For this reason, I think we should colonize Mars right away, and if past or present Martian life forms are there then we will find them eventually.
Everybody is hoping that Curiosity will find strong evidence of some kind of martian life. Ok, well, the rhetorical "everybody". I'd like to see som close-up of the "face", from on the ground, but hey, who am I to dictate mission priority?On the serious side, what we've seen of Mars to date sure looks lifeless. There's a non-zero chance that the planet is lifeless, and that it has always been lifeless.What mission priorities change if Mars is "certified" as a barren world? Who, or what committee decides this "certification"? When will it be decided? Is there a cut-off point/date, or will the search for martian life always be in the list of possible missions? How would it be determined to be lifeless? At what point should we give up on that search? If it is indeed a lifeless world, is it ok then to colonize it? How much of the planet do we need to survey before we can say with confidence that it would be a barren planet?
If the Mars ice caps have subglacial lakes equivalent to Lake Vostok, it could take quite a bit of effort to "certify" Mars as truly barren.
What mission priorities change if Mars is "certified" as a barren world? Who, or what committee decides this "certification"? When will it be decided? Is there a cut-off point/date, or will the search for martian life always be in the list of possible missions? How would it be determined to be lifeless? At what point should we give up on that search? If it is indeed a lifeless world, is it ok then to colonize it? How much of the planet do we need to survey before we can say with confidence that it would be a barren planet?
Let's not forget that we keep finding many different previously unknown lifeforms on Earth, and our exploring hasn't decreased the chance of finding them.For this reason, I think we should colonize Mars right away, and if past or present Martian life forms are there then we will find them eventually.
Who is gonna pay for this colonization? One billion people to be transported, or US citizens only? Where is your Space (Queen) Mary II with thousands of passengers? How many dragons? Not enough? Until someone go out there stick a flag and claim *Dis mine, gtfo*, there will be no attempt to colonize Mars. USA is lacking some 14+ trillions dollars, so who is gonna pay of this?DIRECT type of mission? Sure! Boots and flags all over again.Bunch a people in beer cans under pressure.How about the cities that have to be built? Thousands of workers to be transported, their support equipment. The entire infrastructure to provide humans with suitable environment? And when you manage to go there on a regular basis like cruise shipbuild all the needed infrastructure, then what?What those N amount of people will do for living? How many of them can do it, for how long? What about people who cant find a job? What type of economy will mars have? Or the point is lets go there! Just for the hell of it?Or to through some people out there to decrease earth population instead of going to war? In order to pull out this stunt, because it is such, you have to do it von Braun style - multiple, big, crowded of crew space ships. You are practically debarking on mars. You have to have everything that you will need now, not 2 years from now. You have to have your space based Queen Mary II cruise ship, it's a long trip and no one will want to be stuck in a beer can.
Your argument is INVALID!
Who is gonna pay for this colonization?
One billion people to be transported, or US citizens only?
1) Where is your Space (Queen) Mary II with thousands of passengers? 2) How many dragons? Not enough? 3) Until someone go out there stick a flag and claim *Dis mine, gtfo*, there will be no attempt to colonize Mars. 4) How about the cities that have to be built? 5) Thousands of workers to be transported, their support equipment. 6) The entire infrastructure to provide humans with suitable environment? 7) And when you manage to go there on a regular basis like cruise shipbuild all the needed infrastructure, then what? What those N amount of people will do for living? How many of them can do it, for how long? What about people who cant find a job? 9) What type of economy will mars have? 10) Or the point is lets go there! Just for the hell of it?11) Or to through some people out there to decrease earth population instead of going to war? 12) no one will want to be stuck in a beer can.
Thus Xanthoria elegans might work if we can keep spraying snow on it.Edit: added reference.Kappen L. (1993) Plant activity under snow and ice, with particular reference to lichens. Arctic. 46 (4):297-302
BYOB
Exploration implies that there are resources explore for.
I'd bet hard money that they would say "focus exploration on the resources you need". ... in my opinion - microbes are really not 'resources'.
Design a probe to ABSOLUTELY IMPREGNATE Mars with as much bacteria, plants, seeds, fertilizer and anything else under the kitchen sink to see if you can sustain ANYTHING on such an barren planet.
If anyone claims that we can send a solar powered, manned spacecraft that has been travling for up to 12 months in space, and land on Mars and convert the currently existing materials into enough resources to survive for a year on the surface and return to earth... I'll buy them a bowl of soup.
As to what would grow autonomously on Mars, I studied whether Xanthoria elegans, a lichen that lives in the Arctic, could survive on Mars.Xanthoria elegans fixes nitrogen, and there is nitrogen in Mars' atmosphere. This lichen has even survived the vacuum of space:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthoria_elegans Thus the low pressure and low temperature on Mars shouldn't be problem for it. Diedrich Möhlmann, a European scientist, actually put the lichen in a chamber simulating Mars to see if it would photosynthesize. It turns out that the conditions were just too dry.However, Xanthoria elegans can use snow or frost as a source of water because it just uses the water that thaws at the interface. (Kappen, 1993)Thus Xanthoria elegans might work if we can keep spraying snow on it.Edit: added reference.Kappen L. (1993) Plant activity under snow and ice, with particular reference to lichens. Arctic. 46 (4):297-302
Interesting!How well does etabloise as well as survive under artian pressures?Can it fix nitrogen at very low partial pressures?
Here is a power point presentation I did when I was studying Xanthoria elegans:
Quote from: scienceguy on 05/21/2012 06:47 pmHere is a power point presentation I did when I was studying Xanthoria elegans:Excellent presentation. Have you had any luck in running the experiment?
The National Research Council ... recommended more geophysical research from satellites or from aircraft ... and drilling by landers. ...Drilling so far underground may be difficult without humans actually on the spot, but I would hope they could run the drilling remotely from orbit or Phobos.
"Conan the bacterium"
But until then the idea of studying Mars by tele-presence and focusing instead on asteroids and space colonies makes much more sense I think.
There are many organisms that could survive on Mars just as it is. Scientists keep finding more and more unusual and surprising extremophiles with these sorts of capabilities.I've been having a discussion about this over at the new mars forum, and found out lots of information, so rather than repeat the same details here, will just link to the posts themselves:Here are some links I found to various pages about Psychophiles, which can survive Mars like extreme cold brine as cold as -15Chttp://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=113437#p113437
Basically even if Mars is sterile right now, it is still risky to send any Earth life there, because with exponential growth (single bacterium doubling reaches weight of EArth in two days) and extreme longevity of Endosporese (hundreds of thousands of years, possibly more, with DNA self repair for UV damage) - there's no way you can prevent contamination of the entire planet.
This could destroy ancient geology - including the ancient sea bed deposits.
Also it would lead to evolution of new forms of life, and it's been demonstrated that organisms hazardous to humans can develop in an environment with no animals in it - so might even make the entire planet a "No go" area for humans.
As I understand it, the -15C is the temperature the Psychrophiles can actually live and reproduce. They can survive lower temperatures. On Mars in summer the equatorial temperature can be as warm as -5C
which is easily warm enough for Psychrophiles to reproduce if there is any brine with the right salinity to be liquid at that temperature, e.g. underground.
While on Mars, it's all new and anything could happen. It's not just me that thinks this, here is an example paper about the possibility of organisms on Mars evolving to be hazardous to humans: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17511302". Organisms can emerge in Nature in the absence of indigenous animal hosts and both infectious and non-infectious human pathogens are therefore theoretically possible on Mars. Although remote, the prospect of Martian surface life, together with the existence of a diversity of routes by which pathogenicity has emerged on Earth, suggests that the probability of human pathogens on Mars, while low, is not zero. "
And that was just about existing pathogens already there. Here we are talking about many new species evolving
With the ancient geology - if you aren't interested in Mars for scientific reasons - why would you want to go there at all?
So - the contamination of sterile Mars I see as a tragedy because it would prevent this opportunity to find out about a planet very similar to Earth where life didn't evolve.
There are many organisms that could survive on Mars just as it is. Scientists keep finding more and more unusual and surprising extremophiles with these sorts of capabilities.
