Study of fresh martian craters reveals water ice!

Not to be outdone by todays stellar... well.. lunar announcement, the Mars folks have announced direct observation of water ice near fresh impact craters.

Story here.

 

They are finding water all over the solar system today!

 

But are they finding any drop to drink?

 

Dunno, but they're saying that if Vikings scoop had dropped 4 inches further, it would have struck ice.

Makes you wonder if someone is dusting off the results of the Viking life detection experiment...

 

Makes you wonder if some information was "classified for national security reasons".


Shame Obama is killing our return to the moon.

 

Link?

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10354230-239.html

 

^ Wow! I can't seem to find the sentence where it says he killed it? Thanks for the FUD.

 

No one does anything in his admin with out his say so.

 

Do you not understand the highlighted word?

 

Yes, it means that the money has already been pulled. Government never gives money back once it takes it away...


Besides, He's got Cash for Clunkers, the bailout, and UHC to pay for. He can't give that money back now.

 

As sad as it makes me to say this, I think we can kiss the moon project goodbye for now. It would be extremely naive to think any president sitting in these conditions would allow it. And while I think it is actually exactly what we need right now, it is a hard sell politically speaking.

 

This water stuff is exactly the kind of thing that could tip the balance politically.

Politicians don't really care about science. They care about perception. If this water thing renews interest in the moon project, the politicians will increase support for it. Simple as that.

 

Good point! Now if we could even find one microbe of life on Mars, we are set....

I know, I know, wishful thinking. I hope water gives as much a boost to the political situation as possible.

 

Actually, if you had read the Augustine Commission's report, you would know that the $3 billion was NEVER ADDED to NASA's budget. It's a shortfall in funds since the Constellation program was started, long before Obama took office. The question is if Obama will decide to makeup that shortfall. Admittedly, it doesn't look good, but at least wait until he pulls that trigger.

 

That's ludicrously paranoid. Scientists have been examining and re-examining the Viking Lander data for three decades, and many have questioned whether its results may have been scientifically flawed. There's been plenty of open dialogue and debate about it in the scientific community. There's no conspiracy to quash inquiry into the matter. Hell, if there were some goverment conspiracy to hide evidence of Martian life, why would the government have funded so many subsequent Martian probes over the past thirty years? The very notion is preposterous.

And if the Viking probes missed an opportunity by not getting to dig four inches deeper, that's just one of several ways in which they did so. A promising experiment for testing for life was left off the lander because it wasn't ready in time. An experiment that was used has been called into question within the past year or two -- it was suggested that its method for testing for life may have inadvertently destroyed any that was there. This is how science works -- trial and error. You miss things because you don't yet know what to look for or how to look for it. So you learn from your failure and try again with improved techniques. Failure is part of the process, not the result of some oogy-boogy conspiracy.

 

Bush shot off his mouth about returning to the Moon, but he never funded it.

The discovery of water is not enough to get the American public so excited about space exploration that a Moon mission will become politically viable right now.

 

Lots of NASA and other scientific research data has been classified for national security reasons over the years. Those probes were sent in the 70's... when we were still involved in the cold war. It might have been classified to prevent a conflict with the USSR to colonize mars.

It could also have been classified because the politicians in charge of the government didn't think that the US population was "ready for such information" because it was one further step in the chain to life outside of the planet... A heavy possibility for many to grasp for various reasons.

Also the very fact that there have been so many missions to mars to look for life could suggest that this info was already known and that they continued with the missions because of that. They knew there was something to find, they just had to find it.

I can agree with that, but I also don't trust the government not to pull a "classified results" move either.

 

A serious effort by the soviets to colonize Mars would of been a godsend for the American space program, regardless of who was in the oval office. The Russian's lacked the money, will and resources for such an enterprise.

Hopeful the Indian, Chinese and (maybe) the Russians will create the next generation of space technology. Then in a switch, we can build apon their successes.

I get the feeling we will be sitting the next inning out.


T'Girl

 

I wonder if any neighboring planets have energy resources which could be tapped into, or unfamiliar non-replicable resources which could be mined and used for industrial purposes.

Now, if somebody at NASA told the White House that they had discovered a way to build a big blaster nuke-ray weapon into one of those Mars craters, we'd be up there by the first of next month...