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NASA Announces Discovery of Salty Water On Mars ... Maybe
Today's promised mystery announcement from NASA has finally been made: dotancohen writes "A NASA orbiter has found possible evidence for water on the surface of Mars that flows seasonally. The water likely would be salty, in keeping with the salty Martian environment."
Adds an anonymous reader: "Dark, finger-like features appear and extend down some Martian slopes during late spring through summer, fade in winter, and return during the next spring, NASA says, and repeated observations have tracked the seasonal changes in these recurring features on several steep slopes in the middle latitudes of Mars' southern hemisphere."
You can find more on the claimed find at NASA TV.
Mars Sweat?
I would turn green too if all I had is salty water.
Let's make some Ice Cream.
yes yes ??
Please. Marspiration.
While Mars Fissures gently weep?
...
*ducks
Mars doesn't sweat. It glows.
What the website has is a single sequence. I don't see any cyclic activity. It's also oddly widespread, almost stringy, as though the flow is considerable and the scale of the picture is much bigger than it appears (not unlikely, and given they added no scale information it's almost useless as science).
How long until they announce that they may have found possible evidence that the water could contain an arsenic-based life form. The next time they feel left out and want attention I'd guess.
Schweaty balls of Mars.
For the obvious Doctor Who reference :)
All those features that looked like seasonal water erosion that we said weren't might be after all. Dogma dies the death of a thousand cuts. Dogma has been liquid water can't survive in the Martian atmosphere. Now they say maybe it can if it's salty enough. They begrudgingly admitted that years ago so there's really no news here. What's the story really? "We might be wrong but we aren't willing to admit it yet." Hardly breaking news since most of this has been known for years.
Still need to research and read all the articles, but would be cool to correlate the temperature and melt events.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
As I asked in the earlier post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2357996&cid=36953978
Does anyone remember if Drake assumed one or two habitable planets per planetary system (like ours)?
I have to think the signs point toward more, not less, life in the universe.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
This is important for two reasons. The first reason this is important is the obvious issue that the presence of liquid water makes the existence of life a lot more likely. It seems that conditions for life are really surprisingly common. What we still don't know is how likely life is to form in the first place and how easily it travels. There is speculation about panspermia and life on Earth having come from Mars on meteorites but the orbital mechanics make that direction a lot more likely than from Earth to the Mars.
The second reason this is important is that in the long-run colonization and exploration of Mars will be a lot easier if water is easily available. The presence of water will be directly helpful for some plans aside from directly helping humans. For example, the Mars Direct plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct involves exploratory missions to Mars where some of the rocket fuel for the return is methane made on the surface. Current versions of that plan call for bringing the necessary hydrogen to Mars. This isn't too bad since hydrogen is only a small fraction of methane by mass. But if we could split the water using electrolysis and get the hydrogen directly from that that would potentially further reduce the amount of mass needed to be launched from Earth. Unfortunately, the water here seems to be not so common that one could actually rely on this. This is probably non-viable unless one had much better maps of where the water was, how deep it normally was, the exact locations of the water, detailed knowledge of what salts were making the water briny and any other major chemical contaminants which could make electrolysis machinery unhappy. So overall, this is unlikely to impact missions to Mars in that direct a way.
That's a pretty bitter way of looking at it. I'd much rather see this kind of 'appropriating resources to have fun while others suffer' than the kind we usually have to look at.
But on the other hand, this is the age of hate, so please, cut loose.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
No, I'm pretty sure you're just introverted and bitter.
Something like that.... It could be briny salt water or something else...
Lisa Pratt used the example of putting a bottle of soda in the freezer to a reporter asking questions.... Before soda completely freezes, the bottle of soda forms an ice made of pure water and it is surrounded by a concentrated solution of sugars and syrup that is super sweet still in liquid form. A similar freezing process is believed to be happening in Mars, where they think it is a briny solution that is seeping out of the surface from the underground ice water as that solution has yet to freeze compared to ice water.
It's pretty cool stuff. If there are seasonal cycles like this in the subsurface of Mars, then it is most likely that there are some extreme microbes in there that feed off of this solution... They say that if earth had no seasons, then there would be very little diversity in life and this finding shows there are seasonal cycles that might possibly support life.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
It is another way of appropriating resources, but not just another way. Looked at over the course of history, science gives the best return on the dollar of any investment. And those benefits accrue to society as a whole, even the poorest. It's hard to complain about misappropriation of resources to science when science is the only reason we're able to support the number of people we have on this planet. If you want to avoid the malthusian catastrophe, we have to invest in this kind of research.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Can't wait for the next round of conspiracy theories! Salty tears from the face on Mars perhaps? Mr. Hoagland?!
Something like that.... It could be briny salt water or something else...
If there's water, even if it's salty, there are likely bacteria-- there are on Earth:
http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/153110701753198927
Overtime, the amount of suffering has gone down by many metrics. For example, in most of the developing world, infant mortality now is much less than it was 50 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_mortality The infant mortality rate of the planet as a whole has gone down by a factor of about 3 compared to the rate in the 1950s. The world's level of literacy is also increasing. Average lifespan has also gone up in the developing world. More importantly, that lifespan increase has occurred even if one just looks at the average lifespan of people who survive 3 years of age (this helps deal with most of the infant mortality issue). So no, civilization isn't collapsing. In fact, civilization is doing quite well.
Sure there are things we can do in the here and now to help people directly, like give more money to help deal with malaria and the like. If you want to really care about your own money going to optimal causes, a good thing to look at is Givewell http://www.givewell.org/ which identifies efficient, underfunded charities that are doing helpful work, especially in the developing world.
