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NASA Mars Press Briefing & "Significant Findings"
An anonymous reader writes "NASA will have a press briefing today at 2 p.m. EST to announce "significant findings". Salty liquid water maybe? Bacteria? This meeting will also be broadcast on NASA TV."
That's right. Because you know what will happen then don't you? The more aggressive environmentalists will say we can't send people there, and no way in hell can you colonize Mars, because we'll screw up the Martian bugs' habitat. And then even our robotic missions will have to go through some sort of expensive sterilization to make sure they don't squish anything. It would, in short, take all the fun out of the final frontier.
It should be illegal to say that freedom of speech should be limited.
The parent is correct, but should be revised to say "is thought to form only in bodies of standing water." I promise we'll hear lots of arguments about that very issue in the next couple of weeks.
I've had this sig for three days.
What the heck has happened to the caliber of readers on /. if "A lot of people are saying "salty water", but damn...microbes....it's just too much to hope for." is considered Insightful?
:)
Its a reasonable comment to make, and I agree with it, but come ON. How is that insightful? That should imply it saying something interesting that perhaps the moderator didn't think of. Who here didn't think that same thing? Lets see a show of hands.
Pickles are green.
Now moderate me insightful.
Oh yeah, Martians are green too, so no moderating me off-topic.
I think they will announce both that the bedrock originated in a watery environment and that there is water in liquid form right now in the soil under the Rovers' wheels (in the form of brine). That white 'frost' we have often been seeing in the tracks the Rovers make will turn out to be water that got squeezed out of the soil (and immediately froze).
======= ~\_/~\_O Burmese
This seems like a lot of hype for just that kind of announcement. NASA looking for a PR boost I guess.
A lot of hype?! Are you kidding? Liquid water has never been seen naturally anywhere but on Earth. This IS a big deal! It's like the difference between deciding the Earth wasn't flat and actually sailing all the way around it. Yeah, "everyone knows" Mars probably had water, but no one has ever proven it, which is the important part.
It's rather sad that NASA's discoveries and such rarely make even the back page of the newspapers. There was a big hype right after the two rovers successfully landed, but note how about two weeks afterwards, people forgot that they even landed. The American public grows bored with things very fast unless it is something that has to do with a sex scandle involving a politician or someone famous. When NASA announces something like "We found more of these smooth shiny spheres in the soil!" people often shrug and have no interest at all. All the people want are quick thrills and "big" discoveries. They overlook the fact that most science and groundbreaking discoveries only happen due to small realizations and lots of little facts pieced together slowly. I bet when the discovery of this mineral that only forms in water is announced at the press conference, most Americans won't even know that there was a press conference. The small discovery of this water-forming mineral will lead to more accurate theories that will lead to bigger discoveries. Such things shouldn't be downplayed, as this small discovery raises the chances of past/present life on Mars by an enormous amount!
Well, I guess I have to poison my karma to post this. Sorry, but I have to point out that you are using circuitous logic.
Ex...
I beleive in an omnipotent God because he must have created the universe. Therefore God created the earth in 7 days because he is omnipotent.
Creationism is a farce, and is easily debunked by someone with sufficient knowledge of biology. Only quack scientists are advocates of it as a theory. However, this is a free country and you can believe whatever you want. Just realize you are deluding yourself.
This is just one facet of the greater problem of religious fundamentalism.
To say that creationism is a huge bunch of baloney is NOT intolerant, it's the way it is. Creationism is NOT science, and if you are a creationist who still "believe" in science, then that means you have chosen to disregard certain parts of biology, geology, cosmology and paleontology, because it doesn't fit well with your beliefs. And if an ignorant moderator wish to mod me down, please go ahead; I'm not the one making an ass out of myself by cowardly modding people down becuase you feel insulted.
You should know that I of course believe that God created the world in 7 days. Why not?
Why?
It does not seem that there is any more evidence for the existence of an omnipotent, omnicient Christian God than there is for Shiva.
I have heard some Christians claim that evidence is unnecessary, that pure faith, faith pure of grounding in evidence is necessary. I the fail to see how any Christian can criticize someone for entering, say, David Koresh's cult. There is as much evidence for Koresh being Christ as there is the content of the Bible being true (and, heck, the Bible is self-inconsistent in many places). The same argument a Christian uses to argue in favor of his beliefs being reasonable seems to also justify, say, Satanism.
May we never see th