Mars 3D- and you don't need the glasses 71
Anonymous Coward writes "Here's the story over at CNN about the new map NASA has of Mars - it's 3D. So, now we can get a feel for how water moved on the planet, just how large all those formations are, and when you want to take a Mars weekend vacation in a few years, you can pick that nice sunny spot beneath the 5 mile tall mountain. " Check out the NASA Mars Animations for eye-candy.
3-D without the glasses (Score:1)
Technology such the Immersadesk/CAVE is great for folks like me because the 3-D nature of the images doesn't rely on your eyes' ability to fuse. And the cited Mars images used color being to represent the third dimesion, up/down, and this conveys lots of information to the viewer. Of course this assumes you are not seriously colorblind (I am slightly red/green).
Ah, for the days when we can wire right info right into the brain. Or maybe not.
Leigh
Grab an asteroid (Score:1)
Right now most of our manned orbits are still dependent on the Earth's radiation shielding. Repairing the Hubble telescope has been the only recent mission that required an orbit outside this protection. Any manned missions outside the Earth's protection needs to have consideration of the radiation hazards. We were lucky with the Apollo missions.
links to more info @ Nasa (Score:4)
and
http://ltpwww.gsfc.nasa.gov/tharsis/m ola.html [nasa.gov] - links to the EQ used.
Re:Can't we shoot a little lower first? (Score:1)
Please increase gravity. Thanks in advance.
Re:I want the dataset for that 3d map (Score:2)
Of course, real-time fly-bys and ultra-high resolution images would be much better. Anyone have any ideas?
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:5)
Re:The face? (Score:1)
The more recent picture shows the 'face' was really just a play of light and shadows that would only 'appear' to be a face from the perspective that the first photo just happended to be at.
That mars ever had any life at all, intelligent or not, remains to be proven. In fact, mars may have been 'seeded' by ejecta from earth impacts that carried bacteria back out into space where the bacteria could be desicated and blown by the solar wind to mars. In those earlier times the bacteria may have flurished in some area which was then hit by an asteroid (the southern impact point?) whose ejecta included rocks containing 'martian' bacteria that was pulled back to earth by solar gravity, only to land on that antartic and give some scientists a chance for 15 minutes of fame.
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:2)
However, the most important things we learn by studying Mars and other planets are things we cannot yet foresee. Mars exploration can be characterized, for the most part, as purely scientific research right now. The practical applications will manifest themselves later on.
Re:Can't we shoot a little lower first? (Score:1)
(One down side of colonizing Mars is the incredible storms generated there... I'd rather try my luck surviving a tornado here in Texas.)
Total Recall & Terraforming (Score:3)
did you play SimEarth? or watch Total Recall (a very good movie)?
Uhh, sorry, Total Recall was NOT a "very good movie," at least from the perspective of terraforming Mars. One can't just pump in a huge amount of oxygen and expect everything to be hokey dokey in 10 minutes. Bad movie science in the extreme.
For a much better, and more entertaining discussion of terraforming Mars, I'd suggest the already mentioned Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, & Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson.
I want the dataset for that 3d map (Score:2)
I want the quake engine redesigned to handle spherical terrian and gravity, and I want to go play on mars. With distributed servers to handle the interaction of thousands of people playing on one contiguous world. Yup. That would be neat.
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:1)
Wow, by stating that as a fact you almost sound believable. Almost. People have been predicting a global population crisis for ages... Hasn't happened yet.
Wow! Something actually plays on XMovie (Score:1)
the common man - i demand immediate results (Score:4)
someone says "hey, i want immediate satisfaction for what little part i put in" - in other words, you can't see the big picture
why look at mars?
mars *did* have water on it - why doesn't it now? what happened to that planet to, in relation to life as we know it, *ruin* it. nothing can live there now.
colonization isn't because there's not enough room on earth - we are inquisitive, at least some of us can see beyond our immediately material lives and wonder what's across that ocean? what's out in orbit around our sun?
if people hadn't gone to the moon and back, we wouldn't be driving the cars we do, we wouldn't be using the plastics, metals, and ceramics that are extremely common - computers surely would be further behind.
what's more of a challenge for an engineer - make me a computer than can sit under a desk, or make me one that can survive re-entry?
this isn't just about "launching rockets and taking pretty pictures" - we are epxloring, learning, teaching ourselves and expanding what we know of *life* beyond the pitiful day job existence that most people condemn themselves to for some idiotic reason.
i for one would LOVE to live on the moon, or mars, and see something so *completely unlike* the earth.
a good friend of mine, a female food engineer from kansas, just moved down to houston to work for Lockheed martin to figure out how to grow, process and package food in low / no-g environments - now *that's* interesting work - that's a challenge, that's doing something that will make a difference to the future.
even i don't get to do that - at the moment, i'm just a student and a web desginer. no one is going to give a rats ass about my pages in the future.
but - we are going to learn some pretty important things about growing plants in extremely controlled, regulated environments - and that's going to affect agriculture no matter if it is in space, or on earth.
wake up - realize there's so much more to life than what you know, and any of us could possibly realize. we are fortunate enough to actually know there are other planets, think about all the humans who *don't know what stars really are*
or didn't know just a couple hundred years ago.
