Scientists found life on Mars back in the 70s

[Kärnfysikern]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...scimars123.xml

The search for life on Mars appeared to hit a dead end in 1976 when Viking landers touched down on the red planet and failed to detect biological activity.

Today, Joop Houtkooper from Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen, Germany, will claim the Viking spacecraft may in fact have encountered signs of a weird life form based on hydrogen peroxide on the subfreezing, arid Martian surface.

That would be pretty cool, if we detected life but didnt notice it because we didnt quite know what to look for.

[novastepp]

interesting find.

[Kratos]

A chunk of mars broke off a long time ago and landed in the artic circle. That rock was cut in half and revealed what looked like fossils of microbes.

[Juggernaut]

I believe this...............I'm quit certain my ex-wife is from mars.

[mcpeepants]

it seems like the first time we discover alien life, it will be so different we won't even recognize it as living thing.

[RA]

Even more reason we should be planning a Mars trip.

[Kärnfysikern]

Even more reason we should be planning a Mars trip.

Amen! and the only way to do that cost effectivly and safely would be to use nuclear propulsion. To bad neither NASA, ESA, China or Russia is developing that right now.

[Kratos]

Amen! and the only way to do that cost effectivly and safely would be to use nuclear propulsion. To bad neither NASA, ESA, China or Russia is developing that right now.

Nuclear propulsion sucks when it comes to airplanes and spacecraft, we tried 50 years ago to make nuclear thrust engines. The objective was to build bombers that could stay in the air 24 hours a day. It didn't work or so many levels. Too heavy (don't forget the reactor has to be lead sheilded), too weak, and too risky if it crashes.

[Kärnfysikern]

Nuclear propulsion sucks when it comes to airplanes and spacecraft, we tried 50 years ago to make nuclear thrust engines. The objective was to build bombers that could stay in the air 24 hours a day. It didn't work or so many levels. Too heavy (don't forget the reactor has to be lead sheilded), too weak, and too risky if it crashes.

It did suck for aircrafts but it is far superior to chemical rockets when it comes to space propulsion. Far higher specific impulse since it separates propellant from energy source. Using nuclear for energy and pure hydrogen for propulsion means alot more impulse than using a hydrogen oxygen reaction as both propellant and energysource. One other advantage is that hydrogen propellant is only needed to get to mars, on mars the lander can refuel with co2 from the martian atmosphere and because of the reduced gravity that is enough to get back home from mars.

The NERVA program was quite sucessfull and had nuclear rockets running on the ground in the 70's. Sure they didnt get quite the trusth they expected, but they would have given some more funding and time. The NERVA program was canceled, not because it was a failure but because the advancements of ICBM's and SLBM's eliminated the need for a cruise missile or bomber that can be in the air for weeks at a time.

The shielding against radiation from the reactor isnt as much of a issue. The crew compartments needs to shielded anyway against high energy protons from the sun and cosmic rays. Since the crew will be exposed to this radiation no matter what nuclear propulsion acctualy lowers the exposure since it cuts down on the time needed to reach mars.
The best way to solve the radiation from the reactor problem is to put the reactor a bit behind the crew compartment so that the regular shielding is enough. You can have the reactor at one end connected to the crew compartment with a long and light beam. That might eliminate any need for extra shielding. Even if there is need for extra shielding the reduced fuel compared to chemical rockets will outweight that easily.

Crashing isnt a issue either if the reactor is launched into orbit with conventional means or something like laser propulsion. The entire craft would probably be to big to launch from earth in one piece anyway. Remember that its the fission products that are highly radioactive and a hazard. Before the reactors has been turned on there isnt any fission products in the core, if it blows up when launched from the ground there will just be a bunch of uranium spread into the atmosphere and that wont hurt anyone, uranium is more or less harmless. Coal power plants are already spewing out tons after tons of uranium into the atmosphere.

