Water on Mars?

Moth

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Ooo! Oooo! Is this it? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/sssh.gif

From the news:

"Scientists are abuzz over Martian findings -
Rovers may have sent dramatic data about water....

....There is a palpable buzz here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that something wonderful is about to happen in the exploration of Mars...."



/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

BlindedByTheLite

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well.. think about it. our flesh, our blood, our bones, our nerves, @ one point we were all part of one of the original gigantic stars in the universe..

so when all that went down and life formed here, don't you think it's probable that the same things that we formed from also crossed paths @ other points in the universe?

i think it's probable, there4 i think it's extremely likely that a planet like Mars had/has water somewhere. 'cause the same must go for the elements crucial to sustaining life, right?
 

Bravo25

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[ QUOTE ]
Lebkuecher said:
Don't get your hopes up. I didn't see any last time I was there. LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats Ok, I didn't see you either! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif

If it is really water, I tend to believe it is benign. Reproducing life would would eventually be detectable in some fashion.
 

Phil_B

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Ryan,I remember the first time I realised,after reading in a book, that the iron in my blood could only have been produced in a supernova. It was one of those WOW moments.Still is.
Water on Mars,that would account for all the apparent "flows" and other run off type markings,yes? Or has this been proven already?
Wet and Wild on the side of Mount Olympus-yeah,book me in!
 

pedalinbob

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[ QUOTE ]
Lebkuecher said:
Don't get your hopes up. I didn't see any last time I was there. LOL

[/ QUOTE ]

damn.

i was planning a pool party. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Bob /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

James S

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Wow, really interesting stuff coming out on the web feed (if you can get connected) CNN lost interest after about 40 seconds, nobody is interested in the bromine concentrations I guess /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

"significant" liquid water formed these rocks.

Many different lines of evidence leading to this conclusion. VERY exciting stuff. Liquid water in the solar system on a planet other than Earth! Thats really not been known before. Doesn't make it any less exciting that it was a long time ago.
 

PaulW

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[ QUOTE ]
James S said:
. . . VERY exciting stuff. . . .

[/ QUOTE ]

James -- I agree wholeheartedly. I read in a Reuters article:

"Opportunity has landed in an area of Mars where liquid water once drenched the surface," NASA associate administrator Ed Weiler told a news conference. "Moreover, this area would have been good habitable environment."

That does not mean that evidence of life has been found -- but it suggests that life could have evolved on Mars just as it did on Earth, NASA said.


This is big, really big. IMO, this discoverery ranks with the discovery of DNA. I find it more exciting than even the discoveries of planets or moons that have been ongoing for centuries.

Paul
 

chiaroscuro

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I am just so pleased to hear about JPL's announcement. It should be a real shot in the arm for the U.S. space program,and for everybody elses', too.
Jolly good show for the Raj!
 

NightStorm

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I picked up on the pre-announcement on Reuters last night. It seems that JPL only makes announcements from their offices in DC and the had to send someone to DC from Pasadena. While I'm quite pleased that there appears to be conclusive evidence supporting the theory that liquid water once existed on Mars, I think that it would be even better if JPL reported that one of the rovers had turned over a rock and a bug scurried away. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Dan
 

Bravo25

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I would have been interest if they had spent the 180 million here instead of blasting it into space to reveal something we already suspected, but yet still cannot confirm.
 

Bravo25

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[ QUOTE ]
PercaDan said:
The $180 million was spent here, in the way of providing jobs and will be returned many fold with improvements in a wide range of technologies.

Dan

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry but that is the standard agency press response that bears very little ressemblance to the actual events, and situation.
 

BB

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Bravo,

What is the $180 million about? The current costs for the twin Mars rover mission is currently $820 million.

What would you have spent the $180 million (or $820 million) on? I won't bother repeating the standard NASA justifications--how about looking at the question from another angle:

I don't believe that video games are worth spending money on--I think it is pretty much a waste of time and money--however, it has been an important driver in reducing computer costs and increasing performance.

Pornography--Another place where it is probably not very healthy to spend money. Again, it is porn that created the whole early Video Cassette Recorder / Rental movie market boom, and it a still a very large part (something like 50%?) of Internet traffic / search engine traffic.

Personal automobiles--Dirty, expensive, involved in huge numbers of deaths and accidents. But it still was fundamentally responsible for something like 10-20% of the entire US economy. Remember Henry Ford's $5.00 a day wages? How about mass production, and now reliable low cost electronics, navigation, air bags, international trade, etc.

Or, we can look at other government programs such as welfare. I have seen it destroy more families than any single other cause in history (perhaps with the exception of all out wars if you look outside of the continental US).

