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New Cave Entrances Seen on Mars
Riding with Robots writes "The Mars Odyssey orbiter has come across what look to be openings to cavernous spaces under the surface of Mars. NASA reports the find is fueling interest in potential underground habitats and sparking searches for caves elsewhere on the Red Planet. These latest images follow other recent discoveries of intriguing places to explore. From the article: 'The find has led some to wonder if these or other caves on the planet may provide shelter to life or former life on the Red Planet. "Somewhere on Mars, caves might provide a protected niche for past or current life, or shelter for humans in the future," said Tim Titus of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff. These caves, however, likely never hosted life due to the extreme altitude of their location. "Even if life has ever existed on Mars, it may not have migrated to this height," said Cushing.'"
Gee, maybe that is where Osama Bin Laden has been hiding. :-) After all, Bush had said "He could be hidin in a cave with the door open, he could be hidin in a cave with the door closed". It may also explain why Bush wants to go to Mars so bad...
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We prefer to say "Caves of Barsoom". kthx
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Will they steer for the caves?
That was the first question on my mind.
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Project Objectives:
The primary objective of this feasibility demonstration is to show that relatively simple, easily-deployable subsurface habitats are constructible in caves, lavatubes, and other subsurface voids. Further, we intend to demonstrate that they are suitable to sustain small animals, plants, and ultimately humans in an otherwise hostile environment.
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And by "all" you mean "very few", right?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
from the caves... to the fields... to the huts... to the cities... to the castles... to the flatirons... to the railroads... to the cars... to the airplanes... to the space ships... to the moon... to mars...
to the caves?
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Zapp: "The great stone face of Mars. Hmm, the only known entrance to the marsian reservation."
Leela: "What about the great stone ass of Mars?"
Zapp: "Well, yeah. But it's way on the other side of the planet."
Grasshopper, YOU must elaborate.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
The edges do look as if they were dug away by a machine of some kind. And is it just a coincidence that most UFO's are circular objects, albeit not as wide as these holes are. Maybe the mother ships use these ports and there are smaller ones for the scouting ships. Either way, you wouldn't catch me going down into one of these on my own.
Not being a rocket scientist there is something I don't understand:
Why aren't the Martian caves filled with dust accumulated from the seasonal storms?
Are gases or vapors from within clearing the cave entries of dust?
( We would expect to see trails of ejecta. )
Are the caves so new or geologically young that they have not yet drifted full?
Are the caves at elevations above most of the Martian dust storms?
Layman's questions looking for non-tinfoil-hat expert answers.
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To your right is a torch...
To your left is another passage....
In front of you is a Martian Cave Troll...
What do you do?
Use Mineral Sampling Device.
On what?
troll
Unknown command: troll
The troll hits you for 12 damage, you are dead.
Is this some kind of joke? They vaguely say it could be a good underground habitat? FOR WHAT?! Martian cave rats? Everyone agrees nothing large enough to see with the naked eye lives on Mars, let alone a living "habitat" of bacteria, which I also don't think is the correct use of the word. Or maybe they mean for us to live in? Yeah we'll get to Mars using super advanced technology and then live in a cave? More like a metal tent thing, I mean come on, watch some movies lol. I suppose you could build the tent in the cave though but still they say "habitat" like astronauts will just be sitting on logs around a campfire and fishing inside the cave. This is complete made up speculation by people who don't know what they're talking about. As if we'd go all the way there and rely on having to find a cave to withstand the wind storms otherwise they all die and the mission fails. That's like 100000x the risk Nasa would ever take. Not to mention the apparent risk of martian cave rats of course.
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Maybe Earth life could get the kind of toehold on Mars which we postulate for Mars life, but if Mars had native life it would be everywhere. Perhaps not out in the sun but certainly under each and every rock.
The effect on micro climates would be obvious to our sensors. Instead all we see is normal energy flow, the sun rises, heats up the sand, sun goes down, sand radiates into space. I don't disagree with you at all. I think the chance of finding life there is spectacularly slim. This is why I think the goal of looking for life should be secondary to other research aims. Exploring the caves seems like a worthy goal even aside from the life issue. They could be important in possible human settlements on the planet, both as shelter and possible sources of exploitable resources.
A large amount of the mass budget for any human habitation on Mars, whether temporary or permanent, would probably be the habitation modules itself. If there are caves with single entrances that can be closed off and pressurized (or filled with water, or even oxygen at low pressure), it seems like that would be pretty handy.
But I think it's a bad idea to sell the public on Mars exploration as a 'search for life.' What do you do when it becomes more and more clear that there isn't any? The funding will evaporate and there goes your whole program.
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