness and wandered for days before plunging into a crevice far from the daylight he sought. Some of the bones, discovered in 1939, are now on display in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Pleistocene Jaguar on display in California La Brea tar pits museum

 Boy makes a discovery

The lake was discovered in 1905 by a thirteen-year-old boy named Ben Sands. As the story goes Sands, who often played in the cave, happened upon a small opening and crawled through. The room was so large he was unable to see the ends of the room with his lantern, so he threw balls of mud in all directions and heard splashes. When he went back home and told people of his discovery they were hesitant to believe him. By the time Ben convinced his father to go back down with him to explore it further, the water level had risen, hiding the cave entrance from them. It was rediscovered by local explorers several years later.

Civil war mine

When the first white settlers arrived in the Tennessee Valley in the 1820’s they also discovered the cave and used it for storing potatoes and other vegetables.

During the Civil War the Confederate Army mined the cave for saltpeter, a commodity necessary to the manufacture of gunpowder.

Still being explored

The full extent of the Lost Sea is still not known despite the efforts of teams of divers armed with modern exploration equipment. Beneath the calm waters of the giant lake, the adventurous divers have found a series of large rooms filled entirely with water. More than 13 total acres have been mapped so far. Perhaps the lost sea is the cause of the Ebbing and Flowing stream in Rogersville

In 1915 the idea of developing the cave for the public was conceived. A dance floor was installed in one of the large upper rooms.

Fish of the Lost Cave

There are even fish in the lake, primarily rainbowless rainbow trout. Predecessors of these fish had been carried down through Craighead Caverns and released into the lake by people curious to see if they would escape and reveal a conduit to another body of water. But they stayed put. And in the deep, lightless cave their eyesight and color faded and their sex drive vanished. Since the lake itself sustains no plant or animal life, the trout learned to swarm around visiting rafts and launch themselves into airborne food deliveries. “Now we restock them and keep them on as a tourist attraction.”

Source

{ http://mysteriousearth.net/ }

This space telescope just uncovered more than 100 new planets, many of which might harbor alien life

Ali Sundermier, Business Insider

Read the original article on Business Insider. Copyright 2016. Follow Business Insider onTwitter.

https://youtu.be/s8MydoZhAjM

{  http://www.techinsider.io/ }

Metallic Orb UFOs Seen While Stalking Military Cargo Plane over Memphis Highway

An energetic UFO encounter involving four metallic unidentified sphere-like objects and a military plane took place only a few days ago, and there are wintnessess talking about it in detail.

---

 

On July 12, 2016, around 12 p.m. in Memphis, Tennessee, a military cargo plane was taking off from the Memphis International Airport. Five miles further, a man working in a warehouse was taking his lunch break and had a very clear close view of the cargo plane’s take off.

 

Moments after, he witnessed how four metallic orb UFOs came out of a cloud then briefly followed the military cargo plane, forcing it to make a radical evasive maneuver and return to the take off point. Finally, the four metallic orbs vanished again into the clouds. The sharp turn after the sighting of the four orbs suggests that the crew was not aware of them, more like responded to a life-threatening situation.

 

• “I saw a large military cargo plane — the kind that drops tanks out of the back with parachutes attached — taking off from the airport heading south, then turned to head east as it was taking off,” the witness reported.
• “The plane made a small maneuver as the metallic orbs appeared out of the small clouds,” he wrote. “I thought to myself that the huge plane shouldn’t try that at such a slow speed.”

 

In the turmoil, the startled man managed to get a hold of himself and grabbed the camera to get a full picture of the sudden commotion in the sky. Despite the rapid deployment of the unexpected event, the witness was lucky enought to take a snapshot of the plane and the four orbs flying in a formation, in the same frame.

 

Orb UFOs seen from an airplane

 

To his surprise, after checking the picture and looked back to the sky, the orbs were nowhere to be seen; most likely, the UFOs withdrawn into the clouds.

 

The witness report was submitted to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) and filed as Case 77636.

 

Involving the nature of the four metallic orbs, UFO blogger Scott C. Waring believes they were metallic alien orb UFOs with the mission to scan for technology, thus the planes attracted their attention as a valid scan target.

 

“Perhaps the orbs were hiding and waiting for planes, so they could scan the technology.”, excerpt from a post in Waring’s blog, UFO Sightings Daily.

 

It is well known among UFO enthusiasts that the areas surrounding Memphis International Airport are linked to multiple UFO sightings, making it a genuine UFO hotspot.