But, let's address your final claim that this is having fun while others suffer. That's simply not accurate and is missing the point. When the Apollo moon landings happened, people in poor areas crowded around the few radios they had to listen in. Why? Because as badly off as they were, they understood that some things really are achievements for humanity as a whole. In the long run, we're going to need to colonize space. And we'll need to be ready for it. Moreover, we have a real reason to figure out how common life is- for some reason there's almost no intelligent life out there. We need to figure out, for the good of humanity as a whole, if the Great Filter preventing the rise of intelligent civilizations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_filter is ahead of us or behind us. I suspect that most of it is behind us, but if there's any in front of us, it needs to appear before space travel becomes cheap or easy. The more we know about how common life is, what kinds of life evolve, and other related issues, the better understanding we get of whether we need to be prepared for possible filtration up ahead. This is for the good of humanity as a whole.
How are they going to get at this water if it's even possible? Drill down? Burrow down? Sample soil from outside these spurts?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I still am not convinced that life would need water- seems a very geocentric view. Yes, I know water is neutal- disolves base and acid equally, there are hydrophobic and hydrophillic molecules... blah blah blah- but I'm not convinced that there could not be life forces formed based on gases- etc... I would have thought gas giants could be the idea place to look for non-human life. So I don't hold much stock in finding (non-earth originating life) on mars just because water is there. HOWEVER, water there would be good because it would mean less water would need to be taken by any colonists.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Changing dark streaks. Cool. Something is going on down there that fundamentally changes our perception of Mars as a planet that's frozen in time. (Well, except for the dust storms and the seasonal variations in the polar caps.)
The thing is, this doesn't say 'water' to me because it could very well be some other physical phenomena which isn't all that different from Lowell's canals or the face on Mars. They really should do proper science and wait for something more concrete, such as spectroscopic data, before making such announcements.
Science is a method, not an act. Just because some scientific endeavours have proven useful it does not mean that every act of research using the scientific method is worthwhile. And while we may have been limited by lack of understanding of physical processes one hundred years ago, this is not what is holding humanity back today. We have solved the hard physical/biological/environmental science required for the vast majority of humans currently on this earth to lead a comfortable life - we simply refuse to apply it. Instead we continue treating science as if it were either a dalliance for the gifted or a tool for the powerful.
If we don't get off this rock, and I mean a sustainable colony somewhere out there, everyone is going to die.
Real Science!
http://xkcd.com/683/
Not unlike posting on slashdot, actually.
When the Apollo moon landings happened, people in poor areas crowded around the few radios they had to listen in. Why? Because as badly off as they were, they understood that some things really are achievements for humanity as a whole
Because you don't have to be rich to be taken in by marketing. And just because those Hollywoodesque videos create a montage of peoples from all cultures huddling round their radios/televisions in awe at this achievement, it doesn't mean the majority of people either listened or cared.
When I think about people gathered round the AV device I think about the coronation of Elizabeth II: it was a bit of post-war fantasy and a chance to play with a new toy. It's always possible to temporarily lift collective spirits with a bit of fantasy - organised religion's known that for longer than NASA - but it's hardly an effective way to solve problems.
In the long run, we're going to need to colonize space.
Or we could just not continue fucking up and overpopulating our current home.
If you're talking about the very long run and panicking about star death, there is no hurry (and your sense of priority is absurd). We can work on helping people here now first.
Well, advice is the smallest current coin. I think the satisfied demands of the average Slashdot poster are comparatively minimal, and their empty promises less gargantuan.
So your solution to these problems is trying to 'stop people dying' and thus ensuring an ever increasing human population, then you go on to moan about lack of resources!
You do realise the space race has led to many, many discoveries that have helped mankind?
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
Yeah, that's really going to help when another Chicxulub-sized rock comes by. T-Rex didn't go extinct from overpopulation and pollution, dude.
Indeed, the world is getting richer. Since 2000, 28 countries have moved from "poor" to "middle income".
The percent of people in the world living on less than $1.25 a day has fell from 52% to 26% between 1981 and 2005. In China alone, 600 million people have left the under $1.25 per day income line during that period.
The best thing you can do to help the poor people of the planet is to buy something. It is likely that is was either built by people poorer than you, or that at least the raw materials were mined or processed by people poorer than you, and they are benefiting from your commerce, and you are benefitting as well.
The second best thing you can do is to fully appreciate free market capitalism and espouse it publicly, because the poorest countries are those with the least economic freedom and most government regulation of the economy.
Right, because it is not like we haven't invented any new technology along the way that we use today.
Again, priorities. Why are you worrying about what might happen at some point in a few hundreds of thousands of years rather than people suffering right now who could be helped by much application of much simpler and well-understood science?
Wait wait, I just responded to your previous post where you complained about these scientists not saving peoples lives, now you're complaining about overpopulation?
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
So your solution to these problems is trying to 'stop people dying' and thus ensuring an ever increasing human population, then you go on to moan about lack of resources!
Do people spontaneously and involuntarily give birth just through staying alive for longer?
You do realise the space race has led to many, many discoveries that have helped mankind?
You do realise that the space race refers to something which hasn't happened for 20 years (30 if you discount what happened under Reagan)? NASA now is nothing like NASA 40 years ago.
Observations make it look like there might be some sort of water cycle going on on Mars. Now the question is can existing probes provide further evidence? If not is new probe required? If there was a human presence on Mars they could mount an expedition to investigate.
It's hard to put humans into space but, humans are so much more adaptable to changing mission parameters.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Because the stakes are higher. It could happen in a few hundred years or a few years; there are too many objects out there to reliably track them all. It might not even be a meteor: if Yellowstone or another supervolcano goes up we're equally screwed. Or, yeah, it could be us shitting where we eat with a nuclear war or a manmade supervirus or some other catastrophe.
The point is that all of our eggs are in one basket. It's a comfortable basket, it's the one we were born in. But we've got to spread out or we're incredibly vulnerable.
Overpopulation is caused (from a straight causal viewpoint and when considering a moral solution) by too many births, not too few deaths.
