Plan To Bomb Mars For Signs of Climate Change
Oliver Harris writes "Scientists are planning on launching huge copper slugs at Mars in the hope that they will reveal signs of climate change. Problem: What happens when the Martians launch their own copper slugs back?" From the article: "'It's neat because it's a brute force way to gain access to the subsurface of Mars,' says David Spencer, a team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US. 'The impactor will be very simple and we'll get our first look at material from that depth.' Christensen says that will provide a crucial test for models of Mars's past climate."
Scientists are planning on launching huge copper slugs at Mars...
But where will they find all of that copper?
See my Home Theater
AP, 2106: NASA scientists have determined that the Martian atmosphere contains a metric farkload of copper.
Wait - when did we add Spirit and Opportunity to the Axis of Evil?
2. "Problem: What happens when the Martians launch their own copper slugs back?"
3. "From the article: "'It's neat because it's a brute force way to gain access to the subsurface of Mars,' says David Spencer, a team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US."
4."The impactor will be very simple and we'll get our first look at material from that depth.'
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
It's like playing with nuclear weapons....but bigger. What they should do is send the observer spacecraft seperate from the mass. If the mass comes in on a trajectory that's head-on to mars, you could get a *much* bigger explosion!
Of course, then you'd have to make sure your observer was in the right spot at the right time, and it's probably too complicated... but a bigger explosion, so it's worth it anyway!
--LWM
ps - I was hoping we'd build a giant rail-gun to shoot at Mars, but no such luck...
pps - you can be sure the US Gov will be interested in data for its program to put weapons in space...that do the same thing (with smaller rods) to earth.
Couldn't we get more data by drilling cores like we do at the poles and other places around the world? Seems to me that all we would really succeed in doing is throwing the evidence in a million different directions. And have we built a rover that is capable of not getting stuck in a crater?
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
not to be overly cynical...but this seems to be the typical "human" method of studying new things. first, we take a cursory glance from a distance. next, we think about how we can study it. in the process, we destroy or cause harm to it.
i wonder if we'll ever stop to think that what we do may have some sort of greater impact. doesn't an intelligent species have some sort of responsibility for its actions?
(( (CRAYON) )) >
...with the Beagle II?
( tongue firmly in cheek )
-EvilMagnus
Um, I wish they'd use some other metal. We can use all the copper we can get here on earth. How about depleted uranium? I could do with less of that in my life and it works well as a projectile.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
this mission is perfect for our expertise! we've gotten quite good at sending huge chunks of metal hurtling twoard the surface of mars...
(with our luck, we'll miss completely and end up blowing up titan or europa and killing whatever life may reside there)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Problem: What happens when the Martians launch their own copper slugs back?
Marvin the Martian will take us on. "Where's the kaboom? There's supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
I wonder what K'breel, speaker for the Council of Elders, thinks about this. It'd be interesting to know :)
Presumably copper vapor is less visible on whatever instruments they're using than something like iron.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
they might bomb back!!
Given the past history of Mars exporation, I'd say it's probably the best thing they could do -- as least if you're planning to crash into the planet, you won't be too upset when it happens.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Frist the Bombing, then by 2015 US will be sending troops to secure democracy in Mars. This is just part of the plan to bring freedom to mars people.
OK, call me crazy...
If they aimed at them, they are pretty unlikely to actually hit one, but if they got close enough that one of the rovers could examine the ejecta and go into the crater they'd learn a hell of a lot more than by just studying the spectrum of the ejecta from space.
Take off. Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
I could make some sort of Tars Tarkas reference here, but you youngsters would not understand until the movie comes out.
I used to use copper foil to stop slugs getting into my veggie patch.
Thanks, Cynthia
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
I know why they want to do this... They must have intercepted the cell phone conversations of John Carter. This means the Warlord of Mars is a terrorist! The probably want to get his son, Carthoris of Helium, as well.
What are the odds on them firing big shells at us ?
I mean the chances of anything coming from Mars are a Million to One !
Well, the total price of getting the 200 kg copper slug to Mars is about $450 million, according to TFA, which works out to just over $2 million per kilogram. The value of the copper itself is trivial by comparison. (That is, it costs far less to dig up and refine 200 kg of copper than it does to shoot it to Mars.)
Heck, they could make the slug out of pure gold ($20,000 per kilogram) without changing the price of the mission noticeably.
Or, we could be observant and wait for a meteor impact.
Which leaves the techs of NASA looking at two ionised molecules of random gas and wonderring which was a bit of Mars and which was a bit of random meteor...
A nice homogenous impactor is essential for this form of research.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
MALICIOUS HACKER ORIGINALLY PLANNED TO BOMB NASA SERVER ROOM
'I thought it was neat because it's a brute force way to gain access to the NASA servers,' says F. Ilthy Hair, after the bombing plans were revealed on his PC, 'but then I just got lucky by wildly trying out username/password combos. The combo copper/copper proved to be usefull in the end, God knows why...'
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
...America will blow up the moon!
(obligatory Mr. Show reference)
Given Nasa's poor track record of failed probes hypothetical martians would most likely chalk it up as another earth probe that failed ;-)
If they can launch a huge copper slug to Mars - where else can they land it?
Hmmm - any guesses people? Go on - you know the answer.
Large accurate placed explosive without nuclear fallout.
Think of Mars as target practice.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
We'll ruin the other planets later.
I have a truly marvelous proof of the Riemann hypothesis which this sig is too short to contain...
Well ... you are thinking of something like this?d ex.html ... you most probably will need babelfish for reading this. :-(
http://www.marssociety.de/html/html/Archimedes/in
Sadly
This is what happens when you let rednecks become rocket scientists. They've graduated from shooting up road signs, water heaters, etc. to shooting up whole planets!
Actually, according to the article, it's because copper is basically not found on Mars. So if they do see copper in what gets tossed into the atmosphere with the impact, they can assume it's from the "slug", not Mars itself. They even mention that Martian iron is plentiful and using iron would just confuse the issue.
Be glad life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all this.
Any body alive down there?
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Gold 19.c g/cc, Uranium 19.05 g/cc
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.