New Mars Forums

I'm not normally very interested in the fine details of politics but this discussion is certainly an interesting one.
   My idea of the best political system is one which interferes least in people's lives while providing a background of inconspicuous but reassuring order. My mother always used to say that successful society ultimately depends on good manners and self-discipline! If some people can't be relied upon to manifest these attributes voluntarily, then for the sake of the rest of us, they just have to have them imposed by whatever means necessary.
   Call me cynical if you like but it seems that wherever you go, laws end up having to be imposed by force on some people. Here on Earth, crime, and the force needed to deal with it, quite commonly seem to involve guns and, occasionally, explosives!
   I'm trying to imagine similar scenarios acted out in colonies on the Moon and Mars and I keep running into serious difficulties. The environments of space colonies are obviously delicate. A few stray bullets or explosions are bad enough on Earth but imagine the possible consequences in a dome on Mars!
   Suppose you get a group of settlers who've set up their own dome on Martian terrain which is claimed as the property of Dupont (or some such entity). If the dispute can't be resolved amicably and the settlers take it into their heads to defend their dome, how could Dupont or any law enforcement agency hope to do anything about it? Any use of force will surely result in wholesale destruction of life (much of it innocent) due to collateral damage to the life-support systems.
   Laws are nothing if there is no way to enforce them .... I think we would all have to agree with that. But if you want to maintain a credible legal system off-Earth, you're going to have to come up with a new way of imposing it if it's to mean anything at all.
                                       ???

Thank you, Omer Joel, for your reasoned response to my sometimes heated diatribes! I admit I do sometimes become impatient and a little hot under the collar but, then, if a man never becomes passionate about anything, is he truly alive?!
   You are absolutely correct in saying that the surface conditions on Mars are ferocious and your argument that no organisms could be expected to survive them is a compelling one. However, in view of the extraordinary hardiness of terrestrial bacteria, it is my opinion (for what it's worth) that we may well find ourselves surprised  by the extent of the Martian biota, if there is one! Though, of course, we'll never be certain until that automated laboratory's microscope sends us the first pictures of microbes in the soil. When and if that happens, you know what I expect we''ll see .... the same old familiar bugs we find here in our own backyards, but with some environmental adaptations.
   And the beauty of doing the research remotely, on Mars not Earth, is that we have no risk of the contamination of Earth which seems to scare so many people and we won't even have to build a receiving laboratory (in orbit or otherwise). Thus we save time (many many years of it judging by NASA's drawn out schedule) and we save hundreds of millions of dollars.
   Speaking of buried microbes, we have discovered bacteria here on Earth which we had to drill 3 kilometres underground to find. We have also found  viable spores of bacteria purportedly 250 million years old buried in salt deposits. The human race has never encountered bacteria like these before since we have been separated from them by either miles of rock or vast expanses of time. In a sense, they are alien organisms; at least as much and probably more so, in my view, than any we will find on Mars because the surface biotas of the two planets have been mixed by impact transfer more often and more recently. Yet we don't build receiving laboratories with state-of-the-art quarantine facilities in order to study these microbes, which might just as easily turn out to be pathogenic as anything from Mars. ..... Doesn't that seem odd?
   Tell me why I'm wrong, but I think we're taking the prospect of "Martian Malaria" very much too seriously!   

