Mars Is Practically Drenched in Water

[wulfy42]

First 3% is a tiny amount, it's nothing compared to the percentage of H20 on earth. That being said, it's still huge because any amount of water means you can set up a base on the planet much easier (since you need to transplant much less materials). Mars has nearly the same gravity as earth, which means you could have humans live in enclosed bases...and resupply with water/minerals etc from outside (instead of from Earth). That is pretty big...especially if you had machines etc that you used to slowly terraform the planet till you actually had a breathable atmosphere for humans (Which would take a long time...but at least has some possibility if you can have manned stations there.

The moon is our construction base basically...or should be. The order of steps pretty much should be:

Decent sized space station revolving around earth for construction of items and storage before transportation to the moon.

Moon base (enclosed decent sized base on the moon with atmosphere) and mining operations on the moon (allowing you to construct space ships and get them into space without having to use all the fuel it takes to get them out of the earths atmosphere).

Mars colonization (initially within enclosed bases, but slowly work to terraform mars over time, using both resources from earth and the moon).

That would be the long term plans pretty much...but we are not even close to the first stage yet (decent sized space station for construction) and have no current plans at all for setting stations on the moon, or mining for metals/minerals etc there.

The news about mars is promising though as it drastically reduces the amount of resources we would have to send in order to have people stay on mars for an extended period of time. Considering how long it takes to get there/back...this is extremely important. In fact, we could send robotic units to collect materials and store it in advance (much like the rover)....so that when we did finally send a manned ship...there would be plenty of supplies to be picked up and used when they got there.

It's great news.....if we were actually moving in a direction at all that could use it right now. As it is....it's not just us that won't see any of this being used in our lifetimes......nobody alive (even babies) will probably see it.

 

[Yuuki]

Curiosity has an internal oven that can heat stuff up to 835c? Am I the only one who is amazed by this more than Mars having more water than we thought?

 

[Killclaw Kilrathi]

Think of all arguments future people will have "should people live off planet?", "who owns Mars (to enforce laws etc?) .... Maybe further into the future will relationships be an issue again? We've got a little passed inter-racial and we are currently getting gay marriage accepted, will inter-species be another polarising issue that will be accepted eventually?

It's an interesting prospect. Personally I think that if relationships with alien species ever becomes an issue, all the debates about gay relationships will evaporate overnight. Even the most right leaning religious people will turn their attention to the new "abomination", it will be a curious political landscape where you might find the most out and proud gay people lining up with Westboro types to denounce alien lovers as the most hideous thing ever. Mutual hatred towards another group is ironically a pretty unifying thing.

Personally though, I'm all for going all Captain Kirk on other civilizations. Sex on a first date? Try sex on first contact!

Oh, erm... yeah. Water on Mars. That's pretty cool too.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Dibs, I call dibs on that water, you all heard me right? International rule of dibs still applies when we're talking about stuff on other planets right? Who cares dibs.

 

[prpshrt]

Calling it: Mars's surface is a secret cover for a planet that's innards are actually made of water, where Mermaid like creatures live planning to strike the Earth.

This is pretty neat news, actually.

More like keep us out of there. Why invade our crappy planet? Honestly humans suck

 

[TotalerKrieger]

Delete

 

[jesse220]

Curiosity has an internal oven that can heat stuff up to 835c? Am I the only one who is amazed by this more than Mars having more water than we thought?

That was my first reaction too! My second reaction was, I wonder if it carries around a little frozen meal just in case it does come across intelligent life and doesn't want to be rude. Imagine it, "People of Mars! The human race has developed incredibly sophisticated technology in order to bridge the vast distances between our planets. And, we brought lasagna!"

 

[RaNDM G]

That's impressive enough, but what's really exciting is how well the soil has retained the water and how easily it can be retrieved. If NASA ever gets around to building that Martian settlement, astronauts should be able to use the soil water as a drinkable resource. After it's taken care of the sulphur dioxide and toxic chemicals, of course.

