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Flowing Water Discovered on Mars
Dolphy writes "BBC News has the latest big scoop on the Mars phenomenon. Researcher Tahirih Motazedian apparently uncovered proof quite some time ago of flowing water and surface change on Mars."
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Until we stop looking at pictures and send some more probes and people over there. It can be done, and we'll finally know for sure.
SecondPageMedia - Wha
Define "short time". Are we talking a million years? 10,000?
Even if the atmosphere only lasts a short period on a geological timescale, it would still give us plenty of time for useful colonisation. Maybe even enough time to develop a way to make the teraforming permanent. Remember how old our civilisation is. A couple of thousand years is a very long time.
With the life we know, this indeed holds true. But I'm sure there could be life based on any number of weird building blocks, we just don't have them here.
With a little application of the anthropic principle, why should we expect other life-bearing planets to be wildly different? I agree with your point that we shouldn't be looking just for what we have here, but we have two reasons to do that: 1. we know our data is good, and 2. we really don't know what else to look for.
In fact, it reinforces my total agreement with you that [D|R]NA is not necessary for life. I believe that a good minimum for definining life is just adaptive behavior, i.e. evolution. Of course we aren't inclined to say things like evolutionary algorithms or simple adaptive chemical processes "are" life... but perhaps part of the problem with that is that we simply haven't let these things go on long enough to recognize them as life.
In a universe this vast, it seems impossible to me that we could be the only life. One thing which I expect we'll find if we explore the universe in greater detail is that it's full of weird things. The weirdness of life doesn't come across when we sit at home in ultra-introspective mode, categorizing the minute differences between insects as though they're legendary incredible differences. The weirdness will come across when we're confronted by complex interrelated chemical and physical processes on other worlds, and our biologists won't want to call it life, while the rest of us will (or vice versa).
For once a little manifest destiny would have been just fine. Instead, we're peering through expensive telescopes, while our ancestors are pointing at the leaning tower and asking us why we aren't dropping things from the top of it.
--
Daniel
This is a very big fantasy some people have.
There are a couple of reasons Mars has an atmosphere 1/100th of our own.
One reason is because Mars has less mass than the Earth. Hence there is less gravity to "hold" onto a thick atmosphere like what we have on Earth.
Secondly, Mars did have a denser atmosphere at one time, but was probably eroded away by the solar wind. The loss of a strong magnetic field probably didn't help things either.
To prevent the erosion of some future atmosphere, you probably would need to restart the magnetic field. Maybe you could drill down to the core and plant a big bomb to restart it.
So terraforming is still (extremely) hard after all. I didn't get into the astronomical amount of energy required to do it either.
So it looks like that if you wanna live on Mars you're gonna have to strap on some airtanks.
And don't forget the long-johns either, because it's cold there too.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
>
>How, oh wise one, would you get back? Where would you find someone skilled enough to go to Mars that was willing to go there to die? Much less a whole crew?
How would you get back? You probably wouldn't. So what?
Skills 1? Spaceships fly themselves for the most part. Martian colonists on one-way trips are spam in a can until they land.
Skills 2? After spending six months in a can reading geology textbooks, they break out the pickaxe and start digging and taking pictures. Any of us reading this could do more in five minutes on Mars than has been done in the past 30 years.
Volunteers? You ask for them.
"Congratuations. You're going to Mars.
Since there's nothing on Mars to spend your money on, we are going to pay one person of your choosing your "salary" of $100K/year for the rest of your life, or until you come back, whichever comes first.
We will put you on the cheapest spaceship money can buy. Some of you will blow up on the pad. Some of you will have air leaks and suffocate or freeze en route. Some of you will burn up on re-entry. But at $50M per launch, some of you will land on Mars.
Your mission, en route, is to read about rocks and learn how to use a microscope. Once there, your mission is to break big rocks into little rocks and tell us what you found.
Your ship has an RTG (or better yet, a small nuclear reactor) that provides your capsule with electricity to break water into oxygen for you to breathe, alcohol to drink, and hydrogen for you to refuel your engines with. If you manage to find enough water, you will also be able to use that hydroponics lab to grow food for a while.
Some of you will figure out how to get enough food, water, heat and oxygen out of your setup to last for months, maybe years. Some of you will live long enough to make it to the point where we've already landed half a dozen unfueled crew and sample return vehicles.
We will pay you or your beneficiary $100,000 per pound of Mars rock that comes back. The return vehicles can carry 500 pounds. Whether you launch that thing with 500 pounds of rock, or 350 pounds of life support, your 140-pound ass, and 10 pounds of rocks, hey, that's up to you.
I won't lie to you. Many of you will not be coming back, but we will see to it that you have one hell of an adventure."
Every day, people sign up for what is fundamentally the same deal: If you're willing to do something you believe in, even knowing you might die, we will give you the equipment to do it. Soldiers have vastly better odds of survival than my Mars colonists, but keep in mind that they do it for a tenth of the pay.
Believe me, a faster-riskier-cheaper manned space exploration programme would have no shortage of volunteers.