Lake of liquid water detected beneath surface of Mars

[skepticalbip]

The Pacific Ocean has dried up? How is this not headline news?

How is a govt study that LA will tun short of water in a few decasdes not news? We look up ignoring what is at our feet.

LA is at the seaside.

It will never run short of water. It may run short of sweet water if no adequate desalination facilities are made available, but even than Martian water won't help. Even unprocessed, the waters of the Pacific Ocean are a thousand times closer to being potable that whatever brine lakes we may find on Mars.

If past LA government foresight and "planning" can be any guide, then I think it would be a good bet that nothing will be done to insure adequate potable water will be available in the future until they experience a major water crisis. The most likely solution they will decide on at that point will be to demand that the federal government take care of it.

 

[Lion IRC]

I think it is plausible that it is water. I think NASA should make a plan to check it out. Maybe they will have to wait to build the new Space Force first though.

Why are we spending an obscene amount of money looking for water on Mars when millions of people on Earth lack clean water?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I think it is plausible that it is water. I think NASA should make a plan to check it out. Maybe they will have to wait to build the new Space Force first though.

Why are we spending an obscene amount of money looking for water on Mars when millions of people on Earth lack clean water?

So you think govts should only ever fund the highest priority item and nothing else?
[/derail]

 

[Lion IRC]

Govts should only ever fund the highest priority item and nothing else

So you're saying Martians are communists?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think it is plausible that it is water. I think NASA should make a plan to check it out. Maybe they will have to wait to build the new Space Force first though.

Why are we spending an obscene amount of money looking for water on Mars when millions of people on Earth lack clean water?

You seem to be under the misimpression that we don’t know where water is on Earth.

 

[Lion IRC]

I think it is plausible that it is water. I think NASA should make a plan to check it out. Maybe they will have to wait to build the new Space Force first though.

Why are we spending an obscene amount of money looking for water on Mars when millions of people on Earth lack clean water?

You seem to be under the misimpression that we don’t know where water is on Earth.

You seem to be under the 'misimpression' that expressing yourself in the third person ratchets up the volume. Of course 'we' don't know where water is on Earth.

 

[bilby]

You seem to be under the misimpression that we don’t know where water is on Earth.

You seem to be under the 'misimpression' that expressing yourself in the third person ratchets up the volume.

OK; Why are you spending an obscene amount of money looking for water on Mars?





Goose sauce = Gander sauce.

 

[Treedbear]

I think it is plausible that it is water. I think NASA should make a plan to check it out. Maybe they will have to wait to build the new Space Force first though.

Why are we spending an obscene amount of money looking for water on Mars when millions of people on Earth lack clean water?

Think of it as the search for the holy grail. Finding water possibly means finding extraterrestrial origins for life. The grail is a pretty good analogy. Searching for solid evidence of the crucible of life so to speak. Mankind's search for meaning. Finding life on Mars would open new horizons for the imagination of what could be. It would no longer be simply science fiction.

Down there by the river is a man whose horn is twisted into shapes
unknown to the wicked and the wise
and he bears the look of an animal who has seen things
no animal should ever see
He has been driven beyond all towns and all systems until now
and though it is long past too far he keeps going
Because it's a desert,
Because it's a desert.

come to the river, we'll walk away from all this now
come to the water, we'll walk away from all this now

From Flying Cowboys, by Ricky Lee Jones

 

[fromderinside]

Lists

Things important to survival

Things important to human space travel

Can these even exist on the same ranking list?

 

[Lion IRC]

Think of it as the search for the holy grail. Finding water possibly means finding extraterrestrial origins for life. The grail is a pretty good analogy. Searching for solid evidence of the crucible of life so to speak. Mankind's search for meaning. Finding life on Mars would open new horizons for the imagination of what could be. It would no longer be simply science fiction.

Holy grail...meaning of life?
That strikes me as quasi-religious.

 

[Emily Lake]

Lists

Things important to survival

Things important to human space travel

Can these even exist on the same ranking list?

Wouldn't that logic require that nobody in the US be given a government research grant or scholarship until everyone on the planet had adequate food and housing?

 

[Treedbear]

Think of it as the search for the holy grail. Finding water possibly means finding extraterrestrial origins for life. The grail is a pretty good analogy. Searching for solid evidence of the crucible of life so to speak. Mankind's search for meaning. Finding life on Mars would open new horizons for the imagination of what could be. It would no longer be simply science fiction.

Holy grail...meaning of life?
That strikes me as quasi-religious.

That's because I was trying to appeal to your way of thinking. You asked why we spend resources looking for water on Mars. I'm saying that what we have in common as human beings is the desire for meaning. We naturally want to know what makes us what we are. Atheists look to science. Theists look to God. Finding evidence for God might feel more secure to you, while science is an unending quest, but it would be a tremendous milestone if it was discovered that life actually arose elsewhere. Similar to finding the grail or validating that the shroud of Turin is real. The emptiness of space would seem less of a desert, just as the dry and dusty words of scripture would come more alive. That's why.

 

[bilby]

Lists

Things important to survival

Things important to human space travel

Can these even exist on the same ranking list?

Wouldn't that logic require that nobody in the US be given a government research grant or scholarship until everyone on the planet had adequate food and housing?

Indeed. In fact, the logical conclusion is that nobody on the planet should do ANYTHING other than produce food and build houses, until everyone on the planet had adequate food and housing.

The deep flaw in this idea is, of course, that quality of life for everybody is improved (often dramatically) by the eventual results of often apparently frivolous research. All of reality 'hangs together', and no discovery, invention, theory, or observation exists in isolation from the rest of human endeavour.

In order to find water on Mars, we are forced to develop tools, techniques, ideas, theories and mechanisms that may well have far wider reaching applications than we can even dream of.

Galileo and Copernicus could reasonably have been chastised for wasting their lives on questions about the shape of the Earth, and the movement of celestial objects, when they should instead have been trying to help feed the starving masses.

But today, their work is of foundational importance in allowing massive farms to use GPS navigation, so that automated harvesters can produce food for thousands of people, with just one or two people to operate them. Nobody in Medieval Europe could have foreseen that.

Nobody today can foresee what huge benefits our space programs might have for humans hundreds of years from now. But so far, we have yet to develop a technology that has zero impact on humanity, and the VAST majority of that impact has been hugely positive, which is why ordinary middle class people have a better life today than the richest kings and emperors of the Middle Ages. And if you doubt that claim, just consider whether Henry VIII had access to a water closet and soft toilet paper - and then try living for a week without either.

There is a lot to be gained from apparently frivolous, but technically difficult, activities. Like exploring Mars, or even building a Death Star.

 

[steve_bank]

As soon as we get to Mars there will be genuine Mars water in the stores.

The NASA budget is not extravagant. The GAO has constently reported that NASA trickle down generates more taxes than the budget.

We do have a problem not paying attention to immediate critical needs. In the 60s the space program inspired my generation, a can do nothing impossible attitude.

In its time Hubble was spectacular. We need a space program. Private enterprise is beginning to get into space. I do not see any need to go to or colonize Mars at least not funded by taxes..

The only reason to leave LEO is asteroid interception.

 

[DBT]

Small scale outposts on the Moon and Mars would be nice.