# Nasa Mars Press conference



## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

http://xkcd.com/1583/


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## J Riff (Sep 28, 2015)

AND so it begins...
Water Bears on Mars..... there is no water without WaterBears and others... and they get big and bigger again....and, of course... water on the surface means a lot more water underground.
Amazing. Sixty years been waiting for this. Sixty, not fifty. Well, maybe 55ish.... but we shall see how the lifeforms are dealt with...
Alternate/mainstream media crash ahead!
Wahoo.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

> An interesting consequence of the findings is that space agencies will now have some extra thinking to do about where they send future landers and rovers.
> 
> Current internationally agreed rules state that missions should be wary of going to places on Mars where there is likely to be liquid water.
> 
> A UK space agency expert on Mars landing sites, Dr Peter Grindrod, told BBC News: "Planetary protection states that we can't go anywhere there is liquid water because we can't sterilise our spacecraft well enough to guarantee we won't contaminate these locations. So if an RSL is found within the landing zone of a probe, then you can't land there."


http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34379284


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## J Riff (Sep 28, 2015)

Right. NO Earth germs, please!


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## Vertigo (Sep 28, 2015)

Interesting @Ray McCarthy, I hadn't realised we had imposed a restriction like that. Seems to be a bit of a dilemma. Places where there's water are going to be the places we all want to go and we're not allowed there. I can see the reasoning but they're going to have to find a solution.

In fairness we aren't talking an awful lot of liquid water and its probably only present on occasion; we are talking about a 'trickle' only and a highly salty trickle at that. Any life coming from this is going to be no more than microbial. But even just that would be an astounding discovery. If we find _any_ life in more than one location in the solar system then that ramps up the chances of multiple genesis enormously.


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## J Riff (Sep 28, 2015)

It's the door open a crack, should have happened in the 70s. Nevermind. Wonderful. Great. Say no more. Good old NASA, they are terrific front men, keep a straight face, and make some very nice spaceships.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

If  there's water ,  might be life of some sort ?


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

NASA better at publicity than ESA, CNES and Arianespace, all of which are very competent. I'd not like to say who has best launchers or makes clever probes or best use of budget. 

Note the failed Beagle was purely a UK craft.

Roscosmos don't have a good track record, but ironic they have the only passenger capsule for ISS currently.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> NASA better at publicity than ESA, CNES and Arianespace, all of which are very competent. I'd not like to say who has best launchers or makes clever probes or best use of budget.
> 
> Note the failed Beagle was purely a UK craft.
> 
> Roscosmos don't have a good track record, but ironic they have the only passenger capsule for ISS currently.



They need to send a probe and get a sample.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34379284




If we can't get close to the water how are we supposed analyze it?


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> If there's water , might be life of some sort ?


That's why we can't visit it, in case our "bugs" would wipe it out. We certainly have stuff that could survive.

I didn't know about the international protocol last June when I wrote original draft of "The Apprentice's Talent", when the Aliens are asked by Earth if their starship is supposed to set up colonies:
"Oh no," explained the Alien, "no-one colonises anywhere, because anywhere suitable already has its own life. The ship itself is a colony,  not a transport."


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> how are we supposed analyze it?


Presumably by staring at it hard from a safe distance (safe for any life already there).

It seems we HAVE changed as a species since the days of infecting North American and South American indigenous people with European diseases. We now worry about microbes.

Anything alive "eats". Some sort of excretion is typical. Lots of stuff "breathes", but not everything. So by remote spectrographic analysis over time you can deduce what might be living in the water, if anything.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> That's why we can't visit it, in case our "bugs" would wipe it out. We certainly have stuff that could survive.
> 
> I didn't know about the international protocol last June when I wrote original draft of "The Apprentice's Talent", when the Aliens are asked by Earth if their starship is supposed to set up colonies:
> "Oh no," explained the Alien, "no-one colonises anywhere, because anywhere suitable already has its own life. The ship itself is a colony,  not a transport."





