Erdogan rival promises 'freedom and democracy' for Turkey 

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Republican People's Party, CHP, delivers a speech during a Democracy and Martyrs' Rally in Istanbul, Turkey,

 

By Sudesh Baniya  •  Updated: 04/05/2023 - 10:23

In just 10 days, Kemal Kilicdaroglu will face the Turkish president in seismic elections.

Turkey’s main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has promised to re-instate "democracy" after years of what some call the authoritarianism of the current leadership.

The 72-year-old is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s biggest threat as the country heads to the ballot box on 14 May. 

Polls suggest the election will be tight, with Kılıçdaroğlu narrowly leading so far. But all is still to play for and many analysts predict the vote will be put to a second round. 

Sensing growing anti-Erdoğan sentiment amongst some young Turks, Kılıçdaroğlu has constantly maintained he will guarantee freedom of speech and the qualities of a “civilized world” - if elected.

“The youth want democracy," he told the BBC. "They don't want the police to come to their doors early in the morning just because they tweeted.

Kılıçdaroğlu is the head of the CHP party, which represents secularism and other principles of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who founded modern Turkey. 

Popular among religious-conservative voters, Erdoğan is widely seen as moving Turkey in a more Islamist, anti-democratic direction, with many of his laws - especially those criminalising "insulting the president" - blasted as undermining freedom.  

The 69-year-old president, who has been in power for two decades, has previously mocked his rival, saying Kılıçdaroğlu "couldn't even herd a sheep". 

Kılıçdaroğlu’s campaign, backed by six opposition parties, has focused heavily on promoting human rights and the rule of law - aiming to “make everything beautiful”, as he has said in the past.

However, the plans do not end there for the leader of the ‘Table of Six’.

Kılıçdaroğlu has called on Erdoğan to retire, adding he won't be put off from fulfilling his promises, despite some concerns for his safety. 

"Being in politics in Turkey means choosing a life with risks," he told the BBC. "I will walk my path whatever Erdogan and his allies do. They can't put me off. They can't scare me. I made a promise to this nation."

Kılıçdaroğlu has controversially pledged to send the 3.5 million Syrian refugees living inside the country back. 

Last year, Turkey introduced laws intended to curb "misleading information" on social media. Critics said the bill was an attempt to censor opposition voices and restrict independent media. 

"We want free media and complete judicial independence. Erdogan does not think that way. The difference between us and Erdogan is the difference between black and white," Kılıçdaroğlu said at a rally in Izmir.

The secular opposition leader has also openly expressed his desire to align with the West instead of Russia, in an effort to re-orient the nation.

Erdoğan has refused to acknowledge Kılıçdaroğlu’s challenge so far, dismissing his over his age. 

The Turkish president's supporters, including Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, consider Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy a Western ploy. 

They are expected to contest results if Erdogan fails to be re-elected.

China calls for ‘high vigilance’ over NATO’s ‘eastward expansion’ in Asia


A man walks past the NATO logo during the meeting of the NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest, Romania, on November 30, 2022. (Reuters)

Reuters
Published: 04 May ,2023: 

China said on Thursday “high vigilance” was needed in the face of NATO's “eastward expansion” following a media report the alliance is planning to set up an office in Japan to facilitate consultations with allies in the region.

NATO is planning to open its first liaison office in Asia, in Japan, to facilitate talks with security partners such as South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, with geopolitical challenges from China and Russia in mind, the Nikkei Asia reported on Wednesday, citing Japanese and NATO officials.

Mao Ning, spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Asia was a “promising land for cooperation and development and should not be a battle arena for geopolitics.”

“NATO’s continual eastward expansion in the Asia-Pacific, interference in regional affairs, attempts to destroy regional peace and stability, and push for bloc confrontation calls for high vigilance from countries in the region,” Mao told a regular press conference.

The Nikkei Asia said the proposed office was due to open next year in Tokyo.

Asked about the Nikkei Asia report, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said earlier the alliance would not go into details of NATO allies’ deliberations.

“NATO has offices and liaison arrangements with a number of international organizations and partner countries, and allies regularly assess those liaison arrangements to ensure that they best serve the needs of both NATO and our partners,” she said.

Lungescu said NATO has a close partnership with Japan that continued to grow.