Here are some links I found to various pages about Psychophiles, which can survive Mars like extreme cold brine as cold as -15Chttp://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=113437#p113437Perhaps the best of those links is this one: QuoteEven unlikely seeming organisms can turn out to be extremophiles because of adaptations they still retain from very early times of our Earth, here is "Conan the bacterium" normally lives in Dung but just happens to have the capability to survive on Mars as it is now. http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast14dec99_1/
Even unlikely seeming organisms can turn out to be extremophiles because of adaptations they still retain from very early times of our Earth, here is "Conan the bacterium" normally lives in Dung but just happens to have the capability to survive on Mars as it is now.
and here are many links I found about the impossibility of continuing with planetary protection policies once humans land on Mars, and some of the adverse consequences you could get as a resulthttp://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=113403#p113403
Basically even if Mars is sterile right now, it is still risky to send any Earth life there, because with exponential growth (single bacterium doubling reaches weight of EArth in two days) and extreme longevity of Endosporese (hundreds of thousands of years, possibly more, with DNA self repair for UV damage) - there's no way you can prevent contamination of the entire planet. If a suitable extremophile finds a suitable habitat e.g. beneath the soil, it might happen even very rapidly. In any case it is inevitable because of the longevity of Endospores and the huge numbers that will unavoidably seed Mars in any human expedition to Mars.
This could destroy ancient geology - including the ancient sea bed deposits. If Mars never developed life, then they are even more interesting as they tell us what happens on a planet that never develops life, and perhaps tell us about pre-cursors to life.
So - I'm in favour of terraforming eventually once we know a whole lot more about it and if we find that Mars is suitable for it and that it won't destroy something far more valuable than a new colony for humans.
Okay good point about Conan the bacterium, you are right, it seems likely it might have a hard time surviving on Mars just as it is, because of the lack of oxygen. But it's still true, it does have hidden extremophile capabilities, that you wouldn't expect from an organism like that, and other species may well have hidden extermophile capabilities, as many micro-organisms are poorly understood and we don't know what their capabilities are. Also it does survive in an amazing variety of habitats on Earth. And if there is life already on Mars then it would find organic material there to eat, and though we think the oxygen in the soil is unavailable to life, maybe there are ways that it can be e.g. disolved into the brine and so made available to the likes of radiodurans, maybe in micro-climates (like the micro-climates you get under quarts rocks on Earth with their own special communities).
Incidentally one hypothesis about its origins is that it might be derived originally from a Martian micro-organsism delivered to Earth in a meteorite.http://biospace.nw.ru/astrobiology/Articles2002/Astrobio_pavlov_25-34.pdf
BTW on the temperature, just discovered, air temperatures for the Spirit rover, measured in the shade, occasionally rose as high as 37C. Also spirit rover in its first measurements of temperature of the soil got some readings of 5C.http://ufologie.patrickgross.org/htm/marsspiritnews.htm#02192004
With endospores, then they do survive UV radiation, most die when exposed to the martian surface conditions and direct sunlight but a certain percentage to survive for a while, and you just need a few mm. of soil to get protection from the UV. Here are a couple of links I found about that:http://aem.asm.org/content/74/4/959.abstracthttp://phys.org/news201938033.html
The endospores would just be carried in the air out of the airlock, or get rubbed off the space-suit. You are talking about many trillions of micro-organisms, in a human occupied space-ship.
I don't see any way that a human could leave the space-ship without letting many of them out of the ship into the atmosphere. Just the air escaping from the airlock, or your feet trail them from the interior of the spacecraft onto Mars - you can't realistically sterilise even the space-suit from endospores which requires at a minimum 30 hours dry heat at well over 100C and that's just to get rid of most of them, in a human occupied space-ship, hardly "clean room" environment, then many will survive even that. Just to get into the space-suit you would touch the exterior of it and you would walk on other non-sterilised surfaces that air from the space-ship has passed over.
And what if there is an accident during landing, as could surely happen, it's still quite a risky undertaking the first mission to Mars.
It does just require one of them to contaminate Mars if it happens to have the right adaptations to survive for long enough to reproduce and start to evolve.
It's true that many would die and the ones that die won't contaminate the planet. But there I'm talking about any that survive. Of those that survive, you only need a single living organism - once it reproduces for the first time on Mars, then there is very little to stop it going on and contaminating the entire planet.
It would be in "fits and starts" - if it finds a warm micro-climate (for its species) e.g. under a stone in summer, it could rapidly grow and create many endospores, which would then spread in the wind in the Martian dust storms and find other micro-climates to reproduce again. That's how I imagine it happening. Then eventually it may find a cave or the like and reproduce in huge numbers.
My main aim is to get people talking about these issues and researching it more, and to find out for themselves if it is a problem or not.And not to just accept that everything is okay because the majority seem to be just "going along with the flow" and just assuming that it will all work out somehow. From reading those papers one thing that stands out for sure is that I'm not alone - there are enough researchers who are experts in the subject, and have serious doubts about human exploration of Mars, and who believe that human exploration risks destroying the very things that they wish to discover - life or traces of life from the past. They need to be listened to, and more research needs to be done to find out if their concerns are valid.
Dalhousie, yes I know it said 99.9% would be inactivated quickly. But that's only on sun-exposed surfaces of the spacecraft, and the populations small. It suggests that if part of a spacecraft is accidentally contaminated, as in the drill bit on the Curiosity rover which someone took out of its sealed container in order to attach it to the rover without the correct precautions, then so long as you expose it to enough sunlight on Mars it will be sterilised anyway.
If they fall to the ground and are covered by dust in that time then they will be protected from UV from then on, or even if they are in the shadow of the spacecraft, rock, rover or even an astronaut for long enough.
For the diversity of extremophiles take a look at this paperhttp://aem.asm.org/content/71/8/4163.fullThat's in clean room spacecraft assembly facilities. It includes even "uncultivable" extremophiles which we know little about because they can't be cultivated yet, so goodness knows what they could do.
New strains could evolve even during the assembly of the Mars mission spacecraft, and during the journey from Earth to Mars, and while on Mars, they could also evolve in micro-climates on the spacecraft, e.g. in the airlock, or on human piloted Mars rovers - just small amounts of evolution in that time but enough to express some hidden trait that they already have in their genes useful on Mars, or to maybe exchange such traits with another organism.
I don't think you can say that just because it came to Mars on a human occupied spacecraft, that it requires warm and moist conditions, and can't easily adapt to some other environment - or even that because it is part of the normal skin flora that it can't survive e.g. under the soil on Mars. That Deinococcus radiodurans is an example to show how organisms can have hidden capabilities you wouldn't guess from their habitat.
Good to hear what you say about endospores taking hours to form, and that in practise in the desert you found nothing 100 meters away from the station. It's good to hear from someone who researches in this sort of area for "ground truth" as it were, thanks.
But - bear in mind we don't know what the conditions are like on Mars, don't even know much about the soil just below the surface, which might well have even liquid brine at not too great a depth in summer.
Also it doesn't have to reproduce. If you have endospores in that 100 meters radius from humans active on the surface, and they are below the soil surface, a few mm down enough to escape UV radiation, or in the shadow of a pebble or boulder or the shadow of the spacecraft - then they will survive until the next dust storm - and then the dust storm will protect them from UV light as they are transported to somewhere completely different on the surface of the planet. It will also probably cover them with dust when they get there so they are protected from UV again and in a series of dust storms the protected still viable endospores could end up anywhere on Mars.
As for formation of the endospores - they may already be on the spacecraft and just not activated, but also, they could form in intermediate environments between the spacecraft and the surface. E.g. in the air lock - or at places on an astronaut's space-suit where a tiny leak of air escapes into the atmosphere, or they might get into the fabric or surface of the space-suit and survive long enough because of the warmth of the astronaut to form endospores, or on minute flakes of skin that escape from the air lock, or whatever.
It would be possible to research into this and find out more exactly what could happen. You could simulate a Mars expedition in a simulated Mars environment on Earth - could have the atmosphere and soil and the UV light and everything, just the gravity would be hard to simulate which is unlikely to make much of a difference to micro-organisms.
Then, just attach a simulated spacecraft environment with an airlock to it, and human astronauts go inside and do the activities they would do on Mars, and you do all the sterilisation you would do on Mars, indeed could simulate the entire mission with humans in the space-craft and a simulated Mars atmosphere and soil.
Then see if there are any viable endospores beneath the surface of the soil after the "expedition". Also you could simulate a Mars dust storm too, maybe in a wind tunnel, and see what happens to those endospores that remain after a dust storm.
If there were no viable endospores then that would be somewhat re-assuring, wouldn't completely prove it though. It would mean the risks are somewhat lower than they seem right now. It would also be reassuring for continuing with the robotic rover explorations of Mars.
I think though that there would be endospores.
Even if it did turn out okay, I'd have doubts about a human expedition because 1. it does just need one endospore that is viable and lands in a suitable environment, so even an experiment like that if it comes out okay, can only say that it's unlikely to happen, not that it absolutely won't happen. With something as potentially so valuable and interesting to us as a whole planet like Mars, I'm not sure that it is enough even to be 99.99% sure it won't be contaminated.