They need to either modify or scrap that protocol altogether ,  That will prevent exploration , discovery and colonization.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Presumably by staring at it hard from a safe distance (safe for any life already there).
> 
> It seems we HAVE changed as a species since the days of infecting North American and South American indigenous people with European diseases. We now worry about microbes.




Confining ourselves to the Earth is an even bigger mistake.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> If life on earth had origins on mars


That's extremely unlikely. The likelihood is that life develops (somehow, evolution theory says nothing about origins*) separately.



BAYLOR said:


> They need to either modify scrap that protocol altogether


Perhaps modify when we are sure we can sterilize our probes and waldos/robotic explorers. Anything less is scientifically, morally and ethically irresponsible.

[Making life be seeded on Earth via Meteor from Mars or a Comet solves nothing, simply moves the "origin of life" problem somewhere else, so Occam's Razor would have us say that if there are good conditions for life, that's the place it somehow starts. We know ZERO about life anywhere other than Earth as we didn't find any yet, we don't know what is suitable on a Galactic scale. We only know about here, were every niche seems to have "life" tuned to utilise what's available to support it. Here is totally crazy packed, with life under Antarctic, tops of mountains, salt marsh, deep volcanic vents in ocean, boiling water. No wonder we are not confident on total sterilisation (the craft are more sterile than best operating theatre)]


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> That's extremely unlikely. The likelihood is that life develops (somehow, evolution theory says nothing about origins) separately.
> 
> 
> Perhaps modify when we are sure we can sterilize our probes and waldos/robotic explorers. Anything less is scientifically, morally and ethically irresponsible.




Because it might kill off the Microbes ?

If there were higher vertebrae or  true sentient Life on Mars that I would say don't go there.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> it might kill off the Microbes


We can't find out much if our bugs eat them.
We don't know what they might be in 200,000 years
We can't assume only higher vertebrates are the only important life.
What if a distributed bacteria is really one thing (like some plants here covering acres) and intelligent?  Probably not. But we know nothing. We can't be contaminating an alien ecosystem with our microbes.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> We can't find out much if our bugs eat them.
> We don't know what they might be in 200,000 years
> We can't assume only higher vertebrates are the only important life.
> What if a distributed bacteria is really one thing (like some plants here covering acres) and intelligent?  Probably not. But we know nothing. We can't be contaminating an alien ecosystem with our microbes.




Okay, fair enough.

I think an episode of *The Man From Atlantis *and *Star Trek* dealt with a similar concept.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> Confining ourselves to the Earth is an even bigger mistake.


Unless we build Generation Ships (vaguely feasible) or discover Jump Drive/Wormhole generation/Stargates/Warp drive or some FTL loop hole, we are stuck in the Solar system. So far none of it seems economically habitable. Even travel to Mars, or a possibly more inviting Jovian moon would be problematic with radiation en route and any base would need Earth supplied for perhaps 100s of years. It would be purely scientific and better done with rovers etc.

C.S. Lewis mused in 1940s that perhaps we are already in quarantine.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> dealt with a similar concept


Plenty of classic short SF examines the issues and the hazards both for us and "them".
- A woman scorned (is the entire world a "goddess"?). I think maybe 1 or 2 crew "join" and the rest leave.
- The story where all their stuff fails, starting with small gadgets
- Granger space pilot story series  and his mysterious symbiote (the wind)
- The world that seems to consist of a single species of grass like plant
- The one were they leave trash on Mars and next visit ...
Many many more. The TV shows get the ideas from books.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 28, 2015)

Also from the folks that bite the hand that feeds them
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/28/mars_has_water_in_summer/


> Perchlorates are very soluble in water, and their addition increases the temperature range of water on Mars. Pure water can exist only between zero and 10 degrees centigrade, but with perchlorates it can remain liquid between -70 degrees centigrade to 24 degrees.
> "Everywhere we go there's liquid water we find life," said Green. "This is tremendously exciting; we can't answer the question as to life being beyond Earth, but we now have the right locations to actually investigate that with surface assets."
> Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on the MRO, said that the chance of finding life in the subsurface of Mars is very high, and the odds have been strengthened by the new findings.
> Green said that there was still a lot of testing to do, both in the air and on the ground. The MRO has been in orbit for nine years and has still only scanned about 3-4 per cent of the Red Planet in high definition.


