Well, not really. NASA has, however, found light-toned gullies in a Martian crater that have appeared some time between 2001 and 2006. While the natural assumption is that such changes would be caused by moving dust, confirmed sightings of moving dust (such as those created by the Mars rovers) have resulted in dark colourations rather than light ones, and the patterns of the gullies resemble the kind normally caused by running water. Presumably, if there’s the occasional bit of water spurting out of the surface, there should be more liquid water underground. And where there’s water, there’s the chance of life.
The spacecraft responsible for these observations, the Mars Global Surveyor, lost contact with Earth early in November. However, at almost precisely the same time, a new craft, the Mars Reconnaisssance Orbiter, began the scientific phase of its mission after the long trip from Earth. The new craft’s telescope, HiRISE, can resolve details as small as 30 centimetres across – roughly one-fifth that of the Global Surveyor’s camera.
Who knows what other secrets the MRO, and the other Mars probes due to launch, will reveal? And what will humans find if we ever put together the budget (piffling, compared to what’s just been wasted on the Iraq war) to go look for ourselves?
This is so totally cool, and I’d just like to point out how well the unmanned research stuff is going, thet’s where the money should be going, not silly star wars fantasies.
Unmanned research gives the best research value right now, no doubt…
…but humans on Mars would really stir excitement and renew popular interest in space exploration.
Love the headline
Phil, broad-range surveying can clearly be done much more efficiently by automated probes. But if you wanted to conduct a detailed investigation of the location, nothing beats humans.
This is particularly the case when you get anywhere beyond lunar orbit, because the round-trip transmission time means that exploration can only be done at a pace that your average snail would find insufferably tedious. When you have a human in the loop who can make simple decisions without having to radio back to Earth, that alone will increase the productivity of any exploration effort by orders of magnitude. And there’s plenty of things you simply can’t do with robots.
Mind you, the manned space program has been its own worst enemy. The Space Shuttle was a complete camel of a program, the ISS has achieved nothing but make-work for Russian rocket scientists, and now the return to the moon seems to be putting the cart before the horse. You choose scientific goals then build infrastructure to support them. NASA seems to be planning infrastructure first, then worrying about the science. That gives you ISS all over again.
Headline of the year!
If there’s any truth to the rumour that Dolly Downer is a blog aficionado (I guess reading blogs means you don’t have time to read cables), then we might find out soon that Rudd in his cunning plan to inflict water shortages on Australia hid it there:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/buckets-dumped-on-rudd-over-dam-plan/2006/12/06/1165081020292.html
This is very cool.
This comparison of photographs is an eloquent demonstration of one enduring principle, first enunciated by Werner von Braun in the forties: the only thing wrong with human rocketry programmes is that so many of them are designed to hit the wrong planet.
finding water on mars, and maybe life, is cool. and world-historical.
but recent media about the proposed (unfunded) moon-station being a stepping stone to settling mars is misguided IMHO.
in about 10 years (before the moon-station gets underway) the terrestrial planet finder will be finding earth-sized water/oxygen planets within 20 lightyears of earth. why would we bother going to mars?
“Once ze rockets go up
who cares where zey come down
zat’s not my department
says Werner von Braun”
Because of the 20 light year business?
The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one.
Is there life on Mars?
There’s spiders, certainly.
Crickets?
Wait, that’s too tortuous even for bring back gp on the abc
*slaps wrist*
Mars Attacks!
“Because of the 20 light year business?”
and terraforming mars is so easy?
Rogs, dude. Slap down a plexiglass dome, and you’re 3/4 done!
Let us all know how you go with the interstellar travel.
And don’t let Pauly Shore come with you.
Maybe not, Rogs, but at least we have a handle on the physics that might be involved. As far as I know, there is nothing even dreamt of that could propel a vehicle at more than a minute fraction of lightspeed, with the result that 20 light years would take thousands of years to traverse.
Yes, and that goes for Vilos Cohaagen too.
Arnie for President of Mars!!!
The fastest propulsion possible with absolutely known technology is nuclear pulse propulsion – the politically correct way of describing pushing a spacecraft along by setting off nuclear weapons behind it. Yes, this can probably be made to work. No, I don’t expect it to be implemented any time soon. It gets you maybe 1-2% of the speed of light.
Beyond that, you’re left with speculative possibilities like fusion drives, colossal light sails pushed along by enormous lasers focussed with equally enormous mirrors, or even cosmic slingshots made out of carbon nanotubes, and magnetic sails to slow down at the other end. Antimatter might be workable for uncrewed probes, but the colossal expense of collecting the tiny quantities available naturally, or manufacturing it in accelerators, makes it pretty unlikely for crewed exploration.
Doable in the centuries hence, sure. Doable in anybody here’s lifetime? Unlikely.
And don’t let Leslie Nielsen on board.