Re:If the human race wants to survive... (Score:1)
That, to my mind, was one of the dumbest bits of B5. Current predictions are for the Sun to survive another five billion years. If that's the reason for space exploration, I don't think we need to hurry that much.
Meanwhile, we average putting a person in orbit at a rate of certainly no more than one every five days. Meanwhile, Earth's population increases by a rate of ~80 million a year ~= 250,000 a day. Are we really going to be sending 1.75 million people a week to Mars? Seems like it would consume an incredible amount of resources doing so.
Space exploration can be justified based on its contribution to the knowledge of humanity, and the possible contribution it may make to helping with other problems. But I think it's foolish to trivialize a $15 billion annual expense ("just" 1% of the U.S. budget is an immense amount of money), and questioning whether space exploration should receive as much of the federal government's science budget is also a valid question. And, if most of that knowledge can be ascertained via unmanned missions rather than manned, is the psychological gain of having human footprints in the Martian soil is worth the expense, given the many other problems that one might be able to solve?
The face? (Score:1)
Re:Some speculate a massive impact (Score:1)
Yes one of the chances of Mars assymetry is the fact that something quite big stuck Mars some time ago. Much like the story about Earth and its Moon. Recently some data resurfaced the chance that the Moon is part of that "hole" we see on the Pacific.
However this is a chance. Mars does not possess any secondary strucutures that would suggest remains of that strike. Phobos & Deimos are not fully to be taken into account. Several data suggests that these bodies are much more like to be captured asteroids from the belt.
Besides one thing that messes the study of Northern Hemisphere is the fact that many places suggest the presence of large water basins at levels much like those seen on Black or Caspian Sea. So that's still a big question.
Meanwhile Southern Hemisphere is no less "cryptic". It possesses a heavily cratered land that seems to sorround that huge hole over there. Some people suggest that it's all the other way round. Southern Hemisphere is higher because it took a lot of mass from a huge struck.
Cool, yes Mars is frozen. (Score:1)
Re:Can't we shoot a little lower first? (Score:1)
When Pathfinder came down there was the risk of falling in one dust storm that had reached quite significative proportions. This took some nerves on JPL people even if we considered that Pathfinder would be less prone to wind effects during landing.
Meanwhile one of the first human probes on Mars, soviet Mars 3 seems to have failed due to the fact that it was caught on landing in a dust storm.
Re:Can't we shoot a little lower first? (Score:2)
The moon is basically just a hunk of rock, meaning we would have to continually ship water, food, etc... up to the moon to sustain life there. I know of no feasable way to generate an atmosphere on the moon, meaning the inhabitants would have to remain enclosed in some sort of structure, never venturing outside for a breath of fresh air. Not very appealing to me.
Mars on the other hand, has an atmosphere, water, and soil. We (oversimplified explanation follows) simply need to scatter the surface of the planet with plant seed and tree saplings, which will grow at a highly accelerated rate in the CO2 rich atmosphere. The oxygen given off by these plants will, over time, make the Mars atmosphere breathable. This atmosphere conversion process will also create a greenhouse effect, warming the planet and melting the ice to provide inhabitants with liquid water. The big obstacle at this point seems to be efficient transportation. But that is a problem worth tackling given the higher quality of life people will enjoy on Mars as opposed to the Moon.
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:2)
a) they can't all live like the American do (wasting huge quantity of resources). If the 6 billion humans on this planet lived like them, the earth would be already dead
b) some people like space. Not everybody want's to live in 5 square meters in an overpopulated city
c) food is good, but we need mineral resources too. Earth reserves of metals are not endless, and we need more of we want to do keep our (western) life standard for the next decades.
Do you know that in some country people repair dead light bulbs ? Now go to McDonalds and look at all the junk plastic that is wasted... look at those big Chevy trucks that drink gas like a loaded 747... space exploration is going to be a necessity to this (sick)civilization (since most MTV couch-potatoes will probably refuse to move their asses to make their lifestyle more earth-friendly).
Re:3d. (Score:1)
dude, almost there... (Score:1)
Terraforming probably will not work (Score:1)
Unfortunately I believe Mars has too little mass to mantain an atmosphere of the necessary density. I think that the current theory is that mars had a atmosphere but a lot of the ligther molecules flew off into space since the gravity was not strong enough to hold them in the atmosphere. I think a similar problem will occur if we pump new N2, and O2 into the atmosphere.
