Water Discovery Is Good News For Mars Colonists

astroengine writes "By now, we probably all know that there was once significant quantities of water on the Martian surface and, although the red planet is bone dry by terrestrial standards, water persists as ice just below the surface to this day. Now, according to a series of new papers published in the journal Science, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity has found that the Mars topsoil is laced with surprisingly high quantities of the wet stuff. And this could be good news for future Mars colonists. 'If you take a cubic foot of that soil you can basically get two pints of water out it — a couple of water bottles like you'd take to the gym, worth of water,' Curiosity scientist Laurie Leshin, of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, N.Y., told Discovery News."

Comments

water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that US public education is going to hell, but do we really need articles to explain what a pint is?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pint, quarts and gallons are US measurements. In my region, we use milk jugs. We added the conversion to water bottles for heathens outside the US who haven't been educated in how to properly measure liquid.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lousy explanation using lousy measures ... if your audience can't understand standard units, just say what fraction by weight would be extractable water.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I'm not american and I have no idea how big a pint is. Can I get that in litres please?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Codger]

Lousy explanation using lousy measures ... if your audience can't understand standard units, just say what fraction by weight would be extractable water.

And if they don't understand fractions?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[radarskiy]

A fraction by weight of a quantity specified by volume? Brilliant...

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[MiniMike]

water bottles like you'd take to the gym

These comparisons are ridiculous- how can we know the amount of water indicated without knowing which gym we're taking it to, or what kind of workout we'll be doing? Is it aerobics? Weightlifting? Spin class? Are we just pretending to work out while ogling attractive people? Treadmill? We would need different amounts of water for each of these! Please provide information in units we can actually use.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[roc97007]

Lousy explanation using lousy measures ... if your audience can't understand standard units, just say what fraction by weight would be extractable water.

And if they don't understand fractions?

I dunno, you'd say "the amount you'd drink with a big mac". But you're probably wasting your time because they don't believe in other planets.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

obligatory XKCD. Recent one too.

http://www.xkcd.com/1257/

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you take a litre of that soil you can basically get 33 mL of water out it. Metric also instantly gives you the fraction of water by volume: 3.3%.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[a1cypher]

Dumb it down for me.. how many library of congresses is 2 pints?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[RevWaldo]

Dunno, but if it helps two pints is one-eight A Night on the Town with Ted Kennedy.

.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

"there /was/ once significant quantities of water"

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[strength_of_10_men]

'If you take a cubic foot of that soil you can basically get two beer glasses-worth of water out it'

I think that's pretty much an international standard, right?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Ralph Wiggam]

What size are your glasses of beer? I thought that was a pretty standard glass size. It's the most beer you can drink at a reasonable pace before it gets warm.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

American beer glasses are approx. 350 mL (12 oz). The British "pint" is significantly larger, and the German "literstein" is [strike]about the right size[/strike] larger still.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only small american beer glasses are 12 oz, the vast majority are 16 or 20 oz.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Vanderhoth]

395 ml for a standard bottle, I'd like to know how they came up with that number as it's not a pint. A pint is almost half a litre, about 475 ml

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[crypticedge]

The real question is how many boots of water will it contain.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[pla]

Pint, quarts and gallons are US measurements. In my region, we use milk jugs. We added the conversion to water bottles for heathens outside the US who haven't been educated in how to properly measure liquid.

Heathens??? Pot, meet kettle. All the "civilized" countries use metric nowadays - decijugs, centijugs, millijugs, and so on.

/ And the same units work for bra sizes, too!

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

One pint is about 0.47, 0.56 or 0.55 litres. Depending on what and where you measure.
I (nor wikipedia) has any info on how much a martian soil pint is.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Artraze]

It's really quite bizarre. Nevermind 2 pints is a quart or 4 cups, both of which would carry more intuitive meaning than "2 pints", but they opt to provide an analogy for that when most people have no idea what a cubic foot looks like. I think it's more a comment of how reporting is going to hell than the education system. (After all, there's no evidence that the populace actually needed that 'helpful' comparison.)

Here's a thought, writers, maybe instead of a crap analogy just convert it to something useful. Google and I took less than a minute to establish that 2pint/ft^3 is:

1/2 cup per gallon
(Or a bowl of ramen per two mulch bags worth of Martian soil.)

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[omnichad]

Well they did say:

a couple of water bottles like you'd take to the gym, worth of water

Which is 1-liter. I don't know why they felt we couldn't handle that measurement and instead rounded it to pints and then added a metric-by-proxy measurement.

Re: water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[prads]

If you drink a beer, you know what a pint is

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[citizenr]

Lousy explanation using lousy measures ... if your audience can't understand standard units, just say what fraction by weight would be extractable water.

And if they don't understand fractions?

is it mandated by law in US not to offend stupid people by exposing them to something smarter than a rock?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[gandhi_2]

The average American kid probably knows better what a pint is better than what a gym is, or what kind of bottle you'd bring to one.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[gandhi_2]

Never underestimate a beowulf cluster of libraries of congress filled with martian soil and hot grits flying down the road on the back of a NASA rover.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

By definition a pint glass is 16 oz.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[newcastlejon]

In Britain, the pints are 20.08% better.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

So in your universe the U.S. invented the pint some time before the English departed east over the Atlantic Ocean and formed the U.K. and then invented alcohol to put in their pints?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh...

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I dunno, you'd say "the amount you'd drink with a big mac"."

So in your universe a pint is about 32 to 42 ounces?*

* I don't "Supersize" my order, but many do.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

It doesn't pay to be a pedantic if you're too stupid to understand what was written.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I'm not sure about that, but 2 pints is about 1/10th of a Ted Kennedy.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Ralph Wiggam]

If your bar is serving beer in 12 oz glasses, you need to go to a better bar. Any decent place in the US uses 16 oz glasses.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[khellendros1984]

American *bottles* of beer are about 12 ounces. American beer *glasses* are usually liquid pints (~473mL), if you're drinking draught/draft beer. British pints *are* larger (by almost exactly 20%), but it's because of standardization of imperial units after the US split away. A standard German beer mug would be 1/2 liter (larger than an American pint, smaller than a British one). Of course, a full liter of beer would be larger than any of those three. "German Literstein" is somewhat of a misnomer, since "Stein" isn't generally used alone in German to refer to a container.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[roc97007]

"I dunno, you'd say "the amount you'd drink with a big mac"."

So in your universe a pint is about 32 to 42 ounces?*

  * I don't "Supersize" my order, but many do.

Um, good point.*

* I don't eat at McDonald's at all, but I've heard of this "supersize" thing.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[richlv]

of course not. most places in europe will have 0.5l as the "standard" size, british (and themed pubs elsewhere) will use pint. well, one of them :)

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[painandgreed]

The real question is how many boots of water will it contain.

Boots of water are no good. You'd have to drink it all before you could sit the container down.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[lagomorpha2]

of course not. most places in europe will have 0.5l as the "standard" size, british (and themed pubs elsewhere) will use pint. well, one of them :)

I seem to remember an old man in Orwell's 1984 complaining about how the evil totalitarian government required beer to be sold in .5L or 1L instead of the ideal size (the pint).