IAEA Task Force Issues New Report on Regulatory Aspects of Water Discharge at Fukushima Daiichi


Vienna, Austria


The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Task Force assessing the safety of Japan’s planned discharge of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station issued its latest report today.

The report – fifth in the series to be released under the IAEA’s multi-year safety review of the proposed Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) treated water discharge – is focused on Japan’s domestic regulatory review of the water release. It covers the observations of the Task Force mission to assess Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) activities related to the discharge in Tokyo from 16 to 20 January 2023.

Japan’s planned discharge of the water, scheduled for this year, is subject to final regulatory approval from NRA.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi appointed the Task Force of independent experts and IAEA staff to review the safety of Japan’s plan for the water stored at the Fukushima Daiichi plant against international safety standards. The standards constitute the worldwide reference for protecting the public and the environment from harmful effects of ionizing radiation.

The review of regulatory aspects is one component of the international Task Force’s three-pronged review, the other two being the review of technical aspects and conducting independent sampling and analysis.

The Task Force noted a number of key outcomes from the January mission, such as:The NRA agreed to require Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to review optimisation of protection for the discharge of ALPS treated water based on operational experience and associated monitoring following the start of the discharges. The NRA further agreed to establish a framework for revisiting discharge limits, operating limits, and conditions to reflect the optimization of protection, in a similar manner, if needed.

The Task Force acknowledged that the NRA has conducted a review to determine that sufficient evidence exists that the source term contains all the radiologically significant radionuclides and that it does not exclude, in the assessment, any radionuclides that could be significant contributors to the dose to the public or to flora and fauna.

That NRA’s approach to enforce controls on the occupational exposure of TEPCO’s employees is sufficient for compliance with international safety standards.
The Task Force acknowledged that the NRA has focused on involving the public in the regulatory review process. The Task Force will continue to review how public consultations and the involvement of interested parties are handled by the NRA as the regulatory process continues.

“The Task Force has seen that the NRA serves as the independent regulatory body within Japan and holds the responsibility for assessing the safety of the proposed discharge of ALPS treated water,” said Gustavo Caruso, Director, IAEA Department of Nuclear Safety and Security, and Chair of the Task Force. “However, we will continue to review how the NRA conducts its regulatory process leading up to, and after, the proposed discharges of treated water.”

The Task Force’s safety review continues. One more report will be issued on independent sampling and analysis aspects, before the final comprehensive report detailing the collected findings and conclusions of the Task Force is issued. Japan intends to start discharging the ALPS treated water in 2023, pending TEPCO’s completion of necessary domestic regulatory actions.

The report is available here.

Additional information such as frequently asked questions and a timeline of activities can be found on the IAEA’s dedicated Fukushima Daiichi ALPS Treated Water Discharge webpage.

Art historian claims to have solved mystery of bridge depicted in the Mona Lisa

The Tuscan landscape claimed to be the area depicted in the painting (right). 

Photo: La Rocca Cultural Association
Nick Squires

Telegraph.co.uk

The mystery behind a stone bridge depicted in the Mona Lisa has finally been solved, with an art historian identifying it as a crumbling ruin on the banks of a Tuscany river.

Drones and detective work were used to match the bridge featured in the background of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting to a real one spanning the Arno River near the village of Laterina.

All that remains of the Romito bridge today is a single arch, after it was badly damaged, probably by flooding, in the 18th century.

A digital reconstruction has shown it would have had four arches, just like the one in the portrait.

On the opposite side of the riverbank, the foundations of what would have been the fourth arch can still be seen in the undergrowth.

The findings could transform the fortunes of tiny Laterina, where the bridge crosses the River Arno.

Simona Neri, the local mayor, hopes the discovery – if confirmed – could encourage tourism.

The claim about the bridge was made by Silvano Vinceti, a historian who has written several books about Da Vinci. He found a document belonging to the Medici family in the state archives of Florence, which attests to the fact that the bridge at Laterina was intact and in frequent use when the painter was alive.

“We know he travelled through this part of Tuscany in the early 1500s – there is no doubt about that,” Mr Vinceti told a press conference in Rome.

The bridge was positioned on a road that connected Florence to the north with the busy market town of Arezzo in the south.