Drinkable water may be out of the question, but with enough CO[small]2[/small] in the atmosphere that can be valuable farmland.

The only matter is dragging an entire planet closer to the Sun, but we still have 800 million years to get the technology down.

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

I'm pretty sure there was a Doctor Who episode where a group of scientists working at a Mars based research facility began turning into a mindless zombies after drinking Martian water.

This will be our reward should Martian settlers fail to listen to the wisdom of Doctor Who.

How did I bloody know someone was going to reference THAT?!?

 

[thiosk]

And if it's a lot of water why isn't it pooling anywhere.

This is a great question, and it has to do with the way water can stick inside certain materials. Just like a sponge can soak up liquid water into all its many holes and passageways, so too can a rock trap individual molecules in within ever smaller pores.

Crank up the temperature to 600-800 C or so, and all those locked-in molecules go POOF- free gaseous water.

 

[Teoes]

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/img/big-idea/mars.jpg

It's stuff like that that makes me the saddest for having a puny mortal lifespan. Back to the research to get my consciousness uploaded to the internets..

 

[RyQ_TMC]

To the people asking why not the moon first? Helium-3. Mars has it. The moon not so much. We thought it had it but it turns out to be too sparsely pocketed for a profitable mining operation. If we ever get fusion working, the stuff is gonna be the new oil. Granted all those valuable rocks on moon are worth chasing, but just remember that if we want Helium-3, Mars is the closest place that has it.

You mean... You mean we will never build GERTY?

Now you made me sad.

Calling it: Mars's surface is a secret cover for a planet that's innards are actually made of water, where Mermaid like creatures live planning to strike the Earth.

Until they perfect their rendition of "Under the Sea", we're good.

 

[james.sponge]

This is amazing, curiosity is really changing our perception of Mars. This mission might be the first step to eventual colonization of the planet!

Meanwhile media is occupied with sports, celebrity news and meaningless politics -.-

 

[Nikolaz72]

and screw NASA...lets talk geological survey and selling claims to private enterprise...we have to monetise the process beyond the scientific research...

Well.. The problem with selling it to private enterprises is.. Nobody owns it, so nobody can sell it. And the Private Enterpises can't claim it. Because nobody can own it.

If any nation that agreed upon those rules decides to break the agreed upon treaty that no-one can claim ownership of things in space. That nation is gonna be incredibly unpopular to such a degree that all the Helium3 on Mars would not be able to make up for it.

Hence selling claims to private enterprises is pretty much impossible. That has not stopped private enterprises from trying to gather funds to establish colonies/mine asteroids but, well.. Its illegal. So if they ever gather enough money and start doing it they will most likely be stopped. By the space police we would have to found to stop people from doing that if they ever start doing that.

No doubt privatization might make us reach those places faster. But being impatient would just cause us hiccups later anyway.

 

[O maestre]

Imagine if the world focused all its resources in the pursuit of space exploration, it is a shame that something with such potential benefit is being borderline neglected. The only major international space missions being conducted are in Kazakhstan.

 

[omega 616]

snip.

This is getting a little off topic but I think in the next 100 years or so gay and inter-racial won't be an issue. Look how quickly we have gone from black people being sub-human to being respected (I am by no means saying race issues are a thing of the past but they can ride the same bus as whites and aren't property any more).

Being anything other than heterosexual was a huge no no, now there are gay prides and gay marriages. They still get a phenomenal amount of abuse but things are getting better.

Just a thought that will there be a "can humans date aliens" ... What will the aliens say about it? Will they be all for it? All against it? Will they be split about it?

Just sad I will never be a part of that discussion.

 

[Exterminas]

I don't think NASA will ever get around to settling the Mars. Frankly, ever since the cold war ended, NASA's influence on Space Travel only seems to have decreased.

At this point I actually put my money on that obscene Mars One-Project, even though it is almost certainly going to end like a crossover of Cannibal Holocaust and Event Horizon.

Also: What exactly would be the benefit of colonizing mars? It's not like we have run out of hostile living space and impractically expensive resource deposits here on earth.