Starship Asterisk*

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap080629.html

lol... straight out of the Transformer's movie. =b

"..Beagle 2!?.....-.=-@~=-*-~eagle..2!!..."

*enter giant robot crushing little alien probe*

I wonder if the crater wall in the background is any protection against the sands storms that arise there. The larger dust storms would probably choke the air, but the gusts and force of the winds may be blocked somewhat if structures were perched along the bottom of the rim walls (unless the winds strike from the opposite side coming from the direction within the crater, oi!).

Or just build a dome over and around the crater cuz you already have the shape and size premeasured by the hand of 'Im already... ^^

Call it the Nextel Endurance MarsDome and have Superbowl 520 there.. =/

ugh.... what does the future really bring???? more of the same or something new...

"This just in... new reports of terrorist blasts in the south Katar colony on Mars. Militants claiming responsibility site the International colony of Churchillton just north of them, part of the Hamiltonville precint, overstepped boundaries and planted Starbucks coffeedomes, all within three blocks of eachother. The terrorists claimed the overrun of coffee and caffeine-drenched elixirs the pagan northerners consume increase their usage of the precious refined oils in the region, causing a shortage. They said that as the incessive need for driving vehicles and operating machinery at a high rate of uncontrolled impatience arose from the coffe product consumption, the northern settlers 'drove the resources' back into the grounds from whence it came. The leaders of Churchillton denouce these provocative attacks and statements alike from within their own Starbucks Executive dome, just kiddy-corner to the In and Out Burger built just last week... More from your local inner star system news here at Channel Delta-3k, after the break."

O.o *takes a sip of coffee*

In the caption, Mars is called "our Solar system's second most habitable planet."

I suppose there's hope injected into that description, but not science. While evidence exists of several so-called "habitable" conditions such as H2O and other chemicals, temperature range and sunlight as a power source, there is still no substantial evidence of life, past or present, on the red planet. In fact, the evidence supports the conclusion that life (as we know it) cannot exist there. According to NASA:

"Intense ultraviolet radiation that pierces Mars' thin atmosphere produces an abundance of oxygen ions, a common free radical, at the Martian surface that destroys organic molecules - - the building blocks of life -- according to researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif." (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/soilmars.html)

The "hope" of life existing on Mars is fueled by the yet-to-be-gathered data from penetrating beneath the surface, out of range of the UV radiation.

Mars cannot really be described as "our Solar system's second most habitable planet" if it is, according to all available data, not "habitable" at all.

The caption is mainly focussed on the shadow of the robot whereas the landscape appears to be a lanscape of frozen ice. Is that really ice or is it just an artifact of the photograph?

This is not a promo... maybe the start of a family album.

keir wrote:The caption is mainly focussed on the shadow of the robot whereas the landscape appears to be a lanscape of frozen ice. Is that really ice or is it just an artifact of the photograph?

It's light colored rock with the sun shining directly on it. It actually appears a little brighter than it would to the naked eye because the camera appears to have set the exposure for the darker-colored sand in the foreground, while the rocks in the background are over-exposed.

bluegreenheart wrote:I suppose there's hope injected into that description, but not science.

You're reading too much into that statement and perhaps not considering the difference between habitable and inhabited. It's not habitable to us in the same manner that earth is, where we can live in nothing more than our skin, but it has the essential bits that we would need to survive there, when combined with our technology.

And although the environment is generally pretty deadly, there are theoretically parts that are less extreme than those in which some extremophiles have been found living on earth, such as in the McMurdo Valleys in Antarctica.

There's at best limited expectation that Mars is presently inhabited, but the speculation that it might be habitable is, in fact, based on science.

Beneath the surface...

Always those caverns pop into my head (the holes in the surface that lead to who knows where) whenever I think of possible life still existing on Mars. We have plenty of caverns and hidden secrets here on earth that contain life in some shape or form that have been tucked away for millenium, surviving without light, without energy or food sources we are used to. Not so hard to assume Mars has those same capabilities if science proves the different pieces to that possible puzzle actually exist (biological and chemical compositions, UV protective surfaces, water or something similar in whatever state its in).

Gotta open the book to know whats inside instead of just reading the cover and thinking you already knows whats contained within.

THought this might be of interest. http://www.nasaexplores.nasa.gov/show2_ ... -074&gl=k4

From http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003 ... ilocks.htm ...

Scientists have found microbes in nuclear reactors, microbes that love acid, microbes that swim in boiling-hot water. Whole ecosystems have been discovered around deep sea vents where sunlight never reaches and the emerging vent-water is hot enough to melt lead.

The Goldilocks Zone is bigger than we thought.

To find out how big, researchers are going deeper, climbing higher, and looking in the nooks and crannies of our own planet. Searching for life in the Universe is one of NASA's most important research activities. Finding extreme life here on Earth tells us what kind of conditions might suit life "out there."

emc wrote:THought this might be of interest. http://www.nasaexplores.nasa.gov/show2_ ... -074&gl=k4

I can't get this link to work. I can't get a truncated version of it (chopped after the ".php" and before the "?") to work either, so (without much investigation) I theorize the .php script that generates the page needs me to enter the site the way you did. Or am I the only one who can't get it to work?

doesn't work for me either I get "Page Doesn't Exist"

They must have changed that (maintenance, editing?), 'cause yesterday I got the article on 'Microbes in Space', but now the Article Not Found message. Even their list of All Articles doesn't provide a working link on 'Microbes in Space', at the moment.

The link didn't work for me this morning either... did find another link on the same subject though... http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlin ... ep98_1.htm

Hey! The place has barely more atmosphere than our Moon!

Why would anyone be interested in living on Mars, I sometimes wonder? Is it because the sky is not black?