Aslong as we stick to chemical rockets we will go nowhere at all. They are horribly inefficient and expensive. IMO NASA should drop all manned spaceflight and totaly reinvent how we get into orbit. Spending money on making crappy chemical rockets a tad bit better is a waste, they are inherently limited! Electromagnetic mass drives, laser propulsion and nuclear propulsion is the only technologies that can make manned spaceflight cheaper within our lifetime.

If you want to read a bit about nuclear propulsion here is a good link to a NASA workshop on different reactor concepts. The pebble bed concept seems most realistic since its already well developed and well tested. But the fission fragment assisted reactor is one sweet idea!
http://www-rsicc.ornl.gov/ANST_site/nasa10079.pdf

[helium3]

It did suck for aircrafts but it is far superior to chemical rockets when it comes to space propulsion. Far higher specific impulse since it separates propellant from energy source. Using nuclear for energy and pure hydrogen for propulsion means alot more impulse than using a hydrogen oxygen reaction as both propellant and energysource. One other advantage is that hydrogen propellant is only needed to get to mars, on mars the lander can refuel with co2 from the martian atmosphere and because of the reduced gravity that is enough to get back home from mars.

The NERVA program was quite sucessfull and had nuclear rockets running on the ground in the 70's. Sure they didnt get quite the trusth they expected, but they would have given some more funding and time. The NERVA program was canceled, not because it was a failure but because the advancements of ICBM's and SLBM's eliminated the need for a cruise missile or bomber that can be in the air for weeks at a time.


The shielding against radiation from the reactor isnt as much of a issue. The crew compartments needs to shielded anyway against high energy protons from the sun and cosmic rays. Since the crew will be exposed to this radiation no matter what nuclear propulsion acctualy lowers the exposure since it cuts down on the time needed to reach mars.
The best way to solve the radiation from the reactor problem is to put the reactor a bit behind the crew compartment so that the regular shielding is enough. You can have the reactor at one end connected to the crew compartment with a long and light beam. That might eliminate any need for extra shielding. Even if there is need for extra shielding the reduced fuel compared to chemical rockets will outweight that easily.

Crashing isnt a issue either if the reactor is launched into orbit with conventional means or something like laser propulsion. The entire craft would probably be to big to launch from earth in one piece anyway. Remember that its the fission products that are highly radioactive and a hazard. Before the reactors has been turned on there isnt any fission products in the core, if it blows up when launched from the ground there will just be a bunch of uranium spread into the atmosphere and that wont hurt anyone, uranium is more or less harmless. Coal power plants are already spewing out tons after tons of uranium into the atmosphere.

Aslong as we stick to chemical rockets we will go nowhere at all. They are horribly inefficient and expensive. IMO NASA should drop all manned spaceflight and totaly reinvent how we get into orbit. Spending money on making crappy chemical rockets a tad bit better is a waste, they are inherently limited! Electromagnetic mass drives, laser propulsion and nuclear propulsion is the only technologies that can make manned spaceflight cheaper within our lifetime.

If you want to read a bit about nuclear propulsion here is a good link to a NASA workshop on different reactor concepts. The pebble bed concept seems most realistic since its already well developed and well tested. But the fission fragment assisted reactor is one sweet idea!
http://www-rsicc.ornl.gov/ANST_site/nasa10079.pdf

martians have so little atmosphere to breath as it is without stealing anymore LOL......ok not funny.

[Kärnfysikern]

martians have so little atmosphere to breath as it is without stealing anymore LOL......ok not funny.

Better choke them bastards before they try to invade

[helium3]

LOL....


im actually quite interested in the long term terraforming program that has been proposed for mars. obviously it would be a massive task not to mention expensive put i think it could be the way forward when you consider such things as over population here on earth.

[Kärnfysikern]

LOL....


im actually quite interested in the long term terraforming program that has been proposed for mars. obviously it would be a massive task not to mention expensive put i think it could be the way forward when you consider such things as over population here on earth.

