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#1 Life on Mars » National Geographic Sees Purple » 2022-01-21 13:27:32

C M Edwards
Replies: 1

I was wondering if anyone had opinions on this observation by folks at National Geographic.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/scie … mars-rocks

Apparently there is an unusual weathered coating being observed by Perseverance.  I disagree with their claim that it's never been observed before, but apparently this rover is seeing it everywhere, including spots on pebbles.

My immediate baseless suspicion is sublithic algae, like those found in Antarctica.  Or, maybe not so sublithic.

Has Perserverance taken a sample of one of these coatings yet?  Was this purple patina represented in recent results for organic content?

Just wondering.

CME

*Edit*

See https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-cur … re-on-mars for a brief discussion of Perserverance's SAM instrument results on carbon content of rocks, showing carbon-12 enrichment.  Is there enough data to know if there is a correlation between a skewed C12:C13 ratio vs. the atmospheric ratio and the presence of this particular purple patina?

Hmm...

#3 Re: Not So Free Chat » So about the environmentalists and global warming... » 2007-05-31 11:58:47

Look at all these folks worried about a mere 1 degree Celsius change in the Earth’s average temperature.  Why, we deal with models for climate modifications that large all the time here at New Mars. 

Let us at it.  We’ll get you ten degrees Celsius, easy.

#4 Re: Not So Free Chat » So about the environmentalists and global warming... » 2007-05-31 08:01:33

Would you call me an environmentalist?

Sure.  It's not a dirty word, nor is it an inaccurate description.  It sounds like you're just as much of an environmentalist as I am.  That sounds like a lot of fascinating plans you have for your house, and I wish you the best of luck with them.  Its always better to do a good and useful thing for yourself rather than running around trying to pressure other people into doing it. 

I would not characterize you as particularly radical in your environmental outlook.

Then again, I also want to replace one of the two giant coal-burning power plants in Alberta with a nuclear power plant, and change tar sands extraction to use nuclear power. Not exactly the wooded pasture, but then again I am a Mars Society member.

What's wrong with that?    wink

#5 Re: Not So Free Chat » So about the environmentalists and global warming... » 2007-05-30 18:54:23

It's good to hear that you and your family are well and have found a new home after Katrina, loosing one must be a terrible shock.

Thank you.  Actually, I did not have much problem with Katrina.  Rita shut us down for a month, though.  After four tropical storms in five years, I made the decision to move before nature made it for me.

In the end I have no problem with environmentalists, as long as they don't  try to decrease our chances of ever getting off this planet.

And that's the real danger, isn't it? 

Radical environmentalists are not just asking us to conserve resources and increase efficiency, they're asking us to abandon material innovation as a driving force for our society.  Unfortunately, we're already living so close to the carrying capacity of the Earth that that is no longer an option.  What radical environmentalists are really calling for is collapse, caused by removing resources from society rather than deriving alternatives.  They want to turn back down the evolutionary path of humanity, and have set their sights on a pleasant wooded pasture at the trail's end. 

There is no worldview more opposed to that of the Mars Society.

#6 Re: Not So Free Chat » So about the environmentalists and global warming... » 2007-05-30 06:29:25

^You could always get a motorcycle.

No, sadly, I could not.  I have five kids, and I need the capacity of a larger vehicle at this time.  We would just look too odd trying to all ride on the same bike.

Fortunately, I'm able to tighten my budget in other areas enough to afford a car without increasing my net expenses.  I don't have to swear off of gasoline, and my expenses don't need to expand to match my income, either.

#7 Re: Not So Free Chat » So about the environmentalists and global warming... » 2007-05-29 20:00:21

Yeah, there's a lot of crazy, ignorant, mathematically-challenged fear mongerers in the environmentalist movement. 

However, I'm not certain that using the lunatic fringe of the environmentalist movement as a bogeyman to avoid dealing with  underlying functional issues is an appropriate response to it.

For example, because of my hobbies and other personal interests, I pay attention to my local climate (not today's weather - the climate), and over the past twenty years it has changed for the worse as far as I'm concerned.  We're in the midst of a drought, one of a series in a decade of below average rainfall, and that's mucking up all sorts of things for me. It's getting warmer, too.  Summers are hotter, and the average date of last frost is a month earlier than fifteen years ago.  But, on the bright side, I have finally taken Robert's advice and moved far enough inland that I can now receive hurricane evacuees instead of becoming one again.   