Even if we are able mantain the atmosphere with continual infusions, the loss of the molecules will represent a continual drain on the planet's resources. This will probably require continual resupply to the planet.
It'll probably be better in the long run to create enclosed environments for habitation, preferably underground so that the radiation exposure is lower.
quick link (Score:5)
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9905/27/mars.map/
Re:Cool (Score:1)
Re:I want the dataset for that 3d map (Score:1)
not any more (Score:1)
Mars exploration... why? (Score:3)
Am I the only one who doesn't see a point in exploring mars? We can see as much of it as we want from here, and I don't imagine a rock who's surface temperature is below freezing year round would make a good vacation spot. Sure, at first it seems neat that we have the technology to send people there, but really, this isn't Star Trek. It's not like we are going to find aliens there or anything.
Those of us in the USA, think of how many of your tax dollars are going into people's pockets for doing nothing more than blasting rockets off the surface of the earth so that we can take nice pictures.
And if the point of exploring mars is to eventually colonize it, think again. Despite what some would tell you, the earth is still quite under-populated. There are tons more habitable but uninhabited places on earth, than there are on mars.
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:1)
Wake up!
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:2)
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:1)
I suppose you believe in global warming also?
Re:Cool, yes Mars is frozen. (Score:1)
However it is less probable to see such guys like Olympus on work. Mars internal structure possesses a high assymetry on mass over Tharsis Region which suggest that the internal structure has "frozen" quite a bit. However in geological terms this does not mean that temperatures dropped below zero. It is probable that temperatures are ranging some hundreds or even thousands degrees, tens of kilometers below surface. However under underground pressure that is not enough to allow the fluidity of rock. So in terms of rocks Mars looks frozen.
terraforming (Score:2)
did you play SimEarth? or watch Total Recall (a very good movie)? or read whole Foundation from Assimov?
--
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:4)
I resent the fact that "[American] tax dollars are going into people's pockets for doing
nothing more than blasting rockets off the surface of the earth so that we can take nice pictures."
Many overworked folks provide the scientists with the means to learn and explore. All of us use this knowledge to improve life on Earth.
As an example specifically for Mars, scientists began theorizing a "green house effect" on a planet when confronted with the question of where all the water disappeared to. Exploring only Earth to understand Earth is like researching a your cubicle or dorm room, assuming the rest of world is the same. That is a small and narrow view if you ask me.
As someone mentioned, NASA's budget is very small, less than 1% of the Federal budget. If anyone else thinks spending a few billion dollars on research is a waste of money, look at Holleywood. There is more money spent there for simply being entertained and making few folks rich. You can't do anything else with that.
With science, everyone shares. Some resources to look at:
I realize that when you are not involved with research directly, it is hard to connect the research with your own life. But believe me, it is very challenging (and rewarding) to help scientists improve everyone's lives.
~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"
Some speculate a massive impact (Score:1)
However, the Mars Global Surveyor site posits that because the depression is not circular "it was shaped by internal geologic processes during the earliest stages of martian evolution."
http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/sci/mola/mola-ma
If the human race wants to survive... (Score:1)
To paraphrase a very powerful theme from the Babylon 5 series, we know for certain that at some point in the future our sun will go out. If we don't move out into the stars, all that we've created, all that we are, will be lost.
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:1)
>under-populated.
. .
Like it or not, there is an ecosystem we've got to consider here, and that means a myriad of plant/animal species other then man. True, colonizing space won't solve the problem of overpopulation/ecosystem destruction by itself--only in concert with a well organized global birth control program will we ever really make progress--but it's a start. Also, consider the development of new technologies as yet undreamed and the opening of markets as yet untapped that the colonization of the Solar System and eventually the galaxy at large will bring. The perils are great, no doubt, but the potential rewards--still greater!
Re:Mars exploration... why not? (Score:4)
Most initial exploration (Columbus, Magellan, Lewis & Clark) has been underwritten by governments who foresaw the day when the benefits would outweigh the costs. It's an investment in our future -- in this case, mankind's future. I believe that if we wish to ensure the survival of the human race it is essential to expand beyond one planet (and eventually, one solar system).
The economic arguments are also persuasive, although the return-on-investment ratios are horrible to start and only get better a long, long time down the road. Mars and the asteroids have metals and minerals that human civilization will eventually require (once conservation, recycling, and substitution run their courses). Mars is an excellent headquarters for exploiting the asteroids.
The technological advances that we will gain by challenging ourselves will also be invaluable. We don't know what those may be, of course, but previous experience shows us that the most important advances aren't random: they are developed in response to a challenging need. Just like a high-jumper only improves by raising the bar, mankind needs to constantly find new challenges.
