The HCOS WeeklyTenth Edition

For more info: http://www.mars-one.com/ http://www.spacex.com/

e Next Big Step?

By Noah Penner - (Sorry folks, no random movie review this week!)

From April 22 to August 21 last year, I had the capability to choose whether to leave Earth forever. While it sounds like either a fantasy or science-fiction setup, the idea has actually become quite real, and has been mentioned by al-most all major news sources sever-al times already: Mars One, a pri-vate spaceflight proposal to send the first humans to Mars while also setting up the first Martian colony. While many such proposals have floated around since the beginning of space travel itself, only in recent years have people started to pay attention, mainly due to the end-ing of the Space Shuttle program and the subsequent downsizing of NASA. In 2012, SpaceX, a company founded by Elon Musk (the real-life inspiration for the modern portray-al of Tony Stark in Iron Man) suc-cessfully docked their unmanned spacecra! Dragon to the Interna-

tional Space Station, becoming the first private organization to do so. Plans for the manned version of Dragon are under development, with the first astronauts likely fly-ing to the ISS aboard the space-cra! around 2016. Simply put, they've built a reliable, ambitious, and politics-free space program that countries and companies alike can buy into. In a recent statement issued by the Canadian Space Agency, the low price of SpaceX's flights as supposed to Russian flights mean that the next Canadi-an astronaut will likely travel to the ISS not aboard the decades-old Soyuz spacecra!, but aboard the American-launched Dragon.

This is where Mars One starts from. The proposal operates on a valid, ever-so-true point: Going to Mars is easy, as shown by the dozen rovers and probes various countries have landed there over the years. Get-ting back to Earth is the problem; not only do you have to haul all the necessary fuel with you, dramati-

cally complicating the mission, but you have to worry about dangers like radiation and long-term expo-sure to weightlessness. To this date, no spacecra! has ever man-aged such a feat; the only reason we have Mars rocks here on Earth is because they've been ejected by various geological forces long ago and were lucky enough to head in our direction, not completely burn up in the atmosphere, and not land in a deep ocean. Mars One's idea is to land several Dragon cap-sules on the Martian surface, orga-nizing them and expanding them using inflatable segments that will later be buried for safety reasons by later colonists. When the base is set up using a combination of rovers on the Martian surface and mission controllers here on Earth, the first colonists will arrive, and spend the rest of their lives main-taining the colony, exploring and analyzing the Martian surface, per-haps, but not likely to return to Earth at a later date. They will grow their own food, perform their

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own experiments, and yet will still be able to enjoy television and movies streamed from Earth, al-beit with a 16-minute signal delay. More colonists will arrive in later years, further expanding the base and it's scientific capabilities, with a supply ship estimated to arrive every two years.

Now for the real question: Is any of this at all realistic to fulfill, espe-cially for a private company, espe-cially with such a tight schedule (the first colonists will arrive in 2022)? Even crazier is the organiza-tion's idea to raise money: By sell-ing the television rights to the planning and launch of the mission, the group feels they can not only pay off most of the 6 bil-lion dollar costs, but also create a worldwide media event not seen since the landing of Apollo 11! There's a lot of wishful thinking go-ing on, yet a lot of realistic plan-ning and development. Obviously money will be the biggest hurdle; right now they even have a crowd-funding campaign for their first rover mission, unfortunately not raising as much money as antici-pated. I do feel this is the right di-rection though, and considering how much other crowdfunded projects like movies and video games have made, I wouldn't be surprised if they strike gold and people recognize and donate to, of all things, a manned mission to Mars. It certainly seems like a good c o m p a n i o n t o t h e m e d i a campaign, raising awareness for the latter at that. The organization also recently announced an official partnership with Lockheed Martin, a vital step that means they now have some sort of official recogni-tion, and confirmation that much larger organizations are actually willing to buy into the plan. I feel the make-or-break step will be a