"It is imperative that the scientific community try to retrieve samples from Mars as soon as possible. Even if the tests for life come up negative, the mission will pave the way for humans to Mars", states Mark S.
   Actually, Mark S, from what I can make out, there are quite a few people out there who might not see it the same way you do! It seems that if the tests for life come up POSITIVE, that will be the red light for many and a powerful lobby against human exploration will swing into action to block any manned missions! (The inalienable rights of bacteria, and all that! ) I wouldn't put it past those same people, if the tests for life come up negative, to again lobby against humans to Mars on the grounds that it's just a sterile rock, very boring, and we should spend the money on social security.
   But that's by the by. I still maintain that a MSR mission is going to be used by the budget boys, if not most of congress, as a convenient excuse to push a manned mission into the last half of the 21st century. I also maintain that such a tricky mission is almost certainly unnecessary when a small robotic laboratory can do all that's needed to evaluate the regolith right there on the Martian surface; and for a fraction of the cost.
   Moving on: Omer Joel states that: "The Martian soil is pretty antiseptic and highly-oxidant by itself". I know this is the accepted wisdom which has been handed down by NASA ever since Viking. But, as I have tried to point out, the hypothesis of peroxides or superoxides in the Martian regolith is NOT proven. In fact, it is vigorously contested by no less a man than Gilbert Levin, the designer of the Labelled Release Experiments which also flew on Viking.
   The only reason for the "toxic, highly-oxidising Martian regolith hypothesis", was the failure of the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometers on the Viking craft to detect any carbon compounds (down to parts per billion levels). Since then, the same instruments have been used on Antarctic soils with the same results .... even though those soils actually contain THOUSANDS OF LIVING BACTERIA PER GRAM!!! The fact of the matter from all this, seems to be not that there is anything exotically lethal about Martian regolith, but that the GCMSs were inadequate for the task. In fact, despite repeated attempts by chemists in the decades since Viking, nobody has been able to create any combination of peroxides or superoxides which reproduce the activity of the actual Martian material tested on Mars by the Viking landers. From this, Dr. Levin has concluded that his LR experimental results actually did record the gas exchange activity of living organisms in the Martian soil. And guess what? ..... I think he's probably right!!
   As I've stated and stated ad nauseum, I also believe that if those microbes really are there, they will be found to be pretty much like Earth microbes in all the ways that matter. The reason being that impacts on Earth and Mars have almost certainly cross-contaminated the two planets countless times since their creation. And besides, we've contaminated Mars many times with our bacteria and moulds ever since the Soviets started crash-landing unsterilised probes there in the 1960s.
   Why does nobody listen to the sound and well-reasoned arguments of Dr. Levin? What is it about NASA that even when the premises upon which they base their arguments are called into very serious doubt, the arguments are nevertheless accepted as holy writ?! It's time we abandoned hypotheses that just don't add up. It's time to think; to re-evaluate; to come to new conclusions. Let's try using our brains and not chanting tired and unsustainable mantras!
   Whaddyasay? Anybody agree?!
                                               

Yes, Christina, I'm assuming that the direction would make a difference.
   I assume, also, that most of the other, smaller impacts all over the planet, coming from every possible direction, would have cancelled one another out when it came to affecting Mars' angular momentum.
   But Hellas is just so big, and the impact evidently quite oblique, that I wonder whether it may have had a significant effect on the length of a Martian day.
   For all I know, much of the kinetic energy might have been dispersed in the spray of vapourised impactor and Martian crust that must have occurred. Perhaps it is more difficult than I imagine to alter a planet's speed of rotation. I just don't know .... and that's why I'm asking!!
   And maybe you're right, Canth. Maybe there are too many variables and nobody knows the answer! But with all those variables and the vast expanse of time over which they've operated, it still seems uncanny to me that Mars and Earth should have such a similar length of day. If you believed in fate, you'd almost have to say it was meant to be .... as if providence is saying: "O.K. You need a challenge? I'll give you a challenge! Your next-door planet is far away, but not too far. It's smaller and colder and drier, but not so small, cold, and dry that you couldn't fix it ... if you tried hard enough. And at least its day is about the right length. So go ahead, make it a new Earth; turn it into a second home!"
   I bet this is getting way too schmaltzy for some of you hard-headed realists out there! But still, a man can dream, can't he?
                                       

For all we know, NASA could have re-scheduled it for 3011-3016 !!!  We wouldn't want to rush into things now .... would we?!
   Oops! There goes the old paranoia again!       

