New Mars Forums

Sounds promising!   

    Thanks for bringing this stuff to our attention, Clark. Your browsing has brought to light quite a bit of interesting info. and much of it is encouraging for the likes of us space nuts.
    Maybe there's more method to NASA's madness than meets the eye (?) ...
                                     ???

Another interesting thread, Cindy.
    At least it helps to keep us all amused while we wait for more data from Mars probes!  :laugh:

    Cindy, the guy who didn't know Earth's axis is tilted was probably a nice enough person but people like that just make me cringe and think unkind thoughts. I want to grab their lapels and shake them and shout at them to wake up and get their heads out of the sand!!   :angry:
    It's people like him who, through their total lack of appreciation for the glorious planet they live on and its place in the solar system, act as a brake on space exploration. They have no idea what's 200 kms above their heads, dismiss it as irrelevant, regard space as a waste of money, and think of space advocates as starry-eyed cranks! Their political representatives in turn, many of whom are probably just as ignorant as those they represent, continually oppose space initiatives in congress or parliament or wherever.
    I'm sorry but as I get older I find I have less and less patience with people who make no attempt to keep up with even the most basic of scientific advances! It's not really them I dislike so much as the very real regressive effect they have on mankind's future as a space-faring species. Space and its associated technologies and resources are extremely important to our future prosperity and our development, both economic and social. Kids fight over who does what in the sand-pit until they mature and realise how trivial the sand-pit actually is in the great scheme of things. Earth is our sand-pit and the man from Iowa is one of the many children in it. We fight over a corner of the sand-pit because we don't see the bigger picture and this ignorance is a childhood disease too many of us carry over into adulthood.
    I don't have time for it; humanity may not have time for it either. You have to grasp opportunities with both hands and right now in human history is one of those opportunities. We could step up to a new level of exploration, expansion and prosperity for all, but so many ignorant Luddites have the vote and wind up dragging us down!
    Phew!! I must have got out of bed on the wrong side today!    Or do you understand my frustration and feel it too?

    Actually, Cindy, I didn't set out to vent my spleen in a tirade against Luddites at all. ["Really?!", says Cindy in abject amazement. "You could have fooled me!"  ]
    No, I just wanted to respond to your comment about skin cancers among Queenslanders (and Australians in general). What you read is true. Australia is the skin cancer capital of the world because it consists of a largely northern European population living too close to the equator for their pale skin.
    I've had numerous solar keratoses burned off with either cryo- or laser and I've had 4 suspicious skin lesions excised - two of which were harmless, the other two being basal cell carcinomas (BCCs). [As I'm sure you know, BCCs are malignant but very low-grade malignancies which almost never metastasize unless you leave them untreated for years.]
    I'm not especially unusual in this regard, either. I have plenty of company; including my own general practitioner himself!
    But it's the squamous cell carcinomas you have to watch for, together with the grandaddy of 'em all, the malignant melanoma! Another doctor we knew when we lived in Victoria (a southern state of Australia) found a dark mole on his leg and had it investigated. It turned out to be a malignant melanoma and he died less than six months later. Those melanomas are particularly aggressive cancers and Aussies are advised to have skin inspections every year.

    And Byron, you are one crazy son-of-a- ... gun!
    Didn't anyone ever tell you not to play with fire?!   

It was once thought that binary stars didn't have planets because of gravitational instability. Apparently, we now know they do.
    I'm not sure, though, with a more complicated gravitational dance such as occurs in the Centauri system. There seems no reason to doubt that Alpha and Beta Centauri as a binary pair could host an array of planets, even though they are quite a distance from each other, but would adding in a distant Proxima Centauri cause subtle perturbations leading to fatal instability of planetary orbits?

    I have no idea myself but maybe that's why nobody is looking for planets in that system (?).
                                          ???

Thanks for the link to the "Rusting Mars Without Water" article, Cindy.   

    As I mentioned when I posted about iron oxide on Mars, I knew there were other ways for all that oxide to form besides water. But my emphasis was really on the fact that large amounts of free oxygen in the presence of water here on Earth were responsible for the red bands of iron oxide in ocean sediments, and that it seems the easiest way for large amounts of the compund to form.
    In another version of the article you linked, I seem to remember reading that Albert Yen was still of the opinion that Mars had been awash with water, at least episodically. He pointed to the topographical evidence for this while offering the meteoritic iron explanation, without water, simply as a possible alternative. Christensen's olivine and low levels of carbonate discovered so far are no doubt the very understandable underlying reasons for seeking a 'dry option' for so much rust. And the dry option may well prove correct, though my present opinion is it that it probably won't.

