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

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#191

Post by crimsonalucard » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

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…

If you think money is being wasted on space think again. The military industrial complex. Money would be better spend on a space industrial complex let alone a cancer industrial complex.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#192

Post by Robotbeat » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

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…

"Why doesn't Elon Musk try to solve problems down here on Earth instead of wasting it on space???"

(Meanwhile, two weeks ago as Musk and team are trying to solve problems down here on Earth...)

"WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SOLVE PROBLEMS DOWN HERE ON EARTH? YOU'RE NOT THE EXPERT! STAY. IN. YOUR. LANE!"

(With the caveat that Musk's reaction wasn't exactly great, this is literally what happened. Notice that billionaires NOT trying to solve problems are safely ignored as they buy yachts and islands.)

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#193

Post by pc86 » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

wilsonnb2 wrote: post #135

enraged_camel wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are about a thousand things you use and benefit from everyday that were side effects of other research and spending (primarily military). But you take them for granted and so it is easy for you to make value judgments regarding how money is spent.

> But you take them for granted and so it is easy for you to make value judgments regarding how money is spent. It's rude to make such assumptions about me. I do not take the positive side effects from research for granted. You simply haven't made a case showing why $400B in space research will generate more or better positive side effects than $400B in cancer research. All research will have side effects that can't…

Eventually the Earth is going to be hit by an asteroid or cooked by the sun. It's an eventuality that on cosmic timescales is going to happen sooner rather than later.

Getting mankind off of Earth and spread across multiple planets and solar system will yield untold positive side effects, and one or more of those may impact cancer research.

More cancer research is not going to stop an asteroid.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#194

Post by huhtenberg » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:33 PM UTC

gbugniot wrote: post #90

A note slightly related: Mars reaches perihelic opposition with the sun on July 27, 2018, which means observers on Earth will have their closest view of the planet since 2003. Great time to borrow a telescope.

Even without a telescope it's already so damn bold and red in the night sky, it really makes you stop and stare.

Go check it out tonight!

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#195

Post by scardine » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

Just finished "Red Mars", the book aged quite well for the scifi genre.

SPOILER ALERT:

The book ends with a dissident faction of Mars settlers living in a hidden water ice dome under the polar cap.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#196

Post by verelo » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:36 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #185

remote_phone wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Many medical research organizations have more money than they know what to do with. The heart and stroke foundation is a great example of that. I’m not suggesting we don’t fund these orgs, even reduce funding, but i feel like we could diversify into exploration of the universe a little more than we currently are.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#197

Post by patejam » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

larkeith wrote: post #111

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…

> For reference, Opportunity Rover has only traveled 45 km/28 mi in 14 years. That's actually much further than I expected - Curiosity has traveled 11 miles in 6 years, it's surprising to me that Opportunity has a faster average pace (not that it's necessarily a hugely useful metric).

Curiosity has had wheel problems going back to at least 2014, so I wonder if the slower speed is partly due to that.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#198

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:40 PM UTC

Reedx wrote: post #153

reaperducer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

That's literally how the famous Hubble Ultra-Deep Field photo came to be. They pointed the Hubble to the most boring spot on the sky they could find, just to see what's there.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#199

Post by Tloewald » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:43 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #56

remote_phone wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a false dichotomy that always annoys me. It is entirely possible that by spending $400B to safely send people to Mars and live there, especially in a moderately high radiation environment, that we will discover EXACTLY the mechanisms that send cells into cancer states and how to reverse that so they stop. Otherwise we're going to have colonists getting cancer and dying too quickly. Then not only do we get to…

I look forward to seeing the summary of this discussion thread on n-gate.

If Earth were hit by a dinosaur killing asteroid it would be more habitable than mars before, during, and after.

Any ridiculous boondoggle might have beneficial side effects. There’s no evidence, however, that spending money on a boondoggle is a more effective way of generating positive side effects than spending the same money on something sensible.

I contend that if we were to spend $400B on a crash program to cure cancer we might accidentally end up figuring out how to live safely on mars.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#200

Post by darpa_escapee » Wed, Jul 25, 2018, 5:44 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #185

remote_phone wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd argue that there are many problems endemic to the way we've structured society that spell out our doom on Earth, and if they aren't fixed here, will spell out our doom on other planets.

We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere.

Nevermind the fact that the after almost any type of disaster, the bottom of the ocean is infinitely more habitable than Mars. Mars as a holdout for humanity is truly a moonshot.