I came across this on one of my favorite web publications I peruse every couple of weeks:

https://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/astrobio-top-10-liquid-water-discovered-on-mars/

Liquid water has been discovered on Mars. Now I realize the news and story originally broke last summer, but I don't see much buzz presently discussing this. What I do continue to see is lots of speculation of this extraterrestrial water world or that--some frozen hulk with potential for a sea beneath. That's nice, but we have one here, on a planet that we can reach, NOW. I feel that if we were to discover life beneath the surface of Mars, that it would be quite significant. Imagine, for a moment, if the life they discovered was not only similar to ours on Earth, but shared the same kind of DNA...

So I thought I'd share, like Astrobiology Magazine did. This is significant, and something we should get behind our Congress and NASA and anyone one we know with connections to any space program. I dare say that this right here is the reason for us to put men on Mars, to drill a mile down and sample that water.

Read about this a while ago. I agree that it seems quite important and that it should be investigated. I imagine that Space X, NASA , the Chinese etc are also quite interested as well ; but scientific , engineering and medical news gets pushed out of the news by politics and celebrity worship.

Isn't Space X currently working on making and testing a ship that can send people to Mars?


I'd say it's more logical to let them do it than to pin your hopes on an inefficient bureaucracy to do it.

Thing is, Panzer, I'm not sure a project like this can be done by one company alone. We take for granted how easy it is to drill that deep into the ground on Earth, but on Mars, millions of miles away? I fear an undertaking of this scale is beyond the budget of any private company, for now. And being of great scientific importance, feel a joint effort might yield an expedition sooner. If anything, a chance to further unify a divided world--because if life were discovered, the implications would be profound and affect us all.

Absolutely, as well as challenging to the core the suppositions of some long established institutions. I'll leave it at that though since i don't want this to go to PWEC.

http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.p...nd-water-on-mars-this-time-and-lots-of-i


http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.p...unces-discovery-of-flowing-water-on-mars


http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3936094/sure-looks-like-mars-once-had-water


http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4048058/ancient-lakebed-on-mars


http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3511296/sweet-video-of-the-martin-mars-water-bomber

This is real, not photoshop etc:

https://www.space.com/42979-spacex-starship-test-vehicle-photo.html

We've also all been "brainwashed" into believing that going to Mars is not only too expensive for a company to do, but for any one country to do but that only a "international cooperative" can do so. I think SpaceX is rapidly advancing toward proving all of that wrong.

With that said, SpaceX isn't planning on going to Mars and paying for it all as a nonprofit company venture. They will gladly hire out to the US government (or other state entities with interest) or to numerous other companies, individuals etc who have a desire to get to Mars.

It will become much less publicly defensible for NASA or anyone else to spend multiple tens of billions on other means of getting to Mars when SpaceX demonstrate the technology to do so for a fraction of that. It will be like the US transportation department having a program that is spending a 100 million a year to develop a vehicle to haul a ton or so of cargo long distances on the highway rather than just buying Ford F150's.

+1 F4U!

Liquid water.

Let that set in.

A lake 20 kilometers, or 12.4 miles across, of liquid water, a mile beneath the surface. Maybe nothing is there, or maybe not. Doesn't matter. This is a project I feel the world could get behind, and maybe shift the focus from all the BS to something inspirational.

"Dad, are there really men on Mars," Tommy pondered aloud, as they sat on the beach gazing up into the starry skies. Water lapped at their feet from the gentle sea and a fine breeze tickled their hair.

"Yep," his Dad said, pointing. "Right up there, fifty million miles away, there they're snapping the rig into place just about... now."

"Rig?"

"Like those boomers on Grammy's Texas farm, without the pumps, 'course. Diamond studded drills, rippin' and tearin', one mile down. Tubes of molysteel pipe, low-G anchors, hope they don't hit a feldspar vein in that ice..."

"Oh no."

"Now don't you worry. We got the finest men and women ever born and raised up there, they'll sort it out."

"Dad?"

"Yep."

"I want to go. I want to be an astronaut, too."


Maybe I'm out of touch, but I don't see most kids excited about space these days. They talk about free to play video games, super hero movies, or silly cartoons. We need a new golden age of space exploration and now is the time. Thar be water up there on that there Mars, an' it ain't gonna take nearly as much golden coin--or time. They're interchangeable. A robotic Europa operation might cost less, overall, but it may take far longer to conceive, fund, design, approve, build and commence, to drill there as Mars may. What inspiration today might deliver for tomorrow, the implications and science gained may last for generations.

And if we find nothing? We take that technology and send a probe to Europa and beyond. Either way, we put a man on Mars, and that's something that'll be talked about for as long as mankind remains around.



Plus I don't think we'd need a man on Mars to do the drill. There's plenty of robotic drilling assemblies even I can imagine.

But for what purpose? Robots don't need water. Water on Mars is only important if we want to live there.

We can drink it, break it down into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel and our own respiratory needs. A robotic drilling station could conceivably be used to turn Mars water into fuel for unmanned probes etc. but it only makes sense to go to that trouble if you have need for large amounts of Mars water, and that means humans on Mars needing drinking water, oxygen to breath and fuel for return trips to Earth or going farther out into the solar system.

To analyze the water. That's the only reason. What may be swimming around in that water? The great question beckons us.

That's the only reason, to find out if some single cell organism might be swimming around in martian water? As exciting as that might be it pales in comparison (for me at least) to having a functioning colony of hundreds/thousands of humans living on the surface of another planet.

Being satisfied with studying the solar system from afar is to me a sad commentary on the current state of the human spirit of adventure. Columbus didn't come to the new world just to collect samples of plants and animals to take back to the old world.

True. However, the reasons behind his voyage(s) were purely about expanding an empire for financial gain. He wanted profit and governorship of the lands he discovered.

That's the only reason to mess with the water right /now/. Finding simple single celled organisms fifty million miles from Earth could completely change entire fields of philosophy and science, especially after we analyze what's inside of them.

So here's the thing--we need space exploration to be "cool" again. How do we make it cool? By discovering something really amazing, compelling our youth to want to support space once more. When I was a kid, space was the coolest thing ever. Nowadays? Nah. Sponge Bob and stupid superheros are what drive kids, among other things.

I'd love a colony on Mars, believe me, that'd be badass.

I'd prefer that they didn't find life on Mars. I want to see humans colonize Mars. If somebody finds "life", then we almost certainly get a hue and cry arise to preserve Mars for scientific study. No thanks. Explore it, exploit it, and make it ours.

Learn what we can from it, but keep our eyes on the prize... making humanity a multi-planet species!

Nothing thing wrong with that. The profit motive is the reason behind 99.99% of everything we have as a species.





+1

I'm totally in agreement with Cyber. Mind you there is a good chance that if life is found on Mars it will be closely related to terrestrial life. It has been convincingly argued that life could first have evolved on Mars, being a smaller planet, cooling faster and with water oceans. Asteroid splashes could easily then have spread Martian life to the primordial Earth.

Great link and great website, saved to favourites so thanks for the post.

If you like Podcasts give "Astronomy Cast" a try. They do some great casts.

Once we look at the water, we should do what somehow is unthinkable - introduce life.

If there is a lot of liquid water, we have several forms of life that can live in it.

And if we can ever come up with a way to either emulate a magnetic shield or find some way to kick start the planet's own weak one, step one to terraforming is done.