New Mars Forums

Hmmm. Perhaps I need to elucidate.
    When Rome was gradually conquering the known world, a general would return home in triumph after a decisive battle to receive the accolade of the Roman citizens. As he rode through the eternal city on his war chariot, in procession with cartloads of booty and slaves in chains, the thronging crowds would cheer wildly and throw flower petals in his path.
    Just in case this tumultuous scene of delirious adulation should turn the general's head, and give him ideas above his station, a slave rode with him on his chariot and, in a clear and reasoning voice, repeatedly murmured in his ear: "Remember thou art mortal. Remember thou art mortal. ... "

    That sentence has become a classical warning against hubris ever since.

    "Remember thou art mortal! Remember thou art mortal!"   :;):

DITTO!!!   
    So, life begins at last, eh?
    Hope you have a great day!

::EDIT:: I wanted to hire a band for the occasion,too, but the man at Rent-a-Band said some guy called Grypd cleaned 'em out earlier in the day! Not a single band available.     :;):   

Thanks, CM, for the clarification. 
    I see what you mean now.
    And you're right. They need to use the !#@$&! imager!   

CC:-

    I'm hopeful Mars' climate is actually on more of a hair-trigger than that.
    By 125 years from now, we'll have at least one, maybe two, solettas to warm the pole(s). Greenhouse gas generators will have made good progress in trapping incoming solar energy, CO2 from the regolith will be 'outgassing' spontaneously in response to the warmth, together with an increasing H2O vapour pressure in the atmosphere - itself a potent greenhouse gas.

    If the Martian system isn't on a hair-trigger, we could try for millenia to warm the place .. and fail.  If it is on a hair-trigger, once we got it started, I think we'd have to take deliberate steps to actually stop the process! 

   [P.S. "Dyslexic devil worshippers sell their souls to Santa."  :laugh:  I love it! (Nice one, Cindy.) ]

CM:-

    I've read your post twice and I'm still not sure what you mean. Which Hazcam images are you referring to? And I'm sure you have a further hypothesis in mind about the dune in question, though I can't fathom what it might be.
    I don't understand what you mean by "displaced dust" as opposed to "displaced soil".
    Excuse me being obtuse but could you elucidate?  ???   

Hi REB!
    I know not wherof you speak!  ???
    What is this Final Enterprise thing? 

Cindy:-

    Good point.
    The placards are contradictory and therefore make no sense.

    The Arab people are extraordinarily demonstrative. By comparison with northern Europeans, for example, their emotions are just barely sub-surface and apt to come bubbling and gushing to the surface at the slightest provocation.
    Highly emotional people are not necessarily logical people; and any human being in the grip of emotional turmoil will behave irrationally.
    Anyone with half a brain adjusts his/her approach to different people in the light of what they know about the sensibilities of those people. This is the essence of social interaction. So, if you run Newsweek and you know the power you have as a result of that, and if you know you're dealing with extraordinarily inflammatory material you know will reach a highly emotional, excitable, and potentially violent audience, you tread very carefully.

    This is a very delicate time in the politics of the Middle East. The first glimmerings of democracy are showing in Arab countries all across the region, spurred in part by the liberation of Iraq from the grip of a savage despot. If things go well, millions of oppressed people may one day enjoy the kind of privileges we take for granted - yes, including freedom of the press.
    If things turn sour, the old status quo will re-establish itself and the breeding grounds for religious fanatics will be fertile once more. Not to mention that the efforts of the Coalition forces will have been in vain.

    There is no excuse for Newsweek's behaviour. As CC says so rightly, it is the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded auditorium. In fact, given the experience of the outlet involved (and this stretches to many other media outlets, too), it cannot be seen as an error of judgment.
    I call it politically motivated treachery.
    You cannot plead stupidity in a case like this. Afghan people have been killed as a direct result and scores have been injured. There's no doubt at all that more of our troops on the ground will probably be killed than might otherwise have died, again as a direct result of this irresponsibility.
    And don't tell me nobody foresaw this when the story was aired.

    We can't stop our media expressing their distaste for the Iraq War in despicable displays of petulant mischief-making like this. Our Western freedoms ensure that and that's what we're fighting for in places like Iraq.
    But I can only hope the perpetrators cringe in guilt when more of our soldiers die as a result of the pot they keep stirring so maliciously.  ???

