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Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#41

Post by collyw »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #33
mFixman wrote: post #23

20 years ago it would have been unthinkable to find water in any other planet in the solar system. Mark my words: in 20 years, we'll find extremely simple proto-bacterial life in Mars and in many other planets.

We have already established that microbes live on the exterior of the ISS. They may have come from Earth originally but it does show that life can exist in conditions that we humans consider to be absolutely inhospitable.

Isn't life thought to have started in "conditions that we humans consider to be absolutely inhospitable".

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#42

Post by reaperducer »

liberte82 wrote: post #11

Why don't we send a rover to some of these interesting places? It seems like we're constantly making fascinating finds on Mars, then send rovers to the middle of a random rocky desert.

then send rovers to the middle of a random rocky desert.

Do you seriously believe that scientist working on billion-dollar space missions for decades just throw a dart at the wall to decide where to land their rover?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#43

Post by remote_phone »

ryanmercer wrote: post #36
liberte82 wrote: post #11

Why don't we send a rover to some of these interesting places? It seems like we're constantly making fascinating finds on Mars, then send rovers to the middle of a random rocky desert.

For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14 years. A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date. If we remove this year's launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years. 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039. If we could g…

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer.

It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be very exciting to see in my lifetime.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#44

Post by mirimir »

apo wrote: post #4

Here's the original paper (no paywall, and apparently not linked in the BBC article): http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/07/24/scien... A couple of highlights: My first thought was why couldn't this be some other liquid like CO2: We examined other possible explanations for the bright area below the SPLD (supplementary text). For example, a CO2 ice layer at the top or the bottom of the SPLD, or a very lo…

> ... we therefore find it plausible that a layer of perchlorate brine could be present at the base of the polar deposits. ...

Damn! Water and oxidizer for rockets.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#45

Post by Latty »

remote_phone wrote: post #43
ryanmercer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14 years. A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date. If we remove this year's launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years. 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039. If we could g…

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be v…

To be fair, the commercial space industry isn't focused on stuff like Mars (that's mostly PR stuff) - it's about satellites. GPS, communication, mapping, etc... These are things that make a huge difference to our everyday lives.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#46

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

collyw wrote: post #41
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have already established that microbes live on the exterior of the ISS. They may have come from Earth originally but it does show that life can exist in conditions that we humans consider to be absolutely inhospitable.

Isn't life thought to have started in "conditions that we humans consider to be absolutely inhospitable".

Yes, but to quote the annoyingly semi-reasonable creationist Ken Ham: “We weren’t there. We didn’t observe it.” (Note: I am not a creationist, I do agree with the logic of that argument, but I also see no scientific basis for any religious origin story of life to have more scientific basis than others).

We have recreated the conditions that predate life and found that organic molecules were formed, but we’ve never observed the leap from organic molecules to organic life. So the best we can do barring the invention of a time machine is look for life elsewhere from Earth to try to fill in the blanks.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#47

Post by Oi7ie6op »

remote_phone wrote: post #43
ryanmercer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14 years. A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date. If we remove this year's launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years. 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039. If we could g…

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be v…

We know that civilization will survive cancer just fine. We do not know the same about asteroid impacts or global warming.

So in terms of potential future lives saved space exploration and fighting global warming are worth a lot more than cancer research. After all there has to be someone to get cancer in the first place.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#48

Post by ryanmercer »

remote_phone wrote: post #43
ryanmercer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14 years. A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date. If we remove this year's launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years. 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039. If we could g…

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be v…

Money is going into biotech fortunately though. Sam Altman started nudging YC towards biotech a few years ago (one article example https://www.wired.com/2015/11/y-combinator-sam-altman-interv... ) and to date has funded the following companies directly involved in cancer research and treatement: Cambridge Cancer Genomics, Oncobox, Mednet, HistoWiz, Luminist, iSono Health, Notable Labs. And I agree, cancer needs figured out (at least the common ones) I lost my father's mother and my father to cancer in my youth and my mother is a survivor of thyroid cancer, I figure I'm a ticking time bomb.

Space needs to be a priority though, we're quickly screwing this planet and we're one space-rock or super-volcano away from extinction (both have happened before, both will almost certainly happen again).

What I'm more upset about is people spending obscene fortunes on Farmville, World of Warcraft gold, Candy Crush EleventeenNinenty4 Now With Extra Bedazzle, Fortnight etc. Energy, agriculture, medical, space are often neglected in favor of the iPad fruit of the month app of the week. It is extremely frustrating.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#49

Post by zimablue »

remote_phone wrote: post #43
ryanmercer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14 years. A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date. If we remove this year's launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years. 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039. If we could g…

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be v…

To be fair cancer is super overfunded and a waste of money to fund relative to lots of more easily cured third world diseases or poverty itself.

Always someone with a better case than you.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#50

Post by russellbeattie »

remote_phone wrote: post #43
ryanmercer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For any exploratory drilling, or covering any real amount of ground, you need humans. For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14 years. A human can collect more specimens in a day than ALL of the rovers have to date. If we remove this year's launch window, you have 10 minimum-energy launch windows in the next 21 years. 2020, 2022, 2024, 2026, 2029, 2031, 2033, 2035, 2037, 2039. If we could g…

I was talking to an oncologist yesterday. Her biggest frustration is that Silicon Valley billionaires are spending billions upon billions to send things to space, when there are serious problems on Earth that could be fought, most importantly cancer. It’s hard to argue with her. $400B/yr would fund a lot of research that would benefit humanity a lot better than a coordinated mission to Mars, even though it would be v…

I think if we in the U.S. stopped killing people in senseless wars, we could use some of the trillions we spend on that to both fund medical research and fly to Mars. But that's obviously a fantasy.
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