In the past, it was suggested that Da Vinci modelled the bridge in the Mona Lisa on either a bridge near the village of Bobbio or another in Buriano, both in Tuscany.

But Mr Vinceti pointed out that as those bridges had more than four arches, they did not match the one in the painting. They also spanned flat ground, whereas the Romito was built between two cliffs, corresponding closely to the bridge painted in the Mona Lisa.

The curve of the river in the painting also matched the curve of the Arno at the point where it was spanned by the bridge at Laterina.

“We have all the elements that point to this being the bridge portrayed in the Mona Lisa,” said Mr Vinceti.

He also dismissed suggestions that the bridge in the oil painting could have been a fictitious one, saying: “He was well known for drawing very realistically. The bridge is real. It was not conjured from his imagination.”

UN conference aims to raise final funds for Yemen Safer oil tanker operation


FSO Safer, the tanker holding 1.1 million barrels of crude oil in the Red Sea off Yemen. (Twitter)

Reuters, Dubai
Published: 04 May ,2023:

The United Nations on Thursday aims to raise the final $29 million needed to start salvaging 1.1 million barrels of oil from a decaying vessel moored off war-torn Yemen’s coast and avert an environmental disaster.

UN officials have been warning for years that the Red Sea and Yemen’s coastline was at risk as the Safer tanker could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.

A UN plan to offload the oil needs $129 million, which includes purchasing a large tanker, the price of which has shot up due to the war in Ukraine. Around $99 million has been raised from governments, private donors and crowdfunding.

A UN pledging event co-hosted by Britain and the Netherlands on Thursday hopes to raise the remaining $29 million, the UN said.

A tanker, the Nautica, was procured by the UN in March and set sail from China in early April.

The operation cannot be paid for by the sale of the oil because it is not clear who owns it, the UN has said.

War suspended maintenance operations on the Safer in 2015.

The UN has warned its structural integrity has significantly deteriorated and it is at risk of exploding.

Yemen has been mired in conflict since the Iran-backed Houthi militia ousted the government from the capital Sanaa in late 2014.

Peace initiatives have seen increased momentum since Riyadh and Tehran in March agreed to restore diplomatic ties severed in 2016.

A Saudi delegation in April went to Sanaa seeking a permanent ceasefire.

UN Yemen envoy Hans Grundberg is holding meetings in Yemen and the region this week.

Uh oh! Robot barista at Punggol hawker centre malfunctions, pours hot drink on floor as diners watch

APRIL 30, 2023
ByCLAUDIA TAN

Facebook user Ks Toh posted a video showing the robot barista at One Punggol Hawker Centre malfunctioning.

Facebook/Ks Toh

Ever been concerned that robots might steal your job one day? 

Maybe this video might give you some reassurance that humans aren't that replaceable, or at least when it comes to making drinks. 

Last Saturday (April 28), Facebook user Ks Toh caught the robot 'kopi uncle' at One Punggol Hawker Centre committing a boo-boo, which surprised onlookers. 

"This is the reason why robot baristas cannot replace human beings," wrote Toh in the caption. 

In the video, the robot misplaces a jug, causing it to topple over. The mechanical arm then reaches for a second jug and tries to pour the hot tea into the toppled jug, making a mess as the hot beverage ends up spilling on the ground. 

"Oh, my goodness!" a male voice exclaims.

"They can refund, refund," says another customer. 

As the robot continues moving about, a male staff approaches the machine with his mobile phone in hand, seemingly calling for assistance. 

Despite the robot's blunder, Toh maintained that robots are still a useful tool: "Obviously the cause of this failure needs to be examined but to clarify, I support the use of robots. I use robots at home." 

Over in the comments, netizens were divided over the robot's blunder. Some felt that such errors were inevitable, while others expressed their preference for humans over machines when it comes to making drinks. 

Making light of the situation, a netizen playfully urged others to stop "cyber-shaming" the robot. "He'll learn eventually and become good enough to replace humans." 

PHOTO: Screengrab/Facebook

Launched in October 2022, the robot barista at One Punggol Hawker Centre is programmed to mix, brew and pour coffee and tea. 

AsiaOne has contacted the hawker centre's management, Timbre group, for further comment. 

