New Mars Forums

Then we should be geniuses by now!

Actually, failure does not help at all if we don't know what went wrong, as is the case with one recent fiasco.

Then there was the metric/foot disaster....

What did we learn from THAT one?  I only learned that NASA isn't much better than my local DMV for covering the basics.

Huh?

Nobody's talking about any Martians.  I'm willing to bet there is life on Mars.  Are you willing to take that bet?

Btw, the only thing absurd about discussing the possibility of life on Mars is that we are still discussing it!  This should have been taken care of years ago, when we still had a real space program.

Thirty years ago I watched men walk on the Moon.  Today, with all our "progress" we can't even duplicate that event.  Sad.  And few people even care.  That's sad too.

Personally, that is what I think happened.

It's almost guaranteed that we humans have contaminated Mars with our recent crash landings and rovers.  However I think it's also possible that, in the past, some small, very tough life could have survived a trip inside a rock from Earth to Mars.  It's somewhat of a longshot, I suppose.  However, if we ever do find life on Mars I fully expect it be DNA-based life just like we have here on Earth.

.02

Pardon a quick hijack, but what did Bush say about hydrogen cars?  I haven't heard anyone else comment on that point.

I like the new look.

I haven't been here for a while.  It was a nice surprise.

Keep up the good work.  Interest in Mars continues to grow, although too slowly to please me.

I think this story got hyped a bit.  I will be very surprised if Bush mentions a manned mission to Mars during his address.

We have terrorism and a huge budget deficit to deal with right now.  Space is on the back burner, imo.

Hopefully I am wrong.  I will watch his speech with interest.

.02

Sounds great!

When do we leave?

Hello Bill,

The Bible tells us that we are special.

There are many many design factors to the universe and our placement within it.  For example:  We are very "lucky" to have Jupiter protecting us.  Also, there are many places in the universe that the radiation would fry us.  As I recall, being at the center of the Milky Way is one of those places.  There is a huge difference between being at the center and being in a place where life can survive and flourish.

.02

Here's a link to an astrophysicist who knows a lot about the design factors of the universe:

http://www.reasons.org/resourc....ml?main

Fine-Tuning for Life in the Universe
by Hugh Ross

?Reasons To Believe, 2002, Compiled June 2002

For physical life to be possible in the universe, several characteristics must take on specific values, and these are listed below.1 In the case of several of these characteristics, and given the intricacy of their interrelationships, the indication of divine ?fine tuning? seems incontrovertible.

Strong nuclear force constant
Weak nuclear force constant
Gravitational force constant
Electromagnetic force constant
Ratio of electromagnetic force constant to gravitational force constant
Ratio of proton to electron mass
Ratio of number of protons to number of electrons
Expansion rate of the universe
Mass density of the universe
Baryon (proton and neutron) density of the universe
Space energy density of the universe
Entropy level of the universe
Velocity of light
Age of the universe
Uniformity of radiation
Homogeneity of the universe
Average distance between galaxies
Average distance between stars
Average size and distribution of galaxy clusters
Fine structure constant
Decay rate of protons
Ground state energy level for helium-4
Carbon-12 to oxygen-16 nuclear energy level ratio
Decay rate for beryllium-8
Ratio of neutron mass to proton mass
Initial excess of nucleons over antinucleons
Polarity of the water molecule
Epoch for hypernova eruptions
Number and type of hypernova eruptions
Epoch for supernova eruptions
Number and types of supernova eruptions
Epoch for white dwarf binaries
Density of white dwarf binaries
Ratio of exotic matter to ordinary matter
Number of effective dimensions in the early universe
Number of effective dimensions in the present universe
Mass of the neutrino
Decay rates of exotic mass particles
Magnitude of big bang ripples
Size of the relativistic dilation factor
Magnitude of the Heisenberg uncertainty
Quantity of gas deposited into the deep intergalactic medium by the first supernovae
Positive nature of cosmic pressures
Positive nature of cosmic energy densities
Density of quasars
Decay rate of cold dark matter particles
relative abundances of different exotic mass particles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1Most of the source references may be found in The Creator and the Cosmos, 3rd edition by Hugh Ross (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2001), pp. 145-157, 245-248. Additional references are listed below:

Weihsueh A. Chiu, Nickolay Y. Gneden and Jeremiah P. Ostriker, ?The Expected Mass Function for Low-Mass Galaxies in a Cold Dark Matter Cosmology: Is There a Problem?? Astrophysical Journal, 563 (2001), pp. 21-27.
Martin Elvis, Massimo Marengo, and Margarita Karovska, ?Smoking Quasars: A New Source for Cosmic Dust,? Astrophysical Journal Letters, 567 (2002), pp. L107-L110.
Martin White and C. S. Kochanek, ?Constraints on the Long-Range Properties of Gravity from Weak Gravitational Lensing,? Astrophysical Journal, 560 (2001), pp. 539-543.
P. P. Avelino and C. J. A. P. Martins, ?A Supernova Brane Scan,? Astrophysical Journal, 565 (2002), pp. 661-667.
P. deBernardis, et al, ?Multiple Peaks in the Angular Power Spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background: Significance and Consequences for Cosmology,? Astrophysical Journal, 564 (2002), pp. 559-566.
A. T. Lee, et al, ?A High Spatial Resolution Analysis of the MAXIMA-1 Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy Data,? Astrophysical Journal Letters, 561 (2001), pp. L1-L5.
R. Stompor, et al, ?Cosmological Implications of MAXIMA-1 High-Resolution Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy Measurement,? Astrophysical Journal Letters, 561 (2001), pp. L7-L10.
Andrew Watson, ?Cosmic Ripples Confirm Universe Speeding Up,? Science, 295 (2002), pp. 2341-2343.
Anthony Aguirre, Joop Schaye, and Eliot Quataert, ?Problems for Modified Newtonian Dynamics in Clusters and the Lya Forest?? Astrophysical Journal, 561 (2001), pp. 550-558.
Chris Blake and Jasper Wall, ?A Velocity Dipole in the Distribution of Radio Galaxies,? Nature, 416 (2002), pp. 150-152.
G. Efstathiou, et al, ?Evidence for a Non-Zero L and a Low Matter Density from a Combined Analysis of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey and Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies,? Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 330 (2002), pp. L29-L35.
Susana J. Landau and Hector Vucetich, ?Testing Theories That Predict Time Variation of Fundamental Constants, ? Astrophysical Journal, 570 (2002), pp. 463-469.
Renyue Cen, ?Why Are There Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies?? Astrophysical Journal Letters, 549 (2001), pp. L195-L198.
Brandon Carter, "Energy Dominance and the Hawking Ellis Vacuum Conservation Theorem," (2002), arXiv:gr-qc/0205010 v1, 2 May 2002.

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I'm with Mark.  Our lack of a real manned space program is very frustrating.

Still sleeping?!

Rumor has it that NASA is hiding some very interesting detailed pictures of The Face.

It's only rumor at this point....

Hopefully we can find out more soon.  A lawsuit is being discussed to get NASA to release the pictures.  I don't think a lawsuit is the way to go, but many people are getting frustrated.

hmmm

Given NASA's track record in connection with Mars, some of us have to wonder if NASA is the real obstacle to a manned mission to Mars.

I wish a MMM was possible without NASA.  But it seems highly unlikely.