I think we could speed things up a bit. I reading some time ago a proposal to nuke the shit out of mars to thaw all the co2 that is frozen underground and cause a greenhouse effect. Seems to me that a more logical thing would be to redirect a bunch of comets and meteorides so they strike mars. If we get advanced enough to routinely travel to mars it should be a piece of cake to divert a bunch of rubble from the meteoride belt.

But I guess either plan is so far into the future that both you and me will be long dead before they even begin

[RA]

I think we could speed things up a bit. I reading some time ago a proposal to nuke the shit out of mars to thaw all the co2 that is frozen underground and cause a greenhouse effect. Seems to me that a more logical thing would be to redirect a bunch of comets and meteorides so they strike mars. If we get advanced enough to routinely travel to mars it should be a piece of cake to divert a bunch of rubble from the meteoride belt.

But I guess either plan is so far into the future that both you and me will be long dead before they even begin

Yeah, thats the part that sucks. Its not a matter of if we are going to try something, its when.

[Kratos]

What do you want to do about the gravity differetial problem?
If you spend any length of time on mars, you will turn into a peice of

[Hoggage_54]

Has anyone read the Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson?

[Kärnfysikern]

What do you want to do about the gravity differetial problem?
If you spend any length of time on mars, you will turn into a peice of

Why not stay there permanently Less gravit -> longer lifespan. I want to retire on the moon.

Has anyone read the Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson?

I have had then on my "must buy" list for some time, but i always forget to buy them. Are they good?

[helium3]

I think we could speed things up a bit. I reading some time ago a proposal to nuke the shit out of mars to thaw all the co2 that is frozen underground and cause a greenhouse effect. Seems to me that a more logical thing would be to redirect a bunch of comets and meteorides so they strike mars. If we get advanced enough to routinely travel to mars it should be a piece of cake to divert a bunch of rubble from the meteoride belt.

But I guess either plan is so far into the future that both you and me will be long dead before they even begin

this is a good idea, as comets especially hold lots of water and/or ice.


lol at the nukes, just like us to blow s@@t up lol.

@kratos, this is something we will eventually have to deal with.maybe some form of magnetic suit to act on the body in a similar fasion to gravity, just a cheap shot but you get the idea.

[helium3]

i think a young lady proposed to introduce complex green house molicules as some sort of catalyst to melt the polar regions.

[Juggernaut]

I'd rather live on Jupiter if I had my choice......I'd weigh 649 and one quarter pound! Granted I'd be an inch tall but that's a small price to pay to weigh over 600 pounds don't you think?

[Kärnfysikern]

this is a good idea, as comets especially hold lots of water and/or ice.


lol at the nukes, just like us to blow s@@t up lol.

@kratos, this is something we will eventually have to deal with.maybe some form of magnetic suit to act on the body in a similar fasion to gravity, just a cheap shot but you get the idea.

Yeah, fetching them might be a bitch but not impossible.

The gravity problem must be possible to solve by some gene manipulation in the future. Or put the astronauts on monster tren dosages and force them to workout 4 hours a day Sux for the women though

[Kratos]

Pelt it with commets and then what, sit back and wait a million years and hope a favorable atmosphere emerges? Nuke the planet for air, you guys really buy that it's gonna work? C'mon we can't even make a biodome work on this planet.

[Kärnfysikern]

Pelt it with commets and then what, sit back and wait a million years and hope a favorable atmosphere emerges? Nuke the planet for air, you guys really buy that it's gonna work? C'mon we can't even make a biodome work on this planet.

Any kind of terraforming will take hundreds of years. The most important thing is to get all the frozen co2 back into the atmosphere and hitting it hard with meteorites would do the trick. First there would be kind of a nuclear winter with all the dust and shit thrown up. But after that settles down the co2 will be there.

If the temperature can be pushed high enough to melt some of the water the greenhouse effect will realy kick in.

