sounds scary! lol
Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
431–440 of 495 posts
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#432Earlier 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…
Isn't the issue with exploring Europa that Jupiter throws a stupid amount of radiation around itself, so spending any time on its surface(or close proximity) is actually a very very bad idea for human life? Sure, beneath the ice you'd be safe as you can be - but you need to get there and then drill through the ice first.
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Of course predatory mammals pioneered the West. Like all predatory mammals; we went in search of better hunting, better hunting grounds and better mates. We still do that today. Imo we will still do that 10,000 years from now... because deep down we are what we are. Edit: We're even "worse" than I gave us credit for. " https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34011026"
>We still do that today. Imo we will still do that 10,000 years from now...
If we continue to glibly shrug our shoulders at the premise that mass destruction is just what we do, and if we keep pretending we have no choice in the matter, then the chance of us lasting 10,000 more years is somewhere near zero.
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#434Earlier 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?
True. Doesn't make any sense sending things down a gravity well. Unless of course the resources to be mined are too valuable down there.
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
The person I responded to, in the part that I quoted, brought up people without electricity and plumbing as a contrast to spending efforts on exploration. It looks like an either/or to me. > People are simply arguing against spending more on it when we have more pressing issues to contend with. But this argument happens every time the issue of funding space exploration comes up. Every single time. Without fail. Not a…
I think that you have associated my comment with different lines of reasoning presented by other individuals. I made no argument against funding space exploration. I even said "I'm not arguing here for not exploring other planets". Nor did I discuss prioritizing spending in other ways. Please don't assume an argument against exploration is being made whenever a concern about exploration is raised. We can conduct scie…
Could you redirect your pessimism to any (literally any) sport in existence?
Before you bitch about people trying to make our species multiplanetary, clean up the existing bullshit we spend money on.
Go and convince a redneck football supporter of your point and see how civil that discourse will be.
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly we ought to solve global hunger and access to water before spending trillions of dollars to go find water on mars.
Hunger and access to water are political problems not scientific ones.
And if we colonise Mars without having solved these political problems, what do you think will happen?
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#437Why 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.
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…
> If we could just get 5 countries to agree to contribute 1% for 2-3 years we could establish a permanent moon base and do a hardcore Mars human-exploration mission.
Or we could spend that 1% on improving social security, healthcare, reducing poverty/homelessness, clean energy research subsidies etc etc etc.
You say 1% as though it's obvious and non impactful. It's a fucking huge amount of money (which you know, because you then go to show what it could do in space exploration space). I'm not even against spending money on it - but you're acting as though it's an obvious best use of money and it definitely isn't
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#438Why 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.
They only look like random rocky deserts. Gale was carefully selected as a site with lots of exposed layer geology.
And none of the current rovers could drill a mile into ice, or get there in the first place. First drill will be InSight real soon now.
OP, I think, suffers from Earthbound preconceptions of development in a field that has physics laughing back.
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
To my mind, the Fermi Paradox isn't so much about explaining an absence of life. It's the simple observation that, if life were abundant in the universe, the naïve expectation is that we'd see it everywhere, but we don't, so what gives? Intuitively, I see it like a bunch of homemade pickles. Say we have 100 jars of homemade pickles but are not sure whether they actually picked nicely or spoiled. If we try a jar and i…
> if life were abundant in the universe, the naïve expectation is that we'd see it everywhere, but we don't No, that's my point: We don't see it because we can't ; we don't have the technology. The fact that we see no aliens has nothing to do with the number of aliens, and everything to do with the fact that are more or less incapable of looking. It would be like saying, "if butterflies were abundant in my garden, I'…
You do realize that what you're proposing isn't in direct contradiction to the Fermi paradox, but is one of the most popular solutions to it?
The Fermi paradox is the observation that, based on the size of the universe, we'd naïvely expect to observe several alien lifeforms. That's it. It doesn't imply a "Great Filter", or any other solution. It's just the observation.
The "Great Filter" theory is a commonly mentioned one, because it's pretty easy to imagine humanity, our only reference to intelligent life, killing human civilization. Your hypothesis about not having the technology is also very, very popular, and as such I don't understand why you have such a big apprehension to the Fermi Paradox in general.
Re: Liquid water 'lake' revealed on Mars
#440Why is "lake" in quotes? Seems like it is a real lake right?
It could also be a body of non-free water - very wet slurry would fit.