I just heard this evening that Newsweek has apologized for errors in its story about abuses of the Muslim Holy Book, the Koran, at Guantanamo Bay. See http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=760253]THIS SITE. :-

    Apparently, a member of a U.S. Government organization is responsible for giving the story to Newsweek:-

    I think most of you know my attitude toward journalists doing their damndest to present the worst possible case against the Coalition forces. During World War II, they would have been jailed for life or executed.
    Even if rogue interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had actually used the Koran inappropriately or disrespectfully, the first recourse would have been to ensure the behaviour was stopped immediately .. and quietly .. and the perpetrators dealt with by military authorities.

    The fact that Newsweek went to press with this intensely inflammatory story, apparently without much evidence, is symptomatic of widespread irresponsible media activity the world over.
    The fact that our armed forces are under sporadic attack by men who don't wear uniforms, in a conflict some of us didn't happen to agree with, doesn't make it all right to undermine their efforts by means of a ceaseless propaganda campaign against them.
    And the fact that 15 people died and that the Coalition's reputation has been further maligned as a result of this disgraceful behaviour by an ostensibly reliable publication, draws attention to the fact that this is a serious business. It's not a university political debate with cute theoretical outcomes and a few beers at the bar afterwards. This is about a real-world struggle in the Middle East to spread democracy, to drain a veritable swamp of oppression and religious radicalism and make the world safer for all of us.

    So far, the majority of the world's media have effectively joined forces with the religious zealots and murderers, by trumpeting every fault and flaw in the actions of the Coalition leaders and troops. And now, by further inflaming a notoriously sensitive and excitable ethnic group, and inciting them to further anti-American sentiment, have shown their true colours once again.
    It's not the only case of this sort of thing, I realize, but it is one of the most spectacularly irresponsible and just plain stupid examples we've seen from the media in quite some time.
    It's extremely unfortunate that Newsweek withdrawing their allegations will be so much quicker and easier than undoing the appalling damage they've done through their traitorous 'journalism'.  ???

Hi again, Karov.
    I think there are many more questions here than answers. To begin with, the way in which planets generate magnetic fields is still not fully understood - or at least agreed upon - by geophysical scientists.

    I certainly don't claim to understand planetary magnetic field production, so you're probably talking to the wrong person. But it seems to me the energy loss from your equatorial cable on Mars is unlikely to  " .. be invested as energy of the static magnertic field of the molten core", as you suggest. I see this energy being lost as just a little bit of extra heat in the planet's interior.
    But, as I've said, I'm not an expert and I could easily be wrong.

    If we assume an M2P2 magnetosphere can be established around a celestial body, the field will only act on charged particles. The bulk of a 500 millibar O2/N2 atmosphere around Ceres (assuming you could achieve such an atmosphere - and I have extremely grave doubts) will consist of atoms and molecules, not ions, and so will pass quickly, in bulk, through the magnetosphere and disperse in space.
    I imagine you are visualizing a constrained ionosphere of such density that the atmospheric molecules will be unable to push through(?). I don't believe that's feasible.
    Since Ceres' gravitational field is negligible in this scenario, you're asking your magnetosphere to resist gas pressure of some 5 tonnes per sq.m. This is reminiscent of the kind of force field we see in Star Trek .. and we don't know how that works either!

    Sorry to be a party pooper but, on close analysis, I think your ideas tend to break down. No offence intended.  ???   

    Hmmm.  ???
    This sand/dust cakes onto the wheels, eh?

    I'm trying to think of the kinds of terrestrial ground materials which stick to wheels. Anything I can think of .. clay, sand, volcanic ash, etc. .. it always has to be wet, or at least damp, to stick to wheels, doesn't it?
    Or am I overlooking something here?
    Any opinions or hypotheses?

Yes, Bill. I'm referring to "The Irrelevance of the Martian Frontier" by McCabe.
    I agree with much of what he says but I happen to think the mere existence of a new world to explore is enough, in itself, to raise the spirits of humanity and give us a new and better perspective on ourselves.

    No, I haven't seen your paper as yet. Is it online somewhere?
    (Will look at Gerlach's stuff later - haftagonow! )