Still Waters Posted April 13, 2015 #1 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Nasa's Curiosity rover has found that water can exist as a liquid near the Martian surface. Mars should be too cold to support liquid water at the surface, but salts in the soil lower its freezing point - allowing briny films to form. The results lend credence to a theory that dark streaks seen on features such as crater walls could be formed by flowing water. http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-32287609 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seeder Posted April 13, 2015 #2 Share Posted April 13, 2015 Very interesting... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bison Posted April 13, 2015 #3 Share Posted April 13, 2015 (edited) Another article on near-surface brine flows on Mars. Three images, plus a link to a time-lapse sequence of what appears to be water moving just below the surface, darkening the ground. link to article: http://www.universet...ars-is-leaking/ Edited April 13, 2015 by bison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Cooper Merrin Posted April 14, 2015 #4 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Its a wonderful display of science and technology having this little robot running around mars getting our hopes up, but in reality it has studied and explored the surface of the equivalent of a couple of football fields in 2 and a half years, having travelled less than 9km. Its like taking a thimble full of sand from the Sahara desert and trying to theorise about earths geological variables and history and doing it all with severely limited equipment and resources from a computer screen 220,000,000 km away, Its a wonderful achievement all the same, and i understand that it is the first stepping stone onto greater things, but i cant help but think that the 2.5 billion could have been used for more pressing issues on earth. what kind of civilisation propels a robot to another planet at a cost of billions, when there are some 100 million homeless children who go to sleep starving every night! Wouldn't it be wonderfull if all these space agencies and huge scientific programs said "for the next 5 years we will donate our budgets to helping world famine, drought, homelessness, 3rd world illness and disease" think what 100's of billions could do to improve our planets poorest inhabitants! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted April 14, 2015 #5 Share Posted April 14, 2015 (edited) what kind of civilisation propels a robot to another planet at a cost of billions, when there are some 100 million homeless children who go to sleep starving every night! The type of civilisation that wants to progress and survive, that wants to learn and strive for betterment. The sort of civilisation that will, one day, reach the stars and achieve a form of immortality. The sort of civilisation that understands that solving the worlds problems will be achieved not by just throwing some money randomly at the problem, patting it's self on the back and lying to itself that it has done some good but by using science and education to raise the living standards of all of humanity. It is no coincidence that as science has progressed global levels of poverty have declined (and continue to decline). Wouldn't it be wonderfull if all these space agencies and huge scientific programs said "for the next 5 years we will donate our budgets to helping world famine, drought, homelessness, 3rd world illness and disease" think what 100's of billions could do to improve our planets poorest inhabitants! Wouldn't is be wonderful if all the individuals that complain about the tiny amount of money spent on space exploration sold their computers, disconnected their broadband and for the next five years gave the money to help the poor instead of expecting someone else to do it. Not only would it help the poor but the rest of us would have a five year break from listening to such hypocrisy. Edited April 14, 2015 by Waspie_Dwarf 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Cooper Merrin Posted April 14, 2015 #6 Share Posted April 14, 2015 The type of civilisation that wants to progress and survive, that wants to learn and strive for betterment. The sort of civilisation that will, one day, reach the stars and achieve a form of immortality. The sort of civilisation that understands that solving the worlds problems will be achieved not by just throwing some money randomly at the problem, patting it's self on the back and lying to itself that it has done some good but by using science and education to raise the living standards of all of humanity. It is no coincidence that as science has progressed global levels of poverty have declined (and continue to decline). Wouldn't is be wonderful if all the individuals that complain about the tiny amount of money spent on space exploration sold their computers, disconnected their broadband and for the next five years gave the money to help the poor instead of expecting someone else to do it. Not only would it help the poor but the rest of us would have a five year break from listening to such hypocrisy. compassion is not your forte! But to describe what i said as hypocrisy is quite niave on your behalf! and to suggest we will reach the stars one day and achieve a form of immortality is a wonderfully fanciful idea, you would make a terrific childrens auther, the more realistic approach would be to admit we are limited by intelligence, resources, lifespan and unity as a race to ever venture further than the imediate planets in our solar system, and we will one day sucumb to our anhialtion via our own hands or an external means! But i can assure you "mortality" does not exhist! Ive read your "people should disconnect their broadband then blah blah" argument before on here and thats not even a comparable point! Its quite a ridiculous statement to continue using to be honest, methods of Communication are paid for by the people that use the service, its a business! its a supply and demand just like selling oranges at the market! i cant even take your points seriously when you compare that to the money wasted by unnecessary expenditure of tax payers contributions By blasting hundreds of billions into space with absolutely no benifit to the human race! this continual expenditure on "token guesture" exploration of other planets and experiments to try and define how the universe began etc are completely and utterly ludicrous! Millions of billions fired into space for no other reason than personal gratification for those directly involved! And the obvious 'get one up' on opposing nations! if you think finding frozen water on Mars is more important than feeding 100 million starving children then i pity you! And its that kind of attitude that will inevitabley lead to mankinds demise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paperdyer Posted April 14, 2015 #7 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Father Merrin - Your religious beliefs must be very interesting. I'm basing this on your tag line. Out of the number of children you quote, how many of them are in the USA or other developed countries. Are you only referring to "3rd World" countries? If so, how many of them can be helped based on