relationship with SpaceX, whose spacecra! Mars One already plans to use; considering that Elon Musk has previously stated that he founded the organization for simi-lar goals (a Mars colony) such a partnership seems ideologically likely, and hopefully financially so as well. NASA certainly isn't inter-ested, as the higher-ups in the US Congress have already turned down another proposal by Dennis Tito, a billionaire and previous space tourist, to perform a Mars flyby mission in 2017. Simply put, while Tito's proposal is a lot more feasible, featuring a married cou-ple flying to Mars and getting a four-hour up-close peek at the planet, and landing back on Earth in under two years, it hasn't re-ceived anywhere near as much coverage as Mars One, and hasn't announced such incentives as open applications for astronauts or crowdfunding campaigns. While having ordinary members of the public apply might not seem very orthodox for spaceflight, in the case of a one-way Martian colony, it raises awareness and empha-sizes how the mission is for all of mankind and not the privileged few who passed test pilot school (even though the Mars One astro-nauts will likely be put through a plethora of physical and mental challenges in order to be selected).

Yet what about the final, biggest question I get asked when bringing up the Mars One proposal: Why? Why go to Mars in the first place? What could humankind possibly gain from such a massive effort? The answer, I say, is life. Sure, spaceflight will no doubt result in massive technological discoveries as the past Apollo and Space Shut-tle programs have given us, but I feel the greatest purpose of such a task is not technology, but

answers. While the early Mars One colony will be unable to extract any resources from the Martian soil for use on Earth, they will be able to conduct vital science and an-swer some of mankind's most burning questions: Is there life on Mars? Has there ever been life on Mars? Did the first cellular life origi-nate on Mars and travel to Earth on one of the previously mentioned Martian meteorite? If the answer to all of the question is a resounding "no," than the goal of Mars One shi!s from discovering the answers of past forms of life to planting new ones. Just as European sailors le! all they had and took the bold voyage to the New World, just as settlers on the East Coast le! friends and family to travel the Oregon Trail to the west, mankind now must make the step not from country to country, not from conti-nent to continent, but from planet to planet. I've included here a pic-ture known as the Pale Blue Dot,

taken by the Voyager 1 probe in 1990, also currently the farthest man-made object from Earth. It showcases a tiny, barely visible white dot, in the middle of one of several sunbeams captured by the

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Meet Kristina Fedorovphotograph. That dot - seen from 6 billion kilometres away - is Earth. To paraphrase the great Carl Sagan, that dot, that tiny, seem-ingly insignificant planet, is where you were born, where all of your ancestors were born, and where all of technology and civilization have taken shape. Every war, every dis-aster, every death that has ever oc-curred has occurred on that dot. Everything we know about the uni-verse has been discovered from that tiny dot we happen to call home. What would become of mankind if we were to stay on that dot, to not expand, not push for-ward? What, if any legacy would we create in the greater universe of our existence? Alas, what a horrific waste of such a gi! as the massive, unknown gi! known to us as the observable universe, like an adult that refuses to leave home, instead staying the seemingly comfortable confines of the home in which they grew up.

Ultimately, Mars One could either result in a great victory for mankind, or fizzle away like so many other spaceflight plans over the past 50 years. Why do I think this one is different? The group has laid out an ambitious, but com-pletely realistic answer to a seem-ingly unsolvable problem. Why didn't I sign up to go? Admittedly, I like Earth; I don't feel I could possi-bly leave it, considering the people I'd miss, the plans I'd forfeit, and the discoveries I have yet to make. Yet, even just something as simple as the ability to make such a choice says something very hope-ful about humankind; it says some-thing about the human spirit, about the man's urge to inquire, to d i s co v e r. I h o p e M a r s O n e succeeds, and if they don't, I hope to be alive long enough to see somebody who will.

An InterviewBy Jennica Wlodarczyk

1. Hello Kristina, and how is your day going so far?Hi Jennica, My day is going very well, I've been quite productive!

2. When did you first become so involved in dance?I started dancing at age 8, but I never got really serious until I was 12. This year is my first year danc-ing 5 days a week, and I'm loving every moment!