Speaking of Wars--a very bad thing--but we, and others, have fought for our freedoms. And as side benefits have gotten space programs, mass production improvements, transportation, RADAR, SONAR, aviation, ships, submarines, navigation, GPS systems (still run by the military), etc.

Spend it on schools? Washington DC has one of the highest (if not the highest) per pupil spending in the US of public schools. Right now, the rate of minorities dropping out from schools (nation wide / big city?) I last saw was running around 50% before the end of high school. Almost 50% of California State spending goes to schools--and they are now among the worst in the nation--and we just approved another $15 billion (that is $15x10^12) dollars just to cover the last few years of deficit spending by our democrat legislator and former governor Gray Davis)--and deficit spending is already against the law (our state constitution). Catholic private schools spend roughly halve the money, have very few administrators, etc. and yet turnout better students.

And, believe it or not, I am on the fence about how much and what we should spend our tax dollars on for the space program. I always ask myself, is the tax money we are spending on government project/program XYZ worth taking it at the point of a gun/threat of jail. When asked that way, very little government programs/spending would pass my tests.

It is easy to complain about specific programs and pick on specific issues--but what are your spending suggestions?

-Bill

PS: Here is another example of where we spent $850 million since 1994, Haiti:

[ QUOTE ]
``In the last few weeks, we saw Haitian national policemen without arms,'' Noriega told a combative House International Relations subcommittee hearing in Washington. ``The government was distributing arms to its gangs. Most of the looting and violence to people and property was committed by allies of Aristide.''

Noriega, an assistant secretary of State, said the Aristide government didn't investigate or prosecute any killers of his political opponents, and frittered away more than $850 million in U.S. aid given during his tenure, which began when he was reinstated in 1994 by the U.S. following a 1991 coup.

[/ QUOTE ].
Where do you want your Billion Dollars spent? -BB
 

Badbeams3

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Social Security should be job one. Raising the bottom end and lowering the top end. All of us will be effected by it now or in the future. The bottom end is just to low. Folks who find themselves disabled early with out the benifit of a full working life time suffer most. Young folks don`t pay much attention to it...they always feel they will be independantly comfortable. Thats what I thought anyway.

Water on Mars was suspected all along. In our wildest dreams we fantisies that great long dead citys may have been there...now buried under the dust of time. And possibly we are their decendants.

I think its cool that we now (maybe?) know for sure there was water. I think we will find there was life on Mars a billion years ago...little micro organisoms.

Ken
 

BuddTX

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America would never have been discovered if all money at the time was spent on improving living conditions and current needs.

Make no mistake, we as a socity need to address these issues, but Nasa is important too.
 

NightStorm

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[ QUOTE ]
Bravo25 said:
[ QUOTE ]
PercaDan said:
The $180 million was spent here, in the way of providing jobs and will be returned many fold with improvements in a wide range of technologies.

Dan

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry but that is the standard agency press response that bears very little ressemblance to the actual events, and situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, its actually the way I've felt about the space program for quite some time (can you say Mecury?). Also, I don't know if you have checked lately but $180,000,000 doesn't go along way when it comes to government projects. There is a 1 1/2 mile long viaduct here in Seattle that it will take at least $2 billion to replace and the last time I checked that was a bit more than $180 million. So we've managed to keep the folks at JPL and NASA busy, fired 2 missiles at a moving target that was millions of miles distant, sucessfully deployed their respective orbiters, land 2 rovers on opposite sides of the planet and produced data that suggests that our little world might not be a fluke in the universe. One heck of a show for $0.64 per U.S. citizen ($180,000,000/281,421,906 people = $0.63961). Kudos to NASA and JPL. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif Now, let's see what they can do for the price of a double latte. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Dan
 

eluminator

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If NASA had given me the $820 million, I could have bought 16.4 million more flashlights, thereby doubling my collection overnight.

The above figures assume the average CPF flashlight costs $50.
 

James S

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Are we really turning this into a discussion on how the money would have been better spent on social programs than on driving about on Mars?

I'm certainly not voting for you for any office that gets to make spending decisions /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

As far as I'm concerned exploration IS a social program.
 

Bravo25

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Exploration isn't the issue. Where to explore is. There are millions of miles of ocean we know nothing about. Which is going to provide a better return on the money. Exploring some place we can go to, or a place that we won't be for at least 50 years.

As for the providing of new technology, there is no new technological advances that will be gained by going to mars. All of the equipment used is already outdated, and was shortly after launch.

Who cares if Mars once supported life? It won't now without some type of biosphere. What does it matter if the earth is a fluke or not? It is where we are now, and until we learn to take care of this planet, we have no business trashing others.

We don't even need to get into the defecit problems, social security, or even social problems. These are all issues that will lead to political, and social debate. But the real bottom line is that they are issues in the first place. Issues that Mars won't resolve.
 
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