Mars Orbiter Finds Evidence For Ancient Rivers, Lakes 130
Cowards Anonymous points out news that studies based on data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have found that vast regions of Mars contained rivers and lakes when the planet was young. The studies also suggest that the water existed for quite some time, often in standing pools, which are conducive to the formation of basic organic matter. NASA provides a color-enhanced photo of a delta within a crater. Quoting:
"The clay-like minerals, called phyllosilicates, preserve a record of the interaction of water with rocks dating back to what is called the Noachian period of Mars' history, approximately 4.6 billion to 3.8 billion years ago. This period corresponds to the earliest years of the solar system, when Earth, the moon and Mars sustained a cosmic bombardment by comets and asteroids. Rocks of this age have largely been destroyed on Earth by plate tectonics. They are preserved on the moon, but were never exposed to liquid water. The phyllosilicate-containing rocks on Mars preserve a unique record of liquid water environments possibly suitable for life in the early solar system."
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Does every single thing you do help address the many serious problems facing us here on Earth, or do you occasionally do frivolous things that you enjoy? Yeah, that's what I thought.
NASA is doing it all WRONG! (Score:2, Insightful)
NASA needs to say they have found evidence of OIL on Mars.
Cheney and his neocon buddies will start to drool. Dick Cheney will order Bush to fund a mission to Mars. Bush will say that God told him that they need to liberate the Martians.
NASA gets unlimited budget - will come out of the DOD's budget.
WIN/WIN situation!
Re:Once had life, but no more (Score:4, Insightful)
our inevitable colonisation of Mars
Look, we are never, never, ever going to "colonise" Mars. There's no reason to do it except SF fantasy wish fulfillment or too much time spent watching scientifically nonsensical films and books. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. James van Allen was right. There's no reason to go there when we can do anything humans can do with robots for a thousandth of the cost and risk. Yes, it's "slower" than spending a couple of hundred billion dollars over 20 years, but so what? Mars has been there for 4000,000,000 years; it's not going anywhere.
If you're very very lucky, your children or grandchilden may live long enough to see a manned landing; personally, I very much doubt it. Hmmm, I must get round to setting up that thingy on longbets.org ...
Taking it To the Streets (Score:4, Insightful)
These cheap landers with specialized probes show just how much more powerful our science can be when we interact with its subjects through matter-on-matter operations, rather than just interacting with energy as we do in telescopes, or interacting with information as we do in simulations.
When we actually send a human to Mars, a "generalized probe" with sensory and mechanical amplification equipment, we'll really be getting to work, down to brass tacks.
Re:Once had life, but no more (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Once had life, but no more (Score:4, Insightful)
The experts said, "mechanised rail travel was impossible because people would suffocate from the change in air pressure", then they said heavier-than-air flight was impossible", then they said "supersonic flight was impossible because the aircraft would shake itself apart". Up until 60 years ago, traveling between the USA and Europe was on the order of months of time, rather than hours.
But developing the technology to allow for high speed travel for long distances is an evolutionary process. Good examples are the evolution of sea-going craft from simple coracles, currachs, log rafts, then wooden ships, paddle-steamers, iron-hull craft up to ocean liners and nuclear powered air-craft carriers.
Any kind of interplanetary travel would be the same - protecting the crew from the elements (radiation) is the first obstacle, then there is the problem of propulsion over a long period of time. And then there is the actual process of manufacture if the vessel cannot travel from the surface of a planet.
Re:Once had life, but no more (Score:3, Insightful)
No--it goes without saying that humankind will eventually need to control its number in order not to overpopulate Earth. That's all.
Space migration? You will not migrate the billions that Earth can't sustain to Mars, at least not without completely exhausting our resources ...
Possibly mankind will move to space/Mars. But that means a few hundred or some thousands--not billions--of people will establish a new human habitat, kind of a backup. But this will not reduce or even shrink the net number of people on Earth.
Re:Once had life, but no more (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately the parent post is right - space colonization in the foreseeable future is unlikely for many reasons that somehow seem glossed over by the "true believers".
Lets face the cold hard reality of space - it is both cold and hard. There's nothing out there but rocks. Nobody wants to live on cold hard rocks. Some people might go there for science, or out of the curiosity of a tourist, but nobody will ever want to make a life there.