I am having an environmental problem. 

But I've no plan for going to Washington, or even my state capital (except on shopping trips).  I'm not marching on anybody.  I even waited until gasoline headed back toward $3+ per US gallon before bothering with a fuel efficient car (but you'd better believe I did it, and I'm now looking for a plug-in hybrid).  My lack of desperate action has some of my more socially vocal friends looking at me cockeyed and muttering under their breath, because I'm doing something that is anathema to every shouting protester off picketing their local refinery.

I'm adapting.

And along the way, I've made an important discovery: on the whole, the conservationists are right.  Many of the lifestyle changes being promoted by modern conservationists not only conserve resources but money.  If you don't give in to consumerism and just buy whatever new "green" product the voices in your TV tell you, then conservation of your household resources can not only save you money, it can do so without costing you capacity.  Ultimately, efficiency is the best way to adapt to reduced resources if you want to save money. 

Efficiency has given me more expendable income, and has actually made me a more effective advocate for things I really do care about, like scientific research.

#9 Re: Not So Free Chat » Newt Gingrich vs John McCain: Who'd make a better President. » 2007-05-25 12:28:05

Anyone know where Fred Thompson stands?

Try the Wikipedia Article on Fred Thompson.

According to several straw polls, Fred Thompson would be a front runner, but I attribute no significance to that until it becomes more than just a straw poll.  I don't count a candidate in until he's in, and Thompson appears content to vacillate until the registration deadline.

#10 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Polywell Fusion » 2007-05-24 11:42:05

Well, Dr. Bussard never disappoints.

I hope this proves effective.  Even if it never exceeds breakeven, I hope the Navy hangs on to the plans.  It has great promise as a propulsion system.

I wonder if there's anything we can do to help him stump for it?

#11 Re: Water on Mars » More proof of water on ancient Mars » 2007-05-22 17:45:59

I think so. 

The age of the deposit is strongly indicated by the thickness of the layer of ordinary red-brown, wind-blown dust deposited on top of it.  Laying down a deposit that thick would take only a few thousand years. If the silica depositing water trickled up from below (more likely in my opinion, because the silicate rich soil isn't everywhere in that area, as it would be if given a chance to weather away), it could be even younger than that.

#12 Re: Not So Free Chat » Newt Gingrich vs John McCain: Who'd make a better President. » 2007-05-21 15:05:47

Bill Richardson throws his hat in the ring.

All right.   We now have a pro-space democrat in the US presidential race.  What's more, Richardson has a decidedly pro-alt-space record.  The range of choices for the space activist is no longer limited to McCain vs. lackluster. 

I wonder what initial polls give him for chances?

-edit-

Oh, five percent as of May 20, 2007.  I give him better odds than Al Sharpton.

#13 Re: Not So Free Chat » Minnesota interfering with Canada's aboriginals » 2007-05-17 12:51:35

How dare they! Relations with aboriginal communities is one of the most stark examples of sovereignty.

Exactly, Robert. 

That's why I'm with Clark on this one.

Politicians might be having fun with this, but if it were a deal between two international business firms instead of a state and a province, the way I'd solve it is with this paragraph:

"Manitoba Hydro takes exception to the requirements of customer document Energy, Environment and Natural Resources Omnibus Bill" SF 2096.  Manitoba Hydro offers audits and environmental qualifications per our current accepted quality control program according to our existing contract."

I might also include a note about why, if I liked the guy I was deigning to e-mail.

(I don't assign much weight to the alternate view, either.)
[/u]

#14 Re: Human missions » Human Missions and Public Support » 2007-05-17 11:44:14

Is a person that wants to be a colonist an astronaut...

No.  And that's an important point if there is ever to be a diaspora of people into space.

The very first European explorers of North and South America were mostly sailors, but few colonists were required to pass muster as a sailor during the bulk of European colonization of the Americas.  Asking every colonist to get hired on as a pilot with NASA would be an absurd way to begin any real colonization effort.  The NASA model might work fine for exploration, but it's a bottleneck for colonization.

People who would be interested in colonization are content to leave exploration to others.

#15 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » Major Discovery: Earth-like planet only 20 ly away » 2007-04-26 13:45:13

The estimated age of Gliese 581 is 4.3 billion years - slightly younger than our own sun.  Fow all we know, there could be a native civilization there.