Kind of sad how well Orwell predicted the future.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Woosh!

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[GarethIwanFairclough]

Whoa whoa wait up mate, is that a "US" supersize or a "UK" supersize?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[loufoque]

Even in metric countries, people still use pint to refer to beer.
In a metric country, a pint is 50cl though. (a pint is actuallly between 47 and 56.8cl in the US or UK)

In any case, two pints is not a couple of bottles. A normal-sized bottle of water is 1.5l. So you'd need 3 pints to make a single bottle.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[s.petry]

That was funneh! :D

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Thus the 32 to 42 oz.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Not according to the idiot who modded it flamebait ;-)

P.S. - I really love your .sig It is a policy I should adopt to be sure.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[sootman]

You know what would have made it a really useful comparison? Telling how much water you can get out of a cubic foot of typical Earth garden soil.

Also: how much water is left in the soil? Will it still stick together, or did you just generate (1 cubic foot minus two pints) of moon dust? The Mayo Clinic says we need about 3 liters of water per day (they mean quarts, natch) so that's 6 cubic feet of dirt processed per person per day.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

i've never even heard of mcdonalds.
and while we're on the subject, i dont own a television

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

A normal-sized bottle of water is 1.5l. So you'd need 3 pints to make a single bottle.

Yeah, but this is a gym-bottle measurement from a scientist, the last gym he probably visited was a Pokemon Gym

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[s.petry]

Unfortunately morons get mod points too. I'd correct if I had some.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[geekoid]

It is...on Mars.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an interesting definition, considering an Imperial pint is 20 Imperial ounces.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[rubycodez]

Maybe you are the one lacking understanding. the UK and Ireland still use miles, pints, gallons, etc. in everyday life

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[rubycodez]

that's technically with Ted Kennedy and a blonde, even though the beer and blonde are recycled into the planet's water system by the next day.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[pla]

Best "woosh fail" of the week!

So, you clearly didn't make it to the 12th word... I'd guess you probably made it 10, but possibly only 4.

Do tell - How short of an attention span do you have?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

speaking of pendantic, you can be pendantic, but you can not be "a" pendantic. Noun vs adverb.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[sg_oneill]

Because us non americans have no idea what a pint is, other than a beer glass size some of the old fashion pubs use. Apparently however those pints are english pints which are different to american pints. I think?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[LifesABeach]

You know? I'd sure like to them go there and prove it.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even in metric countries, people still use pint to refer to beer.

In Soviet Russia beer is measured in mugs. Someone please translate for me, how many Soviet Mugs of beer can be extracted from cubic leg of a Martian buried beneath topsoil

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all metric countries.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Shompol]

Please don't forget that unlike mass, weight is a result of gravity. You need to make adjustment for Martian surface free fall acceleration, which happens to be 12.1 feet per second squared.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[deviated_prevert]

"I dunno, you'd say "the amount you'd drink with a big mac"."

So in your universe a pint is about 32 to 42 ounces?* * I don't "Supersize" my order, but many do.

That only applies if the Martian soil is made of quartz. However if the Martian soil is actually made of anything else it will yield two American pints per cubic foot. Which is why I prefer the British pint in the first place because is closer to a half of a German liter which is larger than an American 26er which is closer to a paltry ripoff 750ml of French plonk.

Come up to Canada if you really want to get confused, order a full pint of some real beer and then think about how Milwaukee is ripping you Americans off. This is what will most likely cause the first Martian Colonial revolution. Which we wil wind up calling the "Martian Tea Party Revolt" They will be arguing like crazy and shooting each other right from the start about the size Martian pints in the soil instead of building a new cooperative society with health care. I would not even be surprised if the actually take guns along with them contributed by the NRA for the purpose of Martian Colonial security.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Swampash]

I know that US public education is going to hell, but do we really need articles to explain what a pint is?

Yes, because the rest of the world has no idea what a pint is. The USA and Myanmar are the only two countries in the world that use British Imperial measurements as standard, so the rest of the world needs a point of comparison.

Re: water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of pedantry.

Ftfy.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they are likely to be American, and will know what a pint is.

Re: water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it used to be served warm.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this insightful
Ive lived in 3 different countries, and non of them have the same sized beer glasses, yet alone a standard.
Insightful would be how many litres.

I know Google, bla bla...
But Im in China and its blocked at the moment.
ps our beer glasses are tiny.

Re: water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

568ml. My blood is boiling. Please tell be I'm being trolled.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[qc_dk]

Thus the 32 to 42 oz.

OMG. 42 Australias of water? That's insane.

Re: water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Vanderhoth]

Sigh, I didn't think it was necessary to specify we were talking about US pints which is 473.18mL as opposed to UK pints which is 568.26mL. My mistake, this is part of the reason we moved to metric, the imperial system isn't even consistent from one region to another.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. It is definitely you that is not understanding, since that was my point. Re-read it and you will see that I was saying exactly that.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

ROTFLMOA! What the hell is a pendantic?

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Zero__Kelvin]

No. We were talking about 42 Australias of soda ;-)

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in my country, and not in any other country I know of besides UK and Ireland.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

In most if not all southern european countries the sizes are the following:
20cl, 25cl, 33cl: for small bottles, cans and glasses and small tetrapak-like containers
50cl: jugs, large cans, bottles
1l: for bottles, milk/juice tetrapak-like containers, and larger jugs
1.5cl, 2l: for juice and water bottles

beers usually come in containers of 20cl, 33cl, 50cl and 1l.

cl stands for centiliter = 0.01 liter = 10^(-5) cubic meters
l stands for liter where 1 liter = 0.001 cubic meters

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

is it mandated by law in US not to offend stupid people by exposing them to something smarter than a rock?

Yes!!! Its not really in the books, but sure seems to be a precedent thats been set over the last 20 years.
We seem to want to nurture confusion as though its a virtue. Any attempt to reduce any level of confusion will lead to ridicule and shunning by the liberals who seem to control everything right now.

Please ignore us folks in the US until we can get our act together again.

     

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first question before yours should be, why 2 pints and not 1 quart? If they were going for a bigger integer in front how about 4 cups? 192 teaspoons.

Re:water bottles like you'd take to the gym?

[crypticedge]

You sir have obviously never known the horror of a boot filled with icy water on a cold day.

How do you know that???

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't know that there is ice under the surface. Someone needs to grab a shovel and jump on broomstick and get up there....

Re:How do you know that???

[buchner.johannes]

That's what they did: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/06/answering-mars/

That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[Penguinisto]

If you couple it with water/fluid recycling techniques, you stand a good change of doing well.

I find it strange that they would focus on just drinking water in the summary, when water will give you fuel and oxygen as well, and will likely be the greatest byproducts of this type of mining.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[X0563511]

They also said "like you'd take to the gym" as a way of explaining pints, and used cubic feet.

