81–90 of 128 posts
As soon as the habitation of Mars picks up a little momentum, martians and Mars colonization will be demonized by the media. It will become a political debate that is fueled by the CIA and other entrenched interests. They will paint it as an ethical issue and focus on the immorality of disturbing the native habitat, or something similar to that. Mark my words.
For almost half a century, scientists have been speculating about sub-surface life on mars. Why with existing technological progress can we not just get a yes or no answer about this.
Because determining a yes or no answer requires running tests and examinations of Martian subsurface soil samples on Earth. Part of Perseverance's mission is to take those soil samples and deposit them to be picked up and brought back to Earth on another later mission. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/sample-handl...
As soon as the habitation of Mars picks up a little momentum, martians and Mars colonization will be demonized by the media. It will become a political debate that is fueled by the CIA and other entrenched interests. They will paint it as an ethical issue and focus on the immorality of disturbing the native habitat, or something similar to that. Mark my words.
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I've been curious about this recently actually. What are the downsides of "seeding" a plant with life to study how it evolves?
It becomes much more difficult to determine whether the planet contains indigenous life once you've introduced life from Earth.
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It becomes much more difficult to determine whether the planet contains indigenous life once you've introduced life from Earth.
i think it's safe to assume it doesn't. And a few plants in a tiny section of mars will hardly ruin the evidence anyway.
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Because determining a yes or no answer requires running tests and examinations of Martian subsurface soil samples on Earth. Part of Perseverance's mission is to take those soil samples and deposit them to be picked up and brought back to Earth on another later mission. https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/spacecraft/rover/sample-handl...
That seems highly unlikely to ever happen unfortunately. Any mission able to land and take off from the surface of Mars for a return trip is likely going to be able to take its own soil samples
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I'm also a fan of this idea. It seems far easier than trying to plant humans in giant bubbles with an Earthly ecosystem that just happen to be on the surface of Mars. As other commenters have noted, it's probably not very wise, but I imagine it would be the cheapest way to increase the chances of the continuation of life (as we know it).
But why would we want to continue life? Whenever I read something like that I feel life a sociopath but I don't really understand it. I'd care about the wellbeing of the people, not the continuation of the human species or, as here, of life itself.
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I've been curious about this recently actually. What are the downsides of "seeding" a plant with life to study how it evolves?
Evolution takes a long time. And there aren't many (any) environments that we've identified and can reach which are conducive to the sort of life we know about. Also it'd be a bit presumptuous for us to colonize a hospitable planet for our own experimentation. But it's an interesting question. In fiction, I can recommend Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time , and sequel Children of Ruin .
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Assuming this is even in good faith, can you link any images or data of these supposed structures? I spend hours a day examining HiRISE/CTX imagery and have never seen anything like you're asserting.
Considering your background you might have a likely selection to what they could be referencing, but for other readers this is what I assume they are getting caught up on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydonia_(Mars)
and in the very wikipedia article you linked the high res images of that hill show no face/structure, almost like it just looked like that with shadows from a certain angle with a low res camera