Nasa Mars Press conference

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

 

[BAYLOR]

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.

 

[mosaix]

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?

 

[BAYLOR]

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.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

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.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

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.

 

[thaddeus6th]

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?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

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

 

[thaddeus6th]

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

That's quite fitting.