You realize that helping people in the manner you're concerned about contributes to "fucking up and overpopulating our current home", right? Right?
What a moron. How in hell is a clever geologist, astrophysicist, or aerospace engineer supposed to help "stop people from dying"?
Do you go to lawyers' offices and criticize them for not all becoming doctors too? Because we spend far, far more on lawyers in this country than we spend on unmanned space missions.
You talk about lacking resources, but that's exactly what there is in space, in great abundance; the only problem is getting to it economically. Even better, unlike here, harvesting resources in space doesn't cause massive environmental and ecological destruction.
Finally, what good is it if everyone becomes a doctor, when an asteroid comes and wipes us all out? The dinosaurs learned first-hand why it was a bad idea to not invest in a space program.
"I couldn't help but notice your pain."
--Sybok
There is potential that resources elsewhere in our solar system could be helpful to all of us; though, I do agree that saving lives here is of the greater importance.
And what's your suggestion for fixing this? Have all the scientists go into politics instead? Yeah, I'm sure they'd do great in the elections.
Oh, I'm sorry, I should have written "Western civilisation" in the sense of the civilisation including NASA - predominantly EU/USA. The planet (fortunately) still has more than one civilisation.
Money is a daft way to measure quality of life. What has to be done to obtain that money? What is that money worth (now and over time)? What freedoms are available with that money? Under what circumstances might those freedoms be taken away? I couldn't give a damn how much money I have: what I want is to be productive without having to endure personal risk.
If you want to measure whether your system is working, you ask: are you happy? Predictably, the mixed economies which have tried to balance known approaches tend to be the happiest. This is somewhat reassuring when you consider that both extremes of the scale - US and Soviet - pound their citizens with propaganda.
So what you're saying is that it's OK to behave like a lawyer as long as there are lawyers?
We are not lacking resources on earth. We just fail to apply science to distribute them properly and to educate on birth control.
There is not a substantial risk of a large asteroid coming and wiping us out in the near future. We are far more likely to be wiped out by ourselves by continuing our current approach of competitive greed and resource squandering. Get your priorities straight.
Contrary to what some have speculated, this is not just science by press conference. There is an actual paper out today in Science magazine (subscription only, but a summary is here). It is speculative, but not of the "arsenic life" or "bacteria in a Mars meteorite" variety.
"I believe that the cult of the particular brings only death - for it bases order on likeness." St.-Exupery
Do people want to live in a world where they can't even dream? Where they have to sign a registry and wait for the next open slot to have a child? Ask the people suffering if they love life. If they do, then hey, good enough. Why do we have to make everybody's life better at the expense of our own? If they don't love life, then why haven't they killed themselves? Hope for things to get better? Well destroying hope is a good way to make people not want to live, isn't it?
You're a terrible human with the shittiest outlook on life, because you're also a hypocrit, as I'm sure you haven't sold your house and clothes and lowered your lifestyle to barely surviving so you can help other countries with the resources you can obtain here. So fuck off, we're all going to die. Somebody should enjoy themselves, somebody should be comfortable, and somebody should be able to achieve a dream instead of all of us living a life of sacrifice trying to stop the inevitable doom that threatens us all.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Most nerds will never understand this...it's a lot easier to colonize another planet than it is to get people to stop fucking.
I shan't blow my own trumpet, but to give examples from my cousins: one's in demography and another is an agricultural engineer.
So... food, disease control, resource allocation, that sort of thing. Lots of fertile ground.
YASHI - Yet Another Short Sight Individual.
How about all the people that got paid? what about all the companies that will be making new products from the tech for this probe. Oh wait, that's10 years down the road and as such well beyond your ability to grasp.
More people will end up benefiting from this then that same money could help if you gave it to the needy' whomever you happen to consider.
Salt water on Mars; this is fucking huge.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The universe is all one basket.
Besides, it doesn't matter whether our species survives: our species does not collectively feel or think or suffer like some supernatural entity and we would do well to detach ourselves from such quasi-religion. What matters is the known and well-understood experience of existing individuals living in various conditions.
But your premise assumes that those people, and those funds, allocated to "this sort of stuff" would instead go to those who are suffering. That's not a safe assumption.
First, you're assuming that someone who is "clever" at astronomical research could also be clever at food production, medicine, or other fields. I doubt that is the case. I love astronomy, aviation and physics, but I absolutely sucked in high school and college at chemistry and biology because I wasn't motivated to study those things. If you are good enough in your field to be a literal rocket scientist, I would wager that in almost every case, it's not because you are simply brighter than those who didn't make the cut; rather, it's because you wanted it more than those who didn't make the cut, and therefore you pushed harder to achieve that goal. That does NOT necessarily imply that you have the necessary motivation to make an impact in other scientific fields.
Second, even if the money went to aid rather than science and the best scientists applied themselves to reducing human suffering instead of space exploration, I'm not convinced that that would solve the problem. Why? Because, IMHO, most human suffering in the world is our own fault. In the '90s, the U.N. tried to bring food and medical aid to people who were suffering in Somalia. Very little aid reached the people who needed it. That wasn't because those with an abundance (i.e., the U.S., Canada, Europe, etc.) didn't provide enough aid. Food was left to rot in Somalia, while people were starving. The problem was that Somalia -- like much of Africa throughout my lifetime -- was struggling with complete anarchy. The warloads who ran the country were stealing the aid and giving it to their supporters while everybody else was dying. The U.N. tried to come in and restore order (ever see the movie "Black Hawk Down"? I highly recommend it) but basically got their butts kicked. Mankind's propensity for inhumanity and violence is a much, much more important cause of human suffering than anything nature can throw at us. Money and science aren't the answer for that problem; eliminating greed and selfishness is the solution, and good luck with that.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Can't we just launch a spy satellite and have it orbit Mars? Seriously, we could see down to 1/2 meter resolution and fuckin' see the water if there is any.