In other words drinking water was the most "understandable" part of it for the audience it was written for, and oxygen and fuel would have just drawn blank stares.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Less than 1/1000 of common water is dissolved oxygen. Common air is about 20% oxygen. You would need around 200 pints of water for 1 breath of air. The water on mars probably contains even less dissolved oxygen.

Electrolysis to split the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen is very energy expensive. Oxygen is very easy to compress and ship in tanks. Water is difficult to compress, and is heavy and difficult to ship.

Being able to source drinking water from Mars is much more important and practical than trying to use that water for anything else.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[roc97007]

Less than 1/1000 of common water is dissolved oxygen. Common air is about 20% oxygen. You would need around 200 pints of water for 1 breath of air. The water on mars probably contains even less dissolved oxygen.

Electrolysis to split the water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen is very energy expensive. Oxygen is very easy to compress and ship in tanks. Water is difficult to compress, and is heavy and difficult to ship.

Being able to source drinking water from Mars is much more important and practical than trying to use that water for anything else.

I suspect that an established, long-term colony on Mars would be more interested in splitting water for oxygen and fuel than shipping air from earth. But I agree that this may not be terribly practical with current technology. I've seen solar powered electrolysis rigs, but the output is comparatively tiny. Perhaps that there fusion power that I hear tell is (still) 50 years away might provide a solution. Fuse hydrogen to generate the energy required to split water molecules for more hydrogen fuel and oxygen to breathe.

Of course, another way to turn water into oxygen is grow things with it.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[confused one]

I think you'll find that the dissolved oxygen is only there because there's an abundance of oxygen in the atmosphere here on Earth. On Mars, there is no (0%) oxygen content in the atmosphere (which is only 0.01% as dense as on Earth anyway); so, there would be ZERO oxygen dissolved in the water on Mars.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, water (liquid form) is about 1000 times denser than steam (vapor form).

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy solution: nuclear reactors. The technology is already mature and has been flown to space by the US and the USSR. A nuclear reactor could easily give you sufficient power to extract and electrolyze oxygen for breathing or rocket fuel.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, agriculture is probably the biggest use of water for any Martian colony. If done right you would likely be able to recycle a lot of that water but you'll still need a lot of water to get a cycle going and there will still be a fair bit of loss that will need to be replenished. It takes a lot of water to grow crops.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[physicsphairy]

If you can recycle all of your water, you don't need to bring any more with you than it takes to get there. Same for oxygen. Water is in principle easier to recycle than oxygen, in as much as your body does not structurally change all the water molecules it uses, as it does with the oxygen molecules. You piss out water but you exhale CO2.

It may be that more oxygen than water supplementation is required, due to the desire to fill large volumes with it (the astronauts don't just breathe from scuba tanks) and its propensities to leak and react with other things.

But energy is basically the one thing that does not need to be resupplied (nuclear/solar), so anytime you can use energy + environment to produce a resource, even inefficiently, you are probably interested in doing it.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[Gavagai80]

Plants produce oxygen, but they also need oxygen to live in the first place (reference: http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=760 ). So you need oxygen to start it off.

Re:That's a whole lot of dirt, but...

[gweihir]

They just adjusted the stupidity level of the article to the stupidity level of people that want to go on a 1-way trip to mars.

How much is that in shot glasses?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought since a certain missed orbital maneuver, people talking about Mars had agreed to only use metric...

Re:How much is that in shot glasses?

[Russ1642]

No. We agreed to use imperial only. Didn't we? Oh, shit! I have a phone call to make.

Re:How much is that in shot glasses?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought since a certain missed orbital maneuver, people talking about Mars had agreed to only use metric...

Scientists studying Mars have only used metric for decades. American reporters only use imperial units. If you don't translate for them, they nearly always mess up the conversion. As far as that failed orbital maneuver, it was the defense contractor that use imperial units. As I said before, NASA and the scientists have used metric exclusively for a very long time.

Re:How much is that in shot glasses?

[Russ1642]

As long as you label your units you're generally ok but for some reason people feel they don't need to maintain unit labels when they're programming.

Re:How much is that in shot glasses?

[Nadaka]

That is why they should code in Ada, forced units of conversion for the win.

Re:How much is that in shot glasses?

[Antipater]

As long as you trust your eyes and common sense you're generally ok as well. Regarding that "certain maneuver" mentioned above, it was NASA who refused to correct course, despite their own (not mixed-up) sensors telling them that the probe was coming in too low.

Even properly converted and labeled units are no match for stupid management.

Re:How much is that in shot glasses?

[osu-neko]

American reporters only use imperial units. If you don't translate for them, they nearly always mess up the conversion. As far as that failed orbital maneuver, it was the defense contractor that use imperial units.

Um, no, definitely not. Very few people in the US use imperial units. They tend to use US customary units. If you used imperial units, especially when talking volume, you'll confuse the heck out of everyone, since that's one of the areas where US customary units are quite different from imperial units.

Re:How much is that in shot glasses?

[Anonymous Coward]

American reporters only use imperial units.

No, I assure you they do not. Imperial units are very different from American units, despite sharing many names. Imperial doesn't mean "not metric", it's a specific system of measurement. For example, a US quart is .94 liters, while an Imperial quart is 1.13 liters.

burns the eyes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cubic foot... pints...

Oh jesus.

Re:burns the eyes!

[ehack]

Yes, my foot probably contains about two pints of water.

Re:burns the eyes!

[Anonymous Coward]

In approximately one cubic light-nanosecond of Martian topsoil you will find approximately 3*10^25 molecules of water.

Is that better?

Re:burns the eyes!

[GameboyRMH]

Witch! It's 13.5 minas to the hogshead!*

*I spent way too much time working that out.

Let me be the first to point out

[erikkemperman]

Water Discovery Is Good News For Mars Colonists

Well, duh.

Now beer, that would be news!

Re:Let me be the first to point out

[gstoddart]

Now beer, that would be news!

If you have yeast, hops and barley ... you can make your own beer if there's water there.

Red Planet Ale sounds tasty.

Re:Let me be the first to point out

[internerdj]

Yeah. I'm pretty sure the discovery of martian yeast would be big news on its own.

Re:Let me be the first to point out

[dkleinsc]

I'm pretty sure the discovery of martian yeast would be big news on its own.

Well, if Men are from Venus, and Women from Mars ... (ducks)

Re:Let me be the first to point out

[Anonymous Coward]

And we'd see humans landing on the Red Planet within the decade...

Alas. Bartender, I'll have another round of WTF is up with these healthcare costs, please.

Colonists will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

One day a rich and prosperous nation that values science and space exploration will colonize.

As a citizen of the US of A, I can't wait to see which nation steps up to the plate.

Re:Colonists will be great.

[TheCarp]

Not just a matter of values but of fear of risk. Risk tolerance has become quite low and seems to just be getting worst as the place gets safer and the perception of the world gets smaller.

Re:Colonists will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a citizen of the US of A, I can't wait to see which nation steps up to the plate.

Probably the one dumb enough not to realize that space is an endless money/resource sink with no practical value.