It just goes to show how subjective all this Cydonia stuff really is.
   There's Josh Cryer dismissing the Face and expressing interest in the so-called pyramids near the Face, while I have cheerfully dismissed the pyramids as angular mesas and still find the Face quite interesting!
   I hasten to add that, although the Face still looks intriguingly like an eroded hominid/leonine face (at least to me), it doesn't mean I have taken the next step and accepted the Face as evidence of an alien civilisation! I certainly haven't.
   In fact, for me, there would have to be reasonable doubt about the pyramids at Cydonia, too, in order to place any credence at all in the possible artificiality of the Face. What I mean is, there would have to be a kind of "package" or collection of suspicious oddities in juxtaposition to one another which would be supportive of the notion of artificiality. It seems nonsensical to me that any alleged aliens on Mars would carve a face and that's all; leaving no other indication of their existence in the vicinity.
   Of course, the pyramids were purported to be part of just such a collection or "package" and, with only Viking resolution photos to go by, they were suspicious enough to pique the curiosity of even the great Carl Sagan, a man not given to flights of fancy.
   But, if Carl Sagan had seen the pyramids at the resolution made available by the MGS, I feel confident he would have dismissed them, as I have, as irregular, angular, and naturally-formed rocky outcrops.
   Now, I'm only human, and an artificially constructed pyramid on Mars is a much more exciting concept to me than a dusty old mesa! But I have looked long and hard at high resolution pictures of these so-called pyramids and, try as I might, I can see nothing unnatural about them. To me they're undoubtedly just rocks! And of course, if the pyramids are just rocks, then the case for the Face gets the rug pulled out from under it; the chances of  artificiality dropping to the "vanishingly small" end of the scale!
   That, for what it's worth, is my evaluation of the Cydonia thing. The Face is an interesting curiosity, but no more than that! (A pity really.)
                                     

Once more unto the breach ...... !!

               Mars awakes again,
               From a cold and dusty sleep,
               To Earth's gift of life.

Don't worry, Ian and Omer. I like to think I have a reasonably well developed bull**** detector and it's wailing and flashing all over the place on this one!!
                                               

Thank you Orodromeus for your interest in this topic!
   By way of reply to your comments, I don't think anyone will argue with you over the formation of Argyre; I think most people are agreed that a large impactor caused it.
   Again, I'm sure you are correct in saying that the KT impact would have been of insufficient power to have any measurable effect on Earth's rotation.
   But the Hellas basin is one of the largest planetary scars we know of and must have delivered a substantial quantity of energy; perhaps enough to influence Mars' rotation rate(? ), especially if it struck at a low angle.
   Any Planetary Science graduates out there who can throw in some informed opinions?
                                      :0

I can't imagine the Chinese getting to the Moon by 2005; they'll be doing well to get someone into LEO by next year.
   Of course, the Chinese aren't as squeamish as we are about human life (with monstrous overpopulation, they can't afford to be). So, if they're saying they'll have a man on the Moon by 2005, maybe they're only thinking of a one-way trip!! (Just kidding! ).
   I remember back in the late 60s and the 70s there were dark rumours that America wasn't the first nation to get a man to the Moon; they were just the first to get one home again! (The idea being that the Soviets weren't prepared to release news about the cosmonauts they sent to the Moon, but who never made it back.)
   But getting back to the proposed Mars landing and all the delays, I was wondering whether it is actually possible to fast-track the whole thing, or not. I know it's important that we have some idea of whether the regolith on Mars is potentially toxic, but do we absolutely have to bring back a chunk of it to find out? Returning a sample of Mars by robot is obviously a very tricky thing; it may actually require more technological prowess than sending people there in the first place!
   Surely it can't be that hard to send a relatively inexpensive automated mini-lab (a la Viking), scoop up a few ounces of Mars dust, and analyse it in-situ. Once we know its consistency, and its constituents and their proportions, we can create very realistic pseudo-Martian regolith here on Earth in large quantities and carry out tests to evaluate its effects on spacecraft materials and humans alike.
   A suitably miniaturised device could hitch a ride on one of the scheduled Mars probes in the NEAR future, thus obviating the need to waste time, money, and scientific resources on the technological tour-de-force required for a sample return.
   I'm beginning to slip into my paranoia-mode over all this procrastination on NASA's part and imagine that, for some deep dark reason, they're dragging their heels deliberately! Their apparent lack of direction and their monumental dithering for so many years seem to be beyond incompetence and look more like part of a plan. You just can't make so many bad decisions by mistake, can you?! And this sample-return hurdle they've plonked down in our path, looks to me like just one more excuse to push a manned mission into the dim and distant future for no good reason.
   Ignoring my frustration and mental instability (! ), does anyone have any input into this idea of mine to circumvent a sample-return mission?
                                     ???