 

Another sighting also near the airport was reported on June 22, 2016, over highway I-55. As the witness was driving southbound to Memphis Airport, he approached the Delta Refinery about 3:30 a.m., spotted a UFO hovering in the sky at about 1000 – 1500 feet high.

 

• “As we got closer, I slowed and rolled my window down and stuck my head out to get a better view. It was not moving nor making any sound,” the unnamed witness reported. “I could not believe what I was seeing.”

 

The witness was southbound along I-55 in Memphis near the Delta Refinery, pictured, when the UFOs were spotted hovering above on June 22, 2016. (Credit/Google)

 

• “It seemed to be over twice the size of a 737 and [was] just hanging there in the sky, shaped like a V made of two rectangles, cut at the ends to make a point. I would guess the legs of the V to be 30-feet to 50-feet square and 200-feet to 300-feet long with the span at the back of the V about 150-feet.”

 In the rush of the moment, the witness was tempted to search for the camera in his luggage but the risk of an accident made him give up the idea.

 

• “The traffic was light, but it was all tractor trailer rigs,” he reported. “I tried adjusting my left rear view mirror, but could not see it even when I looked back.”

 So far we’ve had no reaction from the authorities, but probably if any attention would be given, those so-called “UFO encounters” would be rapidly debunked as being military crafts in development, or some form of natural phenomenon that occurs briskly.

 

 

http://www.ewao.com/

{ http://7tales.net/ }

(VIDEO)Gargantuan UFO Photographed while Taking Off from the Sun – Evidence of Portal Travel?

Skywatchers using the solar visualization tool Helioviewer managed to capture a strange object the size of Earth’s moon just as it was blasting off from the surface of the Sun.

---

 

On July 18, UFO hunters examining imagery sent back by the SDO’s (Solar Dynamic Observatory) AIA 304 instrument were quick to spot the alien presence and their massive unidentified flying object, once again setting ablaze the UFO community. It isn’t the first time photographic evidence for such an object was provided, but rather the latest in a series of incidents in which our star plays a role we don’t yet understand.

 

Helioviewer allows users to place the Earth in images of the Sun, to better get a sense of how large it is. This allowed YouTube user UFOvni2012 to assess the size of the unidentified craft as several thousand miles across. If a UFO this big suddenly appeared in the sky over our heads, things would go dark pretty soon.

 

Naturally, a craft this size must have colossal energy needs, leading many to believe it had just finished refueling with the Sun’s plasma and was in the process of taking off. The straight stream of ejecta it’s leaving behind seems to support this theory.

 

 

 

If you were worried aliens siphoning fuel from our star might somehow deplete it, don’t. The Sun outputs 3.8 x  Joules of energy every second, equivalent to roughly 25 septillion average cars, so there’s plenty to go around. Even so, the implications of aliens leeching off our primary energy source are serious, though we couldn’t possibly do anything about it.

 

Another explanation for the alien presence near the Sun was proposed by Swiss researcher Nassim Haramein, who is famous for his controversial theories. Haramein surmised that extraterrestrials are using our Sun as a gateway for interstellar travel. He believes the alien ships somehow manipulate the extreme forces and phenomena present in or around the sun into opening wormholes that connect the Solar System to various other places in our universe, maybe going even further than that.

 

The Swiss scientist claims that the black spots that appear on the surface of the Sun are in fact black holes. Under very specific conditions, these black holes may twist space-time in such a manner that they form wormholes. Once opened up, these cosmic pathways take months to close, enabling safe passage between destinations or dimensions. These black holes are created and maintained open by Hawking radiation, a form of electromagnetic radiation exuded near a region of the black hole called the event horizon.

 

Haramein says these wormholes are present not only on the surface of stars, but inside every planet as well. He believes that once a civilization attains a certain level of technological development, they could master deep space travel with minimal operational costs.

 

If Haramein’s suppositions are correct, we might have an answer for the large number of UFOs seen entering Earth’s mantle through active volcanoes. They could be using the immense pressure, heat and electromagnetism inside planets and stars to their advantage. This gives us a clue about the technology they would need to achieve such a feat.

 

 

 

The surface of the Sun reaches a scorching 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As you go deeper into the star, the temperature and pressure reach well, astronomic values. Near its center, the temperature reaches a whopping 27 million degrees, while the pressure goes up to 340 billion times the Earth’s atmospheric pressure. No metal, alloy or metamaterial developed by mankind can withstand even the surface temperature of the Sun. If the UFO spotted near our star is indeed physical in nature, we speculate it must be shielded by magnetic or force fields, but this supposition is susceptible to the limitations of our own technology and what we currently believe to be physically possible. The extraterrestrials could be manipulating matter and forces in ways we haven’t even dreamed yet.

