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Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#221

Post by pc86 »

kbenson wrote: post #211
darpa_escapee wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> We should fix our problems here, today, before exporting them elsewhere. Although, if we export them, that's that many different places to try out solutions in semi-isolation in an attempt to find one that works. If we can parallelize the process, and also get cleaner starting conditions to test, why shouldn't we do so?

This is the cosmic equivalent of "laboratories of democracy"[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratories_of_democracy

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#222

Post by pc86 »

spot wrote: post #217
pc86 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If we don't get people living and populating on other planets, the human species is doomed. does it have to be a planet? what's wrong with space stations?

Even if you manage to create a self-sustaining space station, that's going to cap the number of viable residents pretty low unless it's truly massive. And I don't even want to think about the psychological toll of being one of the last few dozen humans orbiting a dead Earth.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#223

Post by oliverx0 »

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…

All these benefits are indirectly the result of NASA funding for space exploration:

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/techtransfer

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#224

Post by aeternus »

evanlivingston wrote: post #209
pc86 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think the dialogue quoted here demonstrates the underlying issue that is lost in futurist thought. No one "pioneered the west". Various groups of people with powerful technology traveled west and stole land from other groups of people. They also traveled south and east and used that technical and economic power to enslave other humans and forced them to develop the west. Development and progress for progress' sake…

Technology is actually one of the few things that definitely does trickle down.

Refrigeration, washing machines, cellular technology, farming tech, medicine & vaccines, all of these have had extreme impact on those at the bottom.

I'd recommend reading Enlightenment Now, an excellent book that really nails the positive effects that general scientific 'progress' has had on society as a whole.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#225

Post by geezerjay »

freehunter wrote: post #215
geezerjay wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the fact that the US military is in its core a employment and social services program used extensively to create artificial jobs and artificial demand for skilled labour and high-tech products and services. Not to mention the cultural importance that the US military as an institution has on the US, of course.

And those skilled labor and high-tech products and services would transition extraordinarily well to a space-based economy.

What exactly makes you believe that rocket science is a domain that's easy to transition into?

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#226

Post by ryanmercer »

yellowapple wrote: post #53
ryanmercer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also quite possible Mars still has 'hot spots' as geologically it was very 'recently' volcanically active. Every now and then there's little anomalies that possibly hint at subsurface hot spots that might allow for hot springs and similar. In Robert Zubrin's fictional (but hard-science) book "First Landing" on the first manned Mars mission they actually find a hot spot and drill into it resulting in a geyser (w…

"that are a bit outdated now due to scientific discoveries, like finding the polar caps are lousy with water ice" They are? The north cap has more than 800,000 cubic kilometers of water in it. Not much compared to Earth, but in space terms that seems pretty abundant to me.

What Quinner said lousy like 'lousy with lice' (infested with lice).

From memory the Northern cap alone would cover Mars with something like 14 inches (it's close to 15 I think) of water :)

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#227

Post by freehunter »

geezerjay wrote: post #225
freehunter wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And those skilled labor and high-tech products and services would transition extraordinarily well to a space-based economy.

What exactly makes you believe that rocket science is a domain that's easy to transition into?

Very little about space is rocket science. Cars are really hard to build and it took thousands of years for mankind to build one, but that doesn't mean the person changing your oil has to know how to fabricate one from scratch in his garage. There are thousands of job titles around the auto industry that require zero knowledge of how cars work.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#228

Post by cup-of-tea »

colemannugent wrote: post #103
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.

Being able to see the red of Mars at night is strange. Since I (and probably most of us on HN) live in the worst area for light pollution it's not too often you can see other planets like this unaided.

You should be able to see all five inner planets with the naked eye, even in a city.

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#229

Post by imron »

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…

Right, but who's to say though whether some breakthrough in space travel will lead to technology that ultimately helps cure cancer?

In fact, if you look at NASA's spinoff brochure (space technologies that have trickled down to daily life) for this year [0], two of the items are directly related to cancer research.

0: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/Spinoff2018/pdf/2018_Brochure_web.p...

Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars

#230

Post by darpa_escapee »

freehunter wrote: post #219
darpa_escapee wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You could say pretty much the same thing about other cities, other states, other countries, other continents. Why did mankind leave Africa if they just repeated the same mistakes in Europe and Asia? Why did they leave Europe to go to the US if they just did the same thing over there? Why would someone leave New England and go west across America if they're just bringing the same thing? All of that ignores, of course,…

Europe certainly brought their problems to their colonies: they exported their religious extremists, criminals and brought their need to profit, proselytize and conquer with them.

Considering the same pressures are behind space colonization as were behind colonization of old, I find your concerns as merely speculation based in fantasy and not history.

> but what if "here" is the problem?

The same "here" that is humanity's proverbial garden of Eden? Food grows out of the ground, an atmosphere can exist and it's breathable and, until relatively recently, we didn't have to worry too much about the Sun's radiation destroying our own biological processes.

If "here" is the problem, and the solution is a dry, cold rock that's millions of miles away without any signs of life, we're truly doomed.

> If the Pilgrims had stayed in England and the Netherlands, they wouldn't have been able to fix what they considered to be "the problem" no matter how hard they tried

The problems pilgrims face were those of religious persecution. The problems we face as whole are truly existential, we're in the process of changing our planet for the worse.

The same forces that are driving the destruction of our planet are driving space colonization. I don't see any evidence to the contrary.

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