ALSO READ: Coffee break? Grab a cuppa at Singapore's first robot barista outlet

GEMOLOGY

South Africans call for UK to return diamonds set in crown jewels

MAY 04, 2023

Reuters

JOHANNESBURG - Some South Africans are calling for Britain to return the world's largest diamond, known as the Star of Africa, which is set in the royal sceptre that King Charles III will hold at his coronation on Saturday (May 6).

The diamond, which weighs 530 carats, was discovered in South Africa in 1905 and presented to the British monarchy by the colonial government in the country, which was then under British rule.

Now amid a global conversation about returning artwork and artefacts that were pillaged during colonial times, some South Africans are calling for the diamond to be brought back.

"The diamond needs to come to South Africa. It needs to be a sign of our pride, our heritage and our culture," said Mothusi Kamanga, a lawyer and activist in Johannesburg who has promoted an online petition, which has gathered about 8,000 signatures, for the diamond to be returned.

"I think generally the African people are starting to realise that to decolonise is not just to let people have certain freedoms, but it's also to take back what has been expropriated from us."

Officially known as Cullinan I, the diamond in the sceptre was cut from the Cullinan diamond, a 3,100 carat stone that was mined near Pretoria.

A smaller diamond cut from the same stone, known as Cullinan II, is set in the Imperial State Crown which is worn by British monarchs on ceremonial occasions. Along with the sceptre, it is kept with the other crown jewels in the Tower of London.

A replica of the whole Cullinan diamond, which is about the size of a man's fist, is displayed at the Cape Town Diamond Museum.

"I believe it should be brought back home because at the end of the day, they took it from us while they were oppressing us," said Johannesburg resident Mohamed Abdulahi.

Others said they didn't feel strongly about it.

"I don't think it matters anymore. Things have changed, we're evolving," said local resident Dieketseng Nzhadzhaba.

"What mattered for them in the olden days about being superior. It doesn't matter to us anymore."

China's AI industry barely slowed by US chip export rules

MAY 03, 2023

Flags of China and US are displayed on a printed circuit board with semiconductor chips, in this illustration picture taken on Feb 17.

Reuters

US microchip export controls imposed last year to freeze China's development of supercomputers used to develop nuclear weapons and artificial-intelligence systems like ChatGPT are having only minimal effects on China's tech sector.

The rules restricted shipments of Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc chips that have become the global technology industry's standard for developing chatbots and other AI systems.

But Nvidia has created variants of its chips for the Chinese market that are slowed down to meet US rules. Industry experts told Reuters the newest one - the Nvidia H800, announced in March - will likely take 10 per cent to 30 per cent longer to carry out some AI tasks and could double some costs compared with Nvidia's fastest US chips.

Even the slowed Nvidia chips represent an improvement for Chinese firms. Tencent Holdings, one of China's largest tech companies, in April estimated that systems using Nvidia's H800 will cut the time it takes to train its largest AI system by more than half, from 11 days to four days.

"The AI companies that we talk to seem to see the handicap as relatively small and manageable," said Charlie Chai, a Shanghai-based analyst with 86Research.

The back-and-forth between government and industry exposes the US challenge of slowing China's progress in high tech without hurting US companies.

Part of the US strategy in setting the rules was to avoid such a shock that the Chinese would ditch US chips altogether and redouble their own chip-development efforts.

"They had to draw the line somewhere, and wherever they drew it, they were going to run into the challenge of how to not be immediately disruptive, but how to also over time degrade China's capability," said one chip industry executive who requested anonymity to talk about private discussions with regulators.

The export restrictions have two parts. The first puts a ceiling on a chip's ability to calculate extremely precise numbers, a measure designed to limit supercomputers that can be used in military research. Chip industry sources said that was an effective action.

But calculating extremely precise numbers is less relevant in AI work like large language models where the amount of data the chip can chew through is more important.

Nvidia is selling the H800 to China's largest technology firms, including Tencent, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Baidu Inc for use in such work, though it has not yet started shipping the chips in high volumes.

"The government isn’t seeking to harm competition or US industry, and allows US firms to supply products for commercial activities, such as providing cloud services for consumers," Nvidia said in a statement last week.

China is an important market for US technology companies, and selling products there helps create jobs for both Nvidia and its US-based partners, the company added.

