New Mars Forums

I never have any difficulty reading all the way to the end of your posts, Dicktice.
    I find they make a lot of sense!     

Just one more short off-thread post.
    Thanks Cindy and Byron for coming back with your comments on human-nature and politics. All very true!
    And, Robert, I am extremely impressed that your letter brought about those beneficial changes - impressed that you took the time and trouble to get involved, and impressed that your parliamentarians were humble enough and sensible enough to actually listen!! I congratulate you.
                                     

Thanks for the interesting background information, Robert. It just goes to show how changing circumstances and random political decisions conspired to actually produce the hotch-potch of compromises described in that article.
    Arguably, it's the democratic system (or at least its misuse) which is responsible for the deaths of those astronauts. There's always enough cash for pork-barrelling and for buying representatives another term in office but there's often too little money available for sensible long-term designs or plans! Isn't it typical that the shuttle design which cost least to develop at the time, but would cost more later and be less safe for the crew, was the one chosen by congress?!
    There's got to be a better system than democracy! This short-term, near-sighted, to-hell-with-it-as-long-as-I-get-back-into-office-next-election kind of mentality is the scourge of today's society. It's remarkable that such a system has produced any progress at all since it replaced monarchies in the western world!
                                       

    Sometimes I despair of humanity and its constant attention to selfish, self-centred, and self-serving behaviour. Doesn't anyone think of duty and higher purpose any more?
    Sheesh!!
                                           ???

Hi Dickbill!
    First let me say that it seems I have instigated a small parallel thread-within-a-thread here! Cyclohm has so far been very patient with this slight hijacking of his subject and I really don't want to detract in any way from his very worthy research efforts into Martian food production.
    However, it does seem to me to be inescapable logic that, where research is being done into the suitability of Martian soil for agriculture, any dispute as to the chemical composition of that soil is relevant to the discussion.
    With that as my excuse, and with cyclohm's gracious permission, I'm happy to continue this line of reasoning.

    [Hey Cyclohm! Thanks for your indulgence in this matter up to now. If you say you want me out of your thread, I'll go gracefully and without rancour!     ]

    Getting back to your question, Dickbill, the book I quoted from is a library book - I don't actually own it. I actually returned the blessed thing just yesterday, as it happens! But that's not a problem. I'll go and get it again - today if I can manage it.
    And you are quite correct that the data from the other Viking experiments, the Gas Exchange and the Pyrolitic Release experiments, gave ambiguous results. I won't attempt to describe those results from memory (having already demonstrated the limitations of my memory earlier in this thread! ) but I'll be perfectly happy to present a precis of that data's salient points when I get the book back. And I'll use as much direct quotation as possible in order to maximise objectivity and minimise the taint of any personal bias on my part.
    I think what is important here, at least as far as semantics is concerned, is the use of the word 'evidence'. Dr. Levin has always maintained that his LR results constituted evidence for the existence of living organisms in the Martian regolith (not proof - evidence). If you understand the meaning of the word 'evidence', it's simply not possible to argue with that assertion. But NASA denies this. Their position, since the 70s, has been that no evidence for life was found. Ensuing research, particularly with regard to the fatal insensitivity of the GCMS, has made NASA's position on this point increasingly untenable. But have they modified their stance on this vitally important point? Not a bit of it!!
    Why?!!
                                      ???

    I'll come back to you on this as soon as I get the chance.
                                       

Thanks, Ad Astra, for that article on the development of the shuttle.

    This sort of analysis is probably best adjudicated by people like our very own Robert Dyck, who have their fingers on the pulse of rocket development and efficiency. It would be interesting to hear what they think of this fairly damning piece of journalism!

    The F1 engines from the Saturn V first stage, though they doubtless had their drawbacks, were apparently big, powerful, and reliable. And it seems they were capable of significant incremental improvement as technology moved forward. All right, they were 'big dumb boosters' lacking the sophistication of an SSME with its high specific impulse, but it does look as though their use could have resulted in a safer, much cheaper, and possibly more versatile vehicle.
    Not that the technology of the shuttle isn't an absolute marvel! I'm sure most people see it as an engineering tour-de-force. But Ad Astra's article implies it was a hotch-potch of overlapping compromises; the worst compromise being that of the safety of the crew!

    One of the most fascinating and potentially inflammatory parts of the article describes what could have been simple human jealousy and hubris. The author insinuates that the mothballing of the F1, after only a few years of spectacularly successful performance, may have been decided by people who simply wanted to outdo Werner Von Braun!! A thought that becomes all the more sobering when you think it might have cost the lives of 14 astronauts.
                                      ???

Hi Byron! It's good to see you again.

    I just deleted a post over at "Terraformation" asking where you were!
    We've missed your input.

    All your future leave entitlements from New Mars have been revoked, by the way!!
                                       

P.S. For the cave-dwellers amongst us (i.e me! ), what does
       'mmog' stand for?   

This subject led to quite a bit of discussion over at "Terraformation. Water, not CO2."
    Soph is quite correct that most of any future CO2 atmosphere produced by terraformers was always expected to come from the regolith. Only tens of millibars of CO2 were ever expected to come from the south polar cap, while hundreds were hoped to exist in the soil.

