MARS OR BUST!

*1. MARS OR BUST!

"Starting as soon as 2018, [Elon] Musk’s SpaceX plans to fly an unmanned spacecraft to Mars. The unmanned flights would continue about every two years, timed for when Earth and Mars are closest in orbit, and, if everything goes according to plan, build toward the first human mission to Mars with the goal of landing in 2025, Musk has said." From WaPo - Elon Musk provides new details on his ‘mind blowing’ mission to Mars

+ From Quartz - As Silicon Valley lays plans to colonize Mars, researchers offer a blueprint for governing it

+ "Just three days after the picnic-table meeting, 32-year-old [Nathanael] Miller presented the mission concept to NASA’s bigwigs with the money, who funded R3S just a week after that. Within 28 days—the length of a lunar cycle, or a global zombie virus outbreak—they had closed a deal with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to launch it aboard a small satellite. R3S will launch later this year, after its engineers spent just four months working on its design." From Wired - The Unknown Lab of Millennials Fast-Tracking NASA’s Missions

*2. MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN

Some days I'd like to transplant my brain, but that doesn't appear to be in the cards, yet. "His [Dr. Ren Xiaoping] plan: Remove two heads from two bodies, connect the blood vessels of the body of the deceased donor and the recipient head, insert a metal plate to stabilize the new neck, bathe the spinal cord nerve endings in a gluelike substance to aid regrowth and finally sew up the skin." From NYT - Doctor’s Plan for Full-Body Transplants Raises Doubts Even in Daring China

*3. I SEE DEAD PEOPLE

"Standing on top of a metal stool, Dr. Nunez cut into the torso. A thick greenish fluid oozed out. She grabbed an industrial-size ladle to scoop out more of it. Then she stuck both hands into the body to feel around for the liver. She came up empty, her gloves dripping." Not your typical day on the job... From NYT - Learning to Speak for the Dead

*4. IT'S A WOMAN'S WORLD

It's been a long slog. Hillary Clinton's historic nomination came 32 years after Geraldine Ferraro was selected to be Walter Mondale's running mate. Here's a few questions they dealt with back then: "How should Mr. Mondale and Ms. Ferraro share the stage? Could they touch? They shouldn't hug. Who should hold her pocketbook when she spoke?" If Clinton selects a man as her running mate, will we still get the same questions? From NYT - To Understand Clinton's Moment, Consider That It Came 32 Years After Ferraro's

*5. THE THINKER?

"In a world in which a phone or computer is rarely more than arm’s length away, are we eliminating introspection at times that may have formerly been conducive to it? And is the depth of that reflection compromised because we have retrained ourselves to seek out the immediate gratification of external stimuli?" From NYT - The End of Reflection

BOTTOM OF THE NEWS

- Having an idea interesting enough to become a government secret just “means you’re S.O.L." From Bloomberg - Congratulations, Your Genius Patent Is Now a Military Secret

- "I’ve listened to a lot of people die, and take it from me, people don’t slip away quietly like they do on screen, with one last longing look and a soft sigh of disappointed resignation." From The Toast - Holding Hope: On Being a 911 Operator

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