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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The cover of the HERC 2025 handbook, which is now available online. By Wayne Smith
Following a 2024 competition that garnered international attention, NASA is expanding its Human Exploration Rover Challenge (HERC) to include a remote control division and inviting middle school students to participate.
The 31st annual competition is scheduled for April 11-12, 2025, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, near NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. HERC is managed by NASA’s Southeast Regional Office of STEM Engagement at Marshall. The HERC 2025 Handbook has been released, with guidelines for the new remote control (RC) division – ROVR (Remote-Operated Vehicular Research) – and detailing updates for the human-powered division.
“Our RC division significantly lowers the barrier to entry for schools who don’t have access to manufacturing facilities, have less funding, or who are motivated to compete but don’t have the technical mentorship required to design and manufacture a safe human-powered rover,” said Chris Joren, HERC technical coordinator. “We are also opening up HERC to middle school students for the first time. The RC division is inherently safer and less physically intensive, so we invite middle school teams and organizations to submit a proposal to be a part of HERC 2025.”
Another change for 2025 is the removal of task sites on the course for the human-powered rover division, allowing teams to focus on their rover’s design. Recognized as NASA’s leading international student challenge, the 2025 challenge aims to put competitors in the mindset of the Artemis campaign as they pitch an engineering design for a lunar terrain vehicle – they are astronauts piloting a vehicle, exploring the lunar surface while overcoming various obstacles.
“The HERC team wanted to put together a challenge that allows students to gain 21st century skills, workforce readiness skills, and skills that are transferable,” said Vemitra Alexander, HERC activity lead. “The students have opportunities to learn and apply the engineering design process model, gain public speaking skills, participate in community outreach, and learn the art of collaborating with their peers. I am very excited about HERC’s growth and the impact it has on the students we serve nationally and internationally.”
Students interested in designing, developing, building, and testing rovers for Moon and Mars exploration are invited to submit their proposals to NASA through Sept. 19.
More than 1,000 students with 72 teams from around the world participated in the 2024 challenge as HERC celebrated its 30th anniversary as a NASA competition. Participating teams represented 42 colleges and universities and 30 high schools from 24 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 13 other nations from around the world.
“We saw a massive jump in recognition, not only from within the agency as NASA Chief Technologist A.C. Charania attended the event, but with several of our international teams meeting dignitaries and ambassadors from their home countries to cheer them on,” Joren said. “The most impressive thing will always be the dedication and resilience of the students and their mentors. No matter what gets thrown at these students, they still roll up to the start line singing songs and waving flags.”
HERC is one of NASA’s eight Artemis Student Challenges reflecting the goals of the Artemis campaign, which seeks to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon while establishing a long-term presence for science and exploration. NASA uses such challenges to encourage students to pursue degrees and careers in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Since its inception in 1994, more than 15,000 students have participated in HERC – with many former students now working at NASA, or within the aerospace industry.
To learn more about HERC, please visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge/home/index.html
Taylor Goodwin
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
taylor.goodwin@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Aug 28, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
University of Florida researcher Rob Ferl (seated) and co-principal investigator Anna-Lisa Paul practice the experiment to study the effect of gravity transitions on the plants’ gene expression.University of Florida For the first time, a NASA-funded researcher will fly with their experiment on a commercial suborbital rocket. The technology is one of two NASA-supported experiments, also known as payloads, funded by the agency’s Flight Opportunities program that will launch aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket system on a flight test no earlier than Thursday, Aug. 29.
The researcher-tended payload, from the University of Florida in Gainesville, seeks to understand how changes in gravity during spaceflight affect plant biology. Researcher Rob Ferl will activate small, self-contained tubes pre-loaded with plants and preservative to biochemically freeze the samples at various stages of gravity. During the flight, co-principal investigator Anna-Lisa Paul will conduct four identical experiments as a control. After the flight, Ferl and Paul will examine the preserved plants to study the effect of gravity transitions on the plants’ gene expression. Studying how changes in gravity affect plant growth will support future missions to the Moon and Mars.
The university’s flight test was funded by a grant awarded through the Flight Opportunities program’s TechFlights solicitation with additional support from NASA’s Division of Biological and Physical Sciences. This experiment builds on NASA’s long history of supporting plant research and aims to accelerate the pace and productivity of space-based research.
The other Flight Opportunities supported payload is from HeetShield, a small business in Flagstaff, Arizona. Two new thermal protection system materials will be mounted to the outside of New Shepard’s propulsion module to assess their thermal performance in a relevant environment, since conditions will be similar to planetary entry. After the flight, HeetShield will analyze the structure of the materials to determine how they were affected by the flight.
Flight Opportunities, within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, facilitates demonstration of technologies for space exploration and the expansion of space commerce through suborbital testing with industry flight providers. Through various mechanisms, the program funds flight tests for internal and external technology payloads.