Either they mean 100 degrees, or perhaps due to low pressure water boils at 10 C on Mars?
EDIT: It's the low pressure, I think, 10 C is correct.


> Pure water can exist only between zero and 10 degrees


I'm sure they mean LIQUID water on Mars.


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

Ray McCarthy said:


> Unless we build Generation Ships (vaguely feasible) or discover Jump Drive/Wormhole generation/Stargates/Warp drive or some FTL loop hole, we are stuck in the Solar system. So far none of it seems economically habitable. Even travel to Mars, or a possibly more inviting Jovian moon would be problematic with radiation en route and any base would need Earth supplied for perhaps 100s of years. It would be purely scientific and better done with rovers etc.
> 
> C.S. Lewis mused in 1940s that perhaps we are already in quarantine.



I suspect  we're about 500 years away from those kinds of Technologies.


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## mosaix (Sep 28, 2015)

BAYLOR said:


> I suspect  we're about 500 years away from those kinds of Technologies.



So, suppose you had been alive in 1903 and watched the first heavier-than-air powered flight, how many years would you have said that we were away from landing on the Moon?


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## BAYLOR (Sep 28, 2015)

mosaix said:


> So, suppose you had been alive in 1903 and watched the first heavier-than-air powered flight, how many years would you have said that we were away from landing on the Moon?



Hm, excellent point  Mosaix.   Had I lived in 1903 I probably would have believed it would be 500 years till we reached the Moon.


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## Ray McCarthy (Sep 29, 2015)

Someone could announce a physics or mathematics this year that in theory allows starships, interstellar travel somehow. Then you have to figure a power source (1 to 20 years), design a prototype, build it, launch the bits, click them together in LEO, so if we figured out how to do interstellar travel this year a launch is at best 3 years from today (if an insanely important priority) and maybe at worst 20 years. But as we have no idea at all how to start (other than a Generation Ship, which is essentially a nuclear sub  in space big enough to carry a village, food production, manufacturing and raw materials, all nuclear powered, for hundreds of years), then any length of time is a guess.
The first liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen rocket motor was tested in 1930s, so some then thought a mission to Mars was 10 to 15 years away. Then WWII happened and the ideas where used in V1 and V2. The first successful British (yes the only people ever to achieve a launch to space and abandon it) Russian and American launches all based on the V2, the ideas for which developed in early 1930s. So the Russian moon rover and US manned moon landing straight development of early 1930 experiments and ideas.

On that basis, if we knew how to do Interstellar travel, then doing it might be 30 years later. OTH, if we are not having WWIII and it was a priority, it could be faster.


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## Stephen Palmer (Sep 29, 2015)

I also hadn't realised about the international "don't go to that part" agreement, so I googled _Are There Already Earth Bacteria On Mars?_ and found this. Fascinating.

I could also point out that 50 years ago James Lovelock realised that Mars' atmosphere of static equilibrium (as opposed to our own atmosphere of inequilibrium) suggests there's no life on Mars. That observation though was the seed of the Gaia Theory.


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## thaddeus6th (Sep 29, 2015)

Very interesting finding. Reminds me a little of the surprise around the ice formations and atmosphere of Pluto. Still lots of surprises to find in our own solar system (or planet, for that matter).

Edited extra bit: ages ago I remember hearing of early astronomers who thought there was a civilisation on Mars because they saw straight lines they thought were roads. I can't remember if that was an eyesight or telescopic issue, but if it weren't, I wonder if the 'roads' could've been river beds?


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## Stephen Palmer (Sep 29, 2015)

It was a mis-translation of the word canali, which means channel. They thought that meant canals.


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## thaddeus6th (Sep 29, 2015)

Ah, I didn't know that [well, obviously  ].

That's quite fitting.


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