    You have to take the article with a pinch of salt, too, when you consider the language in which it's couched. It really is very speculative and full of 'ifs', 'buts' and 'maybes'. Mull over these excerpts (and my comments) to get a feel for the tentative nature of the conclusions reached:-

    "The idea isn't far-fetched."  (It shouldn't be necessary to state this! )

    "... 20 to 60 tons of meteoritic debris falls on Mars every year. Over a billion years this would make a global layer up to 5 centimeters thick, if it all stayed on the surface."
    "... an atom of meteoritic iron releases an electron when hit with ultraviolet radiation."  (How much of the 20 to 60 tons of material is the iron-rich variety and how much is the iron-poor stony or carbonaceous variety? Is the 5cm layer all dust? What of larger lumps of meteorite where only the surface layer is exposed to UV light? What proportion of this alleged iron-rich debris has been covered over by lava flows, even in the last billion years? And even if none is covered by volcanic activity, 5cms per billion years gives us maybe 20cms for all of Martian history, i.e. about 8 inches! By the time the winds have blown much of this into drifts and dunes many metres deep, is there really enough left to make the whole planet look red, even from Earth? I have my doubts.)

    "If that electron is captured by oxygen in the Martian atmosphere before it can return to its source, the iron atom becomes oxidised, or rusted."  (No indication is given of how likely it is that the freed electron will find an oxygen atom in the air. In Martian air today, the chances must be high that the iron would regain its electron before losing it permanently because there is so little free oxygen. Is Dr. Yen proposing that Mars had a significantly higher atmospheric O2 concentration in the past? If so, how was this higher concentration maintained, against the natural energy gradient or entropy, for billions of years, without some mechanism to replenish it? And, if oxygen were more plentiful, for whatever reason, some of it would form an ozone shield against the very UV light crucial to his hypothesis, thus reducing the rate of 'dry' oxidation anyway! )

    "As additional circumstantial evidence, the crusts of meteorites that fall to Earth are magnetic; so is Martian dirt."  (This implies that the major portion of a terrestrial meteorite, its interior, is not magnetised. This fits in with the fact that only the outer surface of a meteorite becomes molten through friction with the atmosphere, while the interior can remain extremely cold. Thus, the crust acquires the strong imprint of Earth's powerful global magnetic field while it's molten, just like lava. Remember though, that the majority of the meteorite, even here on Earth, isn't magnetised. But Mars doesn't have a magnetic field! Conventional wisdom says it hasn't had one for maybe 4 billion years! So what proportion of Martian meteoritic debris should we expect to be magnetised? I would suggest precious little. In other words, this so-called 'additional circumstantial evidence' appears to weaken rather than strengthen Yen's case.)

    This kind of article seems to me indicative of the high degree of confusion among scientists today regarding Mars. The whole place is a conundrum and there's no single coherent hypothesis which even comes close to reconciling the infuriatingly contradictory evidence we've gathered. For every scientist with a scenario to explain why Mars is the way it is, there's another scientist who can prove the scenario wrong!!
    What fun!   

Hi BGD!
    The pyramid and the eye are on American one dollar bills, I think.

    Dickbill is enjoying himself with a little bit of humour about secret cults and 'behind-the-scenes' groups who are reputed to control our lives.
    Incidentally, Dickbill, when you say 'adorators' I think you might be looking for the word 'worshippers' (?). Just a thought.
                                       

An ISp of 100 seconds?!!   

    We may as well hitch up a donkey and force feed it baked beans with chilli relish!!
                                      :laugh:

Hi Robert!
    You back from that lady's place yet?   :;):

    These little exercises in drawing-board rocketry are very absorbing. I suppose if engineers juggled with figures like this often enough, they'd eventually come up with the ideal configuration and fuel for a nuclear Single-Stage-To-Orbit vehicle.
    The proportions of LOX to LH2 you mention, 5.5- or 6-to-one, aren't what I found when I looked them up. I think I was in Encyclopedia Astronautica at the time .. not quite sure .. but they said 4-to-one (unless I'm hallucinating). Perhaps that was a theoretical best ratio while yours are based on practical performance data (?).