#16 Re: Interplanetary transportation » Solar Thermal Propulsion » 2007-04-23 11:42:48

Regarding the "sudden" transition from high temperature operation to cryogenic temperatures, the thermal mass vs. absorbtion area requirements are such that it would be unlikely to be as sudden as GCNRevenger is implying, even if the engine pumps are never shut down.  The average solar thermal rocket probably simply could not handle enough fuel to act like you'd stuck it in a bucket of ice just because the lights were turned out for a few minutes.  The thrust is bound to be small at high temperatures, and that means vanishingly small fuel consumption rates, too.  It probably could not cool off fast enough to do real damage.

However, you still would not want to douse a graphite heating element or any similarly brittle material in this fashion.  There are nickel alloys that can take that kind of quenching, fast and repeatedly (steels, too, but none of them very compatible with hydrogen), but continuous operation would require operating temperatures less than 2000 K.  With hydrogen, that limits any practical solar thermal rocket (i.e., one that you can shut down on one side of the penumbra and restart on the other without cracking the engine block) to around 890 ISP.

That's the major problem with solar thermal rocketry - the practical temperature limit is significantly less than that of chemical rockets, and the thrust is probably miniscule.

That said, I still favor them for a lot of low thrust applications, and I don't agree with the assertion that their performance won't be much better than chemical rockets.  It's not sensible to dismiss an entire class of rocket engines with a 1.98 times higher ISP than the best chemical rockets just because it's not 2.00 times higher (or 2.23, as the case may be).  And there is no evidence that the difference in reliability between solar thermal and conventional chemical will be significant, either.  The only difference will be that chemical engines with similar ISP will get all their malfunctions over with in the first ten minutes.

#17 Re: Science, Technology, and Astronomy » LIGO, LISA and Gravity Probe B - Gravity Wave Studies » 2007-04-17 15:34:23

So what is the likelyhood that he is half wrong, I would say give it up and save the money....

lol  Where's your spirit of skepticism!

Why, I just recently started an experiment testing a prediction of general relativity that has never been investigated using the accuracy possible with modern lasers and computer controls.   I have a hypothesis that old Albert overlooked something in his original formulation of General Relativity (and, more specifically, that modern theorists are overlooking something in their revival of the Cosmological Constant), and my odds of being right are about 50%, too.  Confirmation of frame dragging gets me to 51%.

So let the Gravity B team play.   wink

#18 Re: Mars Gravity Biosatellite » Where does this stand now? » 2007-04-09 11:44:15

As far as I know, the actual launch is in limbo.  For a time, it looked as though Elon Musk was interested in providing funding.  However, nothing materialized from that and Musk appears to have rededicated the resources to SpaceX for the time being.

Clinostat studies were also performed on the ground, but I'm not aware that the results have been published.

#19 Re: Not So Free Chat » Do you think Star Trek has hurt manned exploration efforts? » 2007-04-09 10:10:42

No, I have to defend Star Trek on this one.

Is it any wonder folks demand a perfect world before any money goes to manned space exploration?

Star Trek is not responsible for that part of the problem.  As a group, people tend to be more focused on problems that are right in front of them.  When asked to devote resources to something else, they will automatically ask, “Why not help with my problem first?”  When they just don’t want convincing, “This is more important” or “We’re too busy” is a typical response.  People got wrapped up in their own issues long before Star Trek, and they’ll get wrapped in their own issues up long after it’s gone.

However…

Star Trek shows a utopian future where no one goes hungry, crime no longer exists, no one cares about money, or even has to work. Meanwhile there seems to be no real solution o any of these problems.

It may surprise you to find that a lot of people disagree.

I’ll leave it to that series’s fans to set you straight about your claims regarding the absence of crime, money and deadbeats in the fictional Star Trek universe.  (When not even Star Trek claims we can overcome a social problem, it’s time to resign ourselves and adapt.) 

As for hunger and poverty, there is growing recognition that while the poor will always be with us, we do have a realistic chance to effectively eliminate starvation and squalor from the Earth with current resources. 

The economics of tackling the problem are already fairly well laid out, and not all of it is theoretical.  The World Bank, for example, is already implementing some very promising programs, including a lot of the necessary research that is still needed.  The percent of international GDP necessary to implement the majority of these programs is from 1% to 3% of the national budgets of every participating developed nation, if we can only get a majority of the G8 onboard.  That’s going to be difficult to arrange (the budgetary equivalent of trying to gear up an Apollo-Era NASA), but it’s within reach.

