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Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#181

Post by criddell »

rch wrote: post #35
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.

Aside from the logistical concerns others have mentioned, I would expect the risks of contaminating this site with terrestrial stowaways would be relatively high.

Wouldn't rock from Earth end up on Mars the same way that Martian rocks fall on Earth? If so, then contamination may have already happened in both directions.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#182

Post by pwaai »

I've been saying this for years. This is such an amazing news.

I know there's lot of skeptics but just gonna put this out there in 2018. Our solar system has intelligent beings greater than our civilization. There has to be if water can be easily found so close to Earth. I don't know what they do but the theory is they are mining for resources. Pretty sure they would wipe out Earth if they wanted to but they choose not to? What do they want!!!?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#183

Post by b_b »

larkeith wrote: post #163
smpetrey wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm betting on Europa. Lovely little moon, so many mysteries. Can't wait to see what we uncover from there.

Heck, even if it ends up being completely lifeless, IMO Europa is still one of the most exciting bodies in the solar system in terms of future potential - Between abundant energy from the Jupiter-Io flux tube, methane fuel from Titan, hydrogen and helium from Jupiter herself, and water from Europa, colonization of the Jupiter system may well be the key to the outer solar system, and potentially even interstellar effo…

I know HN is not one for jokes, but colonizing 'Europa' seems like a hilarious irony in name.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#184

Post by jonathanstrange »

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…

Look at it this way. If we don't make it into space for long-term living, mankind will very likely be extinguished. The disagreement is only about how pressing the issue is but we might just as well start now before it's too late. Look at the rate of species extinction on earth.[1]

[1] https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_...

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#185

Post by pc86 »

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…

An oncologist wishing more money was spent on cancer? In other news, water is wet.

First of all, the optimal place for me to spend my money is not necessarily the optimal place for someone else to spend theirs. We can't know for sure, of course, but who were would have preferred Elon Musk start a cancer research firm instead of SpaceX? Secondly, there is no universal "cancer" that we can fight. There are hundreds of different types, just as distinct as different diseases. You could turn pancreatic cancer into a chronic condition tomorrow and no make any progress at all toward curing oropharyngeal cancer.

There's a great exchange in the West Wing episode "Galileo" about just this type of narrow minded viewpoint.

Sam Seaborn: There are a lot of hungry people in the world, Mal, and none of them are hungry because we went to the moon. None of them are colder and certainly none of them are dumber because we went to the moon.

Mallory O'Brian: And we went to the moon. Do we really have to go to Mars?

SS: Yes.

MO: Why?

SS: Because it's next. Because we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered the west, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next.

No to mention the fact that all the cancer drugs in the world will not save us from an asteroid. If we don't get people living and populating on other planets, the human species is doomed.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#186

Post by dekhn »

5thbootloader wrote: post #147
dekhn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use triple quotes when quoting, because many things I copy-paste have subquotes (either "..." or '...') or contractions (don't).

If someone quotes your triple quote, would they have to use quadruple quotes?

We just don't do that.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#187

Post by robotrout »

bordercases wrote: post #174
robotrout wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are many causes. We are in violent agreement. If you focus on the causes, you are preventing cancer, not curing it. You are playing whack-a-mole.

LOL Seems more cost efficient long run to address lifestyle than deal with proximal consequence

OK. You tell your mom that, after she's gotten cancer, asshole. How did her lifestyle cause her cancer in her ovaries (another inflammation caused cancer), I wonder?

While you're chastising your mom for her lifestyle, the rest of us will be looking/hoping for a cure.

You should know that even you will experience increased and chronic inflammation as you age, no matter how much better than your mom, your lifestyle is. Increased chronic inflammation and aging are linked and we're still trying to understand why.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#188

Post by wastedhours »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #175
wastedhours wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question here is why bother spending 1% of our GDP on anything ? It's the same argument as to why we shouldn't invest in infrastructure "don't build those high speed train routes, we'll only see the benefit in 30 years" - space exploration is an investment in the future, and like a lot of investments, the potential payoff is variable but we can never know without trying. If we take a VC analogy (being here o…

CERN isn't the crazed rush that the moonshot was, it's mostly just stable funding to a certain facility.

True - it was probably a stretch to include it alongside the VC analogy, but CERN's also delivering projects with unsure outcomes a la most investments [0]. If they turned the LHC on for example and found precisely nothing of note, it'd have been a failed investment, but was certainly worth the punt.

I think one of the issues with space exploration for people is that it just feels so pointless and intangible - its perception so locked into the realms of sci fi that the act of trying feels more of an indulgent nod to starship fantasies and "space race" dick-waving than to realistic scientific progress.

[0] money the "whatabout" brigade say should go to cancer research, which too, is also an investment with unsure outcomes (and which usually helpfully ignore things like CERN's impact on cancer research with second order applications of other discoveries...)

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#190

Post by TeMPOraL »

wilsonnb2 wrote: post #156
TeMPOraL wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Those inventions provide justification for space exploration - they establish this field as a tried-and-true way of generating very useful spinoff tech.

To counter this argument, the other side needs to justify that either those same inventions can be achieved in a different and more cost-effective way, or that we don't really need new tech (relative to its costs).

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