Re:Colonists will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia "valued space exploration". They beat you to the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first man in space, the first woman in space, various LEO firsts like docking and staying a long time, they sent a sample return mission to the Moon and a Venus lander. Did that make them rich and prosperous for all that?

You seem to confuse cause and effect. About the only commercially viable thing you can do in space is NOT send people and put communication satellites. That's it. Anything else is a SHOW. If you think space has any connection to wealth, how's Norway's space program going? Oh yeah, they don't have one.

Re:Colonists will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, you like risk? Quit your job. There. That's risk. So, step up to the plate, Oh Risk Taker and show us how it's done. What's that? Not interested? I see.

Re:Colonists will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wont be you, your nation will just wait until someone else does it and then under the pretext they are a socialist gubberment either invade or get the space cadets in the CIA to cause a coup on the half of your fruit industry.

Re:Colonists will be great.

[mbkennel]

"Russia "valued space exploration". They beat you to the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first man in space, the first woman in space, various LEO firsts like docking and staying a long time, they sent a sample return mission to the Moon and a Venus lander. Did that make them rich and prosperous for all that?"

Actually yes. For the people in that sector. The rest of the economy which was far from world-leading was the disaster.

Re:Colonists will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you really, REALLY, REALLY need to take off your "space makes you rich" blinkers and read up on how Russia treated its space heroes.

But just because certain people were treated better than others, doesn't mean that they were treated better because of space.... I'm sure the Russian mafia dons were treated better than the rest of the people, does that mean we should now all aspire to be Mafia dons?

Anyways, doesn't the fact that only the people in that sector benefitted sort of negate the whole "prosperous nation" propaganda the space patrol always drags out?

Re:Colonists will be great.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a citizen of the US of A, I can't wait to see which nation steps up to the plate.

Probably the one dumb enough not to realize that space is an endless money/resource sink with no practical value.

In one hundred million generations, my four-armed, no-legged, space-faring descendents are going to point and laugh at you for your short-sightedness as they observe the last vestiges of microbial life on Earth die from extreme heat.

(Just kidding, I fully expect humans to have moved Earth to a safe orbit by then, if it hasn't simply been replaced with a slowly expanding Dyson bubble)

Re:Colonists will be great.

[dbIII]

The rest of the economy was run by Breshnev and a collection of yes men during that time.

Great, let's send plants

[NewWorldDan]

Ok, next step, let's find some plants that might be able to grow there. Let's make Mars a green planet. I think that's really the next step, can we take a desolate planet and make it remotely suitable for life. I'd like to do the same thing with Venus, which I'm sure will be much more of a challenge.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, next step, let's find some plants that might be able to grow there. Let's make Mars a green planet. I think that's really the next step, can we take a desolate planet and make it remotely suitable for life. I'd like to do the same thing with Venus, which I'm sure will be much more of a challenge.

Actually the soil is fine to plant things in, you literally just have to accommodate for the temperature. At least from what the last rover showed us.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, problem is that liquid water is in really short supply and most plants pretty much require some in the soil to get going. It is way too cold for that.

In addition, the normal atmospheric pressure is drastically reduced on mars, making the existence of liquid water very fleeting, even at the equator in the dead of summer. I just don't see how tera-farming is going to be successful on a scale that might be able to sustain even a small number of humans on Mars. Don't get me started on what's actually in the atmosphere and how inhospitable it is.

So.. If you want to heat up some martian soil to get H2O, power to you, but getting plants to grow outside on Mars is NOT going to happen.. Maybe if we could get a dozen or so large comets to impact Mars and release their water.... What am I saying??? That's NUTS! Even as a Hollywood movie plot.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[seven of five]

I take a lichen to that idea...

Re:Great, let's send plants

[erikkemperman]

Ok, next step, let's find some plants that might be able to grow there. Let's make Mars a green planet.

Actually the soil is fine to plant things in, you literally just have to accommodate for the temperature. At least from what the last rover showed us.

Cool. Start in a big geodesic dome at nice temperature and gradually change the atmosphere to make O2!

Re:Great, let's send plants

[MiniMike]

I generously offer as the first plant to go to Mars a sample of the very hardy crabgrass found in my yard. I'm sure it will do fine there.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[NewWorldDan]

As long as you landed your plants along the equator, some should be able to live. Find some high desert plants or lichens. Land them on Mars and wait 30 years to see what happens. Unfortunately, some boring people oppose putting foreign life forms on the surface of Mars. Boo. This is the most important and interesting study of climate and evolution we could possibly ever make.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[lannocc]

I suggest we try hemp.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[CanHasDIY]

Lichens FTW; those hardy little fuckers can grow any-damn-where.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[GodfatherofSoul]

No, next step is heating Mars up with probably greenhouse gasses.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Syhra]

I think that would be appropriate for the Mars One winners, send them a houseplant for their new home.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Syhra]

We've got plenty here, lets send it along.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[AK Marc]

Wouldn't really help. Mars can't hold a sufficient atmosphere. If it were 100% O2, that'd still not be enough O2 to sustain humans without mechanical assistance.

The only practical planet to terraform is Venus.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Yosho]

But how are you going to get those greenhouse gasses to stay on the planet? With Mars' lower gravity and lack of a magnetic field, the solar winds will blow away any excess atmosphere.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, some boring people oppose putting foreign life forms on the surface of Mars. Boo. This is the most important and interesting study of climate and evolution we could possibly ever make.

No one is actually stopping you from doing it. They just aren't going to do it for you.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[GodfatherofSoul]

I watched a tv documentary a while back that said the rate of loss of atmosphere is slow enough to make terraforming Mars possible. I'm not sure what you do about the lack of a magnetic field or ozone layer. I'm assuming it builds up over time after plants start generating oxygen.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Njovich]

What makes it not enough? In any case, at least you can land a person on mars now, and grow plants inside some kind of protected environment. Venus would take ages to even get it suitable to get anything on the planet that won't melt.

Of course, for now it looks like neither will even start happening in any of our lifetimes.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[HeckRuler]

Magnetism, actually. The magnetosphere (all the best names have been taken by old discoveries, btw) keep solar winds from stripping away the atmosphere of a planet. That and, you know, gravity to keep the air stuck to the surface.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[HeckRuler]

Well yeah, terraforming the planet would be hard, but filling a dome with oxygen is a good step. And yes, it has to be geodesic. Because it looks like the future.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Chuckstar]

Where would these plants you speak of get the carbon dioxide and oxygen they need? You gonna give them little tiny scuba tanks?

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Njovich]

Still, there is a atmosphere right now, what makes you say it can't possibly be enough? Did you do the math?

Re:Great, let's send plants

[roc97007]

I think I've read that story.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Loop the Martian equator a few times with cable and pass electric current through it. Instant magnetic field.

Power required and means of generating same are left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[roc97007]

Where would these plants you speak of get the carbon dioxide and oxygen they need? You gonna give them little tiny scuba tanks?

