Slashdot Mirror
Evidence of Glaciers on Mars?
cyclop writes "Nature reports that the Mars Express mission has photographed evidence of ancient glaciers on Mars. It seems glaciers have sculpted valleys on the red planet, much like on Earth." Reader macguys writes "Space.com is reporting that the Mars Rover Opportunity has received an unexpected and unexplained power boost of between 2 and 5 percent. The NASA Rover site is so far silent on the boost."
We will always have the homeless, whether we go to Mars or not.
Proverbs 21:19
You've got to be joking. Space exploration holds not only the future for our species (Earth isn't always going to be habitiable for us, especially the way we're treating it), but endless possibilities of discovery. Isolation never has done anyone any good, and that counts for staying planetside as well. We could easily fund social programs like you're talking about if everyone actually got up and contributed more to the communities that they live in. When was the last time you were at your local elemenary school dropping off supplies, or handing out food to the homeless?
cleverly disguised as a responsible adult ||
From the site:Seems that perhaps all those Slashdotters who always ask why wipers couldn't have been installed, or claim that dust was immediately going to kill power, can finally be silenced?
One aspect of a particularly long mission like the Mars Rovers is that it acts as a real-world test-bed for the new technologies. Maybe the dust buildup isn't nearly as big an issue as was originally thought, and maybe they've found a good compromise between power consumption and keeping the rover innards warm with the 'deep sleep' capacity. Still, the machinery will fail eventually - here's to hoping that however it does fail, it'll provide them with more information on how to improve things for future missions!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
What does it give us? Theoretically in the future when we have consumed all of this planet's resources we'll be able to move to Mars and get cracking on ruining that planet too. Bet your homeless couldn't get us there.
But in all seriousness, there are better ways of caring for the needy here. Take, for instance, farmers' subsidies. Instead of paying farmers to not plant crops, or buying it then destroying it, why not buy the crops at fair market prices then giving the food to the hungry? How about instead of zoning to attract subdivision developers that build half-million-dollar homes, and homeowners' associations to artifically keep home values high, push to develop affordable and safe housing without skyrocketing property taxes?
Either of these would go much farther in saving the world than stripping NASA of its relative pittance of a budget.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
That's easy, that was November 2nd 2004.
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
But if it existed then it was a long time ago. Plenty of time for all the evidence to be hidden beneath the sand. Mars is not exactly known for its non-sand storm nature.
Even if there are fossils to be found the chances of finding them with 2 little carts pottering about are about zero. It would be like driving around your local city and claiming there never been dinosaurs because you didn't find any.
At the moment what everyone is doing is speculating. Worse the speculations are based on very small samples and compared to only 1 planet wich we don't really understand yet either.
I have lived long enough to have gone through several cycles of mars having and not having water. The only thing I know for certain is that nobody knows for certain.
Could an intelligent species have lived on mars and left? We only recently discovered that a small species of humans has existed very recently very close by. Frankly anyone who claims to know the answer to what lived or didn't live on mars in the past is insane. You can guess. You can estimate. But certain we can't be. More fun anyway.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You only use 2% of your DNA
Because finding life somewhere other than here on Earth would conclusively show that we are not unique/along in the universe. Fantastic discovery no doubt.
we will always have
bums, vagrants, and hobos
painted as homeless and pandered to as such
I know good people who have ended up homeless. Through no fault of their own. They have held jobs while being homeless.
It's easy to rip on them from your position of relative comfort. Yes, there are some who are bums, but others are not. The fact is, capitalism always leaves some people in the dust. Which is why it must be combined with an effective welfare state for it to be humane.
inflating the number of homeless only serves to support the agenda of those who would profit from those numbers...
or those who profit by proppagating the idea that all homeless are bums. Those who don't want to give up their ivory backscratchers to pay taxes to actually help other people.
Goddam moderators! Don't moderate these comments anything other than redundant! This discussion comes up every freaking time a story about the rovers is posted.
For the last time, Nasa did consider ways to clean the panels, but it decided wisely that the benefits did not outweigh the costs in doing so both in extra weight and money. It's not just a 5 minute job to bolt on a set of wiper blades.
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
It could just be that Apple designed the battery meter on it...
My other sig is funny!