"The October export controls require that we create products with an expanding gap between the two markets," Nvidia said last week. "We comply with the regulation while offering as-competitive-as-possible products in each market."

Bill Dally, Nvidia's chief scientist, said in a separate statement this week that "this gap will grow quickly over time as training requirements continue to double every six to 12 months."

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the US Commerce Department that oversees the rules, did not return a request for comment.

Slowed but not stopped 

The second US limit is on chip-to-chip transfer speeds, which does affect AI. The models behind technologies such as ChatGPT are too large to fit onto a single chip. Instead, they must be spread over many chips - often thousands at a time - which all need to communicate with one another.

Nvidia has not disclosed the China-only H800 chip's performance details, but a specification sheet seen by Reuters shows a chip-to-chip speed of 400 gigabytes per second, less than half the peak speed of 900 gigabytes per second for Nvidia's flagship H100 chip available outside China.

Some in the AI industry believe that is still plenty of speed. Naveen Rao, chief executive of a startup called MosaicML that specialises in helping AI models to run better on limited hardware, estimated a 10 to 30 per cent system slowdown.

"There are ways to get around all this algorithmically," he said. "I don't see this being a boundary for a very long time — like 10 years."

Read Also

China says US trying to 'deprive' it of right to develop in tech row

Money helps. A chip in China that takes twice as long to finish an AI training task than a faster US chip can still get the work done.

"At that point, you've got to spend US$20 million (S$26.6 million) instead of $10 million to train it," said one industry source who requested anonymity because of agreements with partners. "Does that suck? Yes it does. But does that mean this is impossible for Alibaba or Baidu? No, that's not a problem."

Moreover, AI researchers are trying to slim down the massive systems they have built to cut the cost of training products similar to ChatGPT and other processes. Those will require fewer chips, reducing chip-to-chip communications and lessening the impact of the US speed limits.

Two years ago the industry was thinking AI models would get bigger and bigger, said Cade Daniel, a software engineer at Anyscale, a San Francisco startup that provides software to help companies perform AI work.

"If that were still true today, this export restriction would have a lot more impact," Daniel said. "This export restriction is noticeable, but it's not quite as devastating as it could have been."

WHO experts weigh up whether world ready to end Covid-19 emergency

MAY 04, 2023

A visitor walks past an illuminated coronavirus (Covid-19) model as he visit the Mini-Worlds on the Way of Illumination (Mini-Mondes en voie d'illumination) exhibition during the Light Festival preview at the Jardin des Plantes (Botanical garden) in Paris, France on Nov 12, 2022.

Reuters

LONDON - A panel of global health experts will meet on Thursday (May 4) to decide if Covid-19 is still an emergency under the World Health Organization's rules, a status that helps maintain international focus on the pandemic.

The WHO first gave Covid its highest level of alert on Jan 30, 2020, and the panel has continued to apply the label ever since, at meetings held every three months.

However, a number of countries have recently begun lifting their domestic states of emergency, such as the United States. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said he hopes to end the international emergency this year.

There is no consensus yet on which way the panel may rule, advisors to the WHO and external experts told Reuters.

"It is possible that the emergency may end, but it is critical to communicate that Covid remains a complex public health challenge," said Professor Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who is on the WHO panel. She declined to speculate further ahead of the discussions, which are confidential.

One source close to negotiations said lifting the "public health emergency of international concern", or PHEIC, label could impact global funding or collaboration efforts. Another said that the unpredictability of the virus made it hard to call at this stage.

"We are not out of the pandemic but we have reached a different stage," said Professor Salim Abdool Karim, a leading Covid expert who previously advised the South African government on its response.

Read Also

WHO dismisses lead Covid-19 origins investigator for sexual misconduct

Karim, who is not on the WHO panel, said if the emergency status is lifted, governments should still maintain testing, vaccination and treatment programmes.

Others said it was time to move to living with Covid as an on-going health threat, like HIV or tuberculosis.

"All emergencies must come to an end," said Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University in the United States who follows the WHO.

"I expect WHO to end the public health emergency of international concern. If WHO does not end it... [this time], then certainly the next time the emergency committee meets."

What will the Artemis Moon base look like?