3. What are your top three pas-sions in life?Jesus is my #1 passion. I want all I do to exclaim his name. (Hey, that rhymed...) I really want people to see that I'm different and that I'm a part of the most wonderful family ever. My second passion would be my dancing. I guess you could say that I'm different when I dance, I can say and do things that I can't do through words. It's a way of ex-

pressing myself. Without it, I think I would be very different. My third passion would be reading. If I'm not dancing, doing school, or sleeping, I'm reading. If you want a glimpse as to how much I read, I read 200 books in 2013. Yeah, I read a lot. I love to dive into a story and get lost in it. It's one of the best things a person can do!

4. If you could say one last thing to someone, who would it be and what would you say?One last thing... I think I would want to say thank you to the peo-ple who have inspired me and en-couraged me over the years. One of my dance teachers, two of my cousins and a few friends who have all given me pieces of advice etc. over the years.

5. You've had a very interesting past year! For the readers who don't know, give us a brief sum-mary of what crazy stuff has hap-pened in the past while for you and your family, as well as some of the highlights of what you did.Well, In May 2013 my family and I sold our beloved home in Sooke, BC. We sold for a few reasons, #1 We wanted to move from Sooke, it wasn't the place that we wanted to be anymore. #2 We wanted to spend time with my grandmother in Russia - She had never met my youngest sister. #3 We wanted to leave the rainforest, AKA we want-ed 4 seasons and the ability to have a nice farm and garden. So we le! our house in July, we had issues with our visas so we had to change flights etc etc etc. We were living in other people’s homes all through that time, thanks to our

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Keys

By Jennica Wlodarczyk

For Christmas last year, my parents got me a set of five antique old keys from a second-hand store in Switzerland. You see, I’ve got a fetish with old keys, and I’ve been wearing these ones from my par-ents on a chain around my neck nearly every day since Christmas. Interestingly enough, seeing these keys every day has caused an idea to pop up in my head. There are so many things in our lives that are locked up by ‘keys’ of many sorts. Our dreams for the future need things like school, future contacts, m o n e y, a n d m u c h m o re to succeed. These things aren’t al-ways the easiest to get. And while we o!en get caught up in worrying about how we’re going to obtain these real-life keys, few of us ever look to the chains around our necks where keys already hang. What do I mean by this?

Sometimes we underestimate how truly worthy and equipped we al-ready are to do the things we dream about. The Bible says that through Christ, we have the ability to do anything as long as we be-lieve (Phillipians 4:13). The Bible also says that God has given us the dreams and desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). Of course, this doesn’t mean that He’ll give us any little thing that we wish for. He has

very generous friends we always had a place to stay. September 11th we flew to Switzerland (family there) and spent some time there. We then rented a car and drove across Eastern Europe. We drove through Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. In Estonia we hopped onto the ferry and went to Finland. From there a friend of ours drove us into Russia where we lived for October and November. December we came back to Switzerland and then came back to Canada mid-De-cember. On January second we moved to our new home, the Okanagan valley. It took us a week to find a rental home and now we are living in Kelowna! Highlights of the adventure... Driving across Eu-rope was a big one. I loved seeing all the different countries and learning the history of so many towns, villages and cities that we went through. I got to dance in Russia; that was another major highlight. And just being in Russia for a long period of time and being able to learn more of the language and spend time with friends and family was excellent. I also love Switzerland. Being in the city and being in the mountains, it's so dif-ferent there and it's amazing how such a small country has so much diversity!

6. Tell us a bit about the immedi-ate members of your family and what it's like to live with them.I live with my Mom and Dad and two younger sisters. My Dad is cur-rently a carpenter but he's also been a website designer, a hotel web manager, a chef and a profes-sional photographer. My Mom is a stay-at-home-mom (except in Rus-sia, she taught English) she home-schools us. My sisters are 13 and 6 years old. They are very different from each other... but both are

very sweet. I love being with my family, we all get along really well. I think being stuck in a car across Europe really helped with that... :D We are all interesting (aka weird) in our own ways, but that's what makes us the Fedorov Family!