C'mon now, wiki is your friend. Mars atmosphere (what there is of it) is 98% carbon dioxide, and through photosynthesis, plants turn water (in the soil, see TFA) and carbon dioxide into oxygen and chemical energy for the plant.

Wow, helping my daughter with her biology homework finally paid off...

Re:Great, let's send plants

[roc97007]

Mars' atmosphere is already 98% carbon dioxide. If that's all it took, we'd be there by now.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[LordLimecat]

It helps if the planet in question has a more substantial atmosphere than

about 0.6% of Earth's mean sea level pressure of 101.3 kilopascals

if youre wanting to grow plants

Re:Great, let's send plants

[LordLimecat]

What makes it not enough?

Wikipedia says that Mars' atmospheric pressure is less than 1% of earth's. Thats not a good starting point.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

"next step"? It takes all we've got to send a small four wheeled camera, and your "next step" is transport planetary quantities of air and water to a planet with no magnetosphere? Really? You know all those books you read as a kid? Check the spine: science FICTION. OK?

Re:Great, let's send plants

[LordLimecat]

Plants dont generate O2 out of nothing; they need something to start with, and there isnt much there on Mars.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

He doesn't need to. Someone else did. Atmospheric pressure is (very) approximately 1% of that on Earth.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

May not be enough for humans, but if it's enough for some sort of plants that's enough for us to live there (in domes, sure, but whatever).

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh and the tiny little detail of the deadly solar radiation blasting in BECAUSE THERE'S NO MAGNETOSPHERE, other than that, you're fine!

Re:Great, let's send plants

[geekoid]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars

Re:Great, let's send plants

[geekoid]

I think it would be interesting to see if we can create a plant that can live in martian atmosphere. IT's 96% CO2...at 600 pascals.

Bonus if it's edible.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[geekoid]

That's hilarious. I bet you're a fungi.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[geekoid]

All that means is we have to genetically engineer it.

Man, you people are going to grow up to be bitter, angry and boring* old people if you don't remember to think of possibilities to do amazing things.

*the worst one

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

"practical"? Do tell, I'm on tenterhooks... You know, with Venus having a weak magnetosphere and being closer to the Sun and all... Please post your bill of materials that we can order on McMaster-Carr. That's what "practical" means. I think you meant "imaginary".

Re:Great, let's send plants

[rubycodez]

you need to read closer, mars' atomosphere is closer to hard vaccum than to anything dense enough to support life.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Mars has a magnetosphere.

http://www.space.dtu.dk/english/Research/Universe_and_Solar_System/magnetic_field

Re:Great, let's send plants

[AK Marc]

Possible with any conceivable technology, for these types of projects is what "practical" means.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[AK Marc]

Did you do the math?

Yes. Did you? The best resources for O2 needed for life are from human factors textbooks for flying. Mars's atmosphere at 100% O2 is insufficient partial pressure to sustain humans. Given that it's "impossible" to terraform it to human-habitable, it would make sense to start with a planet that can at least hold sufficient atmosphere to live. The only planet meeting that description is Venus.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[dbIII]

Yes. The pressure is very low. The wikipedia article on the Mars atmosphere is very good.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[dbIII]

is 98% carbon dioxide

In the summer it is. Seen any plants that can live on dry ice snow?

Re:Great, let's send plants

[nitehawk214]

No, he actually looked up an article. Mars has less than 1% of the atmosphere that Earth has.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[nitehawk214]

Except that Mars' atmosphere is less than 1% as thick as Earth's.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[nitehawk214]

We could send way better greenhouse gases than CO2. However the volumes needed, what we would really need to do is send some factory that could produce the required gas. There is still the problem of the solar wind trying to blow it away, though.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[DrFalkyn]

Magnetism, actually. The magnetosphere (all the best names have been taken by old discoveries, btw) keep solar winds from stripping away the atmosphere of a planet. That and, you know, gravity to keep the air stuck to the surface.

OTOH, you have Venus, whose atmosphere 100x denser than that of Earth despite having almost zero magnetic field.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

"and grow plants inside some kind of protected environment."

Well, you would have to provide the soil and the appropriate light. Mars doesn't get as much sunlight as Earth and so it maybe more difficult to grow plants there.

"The maximum solar irradiance on Mars is about 590 W/m2 compared to about 1000 W/m2 at the Earth's surface."

http://www.tomatosphere.org/teacher-resources/teachers-guide/grades-8-10/mars-agriculture.cfm

Plus you may have to make sure that the plants get enough of the right kind of radiation (you would have to consider the extent that the atmosphere on mars blocks whatever radiation plants need, though Mars has a thin atmosphere compared to Earth and so may not block that much of anything) and you may want to filter out harmful radiation that Earth's atmosphere filters and not Mars.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Alioth]

The Mars atmosphere is (by order of magnitude) only 1% of Earth's sea level pressure.

If we look at aviation, we know how people do in situations where there is low atmospheric pressure. At 16km altitude, the partial pressure of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere is about what it would be on Mars if you could make it have a pure oxygen atmosphere. Your time of useful consciousness without a pressure oxygen mask at 16km is only about 9 seconds. (At those low partial pressures of oxygen, your lungs work in reverse - actually removing oxygen from your blood stream).

So no, a pure oxygen Mars atmosphere will still not support humans roaming on the surface without a space suit.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

It took solar winds millions of years to strip Mars from atmosphere.
If we can generate a new atmosphere with material found on Mars (Or by transporting it there from another planet but that seems unlikely.) then the solar winds will not remove the atmosphere in a rate that is meaningful.

Unless we are talking about a process were it would take us millions of years to create a sufficiently thick atmosphere, then the solar winds would matter.

It is a bit like the discovery that the acrylamide in fried food could cause cancer. It made some people be afraid of eating fries until someone pointed out that they would have to eat so insane amounts that they would die from obesity before the cancer risk became an issue.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it's about as possible as shifting Mars from its orbit with "conceivable" technology. That's an odd definition of "practical". For the record, that's not what "practical" means.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[AK Marc]

Shifting the orbit of Mars wouldn't help. You'd need to capture 100% of the asteroid belt and slam it into Mars. That'd get you enough gravity to hold an atmosphere. For that amount of trouble, you could clean the atmosphere of Venus.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[dywolf]

No, send worms..

The spice must flow!

Re:Great, let's send plants

[LordLimecat]

Part of the process of becoming older and wiser is rejecting unrealistic idealism.

Domes are realistic. Modifying plants to cope with a basically non-existent atmosphere, frigid temperatures, and no liquid water (since water cannot exist in a liquid state at that atmospheric pressure) is not.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Anonymous Coward]

By the same metric, Mars "has" an atmosphere. Feel free to go there with no spacesuit. I'll wait right here, let us know how it goes.

Re:Great, let's send plants

[Chuckstar]

Besides the other comments showing how Martian atmosphere is way too thin to support plan life, you also need to pay closer attention when you help your daughter with biology.

Try to grow a plant in a 98% CO2 atmosphere. I'll give you hint. It won't work. Plants release oxygen into the atmosphere as they photosynthesize, and they take oxygen in as they metabolize. They don't store the oxygen internally, they rely on certain % of oxygen being available in the atmosphere.