How about all the people that got paid? what about all the companies that will be making new products from the tech for this probe. Oh wait, that's10 years down the road and as such well beyond your ability to grasp.
If "people will get paid" is a justification for resource allocation to any given endeavour then why not employ as many people as you can to build endless paper chains?
Fucking is not the same as having children.
Some countries have done very well at educating people to reduce the native birth rate.
But we're doing really bad at educating the rest. (Some might say it's intentional, as overpopulation implies desperation implies cheap labour. What do you say?)
it's because you wanted it more than those who didn't make the cut
This is bullshit '80s everyone-can-do-it fantasy. Some people are smarter and/or have more opportunities than others - life's unfair like that.
eliminating greed and selfishness is the solution, and good luck with that.
Completely agree. The Second World War brought welfare states to various Western European countries which reduced suffering dramatically and demonstrated how it can be done. Unfortunately, the process has been reversed since the '80s/'90s.
Overtime [sic], the amount of suffering has gone down by many metrics.
Science is working. It's making a definite and measurable improvement in the life of everyone on the planet. Space exploration is but one of the fields of research that is making this possible. You are looking at the world today, looking at the world as it should be, and seeing that they don't match. The cognitive dissonance bothers you, obviously quite a bit. That's a Good Thing, BTW. However, just because you are sensitive to the problems the world faces does NOT imply that the world is not getting better. It's fashionable right now to focus on the doom and gloom and complain about how bad things are getting. There's a word for that: nostalgia. JoshuaZ is right -- the world is getting BETTER, and you can thank science for that -- ALL the sciences, including space exploration.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Do people want to live in a world where they can't even dream? Where they have to sign a registry and wait for the next open slot to have a child?
Two incredible strawmen. Suggesting we don't spend billions on space research and that we educate people on birth control is not the same as stopping people from dreaming and forcing people to wait for a ticket before they can have a child.
Ask the people suffering if they love life. If they do, then hey, good enough.
What does this mean? If they aren't killing themselves then life must be good enough and we can forget about them?
Why do we have to make everybody's life better at the expense of our own?
You don't have to. But you're advocating making better the life of people who are already doing well.
Well destroying hope is a good way to make people not want to live, isn't it?
If you only get hope out of people exploring Mars then you may be narrowminded/obsessed/something wrong.
You're a terrible human with the shittiest outlook on life, because you're also a hypocrit, as I'm sure you haven't sold your house and clothes and lowered your lifestyle to barely surviving
No, you're right, I still post on Slashdot from time to time. But I don't think the problem's entirely soluble. Humans are dicks. This doesn't mean we have to make things worse.
Somebody should enjoy themselves, somebody should be comfortable, and somebody should be able to achieve a dream instead of all of us living a life of sacrifice trying to stop the inevitable doom that threatens us all.
This seems to be a frequent way for guilt to manifest itself. "Someone has to be on top - and it's cool because I want it to be meeeee!"
Moreover, we have a real reason to figure out how common life is- for some reason there's almost no intelligent life out there. We need to figure out, for the good of humanity as a whole, if the Great Filter preventing the rise of intelligent civilizations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_filter is ahead of us or behind us.
While I agree that we do need to figure out if there's other intelligent life out there, I think the idea that "there's almost no intelligent life out there" is rather ridiculous, considering we haven't been looking very hard for it. How can we possibly know that there's little evidence for life, when we haven't even bothered to leave our own star system and travel to others to search for it? It's like the Europeans in the 1300s saying there's no other humans out there than those that have already been discovered, even though they hadn't bothered yet to go to the New World to find them.
We only look for life with a few methods, and they're mostly all passive, not active. SETI, for instance, looks for radio signals from other planets. Do we ever send ultra high-power signals to other star systems saying "hi"? Not really. So why do we expect the same from them? Furthermore, why do we assume that amplitude or frequency-modulated electromagnetic waves within a certain spectrum are the only viable method of communication? That's so 1950s. We don't even use these methods today: we use much more advanced, low-power, spread-spectrum techniques that are difficult to distinguish from noise even at close range, and would likely be undetectable from Alpha Centauri. Even if aliens were using radio for long-range communication with their spacecraft, it's likely they'd be using some more-focused method to improve efficiency, and we would only detect it if we were in the path of the beam (and if we were bothering to listen; what if the beam hit the southern hemisphere instead of Aricebo?). Any reasonably-advanced civilization is probably going to be using a primary communication method which isn't really detectable from this distance, just like we already do. There was only a very short period where we were sending signals out into space.
Other ways of detecting life are looking at light from other planets for evidence of compounds that indicate possible life. However, we've only even known about exoplanets for about 15 years, as our ability here is very limited. We haven't put that much effort into building giant space-based telescopes to look at things like this; in fact, our latest telescope is on the budget chopping block, because we'd rather spend our money on wars in the middle east, wars against naturally-growing plants, and subsidies for rich corporations so their executives can buy megayachts.
The Wiki article even mentions megascale engineering projects; i.e., why haven't we seen any Dyson spheres? Maybe it's because they're hard to see, as they don't radiate enormous amounts of light/radiation like stars do? In fact, something like that would most likely be impossible to detect, unless it was constructed recently and blocked a known star; one existing for the last 2000 years wouldn't be known since we'd have never seen the star it enclosed.
I think this "Great Filter" theory has a too many questionable assumptions to be at all useful.
They say that if earth had no seasons, then there would be very little diversity in life
Who's "they"?
In most of the tropics, there's very little seasonal variation. And those are the areas with some of the highest diversity.
Well, I was talking about the civilisation containing NASA - i.e. Western civilisation - and it has got much worse since the '80s.
There is no denying that science has improved life over the past few hundred years and that it is still bringing better things to the developing world. But that's far from what I was referring to.