Hey, if we have to don space suits and live under domes anyway, I vote for the moon - I can do some serious astronomy, even in the daytime, and the tickets are a little cheaper.

Who wants Martian dust blowing around? Sweep out a whole crater on the Moon and... Niiiiice.

-Noel

NoelC wrote:Hey, if we have to don space suits and live under domes anyway, I vote for the moon

hey Noel, this triggered a synapse...

When we leave earth we are removing mass...

I wonder how much mass moving it would take to change our orbit?... Probably a lot!

I vote for terraforming Earth's ocean. =)

Of all places, that would be the cheapest, quickest, easiest way to create artificial ecosystems for humans to live in an environment unsuitable to our little frail bodies. =b

Plus we can get around down there by other means besides propellant chemicals and combustion machines.

Could you imagine a dome under water sustaining human life while we explore the vastness of THAT open space? Plus, we have protection from harmful radiation from above if anything goes wrong. But we'd have to have systems in place that automatically refine, filter, circulate the resources for us to stay alive down there. ^^

James Cameron believes in it... I think NASA would be able to accomplish this type of project if international agencies helped create together like they are doing with the ISS. It could be called the ISS2, or IOS (International Oceanic Station). =b

People are already making submersible crafts that carry 2-4 people at one time. Even 1 man crafts that dive underwater. Why not stations underwater and start refining what's below? I mean, heck, we're going up and out, why not down and in? =)

Arramon wrote:I vote for terraforming Earth's ocean.

hey Arramon, Noel got me worried about off loading our earth mass, now you've got me worried about displacing our oceans... I mean if we start populating the oceans, then we loose earth area, right??? Just how big are these oceanic dome dominions you're proposing anyway???

emc wrote:

NoelC wrote:Hey, if we have to don space suits and live under domes anyway, I vote for the moon

hey Noel, this triggered a synapse...

When we leave earth we are removing mass...

I wonder how much mass moving it would take to change our orbit?... Probably a lot!

Supposedly we gain about half a million tons per year or so from meteors. We also lose some amount from little bits of the atmosphere boiling off. It's not much compared to the mass of the earth, but I'm positive it's far greater than what we launch into space, and more importantly, what we launch at escape velocity.

iamlucky13 wrote:Supposedly we gain about half a million tons per year or so from meteors.

hey iamlucky13, Thanks loads! Now you've got me worried about gaining earth mass. Not to mention a good knock in the head by a piece of that meteor tonnage...Maybe moving off-planet isn't such a bad idea???

Something you all seemed to have missed . . .

Not only was this very picture featured on APOD 2004 Aug 3 - with the very same captions - but if you look closely (newest picture is best) at the bottom centre of the image , between the tracks there appears to be a size 10 Astronauts boot print!

Any comments?

helios102 wrote:Something you all seemed to have missed . . .

Any comments?

hey Tony, Yes, I have a comment... when will this torment end not only am I being terrafried about our earth weight... now you're making me aware that APOD could be running out of material.

emc wrote:I wonder how much mass moving it would take to change our orbit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jump_Day

(entertainment, not an answer)

Of course, we can solve light pollution and change the orbit all at once. Photons have momentum, too. Just aim all the lights in one direction. 8)

helios102 wrote:Something you all seemed to have missed . . .

Not only was this very picture featured on APOD 2004 Aug 3 - with the very same captions - but if you look closely (newest picture is best) at the bottom centre of the image , between the tracks there appears to be a size 10 Astronauts boot print!

Any comments?

It is actually a size 6 wheelprint of a hextoped robot

apodman wrote:

emc wrote:I wonder how much mass moving it would take to change our orbit?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jump_Day

(entertainment, not an answer)

1 earth mass = 5.9742 × 10 to the 24th kilograms

so according to the World Jump Day theory... roughly 90 billion pounds will move the earth at the velocity of humans jumping up and down???

I wonder how many people jump out of bed at the same time??? perhaps we should be all be more careful! ... seems everyone is contributing to my torment... now I don't want to get out of bed!

apodman wrote:I wonder how much mass moving it would take to change our orbit?

Ahh, a chalenge!

Using Earth units: Keplers third law says:

1 = a³/T² or T² = a³

when a is in Astronomical units and T is in years. The earth orbits in a circular orbit (almost), the circumference is 2πa, so the speed, v, is

v = 2πa/T = 2π/√a

Now lets move the earth to 1.2 AU, 180 E6 km form the sun, in order to diminish the effects of the greenhouse gasses. This is an example, not even an assumption, which originates from a very blunt thumb.

The speed of the earth has to be reduced by √1.2 and that is approximatedly 1.1. So in stead of 30 km/s it has to be just 10% lower, 3 km/s less. To reduce the speed of the earth, we must eject a mass m in the direction of the movement of the earth. Using conservation of moment, the speed of the earth will reduce. Furthermore we do not want to see this mass m ever back on earth, so it has to have the escape velocity at least. This is a little more than 11 km/s. To make the calculation without a calculator a little easier, i use 12 km/s. Now we build a huge spring, place the mass m on it, load the spring and release it. The mass on the spring is launched with a velocity of 12 km/s, relative of the remaining earth, and thus the remaining part of the earth recoils with -3 km/s. Applying conservation of moment:

(M - m) * 3 - m * 12 = 0 ⇒ 3M - 15m = 0 or

m = 1/5 M.

We loose one fifth of the earth mass in this scheme.

Unfortunately this method will not move the remaining earth further away from the sun, since it is at a position (1 AU) and its speed is too low. It will fall towards the sun, in an orbit closer to the sun. It is a rather cumbersome method to reduce the effects of greenhouse warming. It is much easier to use common sense and apply energy sources which are greenhouse gas neutral.

Accidentally hit the wrong button, so a half message must have appeared on this board.