This is offcourse all so far in the future that its pure speculations. But if we heat mars microbes will do the rest of the work.

[helium3]

Pelt it with commets and then what, sit back and wait a million years and hope a favorable atmosphere emerges? Nuke the planet for air, you guys really buy that it's gonna work? C'mon we can't even make a biodome work on this planet.

just about anything is possible!

the fact is the sooner we act the sooner we will see results albeit a few hundred years at the minimum, but hey rome wasnt built in a day.

the only thing that is holding us back from doing just about anything in space is the cost, we have the technology to do far more than we are doing at the moment.if only we could break free from the great materialistic continuum we can accomplish our goals

[Hoggage_54]

I have had then on my "must buy" list for some time, but i always forget to buy them. Are they good?

I haven't read them, I was curious to see if anyone else has. I always see them at the bookstore whenever I go and I think, "OK I'll buy them this time." I always end up walking out with something else.

[Kratos]

Any kind of terraforming will take hundreds of years. The most important thing is to get all the frozen co2 back into the atmosphere and hitting it hard with meteorites would do the trick. First there would be kind of a nuclear winter with all the dust and shit thrown up. But after that settles down the co2 will be there.

If the temperature can be pushed high enough to melt some of the water the greenhouse effect will realy kick in.

This is offcourse all so far in the future that its pure speculations. But if we heat mars microbes will do the rest of the work.

That's one version of what might happen.

[Kärnfysikern]

That's one version of what might happen.

Well there are a couple of things we know will happen from basic atmospheric science. Release enough co2 and the planet will heat up, the heating will release more co2 and so on. If enough co2 gets released temp becomes high enough for the atmosphere to start carrying water wapor. When water vapor gets into the atmosphere the temperature will start to seriously go up since water is a major greenhouse gas. At that time mars will be able to support life. Microorganisms at first and if the atmosphere gets dense enough even plant life.

The big question marks are.

How to start the melting of the frozen co2?

Will the atmosphere be enough protection against cosmic and solar rays considering mars have a very weak magnetic field?

Is there enough frozen water to make it worth the effort?

Is there enough nitrogen somewhere on mars for the atmosphere to get dense enough?

We would also have to find out why mars losts its atmosphere in the first place and if we will be able to sustain a atmosphere there for long enough to make it worth the effort.

[RA]

Well there are a couple of things we know will happen from basic atmospheric science. Release enough co2 and the planet will heat up, the heating will release more co2 and so on. If enough co2 gets released temp becomes high enough for the atmosphere to start carrying water wapor. When water vapor gets into the atmosphere the temperature will start to seriously go up since water is a major greenhouse gas. At that time mars will be able to support life. Microorganisms at first and if the atmosphere gets dense enough even plant life.

The big question marks are.

How to start the melting of the frozen co2?

Will the atmosphere be enough protection against cosmic and solar rays considering mars have a very weak magnetic field?

Is there enough frozen water to make it worth the effort?

Is there enough nitrogen somewhere on mars for the atmosphere to get dense enough?

We would also have to find out why mars losts its atmosphere in the first place and if we will be able to sustain a atmosphere there for long enough to make it worth the effort.

It seems like that would be the most difficult to figure since we dont have a lot of examples to draw from.

[Kratos]

What we need is that machine from total recall

[helium3]

Well there are a couple of things we know will happen from basic atmospheric science. Release enough co2 and the planet will heat up, the heating will release more co2 and so on. If enough co2 gets released temp becomes high enough for the atmosphere to start carrying water wapor. When water vapor gets into the atmosphere the temperature will start to seriously go up since water is a major greenhouse gas. At that time mars will be able to support life. Microorganisms at first and if the atmosphere gets dense enough even plant life.

The big question marks are.

How to start the melting of the frozen co2?

Will the atmosphere be enough protection against cosmic and solar rays considering mars have a very weak magnetic field?

