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 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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

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.

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

[seven of five]

I take a lichen to that idea...

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

[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: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.

Oblig

[SrLnclt]

Oblig XKCD

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:burns the eyes!

[GameboyRMH]

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

*I spent way too much time working that out.