I'm sure of this because people already have the opportunity to go live on cold hard rocks that are far from civilization, right now, but don't. There are huge, unclaimed tracts of rocks right here on Earth. Most of Canada, Russia, and Antarctica is an uninhabited wasteland, despite massive overpopulation in other parts of the world. Heck, most of the continent of Australia is an uninhabited desert, so there's also a choice of warm hard rocks, if that's your preference.
Compared to any other place in space, these places aren't even that uninhabitable. There's usually some water, a breathable atmosphere, soil, gravity, real time telecommunications, and resources and equipment can be brought in a cost of mere thousands of dollars instead of billions. Yet despite these manifold advantages over space colonization, there's no popular demand for massive government spending to colonize these places. Why not?
Sure, it's not glamorous, but we can do it right now! We could, if we wanted to, colonize Antarctica. It wouldn't even be that hard, all the technology is available right now. We could move a billion people there if we had to. Does anybody want to though? Do you? Would you, right now, give up where ever you are, with your job, friends, family, and go live in a place like that? Or if you don't like the cold, you're welcome here in Australia! The desert has some really cheap land. You can buy a place the size of a small American state if you want to. Oddly enough, most of tens of thousands of immigrants that come to this country every year go to live in the larger cities. Not a huge demand for desert living for some strange reason.
Now let me put it this way - Mars is just like Antarctica, but much colder, much more remote, much harder to reach, much harder to come back from and there's no atmosphere. Not to mention that the return ticket for a family sightseeing tour these days is $1 Trillion*.
Living on Mars is totally irrational wishful thinking. Unless some miracle occurs like the sudden invention of cheap wormhole generators or anti-gravity or some similarly quick and easy way to get about becomes available, I just don't see it, and we can't make plans where step #1 depends on a miracle. Even given some cheap magic space transport device, every destination is still "Not Earth". Step #2 will be that anywhere we might want to go is instant-death-to-the-unprotected. Every little detail is lethal. Did you know that due to the lack of weathering, the dust on the Moon is microscopically jagged and razor sharp? It'll cut your lungs up if you breathe it in for any length of time. Just look up "silicosis" to find out all about the joys of that particular ailment. In comparison, the Australian Outback is so inviting that even the dust comes in a lung-friendly rounded format, but there's still places you can go where the next nearest person is 100km away. I don't see that changing any time soon, so why would anyone expect space to be colonized first?
* An estimate only, one that NASA keeps revising upwards. Before betting on cheap space travel, wait for the prices to actually start dropping first.
Re:Once had life, but no more (Score:3, Insightful)
No we are not doomed in the case of a field reversal. There has been literally hundreds of field reversals during since the Jurasic and life survived without problems. We cvould survive as well with only minor ajustments (for instance magnetic compasses would not work and magnetic storms temporarily taking out power distribution systems more often etc.)
The difference is that the magnetic field on Mars did not come back allowing billions of years without a field thus stripping the atmosphere.
Yours Yazeran
Plan: To go to Mars one day with a hammer
Re:Once had life, but no more (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't confuse interstellar and interplanetary travel. They are two completely different issues, and I will admit that interstellar travel is something that is so far out there that the method of travel is something certainly of Science Fiction. It is also something I don't think will happen in the next couple of millenia other than some robotic missions to only the very closest of stars. Manned exploration of nearby stars is akin to suggesting a 17th Century sailor is going to make it to Mars somehow. The very technology to accomplish that task is seemingly impossible, and effectively will need a deeper understand of basic physics if we are to make it there in a reasonable period of time.
Interplanetary travel, on the other hand, doesn't require any new physics or understanding of our universe. All it requires is a refinement of existing technologies and the will (as well as cash) necessary to get there, and how much luxury you will enjoy enroute or once you arrive at your destination.
In theory, you can travel from the Earth to Mars in about 2-4 weeks. Current technology is available to travel for months at a time in relative comfort, and there have been "spacecraft" (if you count MIR and the ISS) which have been operating for decades. I'd even be bold enough to suggest that the technology has even been proven now, so it is mainly a matter of applying current knowledge to the issue, not even necessarily coming up with new propulsion systems or manufacturing facilities in order to accomplish this task.
All that is needed is cash and desire, and a few politicans to get out of the way.