To learn more, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-directorate/
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Last Updated Aug 28, 2024 EditorLoura Hall Related Terms
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By NASA
2 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
In-space propulsion systems utilizing cryogenic liquids as propellants are necessary to achieve NASA’s exploration missions to the Moon, and later to Mars. In current state of the art (SOA) human scale, in-space propulsion vehicles, cryogenic liquids can be stored for several hours. For the planned HLS mission architecture to close, cryogenic liquids must be stored on-orbit on the order of several months. NASA’s 2025 HuLC Competition asks student teams to develop innovative, systems-level solutions to understand, mitigate potential problems, and mature advanced cryogenic fluid technologies that can be implemented within 3-5 years. Based on a review of proposal package submissions, up to 12 Finalist Teams will be selected to receive a monetary award to continue developing their concepts and facilitate full participation in the HuLC Forum, held in Huntsville, AL in June 2025.
Sponsoring/Partner Organizations: The Human Lander Challenge is sponsored by NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate’s (ESDMD’s) Human Landing System (HLS) Program Office and managed by the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA). Action Required: Student teams will submit a 5-7-page Proposal and 2-minute Video summarizing the team’s proposal concept. Deadline: Proposal and Video Submissions are due March 3, 2025. View the 2025 HuLC Competition Guidelines here. Forum & Award: Up to 12 finalist teams will be selected to receive a $9,250 Development Stipend to facilitate full participation in the HuLC Competition Forum, held in Huntsville, AL in June 2025. The Top 3 Placing Teams will share a prize purse of $18,000. Frequency: Annual; Themes vary by year. Contact: HuLC@nianet.org Read More Explore More
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By USH
In our article from 2013 'Scientific proof human race was created by aliens' we have written about the various scientific studies that indicate that the so-called 97% non-coding sequences originally known as "junk DNA" in human DNA is no less than genetic code of extraterrestrial life forms. The overwhelming majority of Human DNA is "Off-world" in origin and the complete 'program' was positively not written on Earth and that the mathematical code in human DNA cannot be explained by evolution.
In the next video of Ancient Aliens episode 'Dark Secrets of Alien-Human Genetics' more evidence is provided that all humans are the result of alien genetic manipulation.
Transcript: In the middle of the night in 2008, 20-year-old Charmaine de Roserio Sage was sleeping when she was abruptly awakened by a terrifying sight: a reptilian humanoid standing over her. Charmaine describes the encounter vividly: "I woke up, and a reptilian entered the room. We went to an underground cave where a group of reptilians surrounded me. Each one placed a hand on my body, and I began to change. It was an extraordinary but bizarre experience to watch my body morph from a human form into a reptilian one, with my smooth skin transforming into scales and a tail emerging."
Charmaine claims that during this experience, she learned that all humans are the result of alien genetic manipulation, although some people are more affected than others. She believes that different extraterrestrial races have visited Earth throughout history and have selectively manipulated certain groups of humans. According to her, these alien interventions are part of an ongoing war between various intelligent species, fighting over territory and involving the creation and manipulation of life forms.
In 2010, biologists led by Sante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology made a remarkable discovery. They found that early humans not only coexisted with other primitive hominids but also interbred with them. Even more astonishing was the suggestion that another, unidentified species might also be represented in human DNA. This finding challenges the traditional view of human evolution as a straightforward progression from earlier hominids to modern humans.
Dr. John Hawks, an anthropologist from the University of Wisconsin, conducted a comprehensive analysis of human DNA and discovered that the rate of genetic evolution in the past 5,000 years has been 100 times faster than in any previous 5,000-year period. This raises the question: what caused such rapid changes in human DNA? Is it possible that extraterrestrial beings interbred with humans within the last 5,000 years, leading to these significant genetic alterations?
One notable case occurred in Sydney, Australia, in July 1992. Peter Khoury awoke one night to find himself paralyzed and unable to speak, with a strange, milky-white-skinned woman with large eyes and sharp features straddling his body. Another woman, with Asian features, stood nearby. The blonde woman touched her stomach, pointed to the sky, and then both women disappeared, leaving behind a single strand of blonde hair.
Khoury took the hair to a laboratory for DNA analysis, and the results were surprising. The hair was optically clear, unlike any human hair, and contained a rare combination of Chinese and Celtic DNA. While it didn't conclusively prove an alien origin, it did indicate something highly unusual.
In May 2013, mathematician Vladimir Shcherbak and astrobiologist Maxim Makukov published a study suggesting that the human genome contains a hidden code with precise mathematical patterns and an unknown symbolic language. Their research led them to believe that an extraterrestrial "stamp" might be embedded in our DNA, pointing to deliberate manipulation by alien beings in the distant past.
For ancient astronaut theorists, this finding supports the idea that extraterrestrials targeted human DNA with artificial mutations, potentially creating a form of organic robots—intelligent beings designed by advanced alien civilizations. This theory also raises the possibility that our own drive to create cybernetically enhanced versions of ourselves might be a continuation of the same agenda initiated by our extraterrestrial creators.
In 1966, scientists made a groundbreaking discovery by deciphering the genetic code, revealing that DNA is structured in clusters of three molecules known as codons or triplets. This discovery was revolutionary because it hinted at the possibility that the ultimate proof of extraterrestrial involvement in our past might be found within our own DNA, rather than in physical artifacts like crashed spaceships.
Ancient astronaut theorists argue that this triplet structure in DNA might be evidence of extraterrestrial tampering, suggesting that the number three holds a key to understanding our genetic language and our connection to otherworldly beings.
Could this be the ultimate proof that humanity's origins are not solely earthly but are intertwined with extraterrestrial influences?
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