Our solar system in more and more detail, the year of dwarf planets

Two unexplored corners of our solar system are coming into focus this year, which seems to be the year of the dwarf planet.  New Horizons is approaching the dwarf planet Pluto, currently about 90 days out from its nearest flyby, and has just started sending back the first fuzzy color images with orbiting Charon (actually Pluto and Charon orbit each other in space as a double dwarf planet) clearly visible.

Expect to see more and more detail into July. I wonder if there will also be good images of the moons, Hydra, Kerberos, Nix, and Styx. 

Dawn is mapping Ceres in amazing detail, seeing the surface in the image below it is hard to imagine the best we had a few months ago was a fuzzy image of the entire dwarf planet.

NASA has also released a software download to let people explore the surface of the asteroid Vesta, south pole imaged below. 

Mars Two Application!

You have probably heard of the Mars One Project (link). 

They have selected the top 100 applicants, the Mars 100, for a one way trip to Mars starting in 2020, which is only 5 years away, with teams of four landing every couple years.  Landing and not taking the material with you to return is much cheaper and efficient and makes the project possible.  The return trip capability can be left up to future missions. 

There is a less well known parallel program the Mars Two Project (Mars 2).   This is a manned trip to mars but it will not land.  Instead it is designed to establish a permanent manned orbital presence at Mars like the ISS (international space station) on Earth.  It will be a minimal module at first but then components will be added to build it up in teams of two every couple years.  It will be supplied by unmanned capsules scheduled to arrive every six months (but they have to be launched in asymmetric clusters every other year because of the relative position of earth and mars in their orbits).  Again, not landing or returning makes it possible with current funding and technology and eventually it will link up with the Mars One Project and future return trips.  (In the concept below the communication dish is so large because of the massive distance between earth and mars and the need to operate on as little power as possible.) 

When I first heard about Mars 2 I talked it over with V and we sent in our applications.  Our children are getting older and will be able to take care of themselves and each other soon.  Also, we have been having trouble finding additional employment here so our job prospects on Earth have not been looking so good lately.  There's not much to spend your money on in space, so the income from this (now just PR to raise funds) would be able to support college for the kids over the next few years.  Apparently the selection committee really liked that we have been married so long (given that we are not really that old and our health is good compared to how long we have been married put us in a very small pool already) and that we have lived in different cultures and climates; this indicates that we are likely to be more stable on long missions, plus between us we have a lot of technical (electronics, physics, chemistry, medicine, engineering, math) do-it-yourself knowledge, and they put us in the top 100 applications for Mars 2! The official announcements have not been made yet but the committee gave me the go ahead to inform our friends and family (I also think this is part of a PR plan to leak the news unofficially). 

We will be moving from O'ahu to the big island in July to start training at the NASA and University of Hawai'i run dome on the Mauna Loa volcano (link).  (The current 8 month long project at the facility will end in June.)  Ironically it is very similar to mars like conditions with the temperature, terrain, and low air pressure because of the altitude.