7. What courses/subjects in school are your favourite?Socials is by far my favourite. I love History. It's the best subject ever in my opinion. I love learning about other cultures and the history of them. European history fascinates me the most, and a!er being in some of the most crucial places, it really comes alive. My other favourite would be Biology. I'm not big on other sciences but I love Bi-ology. I'm taking Bio12 this year and I love it. I'm amazed every day about how perfect God created us to be.

8. What are some ideas of future goals that you have?I would like to spend the next two years dancing, getting as far as I can. I want to try and become a professional dancer. Otherwise, if I don't get far enough, I'd like to be-come a dance teacher.

9. What is your favourite season and why?Spring. I love the fact that the flow-ers are starting to bloom but it's not super hot outside yet.

10. And finally, as a most impor-tant question, what kind of chocolate is your favourite (brand, ethnicity, dark/milk/white - anything works)?I love Swiss chocolate... It's the best. My favourite brand would be Sprungli and dark or milk are my favourites. :D Thanks for asking me, It was fun to answer your questions!- Kristina

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planted amazing, big dreams in each of our hearts as a seed for a plan and purpose for each of our lives. He knows what we love to do, and He has an uncanny way of tying that in to the great plan He has purposed for us. So stop fret-ting for a moment, look honestly at yourself, and come to recognize the keys that you already possess. You do have great qualities in you already; you just may not realize it yet. But when you can start to see the amazing things inside yourself, get ready to be surprised. You might not expect some of the qual-ities you already have.

Verse of the Week

By Jennica Wlodarczyk

Galatians 5:1 in the CEV says, “Christ has set us free! This means we really are free. Now hold on to your freedom and don’t ever be-come slaves of the Law again.” I had a very short notice writing the Verse of the Week this edition. So I went into my computerized Bible program, e-Sword, and randomly clicked on chapters and verses un-til this passage came up. Awe-somely and ironically enough, the verse reflects the thoughts that have been going on in my head for the past few days. Jesus gave us freedom when He died for us on the cross. That perfect freedom has been there for over two thou-sand years, yet I know for a fact that there are some times when we don’t feel free living through our daily lives. How can this be, when we are free and have been free

ever since Jesus gave His life for us? The answer is simple. Even though we are free in Christ, it is our choice to grasp that freedom and see it manifest in our lives.

Think about it this way for a mo-ment. If you had a million dollars stuffed away in your closet that you had completely forgotten about, would you be a millionaire? Yes, of course you would be! You’d have a million dollars! Now let me ask you a second question. With the money forgotten away in your closet, would you be experiencing what you could be with that mil-lion dollars? No, you would not. We have freedom from Jesus all of the time, but sometimes we get too wrapped up in our problems to see the reality of that freedom in our lives. It is up to us to slow down in the midst of the mid-term exams, remember the freedom Jesus gave us in the middle of our stressful family problems, and choose to live out that freedom joyfully and to the fullest as we go throughout our days. It can be a challenge some days, but I do guarantee that if you purpose to choose freedom, your days, weeks, and life as a whole will go a whole lot more smoothly.

Cool Facts

For Your Warehouse ofUseless Knowledge

By Jubilee Chiu

Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.

Earth is the only planet not named a!er a god.

Beetles taste like apples, wasps like pine nuts, and worms like fried

bacon.

Leo Fender, the inventor of Fender Guitars never knew how to play the guitar.

Mozart's "Ah! Vous Dirai- je, Maman" might well be his most popular melody — it's the tune used in both "The Alphabet Song" and "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

Both the flesh and the pit of avoca-dos are toxic to most species of birds.

The act of snapping one's fingers has a name. It is called a "fillip."

Slumber Party Barbie of 1965 came with her own "How to Lose Weight" book. One of the tips: "Don’t eat."

A shrimp can swim backwards.

A person cannot taste food unless it is mixed with saliva.

Dogs have four toes on their hind feet, and five on their front feet.

The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.

Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Sherlock Holmes never said "Ele-mentary, my dear Watson".

Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down - hence the ex-pression "to get fired."

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2013 Memories - By Joshua Wlodarczyk

Super Comics

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