wow, global warming is worse than we thought.

[saggs]

Okay sorry I was speaking about Mariners 6 and 7 and subsequent visits by Viking.

No there has never been water on the surface of Mars. I dont know where you got that except in fanciful pre-mission predictments.

I got it from the data collected by the Martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity.  How long ago where Mariner and Viking? How good where their instruments?

C'mon man get with the 21st century.  Your quoting out of a book, which is one mans opinion, regarding data from missions that are 30-35 yrs old.

Do me a favor, go to http://scholar.google.com and do a search for "water on Mars" or "Chondrules on Mars" or similar searches and you will find dozens and dozens of recent peer-reviewed papers based on the rover data.  There is overwhelming agreement that there was once vast oceans on the surface of Mars.

[Angus]

Oceans of what?
Anyway, the 21'st century seems so far to be inable to send a man to the moon 

[bozon]

Oceans of what?
Anyway, the 21'st century seems so far to be inable to send a man to the moon 

Wait till the Chinese send a few men into space. Suddenly NASA will be flooded in cash to beat them on a second race to the moon/mars.

[bozon]

E25280 - according to what I have read a few billion years would just get us to the point where stars can begin to form... but who is counting? 200 billion or 3 billion is all the same when you live only about 100 years.

We see galaxies forming stars about 1 billion years after the big bang. 3 billion years after the bang is the peak of the star formation rate in the universe. It also seems like all galaxies started roughly at the same time but the more massive ones built their stars faster.

[CAP1]

We see galaxies forming stars about 1 billion years after the big bang. 3 billion years after the bang is the peak of the star formation rate in the universe. It also seems like all galaxies started roughly at the same time but the more massive ones built their stars faster.

yea, but if we don't stop global warming, this galaxy is all going to be destroyed....all because of us.

[allaire]

Okay sorry I was speaking about Mariners 6 and 7 and subsequent visits by Viking.

The Mariners to Mars took pictures if the surface, found that the pressure was 1% that of Earth's, and that the temperature was far below the freezing point of water.  They didn't land to take any samples.  The Viking project was the pretty much the only successful probes to reach the Mars surface and carry out their mission, at the time.  The Russian beat the US on getting projects to Mars but the lander portions either missed, crashed, or failed shortly after landing.  Most didn't even take any pictures.  None worked long enough to run any on board experiments or use the rovers that were on 2 of them.  As I and others have stated the thought of the surface of Mars being self-sterilizing due to the presence of oxidizing compounds, is Murray's opinion.

[saggs]

Oceans of what?

H2o, there is a ton of geological data collected by the rovers which backs this up, also many scientist now believe that there is frozen water under the Martian poles right now.

Anyway, the 21'st century seems so far to be inable to send a man to the moon 

It's not that we're unable, it's that we lack the motivation / commitment to do so.

[MORAY37]

it seems that we're warming the earth so much, that we're warming other planets too. 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006GL028764.shtml

It's hilarious, the flip flop.  The same guy who challenges the data collection on earth, through direct observation from weather stations, now posts something to support his opinion, using indirect temperature observations on a planet currently 135 million miles away.

 

[Chalenge]

I got it from the data collected by the Martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity.  How long ago where Mariner and Viking? How good where their instruments?

C'mon man get with the 21st century.  Your quoting out of a book, which is one mans opinion, regarding data from missions that are 30-35 yrs old.

Do me a favor, go to http://scholar.google.com and do a search for "water on Mars" or "Chondrules on Mars" or similar searches and you will find dozens and dozens of recent peer-reviewed papers based on the rover data.  There is overwhelming agreement that there was once vast oceans on the surface of Mars.

Everyone of those papers are based on evidence that has been REFUTED by experiments performed on the surface of Mars and are even more outdated than actual water on Mars. This is the concept of Percival Lowell for crying out load. Its dead.

Sorry but you cannot say that the 'opinion' of the man actually involved in the projects exploring the surface are overwritten by the 'opinions' of what amounts to 'sci-fi' writers attempting to resurrect their own laboratories long since outdated by the missions themselves.

Mars is dead and we have almost no reason to go there let alone send men there.

[Angus]

Not to mention that we still have trouble calibrating the data from our own planet.....

[bozon]

It's hilarious, the flip flop.  The same guy who challenges the data collection on earth, through direct observation from weather stations, now posts something to support his opinion, using indirect temperature observations on a planet currently 135 million miles away.