The metrics of life expectancy (particular infant) and daily wage are also passionately overused. Ask instead: do people have the opportunity to be productive? Are they protected from personal risk? Most importantly: are they happy?
Most importantly: are they happy?
Is that really most important?
If so, then you'd better start distributing heroin to the poor.
It's pretty cool stuff. If there are seasonal cycles like this in the subsurface of Mars, then it is most likely that there are some extreme microbes in there that feed off of this solution...
Emphasis mine. Don't carelessly throw around such descriptions when we are talking about the magnitude of such a find.
Yeah, that's really going to help when another Chicxulub-sized rock comes by.
By far the best, easiest, and (most importantly) most likely to be available when we need it method of dealing with such a thing is to 1) detect it early and 2) divert it, preventing the catastrophe.
Creating a large enough self-sustaining off-world colony to allow the human race to survive the loss of earth is a pipe dream for the foreseeable future. Even dinosaur-killer-sized impactors will leave the earth a more habitable place for humans than Mars is today.
However, identifying such a large object as a potential danger 50 years before its probable impact, and using that time to slowly nudge it out of the way with a gravity tractor, is actually something we could start implementing tomorrow if the need arose.
The catch though is that we have to find it. Thankfully more resources are being spent on searches for such objects than ever before, but we could certainly use more.
The enemies of Democracy are
Well, I was talking about the civilisation containing NASA - i.e. Western civilisation - and it has got much worse since the '80s.
There is no denying that science has improved life over the past few hundred years and that it is still bringing better things to the developing world. But that's far from what I was referring to.
The metrics of life expectancy (particular infant) and daily wage are also passionately overused. Ask instead: do people have the opportunity to be productive? Are they protected from personal risk? Most importantly: are they happy?
The metric of life-expectancy is used so much because it matters. People don't like dying early. And there are very few things that are more unpleasant for parents than for them to lose a child. So yeah, people who are having their kids die constantly aren't very happy. If you do insist on metrics that attempt to look specifically at happiness levels then in fact the US is one of the happiest countries (#14 by this ranking - http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/14/world-happiest-countries-lifestyle-realestate-gallup-table.html ), and Western Europe consistently lands in the top. So does that make it more ok for European space launches? Also, I'm a bit confused about how this claim relates to your primary claim about either civilization collapsing (happiness levels are not a good metric for likelyhood of civilization to collapse), and this also seems disconnected from your other claim about how these resources should go more to people who are suffering severely, since the people in the West who are not well off by Western standards are generally pretty well off compared to people in the developing world. So what is the claim you are trying to make here?
True, but what's the best way of doing that? It cost NASA half a billion every time they launched a shuttle. Sure, they do some research, but it's a fraction of their budget. Justifying NASA's budget because of spin-off technologies is like justifying military spending for the same reason - there's a grain of truth there, but you get a lot more results if you invest in results, rather than in explosions with a little bit of research around the edge.
The problem with funding space travel now is that we really don't have the technology to do it well, and funding space research doesn't give us that technology. Most of the materials we need, and the computing power that's required, for the present generation of space craft came from other research. Space was just a side venture. The materials, medical, and energetic technology that we need for a space program that's anything other than dick waving is still decades away.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Hey, asshole. If you want to whine about resources squandered on NASA, why don't you take a quick peek at the US budget and take a look at how a military communications satellite costs 13 billion, yet somehow NASA doesn't even get twice that to do interplanetary missions.
To be emphatic, fuck you.
And how again do you propose to fix that? The problem is a political one, nothing else. Are you saying that NASA scientists should go into politics?
I remember the events the week leading up to the Landing, at the proceeding events after word. The world watched, and the world changed the day we step foot on the moon. It is also well documented.
"Or we could just not continue fucking up and overpopulating our current home."
The only population that doesn't end up using all the resource is..oh wait, there isn't one. The resource will be depleted, and the earth will become uninhabitable. In fact, that could happen tomorrow. Then instead of suffereing people, we have an extinguished population
"If you're talking about the very long run and panicking about star death,"
That's the best case. We will be hit be very large asteroids many times before then, and that's just one event external to the earth.
"there is no hurry"
yes there is, because it will take a lot of knowledge and effort.
"We can work on helping people here now first."
We do that as well. However the spin off technology has a long history of helping people here.
Plus things are getting better in many respects.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
People who fail at thinking will never understand this... stopping worldwide population growth via emigration is likely to never be economically viable. The energy requirements of getting someone into orbit - even with a space elevator built out of superconducting magic - are huge. Getting them somewhere else beyond that is another order of magnitude. Getting everyone born in one year to another planet would require more energy than the human race has used, in total, ever. And then the next year you've got to do it again, and find somewhere else for them to go once the current emigration destination is full.
On the other hand, reducing population growth via birth control has been accomplished in most of the civilised world. Most first world countries only maintain their current population levels via immigration.
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The percent of people in the world living on less than $1.25 a day has fell from 52% to 26% between 1981 and 2005
Is that inflation adjusted? Because $1.25 in 1981 dollars is a lot more than $1.25 in 2005 dollars. I'd expect the number to decrease by a similar amount with no increase in quality of life, if their incomes stayed about the same in absolute terms...
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The metric of life-expectancy is used so much because it matters. People don't like dying early.
No-one has an informed opinion on the experience of dying itself. Do you have any evidence that people in general want, per se, "to live a long time"? Perhaps you mean that people want more time to do stuff? This requires much more than just being alive.
And there are very few things that are more unpleasant for parents than for them to lose a child.
This happens mostly in countries where people don't have access to appropriate resources and yet continue to get pregnant a lot - perhaps out of the belief that enough children will survive to look after them in old age. For the majority of history, infant death was routine and did not cause the majority of people to become chronically unhappy, although our Western bubbles of privilege allow us the luxury of thinking too much about the children.
