Science/Environment Mars Colonisation

[centrelink1]

You must remember that advancements in spacecraft lead to advancements in nuclear weapons, something that the US pour money into already.

Besides, do people realise how shit that journey would be? Life in zero gravity is terrible, and a ridiculously strenuous exercise regime would be necessary to ensure you could return to any gravity. As well as that, there's no question of sex or wanking whilst in space. You won't have the blood flow for that.

As well as that, there is no chance of rescue if something ****s up. Lets say you're going at 0.1 times the speed of light. If you're half way to Mars, and you have a failure, you are screwed. Rescue from Earth is impossible, as a ship from earth would have to go 0.2 times the speed of light just to intercept you at Mars.

Having said all that, I'd still consider it.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

It wouldn't be that hard to resupply Mars. Ice Road Truckers could do it surely.

 

[Sloth]

Which is your preferred scientific discovery...either:

1. bacterial or other microscopic life currently living on Mars.

or

2. long dead fossils of large animals discovered on Mars.


I think 2 would be more exciting

 

[evo]

It wouldn't be that hard to resupply Mars. Ice Road Truckers could do it surely.

Those guys can deliver anywhere!

 

[Malifice]

Which is your preferred scientific discovery...either:

1. bacterial or other microscopic life currently living on Mars.

or

2. long dead fossils of large animals discovered on Mars.


I think 2 would be more exciting

How about a 3?

Intellegent life hiding under the surface.

 

[Kim Hagdorn]

1. bacterial or other microscopic life currently living on Mars.

or

2. long dead fossils of large animals discovered on Mars.

Either would be just about the biggest news ever, I'd say number 2 would definitely be a more fascinating discovery though.

 

[Dagger5]

Colonisation of Callisto or Saturn would be the ultimate goal so you have to start somewhere and thats where the Moon and Mars come along.

I think Titan or Europa would have a larger probability of hosting traces of life than Mars.

 

[Sloth]

I think Titan or Europa would have a larger probability of hosting traces of life than Mars.

Enceladus is the place

 

[The Passenger]

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space.html

one of the more interesting speeches on space... particularly the last five minutes.

 

[nut]

Wasn't Mars the last planet we f....d??? then we moved to earth???

 

[Kim Hagdorn]

Wasn't Mars the last planet we f....d??? then we moved to earth???

Nah, that was Venus with the runaway greenhouse effect.

 

[Sloth]

NASA to hold press conference tomorrow on ET Life

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/has-nasa-found-life-beyond-earth-20101202-18h0w.html

I'd say they've found evidence of ET, (but not proof of ET)

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Which is your preferred scientific discovery...either:

1. bacterial or other microscopic life currently living on Mars.

or

2. long dead fossils of large animals discovered on Mars.


I think 2 would be more exciting

3. Human remains.


Would blow all of our minds.

 

[Malifice]

3. Human remains.


Would blow all of our minds.

Not mine.

I expect any life found out there to be remarkably similar to Earth based life.

Not identical mind you, but remarkably similar.

 

[Niximus]

Not mine.

I expect any life found out there to be remarkably similar to Earth based life.

Not identical mind you, but remarkably similar.

Depends on what you mean by similar.

I'd expect extraterrestrial life to be either so different that we'd struggle at first to recognise it as life or reasonably similar in that it may use different chemistry but there are some things that I think would be common

-Legs/wings/fins - things will need to get around and evolution finds efficient ways of doing this.

- Orifaces - gas/liquid exchange would be common I'd think

- Sense organs - Eyes, ears are something I think evolution would favour in most places.

 

[Malifice]

Depends on what you mean by similar.

Carbon based, asymetrical, Right hand amino acids, DNA etc.

No floating balls of ionized gas, left hand amino acids, RNA or hydrocarbon based organic life for example.

 

[skilts]

I think it preferable to colonise Polly Waffle. At least they float in swimming pools.

 

[cancat]

Legs/wings/fins - things will need to get around and evolution finds efficient ways of doing this.

- Orifaces - gas/liquid exchange would be common I'd think

- Sense organs - Eyes, ears are something I think evolution would favour in most places.

We need to think long term. Life has been in that general direction since the Cambrian but there was 3000 million years of life on earth before that - that was different. And within a million years forward life on earth may evolve into something we can't yet conceive. Life on other planets may be following a similar path to us but be nothing like current life on earth because they are at a different phase in their evolution.

