Mining Mars from Houston 63
An anonymous reader writes "Computer simulations of what bits of Earth, Mars and Venus might be found on the moon point to new methods for extraterrestrial sample return. Because the moon is lifeless, its sterile condition gives a very rare laboratory for collecting what may be as high as 3 grams of Earth's past, from the half-ton of lunar rocks and soil that Apollo returned for study [3 grams (Earth-terran), 0.03 grams (Mars), 0.003 grams (Venus)]. While such interplanetary exchanges are now thought common, what is surprising is these pristine samples often have never exceeded a temperature of around 100 F. Any similar planetary samples found today in, say, Antarctica, would have been weathered, eroded, or contaminated."
Re:Interesting stuff (Score:4, Informative)
While recovering DNA may be hard / impossible (I'm fixing military aircraft for a living, not extracting organinc matter from rocks), we still can learn a lot of interesting things. After all, we can't extract DNA from a fossil, yet it teaches us (or rather, the guys who do that sort of thing for a living or as a hobby) a lot about the creature in question.
I am, however, reminded by a television programe I saw on Discovery Europe a while back... where they 'proved' - by setting up a simulated Mars-base in Antartica or somewhere - that human explorers might see signs of life that a robotic explorer would miss. And I'm sure they could set up a (simplified?) DNA-extraction lab in a potential Mars-base too, thus preventing any organic remains from beeing erradicated by the radiation in outer space.
Here's the link (Score:5, Informative)
ASTEROID sample return. (Score:5, Informative)
a probe to asteroid 1998SF36 and get sample to
retrun to Earth.
Launch will take place 2003, May.
http://www.isas.ac.jp/e/index.html
Re:from Houston? (Score:2, Informative)
<rant>Fuckups like you shouldn't breed. If we wanted the oil, we would appease Iraq so they could pump it all day long and bring the price to $10, not kick their leadership's ass.
Do a little homework, and ask the FRENCH about the oil and $$$. There are NO American oil companies profiting in Iraq. Only French and Russian. Listen to what Iraqi's who are outside waiting to go back say. Why is is that every Iraqi living outside Iraq thinks the US is doing a tough thing for the right reasons, and openly SAYS that France and Russia are more concerned with their financial interests? Its not MY opinion, its the opinion of IRAQIS who are in a position to speak freely.
It just galls you pricks that the man is doing what he thinks is right (whether or not you and i agree), and you can't attack that, so you make up this false 'for oil' shit. No one, except you fellow idealogs, buys this arguement. Go crawl back under the agenda driven rock you crawled out from under and get your facts straight.
Attack the policies, attack the ideas, fine:
We can debate ideas, but when you attack the individual instead, it shows you don't have an arguement, just a bone to pick. </rant>
Mass, not weight. (Score:2, Informative)
Harumph! Grams are a unit of mass, not of weight, and thus independant of the gravitational force exerted on it. 3 grams on Earth is 3 grams on Mars is 3 grams on Venus is 3 grams in freefall.
Not only that, but the gravity of Venus is not one tenth that of Mars, it is closer to twice that of Mars: Venus is nearly as big as Earth. (Nor is the gravity of Mars only 1/100th Earth, it's about 1/3 Earth.)
Geez. If somebody was trying to be funny, it came off as incredibly stupid.