Finally, Mars will eventually be a cultural outlet for those hemmed in by human society on Earth, which will become increasingly urban, regulated, and lacking in personal space, privacy, and freedom. The first colonists on Mars may be sponsored by one or more governments
More information may be found at the Mars Society website [marssociety.org].
Re:3d. (Score:1)
A Real link (Score:1)
Just me or is it really annoying how sometimes people post useful links as pure text?
Re:Can't we shoot a little lower first? (Score:1)
Re:Oh no! Not Tim Rue again! (Score:1)
I know one thing. Some years ago I had my site kicked out of Yahoo! and tried several times to have my link back. Unsuccessful. A year later, in a matter of a few days, all my links on Altavista, Webcrawler, Lycos, Infoseek had also gone. Some people "explained" that this was due to the fact that my link remained down for some time and it was dropped. However I work for the ISP of my webpage and I know that at that time there weren't any problems that could suggest such thing. Meanwhile a two-year old and dead link "resurfaced" on Altavista and Webcrawler. At least I remember to have taken it away on Webcrawler.
Besides one friend of mine digged up on Yahoo! people and they told him that they did some changes on links related to Mars after some "scientific authority" has asked them to do so. It seems that this "authority" was hidden somewhere in Stanford.
I don't claim to hold "the Truth". But I perfectly know what I think and that some people didn't like it. And I know what happened to a whole bunch of people during their "hunts for aliens" in Mars. It is highly probable that we are not correct. But there's the chance, even thin, that we may be on our way. However this happens to stuck on some dude brains in some high positions who are more worried about their status rather than scientific and human exploration. Yes these guys use their power to shut down the dissidents. However this goes far away from the romantic picture of Smoking Man. These are people who smile at you and whisper things about "you are not very correct" or "you know it looks crazy to everyone else". And meanwhile they worridly try to dig on your back.
That happened. Now my site is still half-alive but I had to drop out this work. At least for the moment. It is mad, it is crazy, it is a work of nights and days in full. But why I haven't the right to express my thoughts?
http://www.kcn.ru/~prosa/cydonia
Have a good trip to Hell...
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:5)
Firstly, we cannot "see" as much of Mars as we want from here, we need robotic probes for that due to that darned ATMOSPHERE that Mars has. Mars can give us a wealth of information on how planets form & perhaps even how they die. If you think that all geology processes are exactly the same on other planets as on earth, then you are wrong.
As for colonization, yes that is a bit far off...for this and the next century, but who knows what lies beyond. As for the unhabitated land on Earth, yes please, let's fill up EVERY square mile of this planet with humanity, that'll just be wonderful!
Finally, what then should we US citizens spend our tax dollars on? There's a LOT more scientific knowledge to be gained from studying the other planets of our solar system that NASA explains to the public, because the vast majority of the publci aren't scientists, and much more knowledge is gained from such Mars exploration missions than just some "nice pictures". Besides the knowledge & techniques learned in consrtucting exploration & space vehicles and systems (both manned & unmanned) is often applied to more mundane items. A lot of common high tech devices we find ubiquitous nowadays had their origin in NASA and space exploration research.
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@maila.wm.edu
Re:Mars exploration... why? (Score:3)
As another person has said, Mars probably can be terraformed. One might debate whether or not that is a good thing to do, but the fact is that it probably could be done, but one needs to map and explore a place before you inhabit it, let alone terraform it.
As far as your statement about the population capacity of Earth, the maximum sustainable population varies drastically with the average standard of living you assume. To quote Ghandi (or paraphrase if my memory doesn't serve me well enough), "It the entire population of India were raised to the standard of living of the poor in England, the Earth would be stripped of its natural resources in a few years." It might take a few decades, but overall Ghandi was right. At the current distribution of standards of living, the Earth is currently beyond it's maximum sustainable population. If America alone were to shift down a few notches in waste of resources (not necessarily a very great shift in the standard of living), then our current population might become sustainable. However, the current growth rate of the population leaves our world in an untenable position. Either something must change, or a massive global crisis will occur within the next hundred years by my estimates.
I won't bother with the money issue, as someone else has already provided as succinct and effective remark on that as I can.
North South Poles (Score:1)
I dunno I just found it strange.
-cpd
Re:Cool (Score:1)
And if you want to join the fun, check out the Mars Society, http://www.marssociety.org/
George
Re:3d. (Score:1)
Re:Can't we shoot a little lower first? (Score:2)
Yet I think we need to find some industrial application for space exploration, if we want to colonize. No governement is going to pay for the fun of colonizing. What is driving research and investment into space lunching vehicules is the sattelite market, so we need something to motivate investors...