 

[Pie eyed]

We need to think long term. Life has been in that general direction since the Cambrian but there was 3000 million years of life on earth before that - that was different. And within a million years forward life on earth may evolve into something we can't yet conceive. Life on other planets may be following a similar path to us but be nothing like current life on earth because they are at a different phase in their evolution.

Life as we know it, if it evolved on a planet like mars, in it's current orbit and under similar conditions to an early earth, which mars supposedly had at some stage, would be vastly different I think, yet it's basic building blocks would be extremely similar if not the same.

 

[evo]

Life as we know it, if it evolved on a planet like mars, in it's current orbit and under similar conditions to an early earth, which mars supposedly had at some stage, would be vastly different I think, yet it's basic building blocks would be extremely similar if not the same.

NASA has discovered a new life form, a bacteria called GFAJ-1 that is unlike anything currently living in planet Earth. It's capable of using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything. Updated.

NASA is saying that this is "life as we do not know it". The reason is that all life on Earth is made of six components: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

That was true until today. In a surprising revelation, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon and her team have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today, working differently than the rest of the organisms in the planet. Instead of using phosphorus, the newly discovered microorganism—called GFAJ-1 and found in Mono Lake, California—uses the poisonous arsenic for its building blocks. Arsenic is an element poisonous to every other living creature in the planet except for a few specialized microscopic creatures.


http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-fin...d:+gizmodo/full+(Gizmodo)&utm_content=Twitter

 

[Pie eyed]

NASA has discovered a new life form, a bacteria called GFAJ-1 that is unlike anything currently living in planet Earth. It's capable of using arsenic to build its DNA, RNA, proteins, and cell membranes. This changes everything. Updated.

NASA is saying that this is "life as we do not know it". The reason is that all life on Earth is made of six components: Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same.

That was true until today. In a surprising revelation, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon and her team have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today, working differently than the rest of the organisms in the planet. Instead of using phosphorus, the newly discovered microorganism—called GFAJ-1 and found in Mono Lake, California—uses the poisonous arsenic for its building blocks. Arsenic is an element poisonous to every other living creature in the planet except for a few specialized microscopic creatures.


http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-fin...d:+gizmodo/full+(Gizmodo)&utm_content=Twitter

I was just reading about that last night.

Physicists have also just discovered evidence of a new particle as well. A fourth flavour of neutrino which could explain dark matter.

 

[Malifice]

Well there you go.

I was wrong.

I was expecting even extraterrestial life to be carbon based, yet here we are with an arsenic based life form in our very backyard.

Fascinating.

Its almost certain that this lifeform does not share a common ancestor with all other biological life on Earth.

Now that has some massive implications.

 

[cancat]

Its almost certain that this lifeform does not share a common ancestor with all other biological life on Earth.

Now that has some massive implications.

You mean all other biological life on Earth that we are aware of. It could be that there have been many streams of life and evolution that have hit dead ends without trace. Or it could be that now we have found this new type of life we will find similar species.

 

[Malifice]

You mean all other biological life on Earth that we are aware of. It could be that there have been many streams of life and evolution that have hit dead ends without trace. Or it could be that now we have found this new type of life we will find similar species.

Depends on the 'origins' of life on earth.

Inert star dust then... Life.

The two leading theories are all life arose homogenous to Earth, transitioning from stardust to a single organism (the first organism), as opposed to the 'seeding via meteor' theory.

Basically inanimate carbon (combined with a series of chemical reactions) formed the first living organism. From that organism, we spread across the globe, and via evolution and natural selection... well here we are.

This is what makes this discovery fascinating. It appears as if Arsenic has also (independently of everything else) also spontaneously decided to 'come alive'.

Its almost impossible that a carbon based life form developed an evolutionary quirk at some stage to diverge into an Arsenic based one.

Far more probable that the two forms of life (carbon and arsenic) arose seperate and independent from each other. Whether that happened on Earth, or the Arsenic (or less probable, carbon based) life was deposited here via asteroid, is an open question.

This also carries implications for other carbon based life on Earth... do we all share a the same singular ancestor?

Some big questions here.

Also, this discovery confirms that 'life' does not need to be carbon based. Long hypothesized but never proven.

Untill now.

 

[cancat]

Derprived of phosphorus the creature replaces phosphorus with arsenic in its DNA. It switches back and forth, depending on how much phosphorus is available.

But we could still share a common ancestor and it is still a carbon based life form.