I know that many people remain convinced that eliminating squalor is too hard, but that is precisely why we should choose to do it.  It presents just as great a challenge – technical and political – as space exploration, at an equivalent cost.  It is just as much within our reach as the Moon was in 1961.  No Star Trek necessary.

#20 Re: Life support systems » What would be the best method of maintaining fertile fields? » 2007-04-09 07:51:16

Fertilizer?  Crop rotation?  Allowing fields to lie fallow?  Something else?

Hydroponics.

Soil agriculture requires every technique you mentioned, and then some.  Hydroponics does not.

#21 Re: Terraformation » Terraforming with a Broom » 2007-04-05 15:30:49

Why not just roll out some black blankets or plastic?  Like the fabric or plastic folks put under landscaping to keep other plants from growing maybe.  Just put some big rocks around the edge to keep it from blowing away.

Ah, but we would want it to blow away. 

The virtue of carbon black is that it can be manufactured from carbon dioxide and it can be powdered enough to be windborn.  It's also fairly innocuous.  Having the low albedo agent blown on the wind seems to be a fairly efficient means of delivery.

#22 Re: Terraformation » Terraforming with a Broom » 2007-04-04 11:43:05

A recent study of Mars's albedo concludes that the planet's albedo has been decreased by windblown dust over the past 30 years, causing a slight increase in its average temperature. 

In areas where subsurface dust layers tend to be darker, it might be practical to gain a slight increase in temperature for large regions simply by sweeping off the upper layer of dust and letting the wind scatter the lower layers further afield.  Addition of a colorant - such as carbon black - would further decrease the average albedo of the dust, leading to a greater temperature change. 

The amount of soil that would need to be removed for a 1 degree celsius change could be relatively small in volume, as would the amount of carbon black dust required for the same change.

#23 Re: Terraformation » Low mass radiation protection. » 2007-04-03 18:29:19

Hmm.

Demron is apparently a vinyl chloride-ethylene copolymer.  This stuff might have some mechanical strength to it.  I wonder if the crew quarters themselves can be constructed of it?  That would kill two birds with one stone, providing both shielding and superstruture to the crew quarters.

#24 Re: Intelligent Alien Life » Why is the Universe silent? » 2007-04-03 12:08:54

I believe as you that a scattering of intelligent tech societies exist in each galaxy, but maybe radio communications are for dummies.
They neither send or listen to such primitive methods. and have no interest in primitives.

We are in an unlucky galaxy that has only us as the tech society, we will eventually hear a radio signal,  the closest tech society in Andromeda has just started sending TV signals, we will have to wait a million years to see them.
999 thousand years before they arrive we stop listening to such primitive communications.:)

The Wikipedia article that noosfractal cited does mention one other explanation for the Fermi Paradox that is consistent with this idea: Maybe They Haven't Had Time to Contact Us Yet. 

Radio emissions from Earth fill a volume of space less than 200 light years in diameter.  This is only about one 200-millionth of our galaxy's volume, and includes less than 1 billionth of the stars in our galaxy.  The odds of us having been randomly detected by another civilization using a SETI-style search pattern identical to our own are astronomically small, regardless of their state of technological development. 

Just having the ability to receive radio does not increase the odds of contact by itself.  To have contacted another civilization by this time using only radio to communicate, we would have to be within 50 light years of them or their artifacts to have gotten any response, which makes the odds even worse.  Even to eavesdrop on a civilization 1000 light years away, the odds of randomly finding one in range are still quite low.

Sagan's model and others predict that there is a high likelihood of an alien civilization actually being within range.  But they don't actually change that range.

Sagan's model does in fact imply that radio is for dummies.  The more advanced civilization - the one that can send its artifacts out to within range of other civilizations, covering more ground than a passive search - is always more likely to make contact.

#25 Re: Water on Mars » Water vs dust-born layers » 2007-04-03 11:26:25

Huh?  Wind deposition has been a favored hypothesis for soil formation on Mars since the Viking missions.  Surface features the wind-driven processes can't explain do make all the headlines, true, but that hardly makes this NASA's first admission that there's dust on Mars.

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