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Massive Martian Glaciers Found
Kozar_The_Malignant writes "Scientific American is reporting that 'data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter point to vast glaciers buried beneath thin layers of crustal debris.' Data from the surface-penetrating radar on MRO revealed that two well-known mid-latitude features are composed of solid water ice. One is about three times the size of the City of Los Angeles. This certainly makes the idea of establishing a station on Mars far more plausible."
And it's about time. Now we just need to get some "volunteers" to get on a spaceship...
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
What's interesting to me, is that they mention in TFA that this ice can't have formed recently. The current Martian climate won't allow it. Meaning that the glacier was laid down ages ago when such formations were still possible, got buried beneath the debris, and has basically been sitting there since.
Forget water harvesting, I'm more interested in studying the ice in situ. If there ever was life on Mars (which is independent of the question of whether there's life there now), the odds are good we'd find evidence of it frozen in the glacier. Cold preserves, objects frozen in ice erode slowly, and the living things generally need water to survive.
Of course, anything that ever lived on Mars would likely have been microscopic. I doubt we'd find anything as big as a terrestrial animal. It'd still be the first evidence of life outside of our own planet though, which is a pretty frickin' huge deal.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
(American Scientist is much better)
The original NASA press release is at
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/news/mro-20081120.html
because scientists don't like to use vague and imprecise language.
if "ice" means "water ice," then what do you say when you just want to refer to ice of any kind?
LoCs are data size. CoLAs are a measure of land area.
Everyone knows that - it's taught to kids before they are even 30 shark nipples high.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I wonder if this discovery had been made a few months earlier if they would have altered the course of the Phoenix lander to try to touch down on the glacier. Or is the crust on top of the glacier too thick for Phoenix to get through? This seems like a prime target for future missions to analyze the ice and look for signs of life.
I think we need to send Bruce Willis and a crack team of oil rig workers to do some drilling on Mars...
...so that's where they went? To mars?
we can put mammoths there
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Ice" and "metal" have different meanings in planetary science than regular old chemistry. "Ice" can refer to any solid "volatile" substance (water, ammonia, methane, hydrogen...) and "metal" (IIRC) refers to other solids (carbon, silicon, iron...). Since lots of carbon dioxide ice has been found on mars in the past, it's worth making the distinction.
Also, when you're talking about the makeup of stars, "metal" refers to everything other than hydrogen or helium.
IANA astronomer, planetary geologist, etc.
All we need now is an ancient reactor to melt the ice and produce a dense atmosphere...
Seriously, though, that movie did suck...
Logic is the beginning of reason, not the end of it.
Since we're on the subject of Total Recall, and I the only one who noticed that Indiana Jones IV completely ripped their ending off Total Recall?
The better question is why haven't you had a memory block installed for IJ4 like the rest of us?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Seriously, the first people to go to Mars would almost have to have a deathwish to do so.
One of the problems with sending people to Mars is how to get them back again. If we could find volunteers who have a shortened life expectancy (terminal cancer, etc), would it be terribly unethical to send them? No need to worry about return/retrieval, and if you're already dying, you've got to admit that it'd be a heck of a way to go.
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
I used to read Slashdot and try to post seriously. For some reason, readership intelligence has dropped, so I'm forced to pander with comments like the above. I may have over reached for the funny, but I was stretching it for the people that didn't understand. Someday I may have all my comments archived into one volume and the collective works could be a best seller. But in the mean time, I'll just keep working for "Big Al" breaking kneecaps for a living. Oh, I'm sorry, I digressed... What was your complaint about?
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Sounds about right considering that the "volunteers" will most likely be prisoners that will be drugged into submissive conformity.
Citation needed.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Undoubtedly, the quantities of materiel for a Mars base would be huge. What I can't understand is why nobody is ramping up to spread that job around. Seems to me that there are plenty of companies, states, countries, and so on, who would be delighted to get the chance to spend millions of dollars to have their stuff being used by a Mars crew. And it seems to me that we now know both how to get missions to Mars and how to have them work together.
Why is nobody trying to convince Wisconsin to start their own Mars mission to send five kilos of cheese into Mars orbit along with some clothes from Lands' End and fifteen or twenty kilos of brats and cheese bread? We know that UW Madison has some kickass space scientists and plenty of engineers. Or what about having developing nations pay a fifty or sixty thousand dollars a kilo to get their signature products added to a vessel to then be built and launched by one of the umpty-dozen New Space companies? There are plenty of options.
The smart thing to do at this point is to start pushing non-federal entities to start their own launch programs to launch their own payloads to Mars orbit where they can either wait for landing instructions (safely a few hundred miles or more from the base) or to be ferried down by some purpose-built vehicle.
Not all supplies are high tech. There is no reason that we need to wait years and years before we'll be ready to send low-G cheese, for crying out loud. The vacuum sealers sold in every supermarket today are more high-tech than the gear used to prepare consumables for the Apollo missions. Thousands and thousands of kilos of supplies would fit into this category. Clothes. Food. Bedding. And on and on. And, frankly, there are plenty of ways to structure the contracts so that Mars crew aren't obligated to use what is sent. Something would have to be pretty damn bad to get left in the cold but there's no reason that option can't be included.