That's a bit like searching for NEOs that could impact with Earth. The actual probability of finding one that will cause catastrophic impact with Earth in say the next century is so low that if you look at it from a personal point of view, you are much more likely to die in a car accident, or by fire or eletrocution.http://impact.arc.nasa.gov/gov_asteroidperils_2.cfmBut the consequences for the entire civilization and for huge numbers of people are so large that ordinary calculations of probability to assess whether something is worth doing don't apply, and also even the low risk is still higher than e.g. the risk of dying in an aeroplane accident.It's the same with Mars I think, that the potential value of the planet is so high, if it remains uncontaminated, that even a low probability outcome as low as the probability of catastrophic impact by a NEO on earth does need to be researched and considered.
2. It doesn't deal with the issue of accidents to human occupied spacecraft. If say the descent rocket fails or the parachute doesn't open during the landing, and it crashes into Mars and leaves human bodies on the surface, mixed up with debris from the space-craft - then that's completely the end of any planetary protection of Mars from Earth, surely - you would agree there at least I imagine?
As for numbers of researchers, you just need one person who has a valid point of view and isn't like a complete crank, for it to require more research to find out what the situation is. Even someone who seems really eccentric and noone else in the field believes anything he says - even then so long as he is expert enough on the subject to have a valid opinion - for that matter even if not - then there is a chance he might be right. Enough examples of that in the past e.g. continental drift, or on a smaller scale e.g. the likes of Chicxulub as evidence of a gigantic impact crater, which is completely accepted by everyone nowadays did take a while to get accepted, when originally there was much less evidence for it than there is now and the evidence wasn't so clear.
On the destruction of geology, I've said my thoughts there, can't really contribute more except to repeat, the only things I have thought of so far are, conversion of any organic deposits on Mars by life that reproduces in them, the potential of floods if the planet is warmed by a few degrees (possibly just temporarily) as a result of release of methane by introduced life, and the possibility of life transforming the climate by forming dust or other deposits that cover ice and make it more likely to melt. I suppose another possibility is that the introduced life leads to formation of clouds, or other atmospheric changes, that lead to the cooling of Mars.But - I'm not a geologist either and there might be other hazards. Those are enough for me though, enough to not want to do it for purely geological reasons.
All this is predicated with "Until we know a lot more about Mars - and terraforming". It's a call for research and more understanding of those details before we think about doing a human expedition. The concern is doing either of those at our current level of lack of knowledge and experience of these matters.
The future decisions would be made by people with much greater knowledge of Mars (through extensive robot exploration), and life, and the possible consequences of terraforming than we have now.
I noticed btw that future rovers will have the capability to drill deep into the surface of Mars.Here is one that is actively under development, ExoMars will be able to drill 2 meters into the surfacehttp://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/exomars-rover-mars-exploration/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExoMarsAt the moment slated for launch in 2016.
There's also the possibility of drilling much deeper.There are proposals for deep drilling down to the 100meters to kilometers range by tele-operation using human crews in Mars orbit here:http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/marsconcepts2012/pdf/4185.pdf
That's the sort of direction I think would be a safe and responsible way to explore Mars and also involving humans to do the things they do best, the same crew could obviously tele-operate land rovers and aerial rovers on Mars.I'm not saying, never colonise or terraform Mars. Just that it's not quite the right time to do it yet, and that we need to go more slowly, (I don't know if you know the phrase "more haste less speed"?), and explore Mars by rovers and telepresence.
Glad you like my post ...
The problem with allowing any contamination of Mars at all is that it is irreversible...
Contamination of sterile Mars is a tragedy... why?
Astronauts on Mars would introduce a huge variety of micro-organisms, an event quite without any precedent for Mars and something we have no true experience of to guide us. ...The ancient geology could tell us many new things about our own past, and about the evolution of life - either why Mars is sterile, if it is, or how life evolved there, if it isn't.
People dying from hunger is a tragedy.
So, start close to home where you can replace vital supplies from Earth in just a couple of days if something gets broken which you can't make yourself, or send someone home to a hospital if they need urgent treatment you can't provide in the habitat.
"Survive" is also very different to "thrive".
When would be the decision point? After ten missions, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand?
I do have clear ideas in my mind but don't always express them so well.
Your idea of abandoning astronauts on Mars if they make a mess of the planet and pathogens develop there But it leaves Mars as a planet that isn't safe for humans to colonise in the future....
Also in case it got lost in the thread maybe a good point to summarise my main concerns.1. That life could be introduced to Mars and change the planet so we lose the opportunity to study a truly pristine Mars which might have much to teach us.2. That life introduced to Mars could evolve to new strains ...3. That life introduced to Mars could change the climate ...4. Also that it is irreversible...
The ground would be warm to the touch at times as Viking landers found that sometimes the soil can reach 27C http://www-k12.atmos.washington.edu/k12/resources/mars_data-information/temperature_overview.html
BTW on the temperature, just discovered, air temperatures for the Spirit rover, measured in the shade, occasionally rose as high as 37C.
By that I mean, make conditions there more like the conditions of early Mars - and then let the life continue to evolve on Mars like a parallel for the early years of Earth - and see if it evolves in the same way, see if you get e.g. multi-cellular life, and organisms evolving from the sea and so on - an experiment you can't do in a laboratory because you can only really do it realistically on a planet scale object like Mars.
Anyway it's been an enjoyable discussion and I have learnt a lot and just because I've answered your points doesn't mean I haven't listened to what you said as well and thought about it carefully because I have and will continue to mull it over when I think about this.
We could learn a lot from robotic missions once you start to get sample returns from the planet - that's the main area where robots are lacking. Human operators can choose interesting rocks for the robots to bring back.
The risk is endospores surviving in shadows. Surely they can just be brushed off surfaces, or be carried in the air? They must be light and easily travel and fall into shadows in the vicinity of a spacecraft.
I'm not convinced that the endospores won't be protected by the dust storms. It blocked 99% of the light for the solar panels for the Mars rovershttp://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2007/20jul_duststorm/So does reduce the light considerably. Are you sure that it is transparent to UV or is that just a hypothesis for research?
Also the dust storms could pick up tiny pebbles, with endospores in crevices in the pebble, so protected like an endolith.
Agree you have a good point they can't evolve new strains while inactive, that's a good point thanks for the correction.
They could evolve while on Mars though in the intermediate habitats like the airlock, and they can also evolve in the clean room assembly traits that could be useful on Mars.
Six sites isn't much and so far we don't even know much at all about the ground even a few inches below the surface.
I call this an unknown because we don't have any previous experience of introducing new life to something as extensive and varied as a planet. So we can expect surprises.
We do have a hypothesis that need testing - here the hypothesis that Mars is easily contaminated by a human mission, and that life introduced in that way can spread throughout the planet, and transform the climate. That's my hypothesis, similar to the continental drift hypothesis that continents move.
You've produced various reasons for thinking it won't happen like that. But, even though you are obviously knowledgeable in the subject, and I don't dispute that, but still, that doesn't mean I have to accept the same conclusions.
I feel that you are underestimating the level of risk, also vastly underestimating the potential scientific returns from exploration and stud of Mars in its pristine state prior to terraforming, and over-estimating the advantages of human exploration over rovers.
Indeed in some ways I think rovers have advantages over humans. They can travel to places that humans can't travel to safely, can be made smaller than humans, airborne etc. Indeed especially with the way rovers and guided remote vehicles (e.g. in the deep sea or for study of volcanoes) are gradually beginning to be used on Earth to explore hostile environments, maybe by the time a human exploration to Mars is a reality then use of remotely guided and semi-autonomous robots for exploration might be the normal way of doing this.
We should be able to learn at least as much from Mars using rovers as we can learn from the ocean depths using remotely controlled vehicles, which is a lot especially once you can do sample return from Mars. Eventually you would want to go in person just as now people want to go to the ocean depths in person - but it's not necessary for the research, it is done more because it is a natural human thing to want to go there in person.
The rovers we've sent to Mars so far are just early pioneers. Later ones will give much more science return, and sample return also.
BTW with the drilling one of the points they make is that drilling is often done remotely by telepresence here on the Earth, sometimes by operators over 100 Km distant from the drills So it's not that different to do it the same way on Mars.
The equipment still has to be transported to Mars either way and with telepresence you don't have to get the humans down to the surface and up again, so quite a saving on the lander and fuel.
Nicely put.Take five, and go invent something. Then tell us what it was.
Certainly, which is why MSR has been the highest priority mars science objective ever since Viking. Unfortunately it looks to be difficult, risky, and expensive, which is why it hasn’t been done yet. It ids also very limited, most studies suggest that what might be returned is a kg or less of material from a single site or a cluster of sites in a very small area.
