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I've seen the images Sir Arthur believes may be trees. They are very tree-like in form and we've discussed what they might be in another thread here at New Mars (can't recall where just now) and the idea of some kind of non-living crystalline growth was mentioned. The environment we're talking about is an alien one, after all, and who knows what the conditions there may give rise to.
    I don't think we should eliminate things as being impossible until we get there and have a good look but the idea of trees does seem fantastic, in the true sense of the word. I remember someone noting that the shadows in the image in question suggest that the "trees" would have to be about 100 metres tall! And, as Cindy rightly points out, well-developed vegetation of that size and type would surely have to be part of a substantial ecosystem whose tell-tale signs would be everywhere. Yet, we know those signs don't exist anywhere else we've looked (- unless we don't understand what we're looking at!). So Sir Arthur's conclusions seem insupportable.
    But does that mean he's lost his marbles? All I can say is I hope not and I don't think so! I think it's just frustration born of the very real sense of his own mortality.

    Sir Arthur is a gifted man. He has an extraordinary imagination and a clearer view of the potential wonders of the future than most of us have. He knows he hasn't much time left. I think he is very anxious to see some kind of breakthrough, perhaps on Mars, maybe in the field of propulsion (which he mentions in the above article), or at least in some branch of physics. I know he thinks there's more to cold fusion than meets the eye, for instance.
    All this smacks of desperation; he's trying to hurry history along before it's too late and he misses it!
    The reason I think I recognise this attitude in Sir Arthur is because, to a lesser but no less real extent, I recognise it in myself! A man well into middle-age may be at the pinnacle of his powers and achievements - and it might be a grand view from the peak he's climbed - but he sees the future more clearly too, and its most impressive feature is how short it looks!! Sir Arthur's future looks even shorter and he would dearly love something amazing to happen to take his mind off it and give him a sense of excitement again - maybe for the last time.

    He may be a genius, a celebrity, or whatever else ... but when all's said and done, he's really just an old man coming to terms with the finite nature of his own life. Let's not be too harsh on him.
                                       

    [Besides, what if he's right?!!   :;):  ]

For an up-to-date interview with Elon Musk on this very topic, see this site.

    He's due to launch in less than 6 months. Falcon will place 1400lbs in LEO (200kms, 28.5 deg., circular). Heavy Falcon, with two strap-on liquid boosters, will orbit 4000lbs.
                                         

    If this is old news to others here, I apologise in advance.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCOTT!!!   

    18 years of age, eh?
    "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times ..."

    Let's concentrate on the best bits!  Have a great day!!
                                       

My God, of course ... Ziltron!!!
    It all makes sense now. Everything is so clear.
    I understand you perfectly, Dickbill. The most certain proof of the Martians' existence is their very absence! We've seen absolutely no evidence of Martians or their diabolical Ziltron weapon, so they must be there!
    Why, those underhanded, yellow-bellied, scumsucking alien sons of bitches!!!!    :angry:

    You know, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if our governments are up to their scurrilous necks in this attempt to keep the truth from us.
    Beware, Dickbill! Never remove your metal helmet .. even in the shower. Their mind-control rays are always with us, eroding our ability to think clearly.
    If not for my own metal helmet, I never would have seen the logic in your reasoning about Ziltron!!
                                     

It's plain to see that education is often a sore point for people. I suppose it's because it takes place at time in life when we are going through an emotional physical and mental development period. Everything is so real and so important and, frequently, so painful. Injustices seem more unjust and relationships more intense.

    Thanks guys, for the interesting glimpse of schooling in other parts of the world and a taste of the obvious shortcomings thereof!
    I very much sympathise with Robert for the trouble he experienced with mathematics. How frustrating for a student with such a clear interest in a subject to be held back for so long. This is the kind of thing which causes me so much anger when it comes to education! I can't tolerate cruelty to children, in any shape or form, and this is a kind of 'slow-burn' psychological cruelty with a damaging outcome all of its own. It's not physical cruelty but it can leave scars which last just as long and change lives almost as profoundly, in some cases.

    A very emotive issue which evidently leaves many with a bitter taste in the mouth.
                                     ???