By AFP
Published May 3, 2023

A prototype of a Moon rover developed by Leidos and Nascar is revealed at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs - Copyright AFP STRINGER

Lucie AUBOURG

The next time NASA goes to the Moon, it intends to stay. Under the Artemis program, the US space agency plans to maintain a human presence, for the very first time, on a celestial body other than Earth.

But building a lunar base is no small feat. It will need power generators, vehicles and habitats, and the space industry is racing to meet the technological challenges.

“It’s the Super Bowl of engineering,” Neal Davis, lead systems engineer for the Lunar Terrain Vehicle at space company Dynetics, told AFP.

Dynetics revealed its prototype design for a Moon rover last month at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.

But it probably won’t be until later Artemis missions — 7 onwards — “where we’re starting to look at adding permanent habitations on the surface,” said NASA associate administrator Jim Free.

Artemis 3, the first planned landing, won’t happen until later this decade, so habitat building wouldn’t start before the 2030s.

The base would likely comprise multiple sites, he added, to diversify the targets of scientific exploration and to offer more flexibility for the landings.

– Power and communications –

Despite this distant timeline, companies are already chomping at the bit.

“Step zero is communications,” Joe Landon, CEO of Crescent Space, a new subsidiary of Lockheed Martin dedicated to lunar services, told AFP.

“Think about when you move into a new apartment, you’ve got to hook up your phone and your internet first.”

Starting out with a pair of satellites, the company wants to become the Moon’s internet and GPS provider.

This would relieve the strain on NASA’s Deep Space Network, which threatens to overheat in the face of all the upcoming missions, including private ones.

Landon estimates the value of the lunar market will be “$100 billion over the next 10 years.”

Astrobotic, with 220 employees, is one of three companies selected by NASA to develop solar panels.

They need to be placed vertically because at the Moon’s south pole — the intended destination because it has water in the form of ice — the Sun barely peeps above the horizon.

About 60 feet (18 meters) high, the Astrobotic panels will be connected by cables running several miles (kilometers), said Mike Provenzano, the company’s director of lunar surface systems.

The solar arrays will be fixed to vehicles that can run them out to different locations.

– Vehicles –

For its scientific expeditions, NASA has tasked industry with developing an unpressurized — that is to say, open top — rover for two people, ready by 2028.

Unlike the Apollo missions’ rovers, it will also have to operate autonomously for outings without an astronaut.

This means surviving frigid lunar nights, which can last two weeks, with temperatures dropping to around -280 degrees Fahrenheit (-170 Celsius).

Many companies have made a start.

Lockheed Martin has partnered with General Motors, leaning on the auto giant’s expertise in electric and off-road vehicles.

Dynetics, a subsidiary of engineering behemoth Leidos, has joined forces with Nascar.

Its prototype, which will achieve a top speed of nine miles per hour (15 kilometers per hour), includes a robotic arm and metal wheels that are braided like textiles to maximize traction on the sandy surface and deal with any rocks they encounter.

“But at the same time, they actually have a lot of openings to the outside so that they don’t collect that sand and carry it with us,” Davis said.

Moon dust, or regolith, poses a major challenge because, lacking erosion by water or wind, it is almost as abrasive as glass.

NASA has yet to announce the selected company or companies.

In the longer term, NASA is working with the Japanese space agency JAXA on a pressurized vehicle, in which astronauts won’t need to keep their suits on.

– Habitats –

Finally, the crew will need a place to hang up their helmets and call home.

NASA has awarded a $57.2 million contract to the Texas-based company Icon, which specializes in 3D printing, to develop the technology needed to build roads, landing strips on the Moon, and ultimately, dwellings.

The idea is to use lunar soil as a material. Other companies, such as Lockheed Martin, are developing inflatable habitat concepts.

“The beautiful thing is you can land it on the moon and inflate it and now there’s a much larger volume for the crew to live in and work in,” Kirk Shireman, vice president for the Lockheed Martin Lunar Exploration Campaign, told AFP.

Inside would be bedrooms, a kitchen, a space for scientific instruments, etc. — all mounted on a frame, so the habitat can be mobile.

The basic concept behind returning to the Moon under Artemis is to help NASA prepare for much more distant missions to Mars.

“Whatever money we have to spend to go develop these systems on the moon, we want those same systems to be applicable to go to Mars,” said Shireman.