If spores can move into shadows that easily, they can also move out again. Shadows also move, and even permanently shadowed area get scattered UV. Only when permanently buried will they be protected from UV. Even then, unless it is in a habitable environment, the spores won’t activate. Though protected from UV they will still be gradually killed off by background radiation
The key phrase there is “direct sunlight”. Even the worst dust storms don’t block out 99% of the total light. Some is absorbed, some is scattered.
Dust storms don’t pick up pebbles. We do know that sand moves on Mars. But again, any burial in a layer that can be moved by the wind will only be temporary as they will soon be uncovered again. It might take longer to kill them off but killed off they will be.
Neither of those environments are likely to drive evolution. A clean room is simply one that is clean. The airlock interior will basically be the same as the rest of the habitat. If there is any selective pressure, it will be fore that environment, not for the outside world.
That is not a hypothesis, but a conclusion. ... This is a management and engineering issue, not a scientific one.
The level of risk I am applying is the current standard for Mars missions, present and future, as laid out by COSPAR. The current view, based on research and experience, is that we don’t need to sterilize spacecraft on the martian surface unless they are going to a special (i.e. potentially habiatable) region, and only then the tools and instruments that actually interact with it.
None of the past, present, or future lunar or Mars rovers have been or will be sent to places that cannot be safely accessed by astronauts.
ROVs and AUVs have not really supplanted divers or crewed submersibles in underwater operations overall, they have complemented them.
Unmanned overs on Mars will, by their nature, always carry fewer instruments of lower precision and accuracy than a crewed mission, will work far slower, and are far less flexible and adaptable. Of course, if direct human presence is not possible then people have to live with the consequences of that.
You do realize that this crazy idea of watching evolution unfold would require MILLIONS OF YEARS to bear fruit?
The surface of Mars is a much safer place for the crew than being in Mars orbit. Plus experiments show that in exploration direct human presence outperforms telepresence by a factor of ten, even in those fields which can be done with telepresence.
But a few mm is easily large enough to have some crevices and cracks for endospores to lodge in and survive, as endospores are really tiny...
Thus, these facilities are highly selective for indigenous communities of microorganisms that resist desiccation, chemical sterilization agents, and high-energy radiation ...
If Mars is better left as it is because it is more interesting and useful like that, or if we can learn more by engaging in some large scale experiment involving the whole planet such as marsforming instead of terraforming, I really see no reason at all why we shouldn't do that.
On the surface you have the dust storms, corosion,...
I don't understand the extreme fear of pathogens. Any new cave may have unforeseen pathogens (and probably would be more likely to infect humans than something with a completely different chemistry), yet we don't stop exploring caves, in fact we pursue such exploration because they may also contain cures.If Mars is so fertile to contamination from Earth's spores, then it's already contaminated by billions of years of meteorites, solar wind sweeping off particles and spreading them throughout our part of the galaxy. That's why I think we may well find life on Mars, life that originally developed on Earth (or possibly vice versa).Our ancestors spread to new continents that were absolutely filled to the brim with new creatures and diseases. Are you saying we should have stayed in just that corner of Africa? Also, there are all sorts of Martian meteorites that have hit the Earth from Mars, so we are also contaminated by whatever hardy lifeforms Mars holds.We can't just stay in the cradle forever.
I already gave you a reason why we shouldn't do that:Mars surface is roughly equal to the surface of dry land of Earth. Eventually it can house a population of several billion people - an entire second human civilization. Its potential price (usefulness) is so vast it probably hard to quantify.And you propose to just leave it alone?We are very lucky Columbus has a different opinion when he went to discover new lands.
I'd say that Mars orbit is safer than the surface. Already humans have lived in the space station for years on end with no problems at all, the main hazards come from our own space debris in orbit.
So I think humans in orbit around Mars are much safer than they are on the surface - apart from the lack of gravity. A spinning habitat would deal with that, even one made of two rockets tethered together spinning around the centre of gravity.
On the surface you have the dust storms, corosion, and if you do any eploring at all as you surely will, issues of the space-suits malfunctioning (in the space ship you don't need to use space-suits at all unless you have to go outside to fix something and then it isn't for long) - also rovers getting stuck leaving humans stranded, and of course accidents, just minor falls much more dangerous on Mars.
And that doesn't take account of the possibility of mars based pathogens, also some think the mars dust might be not so good for human lungs if breathed in.
Nobody has spent 900-1000 days in on the ISS or Mir on a single mission
Sergei Vasilyevich Avdeyev, 747.6 days on 3 flights. Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov, 678.7 days on 2 flights.Anatoliy Yakovlevich Solovyov, 651.0 days on 5 flights. Sergei Konstantiovich Krikalyov, 624.4 days on 5 flights.
Quote from: Dalhousie on 06/13/2012 01:23 amNobody has spent 900-1000 days in on the ISS or Mir on a single missionNice hedge there.Are there astronauts (not cosmonauts) who have had more than 2 years in LEO? How about 4 years? Who holds the current record for total time on orbit? Why don't we know these numbers and celebrate them?I wonder if these numbers for cosmonauts have been beat: QuoteSergei Vasilyevich Avdeyev, 747.6 days on 3 flights. Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov, 678.7 days on 2 flights.Anatoliy Yakovlevich Solovyov, 651.0 days on 5 flights. Sergei Konstantiovich Krikalyov, 624.4 days on 5 flights.http://www.allaboutspace.com/explorers/spacefirsts.shtml
Nobody has spent 900-1000 days in on the ISS or Mir on a single mission, which is equivalent to a Mars mission that teleoperates equipment, but dopes not land. A crew on such a mission would have higher exposure to zero gravity and radiation, but risk factors than one that lands.
In return you get a ten fold increase in performance over remote control from earth and but the crew are still 100 times less effective that they would be on the surface.
First - I was a bit surprised even that you thought of billions of people living on Mars, I thought myself only in terms of maybe a few thousand, maybe a few million eventually - but if you do fully terraform it and manage to give it a close to Earth pressure atmosphere, so they can live anywhere just on the surface not e.g. only at the deepest places on the planet - I can see that you could end up with billions there yes, if it all worked out well.But that's a heroic enterprise, and for the same amount of effort you could have the same number of people living in habitats, thousands of them.
But I think you've dismissed the tether idea rather too readily as it is one of the methods widely suggested as a way to get artificial gravity during spaceflight to Mars for the manned mission proposals. So, if it seems possible you can use it during spaceflight to the planet then you can surely also use it in orbit around the planet. Obviously it needs research and is likely to turn up issues to deal with, e.g. how do you spin it up, and can you navigate with it spun up or do you have to spin it down again to navigate. Here is one paper about research into it:http://iaaweb.org/iaa/Scientific%20Activity/Study%20Groups/SG%20Commission%202/sg22/sg22finalreportr.pdf"A variable length tether that could be unreeled in orbit and used to connect a space-craft to a counterweight has emerged as the most acceptable design for a large artificial gravity system. As envisioned for a Mars mission (Schultz et al. 1989), it would consist of a habitat module 225 meters from the center of mass, with a counterweight 400 meters beyond. The two would be connected by a tether and reel-out device. The total weight for this system would be about 21,000 Kg plus propellant.One of the obvious concerns about a tethered artificial gravity system is vulnerability to tether breakage. For the Mars mission design, a tether in the form of a band 0.5 cm × 46 cm × 750 m would provide a dynamic load safety factor of 7, offering a working strength of 630,000 N. That concern has otherwise been addressed by using webbing or braided cable to maintain tether integrity, even in the event of a meteoroid collision. (The probability of tether impact with a micrometeoroid of mass greater than 0.1 gm was calculated as 0.001 for a mission of 420 days.) A second concern about a tethered system is dynamic stability, especially during unreeling and during spin up and spindown. The interaction with orbital maneuvers is complex, whether the spin axis is inertially fixed or tracking the Sun to facilitate the use of solar panels."
