Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars • Hacker News Board

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#151

Post by megaman22 » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

rad88 wrote: post #107

softawre wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are we safe forever on Earth ? and that's why Mars exploration is more important than curing cancer. Cancer is unlikely to kill everyone of us all at once.

So are planetary risks. They give the name to "astronomically unlikely". But while cancer might not kill everyone at once, it's going to kill billions of us.

We're all going to die. And if we don't get killed by something else, we die of cancer, eventually. Death, taxes and cancer are as close to a trinity of certainty as you can get, and I'm not sanguine about finding a "cure" for conditions that represent the terminus of a lifetime of wear and tear on the body, at least on actionable timescales.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#152

Post by mtgx » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

endymi0n wrote: post #76

russellbeattie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then again, for the 700 billion dollars defense budget you'd get free universal healthcare and higher education for all of the US — AND would still have a few dozen billions to spare on cancer and Mars expeditions... but who in their right mind would want that?

You wouldn't need that much for free healthcare. Remember people already pay a ton for healthcare. You'd just repackage those payments into taxes for free universal healthcare and then the government would have to pay the difference.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#153

Post by Reedx » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #42

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?

That's an amusing thought.

Scientist A: "So... where should we send the rover, this marvel of technology?"

Scientist B: "How about a random boring spot?"

Scientist A: "Sounds good!"

(repeat)

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#154

Post by pvaldes » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

walrus01 wrote: post #15

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.

Building a rover that can drill more than a few inches deep is presently a huge technical challenge. If you look at drill rigs used by humans for water wells and such, the rover will need to be 8x larger and heavier than the current Curiosity.

> Building a rover that can drill more than a few inches deep is presently a huge technical challenge. You need a rover of 8x mass.

1- make a rover of standard weight and size an put it in the desired place, as before. Deploy a light but strong flat platform around.

2-Look around. What do you see? Probably a lot of heavy rocks.

3-Pick some rocks of the appropriate mass, or a bag of sand

4-Load stuff of your choice over rover or put it in the flatform or in a special area designed to be filled until reaching the desired weight. Yes, like a truck.

5- Now that your rover is 8x heavier, start drilling

6- Finished?. Now remove the bags of sand or the rocks one to one.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#155

Post by Nadya » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

rad88 wrote: post #123

Nadya wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sufficiently sized meteor could wipe out all life on Earth as we know it - or play "Pick your end of days scenario" between WW3, superviruses, or whatever. Having a few backup humans on the Moon or Mars is more beneficial to the survival of the human race than curing cancer is. Curing cancer saves individuals - establishing an off-Earth colony of humans could save all of humanity. Are the chances of a mass extincti…

It could not save "all of humanity". Humanity would be down there on Earth dying. In the end who you would save would again be individuals -- a few people on the moon. The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on Earth dying in a very real scenario today.

I refuse to argue against pedantry. You knew exactly what I meant by saying "all of humanity". 0 humans alive after mass extinction on Earth = humans are extinct, humanity has ended vs 100 humans living in a space colony after mass extinction on Earth = humans are not extinct, humanity has been saved.

>The question is could you save more people in space in a hypothetical end of world scenario than you could people on Earth dying in a very real scenario today.

There is no certainty of an end-of-world scenario but there's also no certainty that a cure for cancer actually exists or would be found. There is reason to believe and enough supporting evidence that a space colony would be theoretically possible - even if not self-sustaining for quite some time. So the question is a very real fix to a theoretical problem vs a theoretical fix to a very real problem.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#156

Post by wilsonnb2 » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #142

wilsonnb2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just point to a list of inventions that came from research in space exploration - you also have to make a case that these inventions would have otherwise not come about, or at least would have come about much later.

I disagree. You would have to make the case that these inventions would come about without space travel - that there were alternative commercial interests and government incentives that would finance the necessary research.

But you're the one using these inventions as justification for future space exploration - shouldn't the burden of proof fall on the one making the claim?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#157

Post by 52-6F-62 » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #134

52-6F-62 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: Armageddon, the movie. Maybe we just need to go full Bruce Willis. Somebody get Ben Affleck to sing Leaving on a Jet Plane . In seriousness, it sounds like a fascinating problem. If anyone has seen the drills they use to make holes for piles for new condo/office towers—they're probably wider than needed in this case (not actually sure of that)— the drill (bit?) is extendable, but the rig itself is enormous. Thos…

Use a digging rig combined with multiple explosive charges perhaps. Essentially a small shape charge version of solid boosters will work. It would be similar to preparing a shallow mine. After the hole is made you get to clean it up to obtain decent samples though. Whether this would save size or mass is to be seen, a digging drone would preferably be small though very sturdy and dense to survive landslides.

Right— I now remember some conversation surrounding a similar problem on Titan(?).

I think a drilling drone was proposed, but communications posed complicated. That is, communicating to a base rover to route to Earth. I could picture some kind of high-tensile wire on a spool connected to the digging drone. It might not be the highest speed communication, but if it at least proved reliable, that could work, no?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#158

Post by WhompingWindows » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

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.

I doubt we'll see it in many other planets. Mars is by far the most likely planet in our solar system to harbor life, outside of Earth obviously. If you talk of moons, however, then we get into many, many more candidates that could potentially harbor some kind of microbe or multi-cellular water creature.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#159

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

robotrout wrote: post #148

gamblor956 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer isn't one disease, it's dozens, each with different causes. For example, almost all cases of cervical cancer are traced to HPV infections...so the research into the HPV vaccine arguably did more to reduce future cancer cases than research into cancer has. Further research showed that HPV can also cause a number of cancers in men (though at lower rates), which is part of the justification for offering the HPV v…

Cancer is often caused when tissue is damaged and needs to heal or try to heal itself repeatedly (inflammation). Sunburn, smoking, chewing tobacco, HPV, acid reflux, can all cause cancer. Saying those are all different cancers that require different cures is a good way to waste a lot of effort and money. It is more accurate to say that inflammation is a cause for cancer, and focus on that.

Point is, this is one of but many causes of diseases jointly classified as "cancer". Cancers share similarities in their (visible) method of action, but they have very different causes. There isn't going to be a single cure for "cancer".

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#160

Post by AstralStorm » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #127

AstralStorm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, they compete for the same funding. We have a much more pressing issue than either: lack of working antibiotics... Cancer unsolved does not cause too many issues (it is a terrible disease nonetheless), while solving third world medical problems is mostly matter of goodwill and logistics (and comparatively cheap). But if we hit a new resistant superbug... That will decimate everywhere, everyone. Think pl…

> But if we hit a new resistant superbug... That will decimate everywhere, everyone. Think plague combined with malaria. Talking about multidrug resistant strains of bacteria. If just one becomes reasonably virulent we are really out of luck. AFAIR this is a bit of a dramatization. The primary threat of superbugs isn't a new super plague (which is unlikely). The danger is that a big part of our medicine will suddenly…

Probably closer to 19th century rates right after aseptic techniques are introduced. But I completely agree it would be disastrous nonetheless.

The actual major problem would be hospital acquired infections not directly related to surgery. We have some really good asepsis nowadays but it cannot be maintained too long, is expensive and hard to scale.