Anyway, the science required for birth control and basic nutrition/sanitation is not very sophisticated. But resources are not appropriately allocated.
If you do insist on metrics that attempt to look specifically at happiness levels then in fact the US is one of the happiest countries (#14 by this ranking
The methodology in that study is questionable, and the fact that you care about ranking (USA! USA!) over absolute results even more so. To begin, I read almost half the people in the US struggling to live. I then note that the Scandinavian mixed economies are predictably on top, and that the mighty USA has only 7% fewer struggling (but 2% more suffering!) than the glorious socialist republic of Turkmenistan.
So does that make it more ok for European space launches?
Perhaps, but it's nice once you've dealt with your problems at home to care about your fellow man even if he lives half way across the world.
Also, I'm a bit confused about how this claim relates to your primary claim about either civilization collapsing (happiness levels are not a good metric for likelyhood of civilization to collapse),
Happiness levels certainly lag other indicators of collapse, but they are a good indicator. You have to make sure to ask the right questions to the right people, of course.
and this also seems disconnected from your other claim about how these resources should go more to people who are suffering severely, since the people in the West who are not well off by Western standards are generally pretty well off compared to people in the developing world.
Any sensible resource allocation exercise is going to do better bringing everyone in a local unit up to a certain standard of living before it tackles the guy half way across the world. It should also be careful not to use simplistic metrics to judge that people living locally are better off - this is a legacy of the White Man Burden fallacy. The fat, uneducated chimney smoker in the run-down estate might have access to healthcare when he succumbs to cancer and heart attack, but he may not be "better off" than the healthy guy living as part of an apparently more "primitive" region who plays an active part in his community but dies at 40 from a simple medical condition.
Is this like the "at least we don't torture people as much as some other countries do" argument for torture?
"Well, I was talking about the civilisation containing NASA - i.e. Western civilisation - and it has got much worse since the '80s."
So the Disco Era was Western civilization's peak? Fucking hell pass the torches and I'll help burn out what's left.
Well if we don't care about future generations, and all that matters is minimizing the suffering of the existing generation, given that despite our best efforts everyone will die in varyingly protracted and painful ways, plus necessarily experience additional suffering in their lives to varying extents, the solution is obvious:
Exterminate all human life on earth in the fastest and most painless way possible.
And thus is nuclear disarmament by the Cold War superpowers revealed to be the most evil, anti-human, pro-suffering trend ever. We need more bombs, many more, to blanket the earth with mushroom clouds and ensure no humans live past the initial shockwaves to die the painful and protracted deaths of radiation poisoning.
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No-one has an informed opinion on the experience of dying itself. Do you have any evidence that people in general want, per se, "to live a long time"? Perhaps you mean that people want more time to do stuff? This requires much more than just being alive.
People don't want to die. This isn't complicated. Really. Death sucks. Losing friends and family members sucks. Longer lifespans make that less common.
And there are very few things that are more unpleasant for parents than for them to lose a child.
This happens mostly in countries where people don't have access to appropriate resources and yet continue to get pregnant a lot - perhaps out of the belief that enough children will survive to look after them in old age. For the majority of history, infant death was routine and did not cause the majority of people to become chronically unhappy, although our Western bubbles of privilege allow us the luxury of thinking too much about the children.
Historically people get pregnant for a variety of reasons. One obvious one is lack of choice- if you don't have birth control then sex (which humans have a strong desire for) leads to kids pretty quickly. Moreover, people don't want to lose infants but they also want to have children. This isn't necessarily as selfish as wanting kids to take care of in their old age. Many cultures have a belief that having kids is a good thing. Moreover, the loss of infants creating unhappiness has nothing to do with the "Western bubbles of privilege". Sadness at the death of infants occurs not just in privileged Western civilization but in societies all throughout the world, and even in non-human species http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/05/pictures/110526-gorilla-mother-mourns-dead-baby-science-mourning-feel-emotions-animals/ Moreover if you look at utopian literature from the 17th and 18th centuries, one of thing that shows up repeatedly is the idea that infant death will be the exception rather than the rule. So yeah, it hurt a lot even then.
Moving on to your next claim since you don't like the metrics I was using for happiness levels, do you have another one you would like to use? At this point you seem to be rejecting every possible metric posed. You aren't posing any other metrics or data and are at the same time insisting that you are correct. Do you see why this might not be the most productive stance to take?
Any sensible resource allocation exercise is going to do better bringing everyone in a local unit up to a certain standard of living before it tackles the guy half way across the world.
Actually, that's extremely not obvious to me. Sure, it is easy to tell yourself that that's somehow "sensible" because it fits with basic intuitions. But there's no good moral or ethical reason that proximity should translate into moral importance.
GLISTENS! GLISTENS!!!! Gah, you guys wouldn't know majesty if it hit you in the face.
+1 Disagree
It wouldn't be the worst idea if some tried. People are obsessed with thinking their viewpoint is marginalised, but there are a whole lot of people in the US struggling and not taken in by Kodos, Kang or the Koch brothers' experiment. The might listen to a group of rational men who get a thrill out of problem-solving rather than power-mongering.
But I think choosing to work for NASA already says a lot about your priorities. Your mind can change as you grow, of course.
As for up-and-coming scientists, people forget that withdrawal of labour is the most powerful collective tool of the common man. There are too many scientists who have become cogs in military-industrial production lines. The majority of NASA's resources are directed toward this: creating blueprints for the likes of Lockheed and Boeing. Good, clever people must take a stand and say I am not going to work for you - I want to do something better. I am not arguing against space science. I am arguing against what has happened to space science. It is not a worthy money vacuum.
The priority is minimising suffering of people right now - but it is not "all that matters". The welfare of existing generations in the future and of future generations also matters. Though we must always remember that we are dealing with individuals just like ourselves, each and every one with a single chance at life and no choice about when are where that chance appeared.