There you must be thinking in terms of rovers very much like the ones we have now, truck like vehicles with various attachments that trundle over the surface.I'm thinking in terms of something much more flexible than that, and it's partly current technology we have already and partly technology that will be developed in the near future, and surely you'll take along the very best by way of telepresence gear and most likely commission new stuff especially for the journey.So this sort of thing - it does look a bit gruesome and basic, but it's just prototypes mainly:That's a human skeleton based robot, idea for telepresence, it would feel just like moving your own body, because the muscles and joints work in the same way as a human bodyThey call it "big dog" though doesn't look much like one. Anyway the thing is it is semi-autonomous. I imagine you would walk over the Mars surface in your telepresence robot, and it would travel along with you or might go rushing off like a dog to search out some interesting thing it sees to either side, probably could travel much faster than a human with a bit more work on it.This isn't sci. fi. these things actually exist and it's real machines in the video, you could take one of those with you on a space flight tomorrow.A lot of it is due to military research obviously because they want to put non human robots into the battlefield, so it's not surprising they drive this research. Indeed there's a big research effort underway right now by Darpa to make a complete avatar of a human teleoperated, details very scarce at the moment as far as I can gather but you can imagine it might well be just the thing for Marshttp://phys.org/news/2012-02-darpa-million-avatar-robot-pals.htmlThere's also all the research into controllers for games and immersive experience of games like KinektAlso you have the omnidirectional treadmill, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnidirectional_treadmillThat means that you could in your virtual reality room in the orbiting spaceship - have the martian landscape displayed on the walls or maybe you wear glasses and see it directly as if you are there. Then you can walk, even run, in any direction across the landscape just as if you are there. Then you can pick things up and examine them again just as if you are there.If a human is too weak for some work you want to do, just use a stronger robot with an exo-skeleton. If you want to explore something really small, get a smaller robot so you see everything as if it was ten times the height it would seem to a human. Or fly in the air like a bird in a light mobile aerial rover, and you can land and pick things up and fly off again all in virtual reality interacting with the surface by telepresence.
Even right now remarkable things are done by telepresence, such as the first surgery by telepresence, a surgeon in New York operating on a patient in Francehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_surgery#The_Lindbergh_OperationThat's more than a decade ago and it's moved on since then, and operations by telepresence are fairly common now.
So - I think if you look at what current rovers can do operated from Earth and imagine them operated in real time from orbit - that's far short of what a human operated telepresence exploration of Mars could be like if you "pull out all the stops".
The various humanoid robots are able to operate without any power supply - that one with the skeleton is a bit misleading because it's obviously a non mobile proto-type, but there are other fully autonomous humanoid robots, lots of different varieties, have no trouble walking like a human these days - a bit slower moving than a human but getting much faster already than they were just a short time ago.
I've seen quite a few technologies come in the last 40 odd years (I'm in my late 50s now) and they start off very cumbersome and develop with amazing rapidity sometimes. E.g. the first mobile phones were curiosities and so cumbersome. Before that I worked on one of the final generation of punched card operated computers - just the card punch machine was a huge machine, made a tremendous amount of noise when you operated it and must have used a lot of power to run. The computer itself we never saw and required many attendants to keep it going.A few years later then first the PDP 11s in the university like remarkable small machine you could fit into a corner of a room, and then eventually when you got everyone using computers just for typing things out, when you were used to the idea that time on a computer was this immensely precious thing that you had to queue up to get a few minutes to run your program overnight.
So - also it's not like AI where it seems there is probably some fairly fundamental problem with some of the things they want to do, this is just technology, miniaturization, just the sort of things humans seem to be able to develop really quickly once we get started on it.So - I wouldn't be surprised if in say 5-10 years this is commonplace, and seems really no reason at all why you shouldn't have fully humanoid robots operated by telepresence. Whether there would be enough AI development for them to also work as robots as in Asimov robots, that I find rather more sci. fi. seems unlikely because AI has proved such a very hard thing to do, also some theoretical reasons I feel true AI is an unachievable goal at least with ordinary software programming (but would be a big digression to go into that here).
{snip}And why would you want a humanoid machine?
Humans can climb vertically, wheels cannot.A fork lift truck can pick things up and put them down but has difficulty turning them on their side. A hand with fingers finds this easy.A humanoid machine may also have these abilities. Steel is stronger than bone so a machine can be build to lift heavier weights than humans.
“Big Dog” is amazing achievement, but is it useful?15 HP = 11 kw. Driving through a 10 hour day means you use 110 kwh, just to move about. You are not going to supply that with onboard solar or an RTG. So you need stored energy, be it batteries, fuel cells or an internal combustion engine. As you say we need some type of ISRU plant. How big is it? What’s its mass? How much power will it need?
The various humanoid robots are able to operate without any power supply ...How does something run without power?
Then there is the matter of providing environmental protection for the computer (temperature control, radiation shielding) for the high end computer that runs Big Dog. Then the communications system. And we haven’t even looked at payload.
There certainly are big improvements in some fields, but this does not mean that improvements are linear across the board.
Yes, AI is off topic.
I've also racked my brain trying to think of ways that astronauts could safely land on Mars and explore it without contaminating it but can't come up with anything. The closest I've got is the idea that in the future we might have super-strong materials like graphite sheets, and maybe they could be so strong that a spacecraft made of them would survive even a hard impact on Mars without rupturing. The astronauts inside wouldn't survive but it would remain intact and could then be lifted up from the planet again at a later date.If that was possible then the next stage is to try to get the astronauts into sterilised space-suits
"Once there, a series of chemical reactions .. would be used to combine a small amount of hydrogen (8 tons) carried by the Earth Return Vehicle with the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere to create up to 112 tonnes of methane and oxygen. "
Quote from: robertinventor on 06/14/2012 09:00 am"Once there, a series of chemical reactions .. would be used to combine a small amount of hydrogen (8 tons) carried by the Earth Return Vehicle with the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere to create up to 112 tonnes of methane and oxygen. "Oooh, very clever. Only take the (low molecular weight) hydrogen with you, use ISRU for the bulk of the mass. I like it.Noel
A couple of quotes from Sagan's paper found while writing that thing today "The Martian surface material certainly contains a substantial fraction of ferric oxides, which are extremely strongly absorbing in the near ultraviolet. In fact, apart from the ferric oxide identification, the red color of Mars clearly indicates major electronic transitions at short visible wavelengths. A terrestrial microorganism imbedded in such a particle can be shielded from ultraviolet light and still be transported about the planet."So - just the idea I'd thought of, of the micro-organism imbedded in a dust grain, and he says that the iron oxide would strongly absorb ultra-violet - that suggests to me that the dust storms also would do the same and so add extra protection.
Also he gives a pretty good method that could lead to micro-organisms growing on the surface and spreading:"Equatorial daytime temperatures range up to 20 or 30" C (corresponding to saturation vapor pressures of 25 mb and higher. A pool of liquid water exposed on Mars at temperatures = 273" K will evaporate initially at a rate N 10 g/cm /sec. The evaporation is so fast that vertical and horizonta l transport of water away from the pool will be the rate-limiting steps in the early phases of vaporization. Because the saturation vapour pressure at these temperatures is of the same order as the total pressure the pressure difference will lead to hydrodynamic flow, and winds will carry the vapor away. The transport rate has not, to the best of our knowledge, been calculated. Before long, however, the high latent heat of vaporization of water should result in freezing the upper surface of the pool, cutting down the vaporization rate substantially.exposed during the hottest part of the day, and sealed for the remainder of the day."So - an endospore could land in a puddle that has just melted briefly in the mid-day sun. But then the top rapidly evaporates and gets covered in ice as he says. Then it has plenty of time to re-activate and reproduce sheltered by the ice - it could be in shadow by then too, maybe part of the puddle is in the shadow of a rock. Then next day the sun melts the ice again so it is briefly exposed to the atmosphere, new endospores form, and get blown away by the escaping water and by winds, and the process repeats.
Quote from: Dalhousie on 06/14/2012 02:14 am{snip}And why would you want a humanoid machine?Humans can climb vertically, wheels cannot.A fork lift truck can pick things up and put them down but has difficulty turning them on their side. A hand with fingers finds this easy.A humanoid machine may also have these abilities. Steel is stronger than bone so a machine can be build to lift heavier weights than humans.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 06/14/2012 05:00 amQuote from: Dalhousie on 06/14/2012 02:14 am{snip}And why would you want a humanoid machine?Humans can climb vertically, wheels cannot.A fork lift truck can pick things up and put them down but has difficulty turning them on their side. A hand with fingers finds this easy.A humanoid machine may also have these abilities. Steel is stronger than bone so a machine can be build to lift heavier weights than humans.Why would you want to climb a vertical cliff? if you do there are easier ways of accessing a cliff than building a humanoid machine.
A forklift is much better, than a artificial hand for a wide range of operations. It is simpler and cheaper. if you do need hand-like dexterity, why does it have to be humanoid or attached to a humanoid platform.
We don';t need humanoid machines to lift objects too heavy for a people to lift. I really don't understand the obsession with humanoid machinary. IThey appear cumbersome, inefficient, and unneccessary.There are far easier ways to go about operations.