Imperial Dilemma

[Reliable Windmill]

I love how the dilemma of what units to use is highlighted by mixing feet, pints and the generic gym water bottle units. The Imperial system has dumbed Americans down to the point where they can only understand measurements by comparing distances, sizes, weights and volumes to things like football fields, elephants, bowling balls and water bottles.

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[bmo]

>Europeans use Wales as a measurement of area
>Criticize the US for using "comparative measurements"

Look at the troll. Look at the troll and laugh.

--
BMO

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot big macs.

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[triffid_98]

or you could you know, read the actual article which ignores metric or imperial measurements and just gives percentages...

âoeAbout 2 percent of the soil on the surface of Mars is made up of water, which is a great resource, and interesting scientifically.â

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[invid]

The Imperial system has dumbed Americans down to the point where they can only understand measurements by comparing distances, sizes, weights and volumes to things like football fields, elephants, bowling balls and water bottles.

Dumbed down! Are you kidding? The metric system is so simple and intuitive a two year old child can understand it! The American system of football fields and elephants is so complex and convoluted it takes a genius to get any real work done with it!

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[Reliable Windmill]

Haha, you know, that's a good point :)

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[Reliable Windmill]

That's such a stupid thing to say. Everyone knows whales differ greatly in size from one species to the other, and they increase in size greatly between birth and mature age. It would never work!

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans don't use the Imperial system.

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[nitehawk214]

Yeah, Americans use Rhode Islands for area. Its a conversion rate of 6.6 Rhode Islands per Wales.

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[dywolf]

no, its not the imperial system that has dumbed down americans, and to suggest otherwise is sophmoric and petty.
units are just relative numbers. they can be anything, it doesnt matter.

the dumbing down is from the general lack of scientific and mathmatical knowledge, not because of hte numbers used.
you post is little more than typical /. america bashing/trolling.

Re:Imperial Dilemma

[bmo]

Yeah, Americans use Rhode Islands for area.

As a former resident of RI, I can categorically state that this is true. The other measurement is Delawares. But that is less common.

--
BMO

Translation to SI

[Anonymous Coward]

For 28.317 litres of soil, you get 1.1365, 0.94635 or 1.1012 litres of water.

Re:Translation to SI

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just say you would get about 3.3% of the volume in water or 1 part water for every 30 parts soil (assuming US liquid pints).

Oh Boy!

[gti_guy]

More natural resources to exploit and then wonder why the environment is changing!

How deep is the love

[Bucc5062]

What I'm curious about is how deep would this layer of water go. If it is just the surface then colonists would be ranging pretty far in short order for water.

Re:How deep is the love

[SternisheFan]

Don't know how deep the h20 goes, though it seems to be planetwide...

“Mars has kind of a global layer, a layer of surface soil that has been mixed and distributed by frequent dust storms. So a scoop of this stuff is basically a microscopic Mars rock collection,” said Leshin. “If you mix many grains of it together, you probably have an accurate picture of typical martian crust. By learning about it in any one place, you’re learning about the entire planet.”

http://news.rpi.edu/content/2013/09/26/nasa-mars-rover-curiosity-finds-water-first-sample-planet-surface?destination=node/40197

Re:How deep is the love

[Bucc5062]

Now I RTFA and the other and my question still stands.

""If you take a cubic foot of that soil you can basically get two pints of water out it -- a couple of water bottles like you'd take to the gym, worth of water,""

A cubic foot (or should I convert to metric (sigh)) can be measured a varying number of ways from 1x1x1 to 1x2x.5 where depth can 1 foot to a few inches. To obtain water from such a shallow surface area would preclude the need for a large land source. I think it is grand that water could be that plentiful, but it would kind of suck that the major way to have a continuing water supply is to keep harvesting further and further out from base.

I look forward to when they drill to see if they can find some organics and perhaps to establish how deep the water may go down into the substrate. Obviously not in my lifetime, but a green Mars would be something to see.

Re:How deep is the love

[viperidaenz]

h20 is pretty useless.
H2O is much better.

Oblig

[SrLnclt]

Oblig XKCD

Re:Oblig

[Anonymous Coward]

Oblig XKCD

FTFY.

Venus

[Anonymous Coward]

As a citizen of the US of A, I can't wait to see which nation steps up to the plate.

Probably the one dumb enough not to realize that space is an endless money/resource sink with no practical value.

The study of Venus gave a practical model on what happens when there's a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere - for one.

The study of other planets helps with the understanding of the Earth and could very well give us information that will save our Bald Ape Asses.

But aside from that, I'd like to think there's more to our existence than consumption, superstition and being "spiritual" by practicing ancient religions based on superstition.

Re:Venus

[Anonymous Coward]

"The study of Venus gave a practical model on what happens when there's a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere - for one."

People already knew about that in the 19th century. And we didn't need to send people to colonize Venus, did we? We observed Venus by radar from right here on Earth on our computer chairs. So how is that a defense for colonizing Mars again? Oh yeah, it isn't.

"The study of other planets helps with the understanding of the Earth and could very well give us information that will save our Bald Ape Asses."

The first part is true, but again, no one needed to go colonize these planets, sending machines is fine. The second part of your sentence, at best, could be said of anything we do, and at worst is just a religion.

"But aside from that, I'd like to think there's more to our existence than consumption, superstition and being "spiritual" by practicing ancient religions based on superstition."

There's more to existence than clutching to ridiculous Space Age myths and propaganda.

You would sacrifice that for our good?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a hero sir.

Mars needs women

[themushroom]

Thirsty ones.

Re:Mars needs women

[rubycodez]

so they can swallow instead of spit?

Risk is a relative concept.

[mosb1000]

Risk is a relative concept. When you think of how working conditions used to be when most people worked in factories or on farms, it's easy to see how people of the time would view the risk Apollo astronauts took as acceptable. But along with moves toward large scale agriculture and automation, the standards changed. It's not a bad thing, as production has become cheaper, there should be more resources available to make exploration safer. The reason the Space Shuttle disasters were so shocking is they shouldn't have happened. They were the result of political decisions which should not have been a part of the technical design of the spacecraft. They were not a result of the risk inherent in space-flight (which most people are willing to accept).

Not everything must have "practical value."

[mosb1000]

space is an endless money/resource sink with no practical value

Not every human endeavor must have "practical value." You must be a lot of fun at parties. I'm just kidding, you obviously don't got to parties because they are an endless money/resource sink with no practical value.

Re:Not everything must have "practical value."

[Anonymous Coward]

You are perfectly free to waste your own money on whatever you want. You are not free to waste other peoples money on whatever you want.

Re:Not everything must have "practical value."

[mosb1000]

I'm sorry, but this obviously untrue. Pennies on the tax dollar actually go un-wasted. I agree that's not a good situation, but that's how it is. Also, I'm not the one who decides how to spend the tax-money. I wish they'd only take what they are willing to put to good use (or maybe nothing at all) and if that were the case, maybe we could use the money left over to fund a private space venture. But as long as they're taking it and wasting it, they might as well waste it on something interesting.