But the survival of the species per se does not really matter. We might evolve quite a bit over the coming billion years. Who knows? Blunt speciesism is as racism.
Gah, you guys wouldn't know majesty if it hit you in the face.
Funny, I was once punched by a Queen for exactly that reason.
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That's just great but we have plenty of salty water here on Earth that NASA can study instead of wasting tax dollars doing it on Mars!
Losing friends and family members sucks. Longer lifespans make that less common.
Please think that statement through :-).
since you don't like the metrics I was using for happiness levels
I didn't reject your study, although I think it's not the best. But I did perhaps take from it other than what you wanted me to: the conclusion that almost half the people in the USA are struggling from day to day. In all but a handful of countries, this is so. We really need to sort our shit out at home, on Earth.
But there's no good moral or ethical reason that proximity should translate into moral importance.
Well, all endeavours are practical, and it's a lot easier to help local people about whom you have a good understanding and who form part of a community which is already under your supervision. There's also the benefit of having a cohesive community without pockets of extreme poverty. Humans are social animals, and the aim is to look after humans.
Put bluntly, if you give $100/week locally to someone who is too mentally ill to work, you may allow them to maintain themselves while they are on a programme of recovery and you may stop them from stealing on the streets. But before you consider $10/week to someone healthy but destitute half way across the world, you will have to help battle transport/corruption/crime/illness/etc before that $10 is really going to give the foreigner a fighting chance. To help individuals you must build societies, and you cannot help a society abroad without first maintaining a society at home (it is the society at home which provides the assistance!).
"Is that inflation adjusted?"
Yes. The World Bank's definition of extreme poverty is $1.25/day purchasing power parity in 2005 dollars ($1.50/day in 2011 dollars).
The welfare of existing generations in the future and of future generations also matters.
Why? Why do generations not yet born matter? What is their hypothetical future existence to us but a way to propagate the species? Why else would we create them and necessarily restrict our resource usage in consideration for them and thus increase suffering in the present?
But the survival of the species per se does not really matter. We might evolve quite a bit over the coming billion years.
Okay, so if we simply expanded the idea of preserving the "species" to "all human descendants whether they are classified as homo sapien sapiens or not", then it would matter?
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"Predictably, the mixed economies which have tried to balance known approaches tend to be the happiest. "
Since 50% of happiness is inherited, one has to be cautious about causality.
It might be that happier populations prefer more socialism (or can stand it, anyway).
However you may also want to look at happiness versus economic freedom, where research shows a positive relationship between national levels of happiness and economic freedom. GDP per capita also exerts a strong positive influence on happiness.
This illustrates the absurdity of the metric. I spent most of my childhood with under $1.25/day "purchasing power" but it didn't matter because I had what I need provided for me. The World Bank and IMF have the principle of pushing developing countries to privatise (read "withdraw") services which people actually need to survive (shelter, sanitation, healthcare, etc.) and then get all giddy about the fact that now fewer people are too poor to buy half a Big Mac a day.
"This is somewhat reassuring when you consider that both extremes of the scale - US and Soviet - pound their citizens with propaganda."
Actually the most economically free countries in the world are Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Ireland, and Denmark. The US is now ranked #9, not at the extreme end of the scale at all.
Please think that statement through :-).
I have. And the statement still seems to be approximately accurate. In societies with shorter lifespans, the frequency of the deaths of family and friends will be higher. The total number will be the same but that's a distinct issue. As to people struggling- sure lots of people are struggling. Is the standard now that we can't do anything at all when there are a lot of people struggling? That seems to be a much stricter standard than what you espoused earlier. That means that in order for this to matter, you need to making an even stronger claim than you were earlier. Are you sure you want to do that?
Put bluntly, if you give $100/week locally to someone who is too mentally ill to work, you may allow them to maintain themselves while they are on a programme of recovery and you may stop them from stealing on the streets. But before you consider $10/week to someone healthy but destitute half way across the world, you will have to help battle transport/corruption/crime/illness/etc before that $10 is really going to give the foreigner a fighting chance. To help individuals you must build societies, and you cannot help a society abroad without first maintaining a society at home (it is the society at home which provides the assistance!).
This is the sort of thing that on its surface sounds nice but is both inaccurate and is confused with secondary issues. First you are essentially agreeing here that proximity isn't what actually matters. You are making a pragmatic claim about proximity, rather than a moral claim. It is possible that I misread your earlier claim in which case I have less of an objection to the argument. Does it reflect reality? Not really. The truth is that our society will be able to easily provide support for another society whether or not the mentally ill homeless person gets support. That sort of person being on the margins doesn't substantially impact our society's productivity or stability. If Givewell's data http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/villagereach is accurate then giving that money to VillageReach will easily do far more than giving that money to the nearby homeless guy.
Agreed re possibly heritable personality traits influencing happiness, although much more than that is needed to use this as an explanation for the differences in happiness levels across countries.
It might be that happier populations prefer more socialism (or can stand it, anyway).
While unhappy people are better coped to stand extreme poverty/anarchy/military dictatorship? Points for effort. :-) Research is already more sophisticated than this: the sorts of stressors which are known to reduce happiness are less likely to be encountered in a country with a social safety net.
Meanwhile there is simply no evidence that, say, a well-run state healthcare service or the opportunity to be protected from homelessness makes anyone unhappy. Mismanagement or limited availability of such programmes may cause stress, but then you'd need evidence that private sector management and availability is better.
I'm going to have to pass on your CATO link, sorry! A literature review by a group of ideologues is unlikely to give me an unbiased overview regardless of which end of the political spectrum has pre-written its conclusion.
When you look at the fairly arbitrary formulae and subjective criteria used in calculating the individual and overall metrics (please take the time to read through them!) and consider that the difference between Bahrain (10th) and Australia (3rd) is under 5 points, I'm not sure you can say much at all about the ordering of any countries in this range.