Hi Dicktice!
    I went off looking for the equation for the momentum of a photon, so as to place my previous answer about solar sails on a firmer mathematical footing.
    But now I notice your original question has disappeared.

    I assume you've lost interest in solar sailing or have decided to wait and see how well (or otherwise! ) Cosmos 1 performs!
                                           

Hi Bill!
    I don't know any more about the use of supercritical CO2 than you do. Probably less! But I did come across an article somewhere else which dealt with the prospects of using this form of CO2 on Mars because of the Martian atmosphere being almost pure carbon dioxide.
    I don't think they mentioned concrete in the article I saw but it seems this process you mention could open up a whole new era of tailor-made concrete with different characteristics for different tasks. It would be interesting to experiment with Martian regolith analogue, introducing various contaminants in various concentrations using supercritical CO2, to see what effect it has on the performance of the finished product.
    Who knows what exotic and useful materials might result!

    [My only problem is with what passes for Martian regolith analogue. As many here know, I'm not at all sure about this 'peroxides or superoxides in the soil' hypothesis. I believe this is a left-over from a gradually eroding information paradigm about Mars, which was formulated to explain data which are better explained by Martian microbes.
    It could be dangerous to do experiments with the current crop of soil analogues, come up with certain results, rely on those results, make plans for construction on Mars based on those results, and then find the real Martian soil is quite different!
    Sorry! My mind just went off at a tangent for a while there!!]
                                         

Thanks, Free Spirit! I guess that's what Seth was referring to.
    It makes sense when you consider that the active life of a new type of fighter is probably 10 years or more (?) and, by that time no doubt, computer-controlled unmanned aircraft will be extremely capable; perhaps even more capable than today's piloted ones.

    One reservation I have about pilotless war planes is the danger that they'll lower the threshold for war. In other words, with no chance of losing American personnel in aerial warfare, is the U.S. likely to launch attacks more readily, rather than exploring diplomatic solutions?
    Just a thought.
                                         ???

Yes, Free Spirit, we did mention coffee and do(ugh)nuts!
    And you're very welcome to join us at our informal chemistry seminar, as and when it happens. Unfortunately though, we're rather long on plans and short on details at present. But you never know, we might just make it happen yet!
                                         

    Cindy's and your accounts of teachers' behaviour really annoyed me. No teacher worthy of the name would be able to consciously and willingly allow a good student to flounder in confusion. And when I say 'good student', I mean any student who wants to learn!
    I've met a few "teachers" like that myself and can only assume they're just time-servers.
    I was extraordinarily fortunate to attend a particularly good school in England. It was government, not private, but you had to show some degree of academic inclination to get in .. i.e. pass an exam. (Again, more luck than judgment in my case! ) The teachers were all specialists in their subject and the great majority were dedicated teachers. I had enormous respect for all of them and a genuine affection for several. I still think about them from time to time and hope they're OK.
    I met many other kids at that school who were very very smart; much smarter than I was. Whatever I achieved, was achieved at least as much by sweat as by any native wit! I had to try hard and I know the frustration of finding some topics difficult to grasp. That's why I admire a good teacher so much and get so angry at so-called teachers who just don't seem to care.

    Oops, sorry! Looks like I absent-mindedly stepped up onto my soap-box again!!
                                   

Cindy, thanks for the amusing response about Robert Zubrin's enigmatic smile. It's good of you to humour a paranoiac and it gave me an enigmatic smile too!
                                 

    Maybe you're right about Robert, too. If we see him wearing a woolen 'beanie' over his ears at that Mars Society conference we were talking about, I think we'll be onto something!
    [I'm buying the coffee, you're buying the doughnuts ... that leaves Robert to bring the pencil and paper. Right?  ]

Hi Spider-Man!
    It's probably going to be quite a few years yet before most of your questions can be answered. As has been said many times here at New Mars, the complexity and ambiguity of the scene Mars presents us with seems just too contradictory for words.