For the likes of Big Dog I had in mind using the same method as Mars Direct. If you are going to do a human visit to Mars you will carry many tons of equipment and supplies with you anyway so talking about a couple of orders of magnitude heavier than current rovers. Curiosity is 900 kg.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory
Mars Direct delivers well over 100 metric tons to the vicinity of Mars.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct#Scheme"Once there, a series of chemical reactions (the Sabatier reaction coupled with electrolysis) would be used to combine a small amount of hydrogen (8 tons) carried by the Earth Return Vehicle with the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere to create up to 112 tonnes of methane and oxygen. 96 tonnes of these would be needed to return the Earth Return Vehicle to Earth at the end of the mission, the rest would be available for Mars rovers. "So you have tonnes of fuel for your rovers. You would need them for human powered rovers anyway, the idea of exploring Mars sitting on the likes of Curiosity would be far too slow you'd be better off just pulling a cart with the equipment in it yourself by hand.Batteries would probably be used as well also solar panels e.g. for things you deploy and leave in situ to do experiments.
Computers don't require a lot of power at all. You don't need anything high end. Nowadays a laptop running kinekt is pretty impressive for the controlling side of things.
With this next video, it's just because it's kind of nice view of the whole thing, shows someone controlling Nao via Kinekt to pet their cat, to show how minimal and lightweight it is. It's pretty slow but that's because he can't see too clearly, it's just a "proof of principle". But shows how light it can be - the chap is standing on a treadmill, you need the kinekt system cameras to look at you, a laptop and the robot, and that's it.A high end system need be no larger or heavier, just higher quality components.Here is a video tutorial for Kinekt and MotionBuilder and you can see how you can easily control virtual bones in real time using Kinekt, very smooth no hesitation, and all you need for this is a modern laptop and some small cameras, and software.
That's just quick typing, and you can't go back an edit your posts after you post them, I mean, without any external power supply of course.
By the robot self powered, I just meant carries it's own power around inside it.
Human location is quite efficient, I think eventually as they improve the techology, it could end up more efficient than wheels over rough ground especially if you use the elasticity of the foot and the muscles capturing and releasing that energy, and kind of "bounce along" as we do.
A wheel I'd expect to outperform over ideal conditions especially if it is slightly down hill where it can just roll and not expend any energy at all, but even then - do you know those walking toys that you just let go and they automatically walk down a steep slope? You could walk down a hill in the same way expending no energy at all with a really well designed robot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance#Energy_efficiencyOn firm, flat ground, a 70 kg person requires about 30 watts to walk at 5 km/h. That same person on a bicycle, on the same ground, with the same power output, can average 15 km/h, so energy expenditure in terms of kcal/(kg•km) is roughly one-third as much. So - if your robot is using more than 30 watts to travel at 5 km/ h then there is definitely room for improvement as technology improves.
I think I've answered that. It's not high end any more. If you said this say fifteen years ago then it would be true but nowadays you are just talking about the equivalent of a modern consumer laptop. Would need shielding of course, but I think entirely feasible.
Cliffs are not the only thing that are vertical, so are ladders. The LEM had a ladder.When operating on more than one floor humans tend to incorporate stairs and ladders into their buildings.
Having said that wheels are better for long distances.
Hands work best when connected to arms and shoulders. They can move over larger distances.
Whether you need a head and chest is a different but related question.QuoteWe don't need humanoid machines to lift objects too heavy for a people to lift. I really don't understand the obsession with humanoid machinary. IThey appear cumbersome, inefficient, and unneccessary.There are far easier ways to go about operations.When deciding this it is important to know how many other machines you have. It may take 9 or 10 machines to replace a humanoid.
We don't need humanoid machines to lift objects too heavy for a people to lift. I really don't understand the obsession with humanoid machinary. IThey appear cumbersome, inefficient, and unneccessary.There are far easier ways to go about operations.
Quote from: Dalhousie on 06/15/2012 03:32 amI really don't understand the obsession with humanoid machinary. IThey appear cumbersome, inefficient, and unneccessary.There are far easier ways to go about operations.Well just imagine if President Kennedy had said, "We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard. But to make the design reviews a little more smooth - we are only going to take the easiest/most efficient way to do this".
I really don't understand the obsession with humanoid machinary. IThey appear cumbersome, inefficient, and unneccessary.There are far easier ways to go about operations.
Come on! Everybody wants a fully autonomous/fully anthropomorphic Robonaut from Mars. It's good for merchandizing!
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 06/15/2012 04:54 amCliffs are not the only thing that are vertical, so are ladders. The LEM had a ladder.When operating on more than one floor humans tend to incorporate stairs and ladders into their buildings.Why would you want a ladder and floors on an unmanned mission?
Quote from: Dalhousie on 06/15/2012 07:18 amQuote from: A_M_Swallow on 06/15/2012 04:54 amCliffs are not the only thing that are vertical, so are ladders. The LEM had a ladder.When operating on more than one floor humans tend to incorporate stairs and ladders into their buildings.Why would you want a ladder and floors on an unmanned mission?Who says the mission is unmanned?A ladder is the easiest way of climbing up to the side hatch on a Dragon.
Quote from: jnc on 06/14/2012 03:46 pmQuote from: robertinventor on 06/14/2012 09:00 am"Once there, a series of chemical reactions .. would be used to combine a small amount of hydrogen (8 tons) carried by the Earth Return Vehicle with the carbon dioxide of the Martian atmosphere to create up to 112 tonnes of methane and oxygen. "Oooh, very clever. Only take the (low molecular weight) hydrogen with you, use ISRU for the bulk of the mass. I like it.NoelYes indeed it's a truly brilliant idea.
gimmicky wastes of time that confuse people and trivialise what robots can and cannot do. They are not surrogate people, no matter how many facebook pages and twitter accounts they have, they are just tools, with specific abilities and limits.
"You're immune to both romance and mirth. You must be a.. a..""That's right, I'm an engineer."
Well just a quick reply.
I don't understand the extreme fear of pathogens.
Unless you can rule out the chance that it might do harm, you should not embark on such a course.
So a human occupied spacecraft will have many trillions of micro-organisms...
It is the toughest step surely for it to find a habitat. But - the endospores are also amazingly long lived ...
Spin gravity is undemonstrated with unknown long term effects. Proving it up would require an extensive program.
We are talking about very complex systems hear, not toys. Which is why I keep asking for numbers.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 06/15/2012 04:54 amCliffs are not the only thing that are vertical, so are ladders. The LEM had a ladder.When operating on more than one floor humans tend to incorporate stairs and ladders into their buildings.Why would you want a ladder and floors on an unmanned mission? ...I want to see numbers, power, mass, volume, needed to achieve the same as a human mission.
Why would you want to climb a vertical cliff?
Whether you need a head ... is a different but related question.
QuoteIt is the toughest step surely for it to find a habitat. But - the endospores are also amazingly long lived ...But the human ones are less likely to have such amazing lives of dormancy. We should certainly be very careful about backward contamination; somewhat less so for forward contamination. Even so, we should study Mars from orbit for a good while before attempting to land.
Robert the Inventor: BigDog Rox! Thanks for sharing. When the guy kicked him, he was able to maintain his footing! Same on the ice!True, as you point out in a later post, "Human location locomotion is quite efficient". However, it is the robot which mimics human locomotion which is not.
I trot out again, heh heh, my idea of horses on the Moon, and Mars by extension. Yes, they'd need spacesuits, already demonstrated for humans, readily conceived scalable for horses. All of the software, thanks to evolution, is included in the horse itself. Several paces, low energy consumption, self balancing, intelligent and easily trained, strong. What's not to like? Possibly even cheaper to keep in operating than a robot of similar capability. Not only that, why not dogs? They could carry samples and tools, and be quite useful.
Ah - but how likely is your "less likely"?
You need to prove it can't happen...
Just one oversight, one vector missed, and one endospore that gets through ...
But it is easy see that there is nothing at all you can do to protect the planet in the event of a crash landing of a human occupied spaceship.
BTW did you know as a result of this thread, literalitudinity....
Actually I have just found a study of exactly what we want to know, endospores survival on the Mars surface ...In that time period, 5% of the endospores survived on the surface in multi-layers. Less than one in 10^-6 survived in monolayers, but still some survived even like that exposed to the full sunlight on Mars...
I can sort of understand where you are at, but for me, a one-way quarantine protection of Mars is just not good enough.
It's also risking the whole planet for all the scientists who want to study it, all the discoveries that might be made as a result of those discoveries, and all the inventions that would arise from those discoveries.
Also, if there is any way to make sure people can see the advantages of tele-presence, for the first few missions at least, and the possible disadvantages of human landings at our current stage of knowledge.If any of the groups planning a human direct landing on Mars in the nearish future do go ahead with their plans, I will be even a bit scared at what might possibly happen to the Earth when they come back, and feel really sad for what might well be lost on Mars as a result of their exploration. So - that's the one milestone in the future, I very much hope the first human mission to Mars is by telepresence. Then after that then we can make new decisions and see what happens based on what we know then.
