News Archive - September 2001


Wednesday, September 26, 2001



POD Archive - The Pic of the Day Archive has been updated to include over 30 more pictures with full descriptions and a larger image for each. You can access this feature from the link at right under today's Pic of the Day. You can also add these images to your own site easily by clicking here.

posted by Alex



Monday, September 24, 2001



NASA's Importance - It's in times like these when we realize the importance of space science to our economy, our technology, and even our military. On September 10th, NASA's budget was cut by 5%, a figure reflecting the economical recession. A day later marked the worst terrorist attack in history, followed a week later by a collapsing stock market and the biggest point loss ever. It is generally accepted that every dollar dumped into NASA returns a greater return economically and technologically than any other US Agency. Research in the sciences is as important to the military as the men and women who serve in the armed forces. "NASA is a mainstay of our technological presence in the world," Stamatios Krimigis, head of the space department at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory said. "To backtrack on that would be playing into the hands of our adversaries, those who attacked our country. Much of what NASA does is synergistic with Department of Defense efforts." Let's just hope Congress agrees with us.

(more info:
MSNBC)

posted by Alex



Sunday, September 23, 2001



We're Back - It has been nearly two weeks since the last update here at Red Colony. With the events that will change the world forever taking place, Red Colony has been on a brief hiatus. I've been insanely busy with real life, school, patriotism, relationships... personal issues. Also the webserver that hosts the site has been experiencing major problems, making it impossible for me to update. Now that things have calmed down a bit, RC is back. There are several projects taking place right now. Articles are underway by Jim, Brian, and myself, and the Pic of the Day Archive is scheduled for a huge update.

Give blood, hug your mother, and keep praying.

posted by
Alex



Tuesday, September 11, 2001



ATTACK ON U.S. ATTACK ON U.S. - "This is the second Pearl Harbor. I don't think that I overstate it."

http://www.msnbc.com/news/627028_asp.htm - Main Story
http://www.msnbc.com/m/lv/default_asp.htm - Live Video Updates
http://www.msnbc.com/news/627058.asp?0cb=-31b22998 - Eyewitness Accounts
http://www.msnbc.com/news/627059.asp?0cb=-51b22998 - World Reactions
http://www.msnbc.com/news/627085.asp?0cb=-61b22998 - Market/Borders Shutdown

Pray for the families of the victims, the United States, and the World for this horrible act.

(photo credit: MSNBC)


For All Mankind - Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?


On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.


And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.


Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

posted by
Alex



Monday, September 10, 2001



Mars Virtual Map - I just received this link from Peter Blass of Science Outlook:

I was fooling around with a new National Geographic site -- Map Machine, when I noticed an interesting item in the menu bar at left: Mars! Check it out! - Peter.

posted by Alex



Saturday, September 8, 2001



Life on Mars Life on Mars! - (Yahoo) Hungarian scientists claimed on Friday to have found evidence of living organisms on Mars after analyzing 60,000 photographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor probe. The three-man team said the pictures showed evidence of thousands of dark dune spots, similar to organisms found near Earth's South Pole, in craters in Mars' snowy southern polar region.

(more info:
Yahoo)
(photo credit: Reuters)

posted by Brian



Thursday, September 6, 2001



Life Test Positive - (CNN) NASA has posted on the Internet the results of an experiment that tested positive for life on Mars, despite having given little credence to the research for decades. The experiment took place in 1976 aboard Viking I and II. This, in light of other recent and not-so-recent reports showing that there was once life on Mars, is convincing more and more that perhaps we aren't alone in the universe.

(more info:
CNN)
(more info: NASA)
(photo credit: NASA)

posted by Brian



Wednesday, September 5, 2001



Pic of the Day - It's finally here! The Red Colony.com Pic of the Day is a feature that has gained the site world-wide publicity, and for over a year, we've supplied you with daily updates of the latest Mars images. Now you can add the feature to your own website! Just visit the Pic of the Day and add 4 simple lines of HTML to your web-code. Click here to find out more reasons why this is a deal you don't want to pass up. Instant updates of new images with a description and archive... all without you having to do anything.

posted by Alex



Monday, September 3, 2001



Sleeping Frenchmen - In Toulouse France, Monday, French science was caught sleeping on the job. "Operation Bedrest," a four-month study in which the volunteers are not allowed to sit up or to leave their slightly tilted beds, is going to simulate the feeling of weightlessness. "If you lie at an angle of six degrees with your head below your feet, the body fluids work in a similar way as they do when you are in space," said Jacques Bernard, one of the doctors running the study. The men will walk away with $10,400.

(more info:
Reuters)

posted by Jeff



Sunday, September 2, 2001



Lichen Lichen - A new article called Lichen has been written by Kian Cochrane, author of Terraforming: Other Methods. Lichen are extremely important in terraforming and may be the key to warming the planet. Here's a snippet of his article:

Lichen (more commonly known as mosses) are a combination of fungi and algae. Lichen are important for the terraformation of Mars because they can survive very adverse conditions, like those on a partially terraformed Mars. Lichen, like all other plants, utilize the light energy in sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into sugars and oxygen.

(photo credit: http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/cpsu/lichen1.html)

Introduction - I've put up a new Introduction page. If you're new to Red Colony.com or just want to know our goals and mission statement, check it out. Also you can view the site credits and see all the people that have made RC what it is today. We have raised public awareness of a manned-mission to Mars and will continue to do so, with the support of the vast majority of space enthusiasts. We teach about the idea of "terraforming", a process so sci-fi that we are in fact creating it as we write it. We are writing the very book that may be used 50, 60, maybe even 100 years down the road. And in the mean time, we are sparking an interest in the countless future scientists, biologists, and engineers, who may someday create another Earth.

posted by Alex



Saturday, September 1, 2001



Artificial Gravity Artificial Gravity - Two dot-com millionaires have decided to do something that NASA even has overlooked. Artificial gravity is a serious requirement for a trip to and from Mars. Over the several month period in space, 0 gravity would mean a decrease in bone density, weaker muscles and immune system, and other health-threatening complications. Gravity would have to be "created" in space, a process involving a rotating space ship. A mission to be launched within a few years by multi-millionaires, Elon Musk (30) and Adeo Ressi (29), with contributions from the Mars Society and the Life to Mars Foundation, will send mice into orbit for 6 weeks in Martian artificial gravity (.38 G) to see if mammals can reproduce and survive in those conditions. According to Musk, people went into the internet "because they thought it was a really important thing that would change things in a positive way and make life better." He says now people "will look around and say, ‘What should I do next?’ And I think space will be that thing."

(more info:
MSNBC)
(photo credit: Mars Society)

posted by Alex