the area's culture and beliefs and accessibility? I could go on but I'm off-topic already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Cooper Merrin Posted April 14, 2015 #8 Share Posted April 14, 2015 (edited) Father Merrin - Your religious beliefs must be very interesting. I'm basing this on your tag line. Out of the number of children you quote, how many of them are in the USA or other developed countries. Are you only referring to "3rd World" countries? If so, how many of them can be helped based on the area's culture and beliefs and accessibility? I could go on but I'm off-topic already. what do you mean accessiblity?? Where is not accessible when it comes to helping those in need? If they can get a robot to mars then surely nowhere on earth is out of limits?? Im talking about helping a planet that is on its knees rather than blowing it into the vacuum of space! Edited April 14, 2015 by Father Merrin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bavarian Raven Posted April 14, 2015 #9 Share Posted April 14, 2015 compassion is not your forte! But to describe what i said as hypocrisy is quite niave on your behalf! and to suggest we will reach the stars one day and achieve a form of immortality is a wonderfully fanciful idea, you would make a terrific childrens auther, the more realistic approach would be to admit we are limited by intelligence, resources, lifespan and unity as a race to ever venture further than the imediate planets in our solar system, and we will one day sucumb to our anhialtion via our own hands or an external means! But i can assure you "mortality" does not exhist! Ive read your "people should disconnect their broadband then blah blah" argument before on here and thats not even a comparable point! Its quite a ridiculous statement to continue using to be honest, methods of Communication are paid for by the people that use the service, its a business! its a supply and demand just like selling oranges at the market! i cant even take your points seriously when you compare that to the money wasted by unnecessary expenditure of tax payers contributions By blasting hundreds of billions into space with absolutely no benifit to the human race! this continual expenditure on "token guesture" exploration of other planets and experiments to try and define how the universe began etc are completely and utterly ludicrous! Millions of billions fired into space for no other reason than personal gratification for those directly involved! And the obvious 'get one up' on opposing nations! if you think finding frozen water on Mars is more important than feeding 100 million starving children then i pity you! And its that kind of attitude that will inevitabley lead to mankinds demise! You realize we could probably reach the stars already if we had the will to build generation ships (and the money), with our current tech. It's be uber risky and several would probably fail , but theoretically it could be done. Never mind a 100 years (or even 25!) more of technological development. As for what Waspie said. I couldn't have said it better myself! 100% agree! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucas Cooper Merrin Posted April 14, 2015 #10 Share Posted April 14, 2015 You realize we could probably reach the stars already if we had the will to build generation ships (and the money), with our current tech. It's be uber risky and several would probably fail , but theoretically it could be done. Never mind a 100 years (or even 25!) more of technological development. As for what Waspie said. I couldn't have said it better myself! 100% agree! Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to our sun at 4.3 light-years away, please explain to me how we could build ships capable of these distances when we cant even make our state of the art submarines work without serious problems? I find what you have just said complete ridiculous, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibeliever Posted April 14, 2015 #11 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Fantastic science. After so many years, this little rover keeps delivering out-of-the-park discoveries. We are getting a HUGE return on investment for this program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bavarian Raven Posted April 14, 2015 #12 Share Posted April 14, 2015 Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to our sun at 4.3 light-years away, please explain to me how we could build ships capable of these distances when we cant even make our state of the art submarines work without serious problems? I find what you have just said complete ridiculous, Hence the "if money was no object", we "probably could" create a "generation ship" that could reach the nearest star system. I never implied with 100% certainty we could do it right now, but that if we made a concerted effort at it, we likely could do it. It being a one way trip and all... The hardest part would be keeping the dozen or so crew members (and their offspring for the next three or so generations) alive until they reached their destination. That, and having enough spare parts to keep things running. But I am getting off topic here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zalmoxis Posted April 15, 2015 #13 Share Posted April 15, 2015 That is great. Mining for water then purifying it should be one of the main concerns of any future settlers on Mars. If it is near the surface that relieves the strain of launching extra stores of water into space, lightening the load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TripGun Posted April 17, 2015 #14 Share Posted April 17, 2015 We could just fire a missile into Mars and analyze the data brought in to orbiting collectors. Like poking a dead body with a stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted April 18, 2015 #15 Share Posted April 18, 2015 We could just fire a missile into Mars and analyze the data brought in to orbiting collectors. Like poking a dead body with a stick. This works quite well on bodies without an atmosphere, not quite so well with Mars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Noteverythingisaconspiracy Posted April 18, 2015 #16 Share Posted April 18, 2015 We could just fire a missile into Mars and analyze the data brought in to orbiting collectors. Like poking a dead body with a stick. I have another idea. We could sent probes to land on the surface. Maybe equip them with cameras and other sensors to collect information. We could even put wheels and an engine on them, so they can move about. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waspie_Dwarf Posted April 18, 2015 #17 Share Posted April 18, 2015 I have another idea. That's a great idea. Having said that TripGun isn't too far off the money, after all what he suggests is basically what LCROSS did to the moon and Deep Impact did to comet Tempel 1. They might have been called impactors, not missiles, but the principle is the same; impacts caused a debris cloud which a following spacecraft then analysed. The only reason his idea won't work for Mars is the Martian atmosphere. A spacecraft attempting to fly through the debris cloud would burn up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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