Is there enough frozen water to make it worth the effort?

Is there enough nitrogen somewhere on mars for the atmosphere to get dense enough?

We would also have to find out why mars losts its atmosphere in the first place and if we will be able to sustain a atmosphere there for long enough to make it worth the effort.

its been a couple of years but i read a few books with good info on this subject.

one of the most convincing arguements was that mars had a lot less vulconism than earth thus throwing less converted moisture into the atmosphere, so not getting a thick cloud layer or greenhouse effect going, couple that with less gravitational pull to hold onto to its tenuous atmosphere which would also be stripped away by charged particles from the sun. and the latter would have a much greater effect than that on earth due to mars not having a strong magnetic field.

earth would be screwed without its magnetic field as you know.


one of the other possible reasons was major collision took place in mars's distant past.

[Kärnfysikern]

its been a couple of years but i read a few books with good info on this subject.

one of the most convincing arguements was that mars had a lot less vulconism than earth thus throwing less converted moisture into the atmosphere, so not getting a thick cloud layer or greenhouse effect going, couple that with less gravitational pull to hold onto to its tenuous atmosphere which would also be stripped away by charged particles from the sun. and the latter would have a much greater effect than that on earth due to mars not having a strong magnetic field.

earth would be screwed without its magnetic field as you know.


one of the other possible reasons was major collision took place in mars's distant past.

I know hardly anything about it. But seems like a combination like the one you described is needed. The lack of a magnetic field isnt itself enough since venus lacks a magnetic field but has a tremenouds atmosphere. Low gravity isnt either by itself enough considering Titans atmosphere.

Do you remember the name of the books bro? Id love to read em.

[Flagg]

Why not stay there permanently Less gravit -> longer lifespan. I want to retire on the moon.



I have had then on my "must buy" list for some time, but i always forget to buy them. Are they good?

Johan, not to go off tangent too much here but do you really think in our life times that they will have a Space Station on the Moon? To view our world from another celestial body would be incredible.

To get back on tangent, im sure you've seen this before but awhile back I posted a thread about a planned mission to Mars WANTED: Astronauts for Mars, please apply within

[Kärnfysikern]

Everyone is claiming they will be on the moon betwen 2020-2030. NASA, Russia, China. So if we are lucky and a new space race gets started maby we will have bases. It makes alot of sense. If we get a base going on the moon we can do all kinds of stuff that can earn big money.

The main thing needed is to reduce launch cost. Thats why I want NASA and others to stop wasting money on shitty old chemical rocket technology that cant be improved much further. Whats the point of going to the moon again, or to mars, if it will be to expensive to do anything worthwhile?

Nuclear propulsion, laser propulsion, electromagnetic mass drives. I dont care what it is aslong as it isnt chemical rockets!

[helium3]

I know hardly anything about it. But seems like a combination like the one you described is needed. The lack of a magnetic field isnt itself enough since venus lacks a magnetic field but has a tremenouds atmosphere. Low gravity isnt either by itself enough considering Titans atmosphere.

Do you remember the name of the books bro? Id love to read em.

i agree, i think a combination of the above may have made venus the coldren it is today.however the atmosphere on venus is being stripped away also.its just the atmosphere is so thick it will take millions of years to disapate.one of the reasons venus doesnt have a magnetic field is...it hardly spins at all so its year is longer than its day! it makes one orbit of the sun in roughly 225 days and it spins once on its axis over a period of 250 days! interesting tit-bit i thought.



you will have to bare with me as i couldnt remember what reasons it gave for venus not going the same way, i believe it had something to do with venus being a little too closer to the sun and never having the chance to cool down.

the greenhouse effect on venus was very similar to ours but it was always hotter, basically the oceans on venus boiled away into the atmosphere.


i dont have these books on hand except for one, which isnt as extensive as the ones i got from the library but here you go...

THE PLANETS written by david mcnab and james younger.


enjoy!