    You mention the "loss of all the water". But there is still probably enough water on Mars, in the form of ice admittedly, to fill the northern basin with an ocean of very respectable proportions. I say 'probably' because we won't be sure of the depth of crustal ice until the Mars Express orbiter does its thing.
    Although it appears unequivocal that Mars has lost a great deal of water over the eons, its quite possible that it started out with proportionately more of it than Earth. If so, it may still have more than enough to keep terraformers happy!

    Your scenario describing the incorporation of most of the hypothesised dense CO2 atmosphere into carbonate rocks is a personal nightmare of mine (since I'm a dyed-in-the-wool terraformer! ). Such a scenario would make restoring a dense atmosphere next-door to impossible and the lack of any evidence for large deposits of carbonates on Mars, at least up to now, is a source of comfort to me! Perhaps much of the previous Martian air is currently adsorbed onto the grains of the regolith, as Dr Zubrin suggests, and thus will be relatively accessible (fingers crossed! ).
    On the other hand, where did all the oxygen come from to oxidise all that iron in the regolith? Oxygen is, of course, a highly reactive gas and isn't found in free molecular form in planetary atmospheres for extended periods of time unless something is consistently replenishing it. Here on Earth, that 'something' is photosynthesising life forms. In fact, its interesting to look at the terrestrial geological record with regard to iron. Prior to about 2.2 billion years ago, oceanic sedimentary layers included bands of dark grey iron. After that era, the iron laid down in sedimentary form was red. ... It was oxidised! The reason for this is that photosynthetic organisms had had time to produce enough oxygen to create a significant excess of it in the environment. From then on, the average iron atom couldn't show itself in public without an affectionate oxygen atom latching onto it!
    It seems to me that Mars, at some stage in its history, must have maintained a high percentage of oxygen in its atmosphere, against the laws of chemical equilibrium. And probably in the presence of liquid water too. Because this would explain how so much iron managed to rust and give Mars its characteristic ruddy tinge. (I concede that there may be other mechanisms to explain all that iron oxide, but still .. )

    All this suggests to me that Mars was climatically mild and host to photosynthetic organisms for long periods during its history. Yet the cratering and erosional evidence seems to suggest this is unlikely if not impossible!

    Simultaneously then, it appears, we have evidence for a dense life-supporting atmosphere and oceans of liquid water supporting photosynthesising lifeforms, together with contradictory evidence which suggests there has been very little happening on Mars for 3 to 4 billion years! A total paradox.

    Then again, we may have our facts all wrong. If our crater counting is somehow misleading us, then perhaps our judgment of what happened where and why is seriously flawed.
    I often think this must be the case. There's something  missing somewhere and we'll just have to wait until new information comes back to us from our probes before we can know the truth. We need a kind of 'Martian Rosetta Stone' which will open our eyes to what really happened to make Mars the way it is.

    For those of us impatient for answers, there's always the radical hypothesis put forward by Richard Hoagland called the "Mars Tidal Model".
    Click Here for the full story. Then click on the 'HTML Version'.
    This tidal model has, as its main tenet, the notion that Mars was once a captured satellite of a larger rocky planet which was destroyed in an enormous collision with a third large body. I don't know enough about the dynamics of very large planetary collisions to be sure of whether such an event could give rise to the present situation, with Mars now peacefully orbiting the Sun again and its former 'parent planet' totally destroyed. (Common sense tells me its unlikely but then what does anyone really know about such catastrophes?)
    It is intriguing though, that many of the enigmas surrounding Mars and its history seem to be neatly explained by this audacious hypothesis!
    Part of me says: "Naahhhh, can't be!", while part of me feels there may be more than a grain of truth in it.

    Hope I live long enough to find out!!   

[Incidentally, a warm welcome to you, Spider-Man. We're always happy to see new faces here and get new ideas and opinions. Hope you get as much enjoyment out of it as I do!]
                                         

Robert writes:-

    Robert! You shouldn't go around saying things like that in the company of conspiracy theorists with tendencies toward paranoia!
                                           

    Now you've got me visualising Dr. Zubrin's face with an enigmatic smile on his lips, as though he knows something important about fusion development that he's not at liberty to tell the rest of us!
    Things like this are enough to push people over the edge you know!!!
                                             

[Well?!! ... Do you think he does know something he's not telling?]