And think about it. This way the logistics work is spread around, too. And the cargos can launch at high-G, travel at near-ambient temperatures in low-atmosphere vessels, and in a dozens of different ways, be a hell of a lot cheaper to send then trying to get everydamnthing shipped in a human-capable vessel. Sending everything in one vessel is like shipping a package by buying an airline ticket for it. This would provide the option of "parcel post".
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
So find some ice-filled underground caverns and make the first colonies there. Build some large graphene "world domes" above them, as greenhouses to grow crops in. Mars is very geologically stable, so humans can expand their presence underground like an expanding ant colony, while building large graphene bubbles topside for agriculture.
No you dumbass. That's how scientists think. Here's how we will *actually* there:
Let's go over it one more time shall we?
1) Chinese space probe to mars discovers enormous deposits of Gold/Pure Gasoline/or some valuable shit
2) Chinese probe hacked by NSA, findings sent to Obama/Palin who decide to act on it.
3) NASA budget quadrupled, Congress told there would be riots in cities if Godless Chinese were to conquer the Final Frontier.
3.a Father jonathan, O'reilly and Rove talk about "bringing the rich to the People of the Free World and Defending Mars against enemies of Freedom."
4) Congress passes a law authorising use of necessary means to "Bring the Riches of Free Planet Mars to democratic nations of the World."
5) Senate vetoes the proposal stating that it lacks medical insurance for mine workers and their children.
6) Congress appropriates $152 billion to pay for Miners Medical Guarantee Plan.
7) Senate passes the law with 3:1 vote majority. McCain abstains stating it doesn't contain enough protection for PoWs. Ron Paul votes against it, stating "Until the Fed is abolished, real Gold Standard cannot be established even with HUGE martian reserves."
8) President signs the law.
9) NASA hires 31,000 new contractors on open bidding. KBR cries foul.
10) KBR is guaranteed an exclusive-yet-non-binding contract to supply food and refreshments to all passengers to Mars.
11) NASA completes a massive extension to the Space Station at a cost of $1.2 Billion. Station now contains $800 toilet seats and $450 Hamburgers supplied by KBR.
12) NASA shortlists 12 astronauts: 9 Men with EVA hours of 500 min. 3 Women with EVA hours of 400 min.
13) The Gay & lesbian Association Against Defamation files a suit in SCOTUS against NASA alleging discrimination against Gays To Mars
14) Citizens of NYC and SF hold candle-light vigils in Support of GaysToMars. O'reilly darkly hints against subversion of Space.
15) A riot breaks out in NYC between Cops, Gays and Neocons resulting in 20 dead (all gays), 13 injured (cops) and 56 arrested (neocons).
16) NYC mayor bans further such demonstrations for 90 days, is promptly sued by ACLU & EFF. Ban upheld by NY Supreme Court. ACLU appeals and the appeal is upheld. Ban revoked. NYC police commissioner resigns.
17) NASA trains 12 astronauts: 3 Men, 6 women(!), and 3 Gay/lesbian combo. ACLU sues citing discrimination against men(!). Case dismissed with costs.
18) Russia launches 5 HUGE rockets from Baikonaur. The rockets discharge their payload on moon. One destructs.
19) Russia launches 6 HUGE rockets again to moon. The rockets cargo is Von Neumann machines that assemble a self-sustaining life station to be launched with Ion engines to Mars.
20) Russian president resigns after it was found he was secretly aiding China(!) China vehemently denies. Russia vehemently denies. NSA defector states NSA engineered it.
21) Space station launches a triple stage rocket built by Northrop Grumman, GD and GE. The launch is a success. Unfortunately the 10 of 15 electronic toilets fail due to the shock. Apparently some unknown indian software company had written the software for the same. The president issues a Presidential order excluding non-US companies from building spaceships for US.
22) Mid journey to Mars, a sex tape involving the 3 lesbians and 3 straight men is leaked. The Gay community is dismayed and outcasts the lesbians. Congress hauls NASA commissioner over coals. GAO inquiry finds KBR had overbilled NASA by $350 billion. the GAO report is re-classified and GAO denied funds for subsequent investigation.
23) Spaceship arrives at Mars. Protest Rallies and Victory Rallies clash in SF and NYC killing atleast 300 people in riots. Fox covers it truthfully.
24) First American on Mars lands to find the martian soil green with moss.
25) A Huge Terminator rolls into camera, greets the man in Russian and waits for response.
26) The american responds in English, whereupon he is vaporized instantly by the Terminator which
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
If "IJ" means Indiana Jones, as I think it does, this whole argument is flawed as there have only been three Indiana Jones movies. The original Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and Last Crusade.
IJ4? Sheesh. Like that'll ever happen.