Re:Not everything must have "practical value."

[X0563511]

I'd be happy to give NASA a few extra $$ every year for them to "waste" - they don't get enough as it is.

Re:Not everything must have "practical value."

[Anonymous Coward]

In many systems of government, including the one in the US, I certainly am.

So?

[jklovanc]

So Martian dwellers will not die of thirst and possibly starvation. There are still the following to deal with;
1. suicide
2. homicide
3. radiation
4. equipment failure
5. missed supply missions
6. funding cuts which end supply missions.

Water is only one part of the equation.

Re:So?

[GodfatherofSoul]

You're fun at parties, aren't you?

Re:So?

[Yosho]

1. suicide
2. homicide

There's nothing Mars-specific about those; they aren't even interplanetary travel problems. We have do deal with those here on Earth, so we're already pretty used to them.

3. radiation
4. equipment failure

Valid problems, but sufficiently well-engineered hardware and equipment can mitigate them.

5. missed supply missions
6. funding cuts which end supply missions.

Those aren't going to be problems because supply missions are pointless for a colony. It is so expensive and takes so long to send something to Mars that there's no point in building a colony that relies on resupplying from earth; a colony would need to be self-sustaining from near its beginning to be viable at all.

Re:So?

[ewibble]

So Martian dwellers will not die of thirst and possibly starvation. There are still the following to deal with;
1. suicide
2. homicide
3. radiation
4. equipment failure
5. missed supply missions
6. funding cuts which end supply missions.

Water is only one part of the equation.

All of which can happen right here on earth, I am sure people have died in droughts from "funding cuts" (not meeting aid promises), and missed supply missions. The chances are just higher on mars. Suicide and homicide, we don't really have any statistics to show how likely that is to happen.

Re:So?

[roc97007]

So Martian dwellers will not die of thirst and possibly starvation. There are still the following to deal with;
1. suicide
2. homicide
3. radiation
4. equipment failure
5. missed supply missions
6. funding cuts which end supply missions.

Water is only one part of the equation.

Pretty much just like here, then.

Re:So?

[jklovanc]

There's nothing Mars-specific about those; they aren't even interplanetary travel problems.

The difference being that homicide and suicide will not wipe out the human race but it can wipe out a colony. All it takes in a lunatic to blow up the oxygen plant and there goes every life. Both of these problems are exacerbated by the inability to significantly change one's environment. On Earth one can make new friends, move to a new city, spend time outdoors, etc, These options do not exist when you have to see and work with the person or persons you hate every day. There is a much higher probability of developing a psychosis on a Mars colony than on Earth. Considering the failed isolation experiments on Earth I would say it was almost a certainty.

Valid problems, but sufficiently well-engineered hardware and equipment can mitigate them

Well engineered hardware and equipment has never failed? What about that door seal that hasn't been replaced in 10 years. Every item has a mean time between failure and there is no way to manufacture everything on Mars.

Those aren't going to be problems because supply missions are pointless for a colony.

That is the whole point. Mars colonies are not viable because they can never be made self sufficient. There will always be parts that can not be manufactured on Mars that will be needed as they wear out and fail.

Re:So?

[geekoid]

Isolation and distance may require special ways to deal with suicide and homicide.

Re:So?

[david_thornley]

Those aren't going to be problems because supply missions are pointless for a colony. It is so expensive and takes so long to send something to Mars that there's no point in building a colony that relies on resupplying from earth; a colony would need to be self-sustaining from near its beginning to be viable at all.

Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to make a self-sustaining Martian colony? The colony will need the ability to produce literally everything they use from Martian raw materials. They need redundant capabilities, Mars being the hostile environment it is. Think, for example, what is needed to set up a modern chip fab, what is needed to build one, etc.

Sure, pioneers managed to maintain most of a low-tech economy without such sophistication. They didn't have to worry about oxygen, didn't have to worry about pressure domes and suits, didn't have to worry about the radiation Mars has neither the atmosphere nor magnetic field to fend off, and had ready-made materials for growing plants and animals to satisfy their needs.

Not to mention that an economy that large is going to require a whole lot of people to support the number of specialists needed (and, again, redundancy is vital). I'd estimate it would require hundreds of thousands to millions of people. That's a lot more than we're going to be able to send by any practical known way, so the colony will take generations to get self-sustaining.

2% of a Cubic Foot is 2 Pints?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like some of the units are wrong here - the Science article says that it's 2% water. I find it hard to believe that this translates into 2 pints per cubic foot. That's some seriously wet ground.

Re:2% of a Cubic Foot is 2 Pints?

[YoungManKlaus]

a cubic foot is close to 30 litres, 2 pints are 1 litre, so you have a 30:1 ratio which is 3.3...%

Pint

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Pint is how you order beer, preferably an Imperial pint.

Re:Pint

[R3d M3rcury]

I order beer by the yard, you insensitive clod!

huh ?

[micahraleigh]

Referring to ice as "the wet stuff" ...

Yes

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Because finding water on Mars was their greatest challenge.

Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[SternisheFan]

Polar ice caps

Main article: Martian polar ice caps

Both the northern polar cap (Planum Boreum) and the southern polar cap (Planum Australe) are thought to grow in thickness during the winter and partially sublime during the summer. In 2004, the MARSIS radar sounder on the Mars Express satellite targeted the southern polar cap, and was able to confirm that ice there extends to a depth of 3.7 kilometres (2.3 mi) below the surface. In the same year, the OMEGA instrument on the same orbiter revealed that the cap is divided into three distinct parts, with varying contents of frozen water depending on latitude. The first part is the bright part of the polar cap seen in images, centered on the pole, which is a mixture of 85% CO2 ice to 15% water ice. The second part comprises steep slopes known as scarps, made almost entirely of water ice, that ring and fall away from the polar cap to the surrounding plains. The third part encompasses the vast permafrost fields that stretch for tens of kilometres away from the scarps, and is not obviously part of the cap until the surface composition is analysed. NASA scientists calculate that the volume of water ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted, would be sufficient to cover the entire planetary surface to a depth of 11 metres (36 ft). Observations over both poles and more widely over the planet suggest melting all the surface ice would produce a water equivalent global layer 35 meters deep.

On July 2008, NASA announced that the Phoenix lander had confirmed the presence of water ice at its landing site near the northern polar ice cap (at 68.2 latitude). This was the first ever direct observation of ice from the surface. Two years later, the shallow radar on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took measurements of the north polar ice cap and determined that the total volume of water ice in the cap is 821,000 cubic kilometers (197,000 cubic miles). That is equal to 30% of the Earth's Greenland ice sheet, or enough to cover the surface of Mars to a depth of 5.6 meters. Both polar caps reveal abundant fine internal layers when examined in HiRISE and Mars Global Surveyor imagery. Many researchers have attempted to use this layering to attempt to understand the structure, history, and flow properties of the caps,[4] although their interpretation is not straightforward.