This is bullshit '80s everyone-can-do-it fantasy.
Well, yeah. That was kind of my point in the post you are replying to. Some people are rocket scientists. Others are chemists. Others are doctors. Pulling someone out of the career field they are best at -- and most passionate about -- doesn't make them rock stars in another field. Ergo, the people who are clever at exploring space aren't necessarily going to contribute nearly as much if there is no rocket science for them to pour their passion into.
Some people are smarter and/or have more opportunities than others - life's unfair like that.
And that's just making excuses. "I *could* have done it, but the deck was stacked against me. I'm just not that smart. I didn't have the opportunities that she did." Meh. I've had to overcome a lot of bad luck to get to where I'm at right now, but you know what? I didn't let that stop me. I've faced major illness. I've been unemployed. Twice, in fact. But I didn't waste time complaining, "life's unfair like that." Whining does nothing to solve the problems I have to face, so I don't have time for it.
The Second World War brought welfare states to various Western European countries which reduced suffering dramatically and demonstrated how it can be done.
That's your idea of a good solution??? Look, I'm totally in favor of helping out others when they are down on their luck. BTDT, from both sides of the equation. But the "welfare state" doesn't solve the root problem. It just masks it. I'm sure you've heard the old adage about giving a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish? The welfare state is giving a man a fish. The problem is he needs to learn how to fish so he can fish for himself. Sure, when you're starving, you need something to eat while you learn to fish. But you shouldn't be expecting someone to give you a fish every single day for the rest of your life! The welfare state is ultimately a losing gambit. What happens when you reach a tipping point in your ratio of working members of society vs. welfare recipients? Who provides the resources that the state allocates to the needy when your entire population -- or at least, an unsustainable proportion of it -- is needy? And in a welfare state, this isn't a self-correcting situation. If the state will meet my needs if I don't, what incentive do I have to better myself so that I'm no longer needy?
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
On TV they would not wear any safety equipment that meant anything. Goggles perhaps, but mostly not and no respirators. Space helmets light up the actors faces so they can been seen on camera but the actors can't see anything because of all the lights shining in their faces
No, it's more like, "pull your head out of your ass, and pull funding from something that isn't utterly anemic."
Like, y'know. The military that takes up 20% of the United States federal budget. But I guess bullets are more important, huh?
Why do you seem to think that in a welfare state a large portion of the population stops working? It keeps working. What Americans call "welfare" is not a welfare state is. Universal healthcare, universal access to education provides opportunities not monthly payments.
"Well understood" science and thinking for now instead of tomorrow is what got us here in the first place. Thinking forward is the only way humanity can progress.
Since NASA doesn't have much of a future with the shuttle retired, is this their ploy to get funded for more manned space flights? This announcement doesn't sound particularly new, they've shown the same kind of pictures before.
I would imagine that since it hasn't been launched yet, they could easily retarget the uber-rover Curiosity to land there.
Of course I have no idea if conditions are suitable for landing (which is already hair-raising enough!) but it seems to be worth looking into. I'm sure the appropriate people at NASA are already doing so (I don't consider them to be nearly as dysfunctional or incompetent as some other parts of the US govt.).
I've yet to see your proof that exabiological studies cannot benefit human health and lifespans. Indeed, to this point you've been rather mute on the point of what you're advocating increasing spending on. What problem do you posit throwing more money at, as opposed to the search for knowledge?
everyone is going to die.
Yep.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you
Ah, you've met Priscilla too?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Those are not interesting problems, because they've been basically solved a couple of centuries ago. The problem now is a political one of persuading people to implement the simple long-term solution. Unfortunately almost everyone who wants the simple solution to be implemented wants someone else to do the implementing and wants an exemption for themselves.
Like I said, a political problem. Find a politician who cares and back them, if you care to stoop to that level of associating with that sort of shit-eater.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Though you're modded "-1, Troll" currently I find your comment pretty interesting. Sometimes life depends on staying put and sucking every last resource a locale has to offer, other times only exploring and finding greener pastures avoided our demise. Certainly both boldness and caution have contributed to our species survival but, considering that humans have spread to nearly every nook and cranny the planet has to offer, my bet is that boldness is the more positive trait.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Or we could just not continue fucking up and overpopulating our current home.
A careful examination of human history will enlighten you to the fact that it is our nature to consume resources and expand our population. Doing so is what has made us who we are. What you are asking is for humans not to be human.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
The welfare state, European style, is all about teaching a man to fish - by breaking down barriers blocking access to education, like the insane student loans you have to take in some places. It is not about handing out money, it is about creating equal chances.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Your stance is amoral to an extend that you could base a Mao-esque "Great leap into space" on it, just saying.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
That's ridiculous. When you're a kid, you also don't contribute to GDP (in a positive way, at least) either, but that doesn't mean that the metric is absurd. Somebody has to have more than $1.25 to provide you with food and shelter.
It's just ichor from the punctured gelsacs.
Just remember: The words of K'brell, speaker for the Council of Elders, are always true.
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So I assume this is from the images of the satellite they put into martian orbit in 2005/6?
Why did it take so long to notice it?
I agree with above posts, why now? Why after funding has been cut etc?
Grasping at air I'm afraid.
Ultimately until we (humans) find more efficient ways of space travel, it still doesn't matter.
Helping people, man. We've got to like, revolutionize the paradigms, man so like we can feed all those hungry people with the love in our hearts man, science is cold and doesn't hug babies man, we just need to imitate nature man, mother nature can save us all.
That's not my stance. Those are the questions I'm asking to probe Hazel Whatsit's stance. I think the survival of the species matters. Also to be clear I don't think nuking everyone is a good idea. :P The question is, why isn't this a good idea in Hazel's "minimize suffering, who cares if the species survives" philosophy.
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