    The idea of using water as fuel (or reaction mass) in an NTR sounds appealing. I suppose the average exhaust velocity must be lower than with LH2 but how would the ISp be affected?
    And the fuel density would be greater than the average for the cryo-chemical fuels originally planned for VentureStar, so presumably we would need to carry a lesser volume in the tanks. And, if the nuclear engines are more compact, does this mean we could create a more streamlined, more robust, but lighter craft than VentureStar? Or is the straight-across-the-back linear aerospike still the way to go with the new propulsion system?
    This all sounds very promising!

    Water-fuelled nuclear-thermal VentureStar, here we come!!
                                            

    All we have to do now is convince the greenies they like it!

Hi Rex!
    Your ideas about liquid water on the surface of Mars are well known and I believe many here also know of my support for Dr. Gilbert Levin's claims regarding surface water.
    There's been a long-standing mainstream paradigm which says that liquid water cannot exist out in the open on Mars because of the temperature, pressure, and rate of evaporation etc. Dr. Levin's research results to the contrary are conveniently ignored by the scientific establishment because they're just too awkward to contemplate; too many books would have to be altered and too many explanations made to the public and the media as to how people like NASA could have turned a blind eye to the evidence. And then there are those interesting Viking soil-test results which couldn't have been biological in origin because there's no liquid water, right?!

    Well, as I've mentioned, I think the paradigm is gradually eroding and cracks in the edifice are beginning to spread. Scientists at the University of Arkansas have published some research which is reported here under the heading:"Surface Water Possible Under Mars-Like Conditions".
    While the conditions on Mars are borderline for liquid water, some of us have been hammering away at the fact that some places, at some times of the day or year, are suitable for water to pool on the surface; especially briny water. One of the provisos was always that we needed the winds to be light because of the potentially show-stopping evaporation problem.
    Well, now it looks like even the evaporation rate is not necessarily a major difficulty in the way of liquid water persisting on Mars.

    Not only the work of Dr. Levin but also your interesting hypotheses, Rex, are now on a firmer footing, thanks to the trusty researchers in Arkansas.
    I think we can look forward to some interesting re-evaluations in the near future regarding Martian surface conditions and their suitability to sustain microbial populations.

Interesting thread, Byron.   

    I must admit, KSR's trilogy was veeery looong!! Much of the bulk came from the political detail and the cut-and-thrust of interpersonal relationships against a backdrop of revolutions and major sabotage operations.
    I guess it was necessary to go into all that political stuff, since much of the money for the whole thing must have been coming from the multi-national companies which featured so prominently in the story. And once you have big companies and big money, you have corruption, control-freaks, and nature's born bolsheviks and/or anarchists rebelling against it all!
    But what fascinated me was the engineering and the terraforming and the beautiful descriptive passages KSR created, which really took me as close to the surface of Mars as I'm ever going to get. I loved it!
    I think I've been a Mars nut since early childhood and I've read stuff like "The Sands of Mars" by Clarke (1952 vintage stuff, reflecting over-optimism about atmospheric pressure etc.), "Mars" by Ben Bova, and "Moving Mars" by Greg Bear (brilliant concept in my view). But Kim Stanley Robinson stands alone as the author who brought Mars alive with a reality and immediacy I don't think I've ever seen from another writer.
    [Mind you, I haven't seen Byron's effort yet and I'm prepared to have that summation challenged!!   :;):  ]

    When you've read a book, it's easy to sit back and recommend that others do the same. But, Cindy, if you ever get the chance, in your busy schedule, force yourself about 150 pages into "Red Mars" and see what happens. If you still feel the same way about it, well .. what have you lost? But I think you might enjoy the story if you give it a try.

    One of these days, I'm going to re-read the entire 1700 pages (or whatever it is) myself. It really is a modern-day classic.
                                           

Cindy's interpretation of Free Spirit's way of thinking is, I think, very important in all this. Even at 5.44 in the morning (and no caffeine), she still makes more sense than I do with all my faculties at my command! 