    I'm not sure, though, whether the recent discovery of widespread near-surface water ice might change the experts' views on this(? ). We've been told that the instrument used to detect the shallow water ice was unable to penetrate the CO2 'hood' over the far northern latitudes in winter, which is why we had to wait until late 2002 to find out about the large reservoirs in the northern hemisphere.
    When the CO2 hood disappeared, does the fact that this instrument was then able to detect the water ice indicate that there is little or no CO2 in the regolith to block the neutron emission from the water? Or is the CO2 expected to be deeper than the 1 metre or so range of the instrument, or is the CO2 too diffuse in the soil to affect the readings anyway?

    In view of the news that there may be much less CO2  present as a more-or-less pure solid at the south pole than we used to think, I'm concerned to confirm that the reserves in the regolith are still there!!
                                          ???
    Only optimistic replies will be accepted!   

    This information that Cindy has brought to light, about the possibility that only 0.36 millibars (equivalent atmosphere) of CO2 is available as surface ice, is interesting when considered alongside the Viking lander atmospheric data.
    Viking 1 measured seasonal atmospheric pressures which varied from a minimum of 6.8 millibars to a maximum of 9.0 millibars.
    If the new figures are correct, then over 80% of that 2.2 millibar 'bulking up' of the Martian atmosphere must have come from the regolith. If it didn't come from the regolith, then the 0.36 millibar estimate must be too low by a factor of about 6!!
    If data are out by a factor of 6, then maybe they're not very valuable data(? ).

    If the great majority of the 2.2 millibar seasonal increase in Martian air pressure can come from the soil, even under the present frigid conditions, then I'm hopeful that a concerted terraforming effort would release very much greater amounts of CO2.

    My biggest worry now is that all my cheering for a watery Martian past may blow up in my face. If large standing bodies of water have existed on Mars over extended periods of time, perhaps with significant episodes of precipitation and an active hydrological cycle, then maybe much of the original CO2 atmosphere has, through chemical weathering, been irreversibly incorporated into carbonate rocks. Forever unavailable to enthusiastic terraformers!!
                                     

    Say it ain't so!!
    Please ... somebody ... say it ain't so!!!

Yeah, you're right!
    I know exactly what you're talking about with the ice-protected streams of water. And I do understand that the snow you mention probably fell millenia ago when one or other of the Martian poles was tilted more towards the Sun. And I understand that it's the availability of water for future manned missions you are stressing.
                                   

    I should apologise to you for drifting way off the point and letting my imagination get the better of me!
    For me, Mars has always been a romantic place - I don't just learn about it from all the new data which comes back to us from the probes, I feel it!! Like thousands of others, I suppose, there's just something about Mars which gets into your marrow ... something difficult to explain.
    So yeah, you're absolutely right. When it comes to Mars, I'm a wide-eyed, passionate, hopeless romantic!

    Sorry, Dicktice! I'll try harder to control myself!!
                                   

When you send us this stuff, Rex, please bear in mind that not all of us are very good with computers (i.e me! ).
    It would be appreciated if the information is as user friendly as possible. I'd hate to get a stack of glorious evidence for standing water on Mars and be unable to bring it up on screen!!
                     

P.S. No need for apologies. I'm sure nobody would have taken
      any offence at your comments. You merely stated your
      case unequivocally - people who take offence at plain
      straight-talking probably need to adjust their sets!
                                           

How thick is this snow?
    I've always thought of snow on Mars as being more like a light dusting - perhaps more like centimetres deep rather than metres or tens of metres.
    Still, I suppose if it's had thousands of years to build up ...
    Anyone got any figures?
                                         

Soph, did you say 6 weeks?!
    I'm beginning to think the war will start in the next 2 weeks, despite the lack of UN endorsement. Or am I misreading the situation?
    How long would it take to get the inspectors out of Iraq?
    Is there any danger that some of them could be 'detained' and ultimately used as hostages or human shields?
                                     ???

Dickbill writes:-

    Ha ha !!   :laugh:

    A trillion dollar Mars program, eh?! Now that's something I could really get to grips with!!
                                           

    On a more serious note, I'm with Cindy in wanting to knock Saddam's and George's heads together. It's gotta be better than staging a war!
    But working on the assumption that Saddam and George would think having their heads knocked together is undignified, and refuse to go along with it, what's left?!

    If France and Germany etc. were to be successful in extending the period of inspections until at least July (wasn't that one of their proposals? ), then a war at that point would be impossible due to the summer heat, right? So any such extension would effectively postpone any potential war until maybe December 2003.
    Is this a big problem? Does anyone know whether Saddam might have succeeded in building a nuclear bomb by then? Is this, and has this always been, the reason for his prevarication?
    Could America, Britain, and Australia realistically be expected to keep an invasion-strength force in position, on stand by, until December? Would they have lost interest and/or political impetus by then, and been forced to withdraw - perhaps for good this time?
    Josh makes it sound beguilingly easy to cause Saddam to step down, using pens and telephones rather than guns and bombs. Perhaps he's right. But something keeps nagging at the back of my mind that it all sounds too easy somehow. What if Saddam just hangs on, secretly eliminating his enemies right under the noses of the UN inspectors, and secretly building his fission bomb, until the 'coalition of the willing' gives up and goes home? Then, what if he shows the weapons inspectors the door and emerges, less than 12 months from now, stronger and bolder and better armed than ever before?
    Is any of this a problem? Or doesn't it really matter?
                                     ???