Hi Adrian!  It's been so long since I read "Imperial Earth" I can't remember the details about Mars colonists having their babies on Earth.
   But it seems to me that, at least while interplanetary transportation is still slow and expensive, few people will be able to afford the luxury of travelling to Earth to have children. And how is a woman to cope with not only her own hugely increased weight but also the weight of her rapidly expanding abdomen?! I remember all too well how uncomfortable my own wife was in the final stages of her pregnancies, and she too has spent all her life right here on Earth just like me. "Wow, what a remarkable coincidence!", I hear you all cry in unison!
   Maybe if couples on Mars sent a fertilised egg to Earth for gestation in an artificial womb, or if they hired a surrogate mother to carry the child, it might work out. But, even then, how long would the child have to spend in 1g to develop the kind of physiology we're looking for ... a year, 2 years, more? And what parents would want to be separated from their brand new baby for that long?
   Ignoring all these difficulties, how do we know that any of the physiological advantages so acquired would last for any significant length of time once the child returned to full-time Martian gravity? I suspect that even a native Terran would face permanent exile from Earth once s/he had spent even just a few years on Mars. Of course, that last comment was purely conjecture on my part but, if I were a betting man, that's where I'd put my money.
   And of course, Anton, you're quite right in saying the development of artificial gravity would solve this problem. In fact, it would solve so many problems I don't think I could begin to list them all here!!
   But, Adrian, your last comment is the crux of the matter. As long as people are content to never set foot on Earth, there is no problem. But babies born on, say, the Moon, will never get the chance to decide that for themselves. Although they belong to a species designed, adapted, and built to live on their home planet, Earth, they will be forever doomed to live only on the Moon or maybe the moons of the outer Solar System. Even Martian and Mercurian gravity would probably be too much for them!
   Incidentally, Adrian, you're right! This is almost certainly the wrong place to be discussing this stuff .... and I think I'm the main culprit in having digressed so badly! My apologies.
                                         

Bill, I think your off-Earth child-raising criterion is a sensible and definitive way to judge our status as a space faring species.
   The next logical step is to consider the consequences of raising colonies of native-born Martians and Lunatics (sorry ... Selenites! ). When space travel is quicker and cheaper, we'll all be able to travel from one celestial body to another to stay and visit with relatives, right? ... WRONG!! ... Many of us are aware of the tyranny of gravity but maybe not all of us have a real handle on it yet.
   Earth dwellers will be able to visit the colonies but colonists will almost certainly be unable to reciprocate. Imagine you are on Mars right now, reading this post. You were born and raised there and have never left Mars except for a school excursion to Phobos when you were a kid. Great Aunt Gertrude in New York, Earth, invites you to come and visit. When you get there, you find you weigh 215kgs (473lbs) and even in a wheelchair you get tired easily!! You're only really comfortable lying flat on your back!
   Of course, you wouldn't weigh 473lbs on Earth; you'd only be 180lbs. But compared to how you felt on Mars (68lbs), that's how you would feel on good old Terra.
   Now imagine you were born on the Moon and had never left its surface. The same Great Aunt Gertrude wants to see you for her 90th birthday party in Manhattan. Compared to how you feel on Luna, when you arrive in New York you feel like you weigh 510kgs (1125lbs) !!  From your stretcher, with its oxygen tent and cardiac support, you just manage to gasp "Happy Birthday" before your heart gives out! Again, the 510kgs is illusory. You only feel like that because back home on the Moon you weigh 29lbs.
   Sorry to bore those of you who have understood all this stuff for years but, for those who have never really thought about it, it's a sobering concept, isn't it?
   In fact, it may even raise ethical concerns. Is it right to give birth to human beings in an environment which precludes them from ever having the option to return to, and live on, their own planet? Apart from the feeling of permanent exile from the world that gave their species life, in a way they'll be like animals in a zoo with a constant stream of visitors coming from Earth to look at them, and then going home again; something they can never do.
   Then again, maybe I'm being melodramatic and the truth is that nobody will see it this way at all. Maybe life will be so great on Luna and Mars that the colonies will feel sorry for us on the "Old World", if they ever think of us much in the first place!!
   Any thoughts on this?