Quote from: robertinventor on 06/16/2012 09:17 amActually I have just found a study of exactly what we want to know, endospores survival on the Mars surface ...In that time period, 5% of the endospores survived on the surface in multi-layers. Less than one in 10^-6 survived in monolayers, but still some survived even like that exposed to the full sunlight on Mars...Interesting. Again, this is about survival, not "thrival", which is to minimize to some extent, your concerns about rapid widespread forward contamination of Mars with a carefully selected subset of our endospores.Still needed in your conjectural proof is the mechanism by which these endospores, a subset of all endospores, are inadvertently carried to Mars, in spite of precautions; and the mechanism by which the subset of those surviving endospores, contaminates the entire planet in relatively short order. The discussion rapidly turns to a listing of those particular endospores, which I turn out to know nothing at all about. They may very well exist, as you surmise, but their actual existence and survival rates, is something you, or somebody else, must provide. In short, there's a lot of research yet to do.
QuoteIt's also risking the whole planet for all the scientists who want to study it, all the discoveries that might be made as a result of those discoveries, and all the inventions that would arise from those discoveries.The risk is that subset of a subset of organisms, and the particular mechanisms by which they would be known to spread versus the containment procedures to be implemented to prevent that spread. I'm talking myself into believing that it's a small number, but I don't know.
As to the discoveries, you can only be talking about the discoveries of new life forms and the determination of second genesis, which has a lot of value, I agree. As to inventions, I can only envision the possibility of say, new vaccines, which would take advantage of the similarities and/or differences between terrestrial and possible martian life, which also could have potential value.
QuoteAlso, if there is any way to make sure people can see the advantages of tele-presence, for the first few missions at least, and the possible disadvantages of human landings at our current stage of knowledge.If any of the groups planning a human direct landing on Mars in the nearish future do go ahead with their plans, I will be even a bit scared at what might possibly happen to the Earth when they come back, and feel really sad for what might well be lost on Mars as a result of their exploration. So - that's the one milestone in the future, I very much hope the first human mission to Mars is by telepresence. Then after that then we can make new decisions and see what happens based on what we know then.Pretty much totally agree. I plug again the 900m, 1rpm, 1gee manned ring station orbiting Mars, with a Mars-gee intermediate ring, and a fleet of lab and tool equipped rovers performing a comprehensive survey looking for life.There is no rush to get to Mars, unless there is found to be signs of intelligent life.
So if it is really early life or it has evolved along a completely different path from Earth life, then there's almost no limit to what we could learn, seems to me.
Yes I agree when you start to repeat yourself, that's a clear sign that the discussion has reached the point where you probably aren't going to learn much more, but it's been a really good discussion and I thank you all for taking part.Maybe we can take it up again once we learn more, either if Curiosity comes up with interesting results or later on.Also hope I have given you all some interesting things to think about, as you have too in your responses.
Still needed in your conjectural proof is the mechanism by which these endospores, a subset of all endospores, are inadvertently carried to Mars, in spite of precautions; and the mechanism by which the subset of those surviving endospores, contaminates the entire planet in relatively short order.
If no life is found on Mars bad news for the hunt for extraterrestrial life but it would mean good news for those who wish to colonize it.No staying clear of what might be the best locations for a base and no worries about contamination with Earth life.Personally I think the fears of cross contamination are unfounded as Mars and Earth have exchanged materials in the past.
No-one has showed that it is impossible for that to happen as far as I know
As for how they get there, could just be the endospore falls to the surface. Then ... it will thrive on Mars.
This isn't a proof because it's not maths, so I can't provide what I would call a proof which is a mathematical certainty. I don't know how you set about proving results in this field. But it's enough for me to be concerned that it could very well happen, for me even a small probability would be enough to be really concerned about the possible outcome.Don't expect you to agree with me completely but do you understand how I might feel the way I do about it?
1) If no life is found on Mars bad news for the hunt for extraterrestrial life but it would mean good news for those who wish to colonize it....2) Personally I think the fears of cross contamination are unfounded as Mars and Earth have exchanged materials in the past.
Removed both the original message and my reply, don't want to be hurtful.
gospacex, I've just found a good quote by Carl Sagan which might answer your question about when do you decide it is okay to colonise Mars, he is talking about back contamination here
Now we're searching for life on Mars and astronomer parties! Muhahahaha!Stephen Hawking was speaking last weekend about inviting time travellers to a party after it was over. Something about proving backwards time travel is not possible BECAUSE NOBODY SHOWED UP! Oh!
You might never prove mathematically that it is completely safe, but at the moment we are nowhere near knowing enough to assess the risk level. ...However much you might convince yourselves, the things you've said here have come nowhere near to allaying the concerns of those who are really worried about the subject, like myself, if you think about the things you said, none of them were particularly re-assuring for someone who is deeply concerned at the possibility.
...destroy geologically interesting deposits such as those in the dried up ocean beds...
...one bacterium to weight of the Earth in less than two days dividing every 20 minutes...
Quote from: that Wiki article...destroy geologically interesting deposits such as those in the dried up ocean beds...Give up on that notion. It strains credulity to think that a rapid, massive disruption of martian geology could happen on the scale that is imagined.
To insist that this theoretical mathmatical exercise has any validity at all to the problem of forward contamination of Mars is to deliberately spread false and misleading information
Some people will never be convinced. You sound like you're a member of this group.None of what I have said is to suggest that we know enough already to make the claim that backwards contamination from Mars will never happen.
First, the esoterica of mathematic proof of safety: If it's not zero, then, by definition, it's unsafe. Say that Mars has been colonized for a hundred years, and there is a vigorous two way traffic between here and there. One day, a wierdo virus pops out of a rock somewhere, and infects the human portion of the two planet ecosystem within a month, and all humans die.
I'm talking about flooding and melting of the ice, caused by release of methane.
...it's reasonable enough to assume one that reproduces once a month in the conditions on Mars especially if there are those subsurface briny films on the rock and with the warm midday sun.
But what I did was entirely within the spirit of the way Wikipedia works...
I am ready to be convinced in the right circumstances.
Which would be an instantiation of that rapid, massive disruption of martian geology that I suggest could never happen on the scale that is imagined. While true that some suggest that such a methodology could be deliberately invoked to provoke such a change, in the interests of terraforming the surface of Mars, these methodologies or suggestions are not widely accepted as being feasible.
The widespread presence of those films and warmth have not yet been found, therefore, such an assumption is not reasonable by my take. There's not enough food for these things to eat, even if they could find it.
If you say so, but I don't sense it.
...as the films are postulated in the near subsurface layers...
There are other layers where life could form deep ...
The upper layers ... could be widespread if they exist...
Sorry, in this case policies should be based on things that might happen and can't be proved yet - until we know more about the situation on Mars.It just isn't right to ask me to find a proof in this situation, that's unfair, when the very problem is that we don't know enough.
Preliminary evidence indicates it is a hostile planet.
Also just a little thing to say, unlike Carl Sagan, I wouldn't personally want to go on a spaceship to Mars myself, - because I wouldn't be able to keep up with the programming, would miss my relatives, am very happy here. Also, I suffer a bit from claustrophobia so the idea of several months in a spaceship with nowhere to go except a couple of small rooms, if that, doesn't exactly appeal, although the view from the windows would appeal Don't know if that is somehow coming over in these posts.But I'd love to see other human explorers do it just as I thought it was great when I watched the moon landings, and a great shame when they stopped it just as it got to the point when they sent their first scientist to the Moon.So that's the sense in which I'd love to see it happen, if there were any way around these issues. But like Sagan says in his quote, it still seems like we are at least some decades away from that happening, though habitats in space and telepresence seem very hopeful indeed, those could happen with enough will in the near future even within a decade or so, and also safely for all concerned, as safe as you can be in space exploration.
What is coming through to me in your posts is that you are not really a fan of the human exploration of Mars and your main interest lies in restricting who would get to go to the Red Planet, if you would let anyone go at all.I don't care about the non-existent bugs on that planet and the obvious safety concerns with getting there. That shouldn't stop the people who really want to go from going. People all over terra die doing various recreational stuff every day, even in the nanny states. So what.
But did you not see the quote from the NASA workshop that some forward contamination by humans is inevitable?
...there are no significant resources that can sustain/support life of an unreasonably large population.
You need to transform the environment somehow to enable the manned colonization.