Cindy:-

    This is a fundamental truth. We are a flawed species in many ways, it's undeniable. We are capable of terrible things; awful selfishness and cruelty, enough to make our own blood curdle. But we're also capable of the most profound goodness and altruism; often beyond the abilities of sociologists to explain. We can build beautiful architecture, compose rapturously inspiring music, perform deeds of breathtaking courage and compassion, and ponder the deepest mysteries of this incredible universe.
    God help us, we're both the divine and the diabolical all rolled into one; but we're here! Somehow, for some reason, the universe spawned us .. and we are here.
    I stand and ask you: Who are you to say we are not the summit of all creation; the reason for 13.7 billion years of universal evolution? What if we are the lone torch of sentience? What if we are as good as it gets?
    If we are, and there's no evidence yet to prove otherwise, then we owe it to the universe and whatever God may exist, if any, to continue to live. In this ever-changing, ever-evolving cosmos, the only thing we can be sure of is that whatever fails to move and change and adapt and take advantage of any luck that comes its way, is doomed to extinction. The universe may be littered with the detritus of civilisations which hesitated, vacillated, and agonised over minor points of ultimately too-precious ethical and moral philosophy.

    I disagree with you, Free Spirit, in more ways and more profoundly than I can express. Mars itself is not important. Earth, beautiful as it is, is not important. Even our whole galaxy may not be important! What is important is life; and not just any life, but thinking, feeling, contemplating life. Us! We are important in our own right and, if an opportunity to expand to another world comes our way, a chance to insure against extinction by the blind workings of chance, we had better take it while the taking's good!
    This is a vast, unfeeling, uncaring creation we live in. Our recent centuries of relatively benign conditions here on Earth shouldn't blind us to the fact that a new roll of the dice could snuff us out as surely as we might blow out a candle. Then where will all our moralising be; what use our self-righteousness and self-deprecation?!
    Our survival may well depend on expansion. What thought will a few trillion bacteria on Mars give to the lost opportunities of a sentient humanity if Earth falls prey to a random collision with a comet? Let me hazard a guess ... not much!! They will go on in their unseeing, unthinking,  relentless reproduction for another billion years, or two, before succumbing to the inexorable expansion of our star as their genes disintegrate in the heat.

    We're becoming lost in a sickening welter of navel-gazing sentimentality and guilt-ridden angst over what our great-grandparents are reputed to have done! This, to me, is the mark of a civilisation which is reaching the end of its energies and approaching its own demise.
    For all our sakes, get over it!!!    :angry:

[P.S. I too would like to know whether Free Spirit is of American Indian descent. If so, it might help to explain his/her attitude to Mars colonisation, though the circumstances could hardly be more dissimilar to 19th century America!
    As Cindy so rightly points out, no group of humans on this planet has the monopoly on grievances. My own Irish father told me tales of British brutality in Ireland that would make your hair stand on end.
    I'm not impressed by ethnic groups with lists of grievances, be they Irish, Australian aborigines, American Indians, or anyone else. I want to hear about building a future for humanity, not dwelling on past injustices.
    In the Australian vernacular: "Stop your bloody whingeing and get back in the game!!"]

Free Spirit:-

    A friend of mine had to have his asteroids removed .. don't know if they used a laser though.

:laugh:  Ha ha !!

    O.K. people, it looks like we're all going around in circles again, chasing our tails. (Or at least I think I must be.)
    We're probably not all that far away from one another in how we feel about terrorism but our perspectives on its causes and what to do about it are obviously quite different. I think I have precisely no chance at all that some of you might see things as I do, and vice versa!
    All part of life's rich tapestry, as they say.
    Again, what's new?!   :;):

    I think I'll go away now and leave America to its slow and painful self-evisceration. I guess that's how all great powers ultimately fall. Such a pity for the world in this case.
    Thanks, Cindy and Byron, for your support in some of these discussions. It's certainly comforting to think at least a few of my interpretations of world events make sense to somebody!
    And Josh, I honestly hope you're right about terrorism being a tool of the 'ruling class' to keep us peasants mentally occupied while they fleece us at home and plunder the rest of the world. But I think if terrorism ever came calling in your neck of the woods (I mean up close and personal) you might not be quite as blase about it. Oh, and by the way .. I'm not especially scared of terrorism. We Aussies don't scare that easily!!
                                     

    I'm going back to the non-political stuff, which is what I came here for in the first place.