Lake Vostok in Antarctica may have implications for liquid water still existing on Mars because if water existed before the polar ice caps on Mars, it is possible that there is still liquid water below the ice caps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[roc97007]

Holy carp. So all that's really needed (at least on the short term (without a strong magnetic field)) is heat.

I wonder if we can ignite one of the moons?

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[LordLimecat]

Heres a phase diagram of water.
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hsg/363/table-images/water-phase-diagram.gif

The pressure on Mars is ~600 Pascals (wikipedia). If Im reading that chart right, you need a pressure of ~1kPa before liquid water is even possible.

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[SternisheFan]

Heres a phase diagram of water. http://www.phy.duke.edu/~hsg/363/table-images/water-phase-diagram.gif

The pressure on Mars is ~600 Pascals (wikipedia). If Im reading that chart right, you need a pressure of ~1kPa before liquid water is even possible.

Well, I assume we won't be camping out on the surface. We will need to construct pressurized living & working areas (that are radiation-proofed (compress Mars's soil into blocks, spray seal the interiors and exteriors?)).

So, though the dirt does contain water, it's not enough for our purposes. We should make our first 'camps' where the water/ice is, no?

Kind of like the late Sam Kinison's joke about people starving in the desert should "move where the food is.", makes sense to me to start our colonies where the water is.

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[SternisheFan]

Holy carp. So all that's really needed (at least on the short term (without a strong magnetic field)) is heat.

I wonder if we can ignite one of the moons?

We can have heat after we convert the water/ice into hydrogen from Earth supplied machinery, no?

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[roc97007]

Holy carp. So all that's really needed (at least on the short term (without a strong magnetic field)) is heat.

I wonder if we can ignite one of the moons?

We can have heat after we convert the water/ice into hydrogen from Earth supplied machinery, no?

Localized heat, true. I was thinking lots of heat, on a global basis. Then plant something that will unlock the water and metabolize carbon dioxide, and you could eventually have a somewhat breathable atmosphere. Until it escapes again, of course.

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[SternisheFan]

Holy carp. So all that's really needed (at least on the short term (without a strong magnetic field)) is heat.

I wonder if we can ignite one of the moons?

We can have heat after we convert the water/ice into hydrogen from Earth supplied machinery, no?

Localized heat, true. I was thinking lots of heat, on a global basis. Then plant something that will unlock the water and metabolize carbon dioxide, and you could eventually have a somewhat breathable atmosphere. Until it escapes again, of course.

Yep, we're gonna have to do something about that faulty Martian magnetosphere, all right. There must be a solution, we just don't know what it is, yet...

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[rubycodez]

I think I remember this plan...Arnold Scwarzenneggar fires the device up?

we'll need a massive power source and a three titted whore, if I recall

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[bejiitas_wrath]

Just dig underground and the First Hundred can live in Underhill.

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[SternisheFan]

Thermodynamics of terraforming

The overall energy required to sublimate the CO2 from the south polar ice cap is modeled by Zubrin and McKay.[1] Raising temperature of the poles by four Kelvin would be necessary in order to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect. If using orbital mirrors, an estimated 120 MWe-years would be required in order to produce mirrors large enough to vaporize the ice caps. This is considered the most effective method, though the least practical. If using powerful halocarbon greenhouse gases, an order of 1000 MWe-years would be required to accomplish this heating. Although ineffectual in comparison, it is considered the most practical method. Impacting an asteroid, which is often considered a synergistic effect, would require approximately four 10-billion-tonne ammonia-rich asteroids to trigger the runaway greenhouse effect, totaling an eight degree increase in temperature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming_of_Mars

Re:Lets not forget Mars' Ice Caps...

[Gavagai80]

You could try restarting a dormant volcano.

While this is good news, they still need to be

[portforward]

very careful. They need to make sure that they bring plenty of appropriately sized filters or else something bad can happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Waters_of_Mars

Some good news about mars colonization.

[Janek Kozicki]

My wife wrote a PhD thesis about Mars Colonization. She wrote it in polish language. The good news is that it is now 50% translated to english. I will publish this translation in next two or days. Then you will find it on my homepage. I hope that translation will be fully complete in next several months.

3 things

[slashmydots]

First, since the temperature of the ground on Earth is basically the same once you go down X amount of feet, this isn't exactly a surprise. Second, mars is really cold anyway so 2x the "not surprised." Third, they're completely neglecting the martian viruses that will turn people into zombies when they drink the martian dirt water.

Ratio seems too high

[Anonymous Coward]

You can all do the maths (yes, I said "maths", not "math") yourselves, but one cubic foot of anything is about 27 litres in volume. Two pints is about 1.2 litres, so the soild is apparently saturated with water in a ratio of 25.8: 1.2 (25.8 + 1.2 = 27). That seems like an awful lot of water for a presumably desert-dry planet, so I'm calling bullshit on this.

Good news for the colonists!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad news for the pope

Be careful what you ask for

[dbIII]

What size are your glasses of beer?

In Australia the glass size varies by state and there's often more than one size of "standard" glasses in each state - for instance a schooner and a pot. A schooner in Brisbane is one and a half times the size of a schooner in Adelaide. A pint can be 15oz or 20oz. A "stubby" can be 375ml or two litres, but the latter started as a "everything's bigger in Texas" sort of gimmick in the Northern Territory (which has a couple of "ranches" bigger than Texas).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_Australia#Beer_glasses

Re:Be careful what you ask for

[Ralph Wiggam]

That's totally insane.

Re:Be careful what you ask for

[dbIII]

Maybe we drink so much of of the stuff to forget how insane it is :)
That's what you get when each state gets to have it's own measures. Apparently it used to be even worse.
Give me a middy of blue, a pint of old, a shetland of red, a schooner of cascade light and a glass of fourex.

Slashdot failing

[Anonymous Coward]

One more nail in the /. quality coffin. 90% of the comments focus on not how colonists might recover the couple of pints of water per cubic foot of Martian soil, but on the units of measurement. Jebus.

Swimming On Mars

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as my hotel has a swimming pool, I'm happy.

can we get useful measurements?

[YoungManKlaus]

a cubic foot is around 30 liters (0.03 m^3) and 2 pints is around 1 liter (or 0.001 m^3) ... so in short you have a 30:1 ratio dirt water

Horrible "life on Mars"

[Sqreater]

At best "colonists" can expect to be mining dirt all day for their requirements for water. And why is it ok to strip the surface of Mars of its soil and process it but not the Earth? Aiding and abetting the idea that a "colony" on Mars has meaning is supporting a crime against humanity. Stop the breathless boosterism for (at best and if it is possible at all, which I doubt) a miserable existence on Mars. Would you send your great grandchildren to the Gobi desert to live and force them to mine dirt, leaving mountains of waterless dirt slag behind? Imposing human misery on others is immoral. Aiding and abetting suicide is immoral and illegal.

Well of course there's water on Mars

[darth dickinson]

But you don't want to drink it. Don't you people watch Doctor Who?