I've also determined in other posts that the search for microbes/other dormant life will not be conclusive. The agenda for finding life is dependent on conditions that existed in Mars more than 4.5 billion years ago before Mars lost its magnetosphere. There is no indication of complex life on Earth during that time. So this effort on Mars is really running on fumes.
Nobody really believes that life on Earth was started by microbes on meteors. There is simply NO evidence of this. NASA has been duped into performing missions of only philosophical/anti-religious value, that will never be clearly achieved by their stated objectives. There will always be some argument with their results. This is not inspiring kids into science, technology and math.... and I don't blame them.
In the case of barrenness, we run the risk of an Earthly virus running amok in the closed hab, but this medical emergency will have to be solved as much in advance as possible for the ring station and the lunar colony as well. If it is conceived that an Earthly bacteria will mutate into a super-flu, because what, the combination of UV and Beryllium is perfect for this possibility? Then what? It seems quite a bit less likely than us getting our own rightly feared super-flu back on Earth.
If there is extinct life, and it is thought that somehow this dead alien DNA will infect and mutate our bacteria to some new form, then it must also be totally accepted that Jurassic Park is right around the corner. The only way dead alien DNA could successfully meld with Earthly DNA is thru deliberate manipulation by living humans, 'cause it certainly can't be done by dead aliens. I can't see this as the problem forbidding human colonization.
If there are living ecosystems there already, there is a very compelling argument to keep orbiting and observing for a long time. I don't have a "plan" for this. In my defense, I've been criticized roundly for thinking far in advance. But hey: I've got limits as to how far I'd project my speculations.As always, if the rovers should find a stone axe or a calculator, all bets are off.
As to the Wiki page which you have made yourself the major contributor. Perhaps you can now see that a "crowd" of one, has limited knowledge to share. What everybody seems to be overlooking in this crowd sourced, hive minded document, is that the whole is only as good as the pieces. There are a lot of faulty pieces making up this whole.
I saw an episode recently, I believe on Discovery Science channel, and a biologist who studies microbial life forms living in harsh environments stated that data from the MSO shows methane levels emanating from ancient volcanic vents on the surface to be consistent with large underground colonies of bacteria.Even if the planet were totally lifeless, there is great value in the geology as well as the potential for terraforming.
So the organisms we take to Mars would spread out through the surface,
and would evolve very rapidly
as micro-organisms do, because of the horizontal genetic transfer between them, and the relatively short generations. Studies have been done using just small colonies in flasks and they evolve into distinct versions with different traits in a fairly short time on the years time scale, not the longer time scales of animals etc.
So with the whole of Mars in place of the flask of the laboratory experiments, and with many diverse habitats there to try to colonise
So - then they have evolved without any of the usual restraints of the rest of the eco-system you get on Earth
So - that's why you might get new pathogens evolving as a result of introducing some new organisms to Mars
Generally people tend to be too timid with wikipedia, and don't take up the invitation to dive in and be bold, especially in these science areas (while in other areas like politics they might be too bold I suppose).
...very remote chance of early intelligent life. It would have to get off to an impressively fast and early start on Mars. Since we really know nothing much about how easy it is for intelligence to develop,... wouldn't say absolutely no myself, but extremely unlikely on basis of what we know so far
So if there are any mistakes in my contribution then they should find them sooner or later.
It would be hysteria if I said the probability is high. Just saying the probability is unknown, and that when you risk so much, even a tiny probability can't be contemplated.
Quote from: robertinventor on 06/20/2012 11:17 pmGenerally people tend to be too timid with wikipedia, and don't take up the invitation to dive in and be bold, especially in these science areas (while in other areas like politics they might be too bold I suppose). It is interesting that such a timidity exists, especially with the promise of anonymity that Wiki offers. As an interesting, to me at least, digression, I believe that the crowd sourced online model would work if the sources were actually people. As it is, the sources are anonymous avatars, who supply misinformation at voluminous rates. Some of us only have 24.7 hours in the day, and there's simply not enough time to fix Wiki.
Quote from: Robert...very remote chance of early intelligent life. It would have to get off to an impressively fast and early start on Mars. Since we really know nothing much about how easy it is for intelligence to develop,... wouldn't say absolutely no myself, but extremely unlikely on basis of what we know so farMankind has no idea how long that process takes, and a sketchy idea of how long it took in our case. Our particular circumstantial past, complete with extinction events, is not by any stretch the only theoretical path that the genesis of self conscious intelligent life could take. As far as that idea goes, we could not tell if there is an intelligent species of our advancement on Andromeda, just to pick a galaxy at random.So it is with the genesis of life itself. We have one data point to go from, and the scientificists have no mechanism at all to hypothesize about its origin.Nut the general sense is that Mars is barren. I have no idea what the truth of the matter is.
Quote from: RobertSo if there are any mistakes in my contribution then they should find them sooner or later.Good to see that you said "should", not "will".
Quote from: robertinventor on 06/21/2012 09:01 amIt would be hysteria if I said the probability is high. Just saying the probability is unknown, and that when you risk so much, even a tiny probability can't be contemplated. Unfortunately, you use the hysterical term, "can't". The risk needs to be determined so that we "can" contemplate a manned landing on Mars.
Unfortunately, NASA is pre-occupied with insisting that terrestrial life, in some new and unusual cases is actually alien life, that is, when they're not building rockets to nowhere, or retiring rockets that work. Thus, they are content to look merely for "signs" of life elsewhere, and are happy to move the goalposts to more distant locations, like Europa, bleeding funding from a quicker, more productive development of cis-lunar capabilities.
I am curious how would you stop private colonists from going to Mars.I sure hope US government will not become some sort of dictatorship which prohibits its citizens from exploring and settling outer space.
The nearest I can think of is if it gets some kind of international protected status, similar to Antarctica, probably some kind of international treaty that no-one is to land on it for the time being.
That depends also on whether we want to terraform it first as human colonists could get in the way of terraformation...
NASA is pre-occupied with insisting that terrestrial life, in some new and unusual cases is actually alien life...
Could be.
I am curious how would you stop private colonists from going to Mars.
With potential cost of Mars real estate and resources of immeasurable trillions of dollars...
Quote from: robertinventor on 06/21/2012 04:12 pmThe nearest I can think of is if it gets some kind of international protected status, similar to Antarctica, probably some kind of international treaty that no-one is to land on it for the time being.With potential cost of Mars real estate and resources of immeasurable trillions of dollars, good luck keeping people out. Especially that you apparently want to protect some Martian bacteria. Bacteria now have more rights than humans? Gosh...
Quote from: RobertThat depends also on whether we want to terraform it first as human colonists could get in the way of terraformation...Well, after you've inherited a swamp in Florida, you don't first design the entire house down to the gold plated toilets, then verify whether or not it will fit the site. First, you visit and study the site carefully, and then design the house.So it should be, and most probably will be with any martian terraforming. A couple of bases here and there, which slowly grow, hopefully. Should it turn out to be a worthwhile endeavor in a century or two, ya terraform it.
Quote from: gospacex on 06/21/2012 04:19 pmWith potential cost of Mars real estate and resources of immeasurable trillions of dollars...For sale: Cheap, fixer-upper planet in desireable location within habitable zone of nearby star...
Quote from: JohnFornaro on 06/21/2012 04:43 pmQuote from: RobertThat depends also on whether we want to terraform it first as human colonists could get in the way of terraformation...... First, you visit and study the site carefully, and then design the house.So it should be, and most probably will be with any martian terraforming. A couple of bases here and there, which slowly grow, hopefully. Should it turn out to be a worthwhile endeavor in a century or two, ya terraform it.Yes, true. With the terraforming you still have the issue that introduced life is going to start transforming the planet anyway, just a little to start with. ...It's going to be tricky anyway to get the whole planet working [properly.]...If you just introduce colonists without thinking about the effect on terraforming then it might be that you are making it much harder to terraform the planet.
Quote from: RobertThat depends also on whether we want to terraform it first as human colonists could get in the way of terraformation...... First, you visit and study the site carefully, and then design the house.So it should be, and most probably will be with any martian terraforming. A couple of bases here and there, which slowly grow, hopefully. Should it turn out to be a worthwhile endeavor in a century or two, ya terraform it.
You worry too much young Paduan. As Jeff Greason mentioned in his recent ISDC talk: Twenty year plans don't work. Terraforming Mars will be done by trial and error, should it ever come to pass.Study the planet carefully from above. Eventually, should it so be decided, send a group down to try out the planet. If that works, send some more. Repeat every two years or so for a hundred years.
...that year at Culham (1971-2 was when I was there if I remember right)...
Quote...that year at Culham (1971-2 was when I was there if I remember right)...Okay.Old Paduan.