He is not disputing the data about earth getting warmer (even acknowledges it), only the "man made" and CO2 interpretations,  at least in the national geographic link. But it is true that his own interpretations are based on weak arguments.

Mars is dead and we have almost no reason to go there let alone send men there.

There was no real reason to go to the moon either. The "man on mars" is just a mile stone in a much larger and ambitious plan to be able to exploit space for our needs. If we decide we need to mine in space or build telescopes on the moon or blow up an incoming asteroid the current technological leap is too great. A space program is intended to gradually advance such technologies and/or at least preserve current practical know-how. There is also a huge amount of side benefits from these technologies spreading to other, unexpected earthly technologies. Continuation is critical - soon all the original people who worked on the space program will be retired old seniles and young engineers will have to re-invent everything and go through the same mistakes the elders did.

Man on mars is something easier to sell to the public. A clear short term goal is a good way to advance a very long term project. The real thing is manned space flight regardless of the immediate destination. Sometimes a very broad vision, beyond next year's budget and share holders whines is required and the private market is not likely to be able to make such big leaps on its own.

[Angus]

I'd vote for "RETURN TO THE MOON" for the beginning. Mars is a massively bigger project, and the word is that we cannot afford the moon anyway.....

[321BAR]

Taken from the Merriam-Webster site.

Combustion

Main Entry: com·bus·tion
Pronunciation: \kəm-ˈbəs-chən\
Function: noun
Date: 15th century

1 : an act or instance of burning
2 : a usually rapid chemical process (as oxidation) that produces heat and usually light; also : a slower oxidation (as in the body)
3 : violent agitation : tumult

Taken fromhttp://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jplhistory/voyage/index.php

"The nuclear-powered landers carried instruments for meteorology, seismology, magnetic studies and imaging. They also carried a set of biological experiments intended to detect life. The life detection experiments were the most popular aspect of the Vikings and the most controversial. The results were ambiguous. JPL's director, Bruce Murray, believed that the experiments had shown the surface was so oxidizing that it was self-sterilizing, meaning nothing could grow there. A minority of Murray's colleagues disagreed. No further life-oriented experiments have reached Mars as of 2006, so this controversy is unresolved."

Also the Viking probes weren't launched until 1975. 

WHAT ARE WE BURNING?!?!?!?!?

[AKH]

It's hilarious, the flip flop.  The same guy who challenges the data collection on earth, through direct observation from weather stations, now posts something to support his opinion, using indirect temperature observations on a planet currently 135 million miles away.

 

Please Moray, don't jump to conclusions.  He may be using the well accepted heating-a/c usage and billing method.  There is a rumour that Singer, Ball, et al are proposing that HACUB be made an interplanetary standard.

[saggs]

Everyone of those papers are based on evidence that has been REFUTED by experiments performed on the surface of Mars and are even more outdated than actual water on Mars. This is the concept of Percival Lowell for crying out load. Its dead.

Sorry but you cannot say that the 'opinion' of the man actually involved in the projects exploring the surface are overwritten by the 'opinions' of what amounts to 'sci-fi' writers attempting to resurrect their own laboratories long since outdated by the missions themselves.

Mars is dead and we have almost no reason to go there let alone send men there.

 

You're crackin' me up man, you're still talking about experiments done 30+ yrs ago.  I'm talking about a mission and data collected 3-6 yrs ago.   I suppose you'll tell me we never went to the moon in '69 either.

You go call up JPL and tell Steve Squyres and the other scientists who ran the rover missions, that they are what was it " 'sci-fi' writers attempting to resurrect their own laboratories long since outdated by the missions themselves" OK.  I'm sure they'll be pleased to know that they are all wrong and the data collected and experiments conducted on their mission between 2-6 yrs ago, are superseded by ones done over 30yrs ago.

Did you pay attention to nothing that Spirit and Opportunity did?  NASA's announcement that they had almost unquestionably proven Mars once had liquid water was big news, 4-5 yrs ago.  Where you under a rock then?

If there was never liquid water on Mars then explain how these concretions, (photographed and analyzed by Spirit) formed.



And frozen water on Mars is now a FACT confirmed by NASA's  Phoenix Mars lander in 2008.  Read about it here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080620.html

Pictures of ice receding through sublimation on Mars


notice the little ice chunks in the lower left corner of the trench disappearing.

JPL and NASA are right, you are wrong.  There is water on Mars.   Sorry.



EDIT: I wrote chondrules in my previous post, I meant concretions.  I got my little bb like spheres mixed up.