 

This incident and many others like it refer the curious mind to a belief system that shaped the lives of ancient people, and whose influence still radiates today.

 

Sun worship. While it may seem self-evident that an archaic society with few established concepts about divinity would naturally glorify the big ball of fire that gives life and renews the world, their mythologies present some extraordinary facets. From bowing to the east, to the myth of Phaeton and the Sun Chariot, the heliolatrous aspect of bygone cultures focuses on some characters that could be direct references to extraterrestrials entering our Solar System through the Sun itself.

 

Are the ancient sun gods really constructs of the human mind or physical beings with technology so advanced, it couldn’t be distinguished from magic? Were their sun chariots actually spacecraft like the ones photographed near our sun? Will they be coming back?

 

Care to comment?

 

http://ufoholic.com/

{ http://7tales.net/ }

Can NASA Convert Asteroids into Spacecraft? They Plan to Find Out!

NASA has recently awarded a grant to California-based company Made in Space, in an effort to determine whether asteroids could be turned into craft capable of traversing interplanetary space.

---

 

Asteroids are a big deal, and not just in the cataclysmic, purveyor of planet-wide death sense. Scientists believe that, along with comets, asteroids provided young Earth with the elements needed to spawn and sustain life. During an event known as the Late Heavy Bombardment, a large number of asteroids was running amok in the early Solar System and many of them crashed into Earth and the other rocky planets. The majority of heavy metals that made possible Homo sapiens’ technological ascension from the Stone Age can be traced back to those resource-laden planetary pummelers.

 

As we continue our journey into the space age, Now in the space age, mankind sets its eyes on far horizons, but as our hopes and expectations grow, so does our need for resources. Scientists speculate that the next Gold Rush will take place in outer space, focusing on asteroids rather than hills or riverbeds. Analysis shows asteroids are abundant in raw materials and they’re not that hard to find, either.

 

 

Based on this philosophy, Made in Space are developing a project called RAMA (Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata) which aims to ease the process of space colonization by readily-providing the resources required. Currently, the costs of getting stuff into orbit are high and the efficiency is pretty low. Asteroid mining would make things a whole lot easier, as Made in Space co-founder and CTO Jason Dunn told Space.com:

 

• “Today, we have the ability to bring resources from Earth. But when we get to a tipping point where we need the resources in space, then the question becomes, ‘Where do they come from and how do we get them, and how do we deliver them to the location that we need?’ This is a way to do it.”

 

Made in Space plan to jumpstart the operation by sending a Seed Craft to one of the asteroids located in Earth’s vicinity. Once the craft gathers enough materials, it could start building propulsion, navigation and other systems autonomously and with the aid of 3D printing. Equipped with this setup, asteroids could be remotely guided to mining stations in Earth’s orbit or anywhere else, for that matter. The probe would then fly to its next set of targets, slapping rudimentary thrusters and stabilizers on them and sending them our way.

 

 

Dunn pointed out these cosmicpunk vessels won’t resemble traditional spacecraft as we’ve come to know them. The asteroids’ momentum isn’t going to be delivered by rockets, but by a catapult system that ejects chunks of space rock in a controlled fashion. Made in Space even opted not to include computers because they would require complex circuitry the likes of which the Seed Craft won’t be able to make. Instead, they believe a mechanical computer assembled from 3D printed parts could perform the task quite well. Such computers have been around for a while and autonomous 3D printers can make them.

 

The potential benefits of this ambitious project are what caught the Space Agency’s interest. This April, NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program awarded Made in Space a $100,000 grant to assess the plan’s feasibility. If they make it through, they’ll receive a Phase 2 NIAC award, worth $500,000. And there are reasons to believe the thing is indeed doable.

 

• “At the end of the day, the thing that we want the asteroid to be is technology that has existed for a long time,” Dunn said. “The question is, ‘Can we convert an asteroid into that technology at some point in the future?'” “We think the answer is yes.”

 

That point in the future wont be next year, because the technology is still in its infancy and baby steps are notoriously hard to take. Current discussions are based mostly on speculation and Dunn predicts the effort will require at least two decades to mature but, by that time, asteroid mining will have evolved enough to make this venture profitable. That’s what mining is all about, right?

 

http://www.ewao.com/

{ http://7tales.net/ }