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Author Topic:   Life on Mars?
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 46 of 64 (94169)
03-23-2004 3:36 PM
Reply to: Message 45 by berberry
03-23-2004 2:44 PM


Re: Evidence continues to mount
And if life is found in there then I will be able to extend my notion of Croizat finite#baselines to Mars and perhaps document my intuition that infinite baseline representations are possible symbollically which I have been hard pressed to present with only Earth data. My feeling is that it really would remand life on Saturn or beyond though to get something really new in this stale bread of a science we call biology. The twists and turns on Mars may be too similar to Earth's to be able to get DeltaT from it any differntly.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by berberry, posted 03-23-2004 2:44 PM berberry has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by berberry, posted 03-23-2004 4:53 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
berberry
Inactive Member


Message 47 of 64 (94188)
03-23-2004 4:53 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by Brad McFall
03-23-2004 3:36 PM


Re: Evidence continues to mount
Am I to understand that you believe life might once have been possible on one of the gas giants? Can you explain your idea in laymen's terms? I'm interested, but I'm not sure I'm understanding you correctly.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by Brad McFall, posted 03-23-2004 3:36 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Brad McFall, posted 03-24-2004 11:13 AM berberry has replied

  
berberry
Inactive Member


Message 48 of 64 (94333)
03-24-2004 2:04 AM
Reply to: Message 45 by berberry
03-23-2004 2:44 PM


Question
Does anyone know why it is that we can't send a spacecraft to Mars, scoop up a few of these rocks and bring them back to earth? Do scientists think that would be of less value than what these rovers are doing, or is there some technological hurdle that hasn't yet been surmounted? Would the cost of such a project be much higher than the rover project?
I ask because it seems to me that, given the fact that we launched a manned craft from the surface of the moon 35 years ago, there should be some hope of successfully launching an unmanned craft from the martian surface by now. Of course I realize that there are dramatic differences in the moon and Mars, but since we can land a delicate instrument on Mars without damaging it why can't we build something that could launch itself back to earth?
I remember reading something about this idea years ago, but I can't seem to find anything on it just now.

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Replies to this message:
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Darwin Storm
Inactive Member


Message 49 of 64 (94339)
03-24-2004 2:22 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by berberry
03-24-2004 2:04 AM


Re: Question
Acutually, there are many technological and cost-based hurdles with trying to ship rocks back from mars. First off, the rover is a realitively small cargo, so the rocket, fuel, etc is cheap compared to manned missions. The second is that they are essentially dropped in inflatable ballons for landing. There they stay.
To retrieve rocks and ship them home, you would need to carry a second rocket, or more fuel for a return trip, you would need to add a launch vehicle that could land the rover, collect the rocks, and escape mars's gravitywell. This adds additionaly technical problems. It needs to mate again with its transportation back home. Oh, having a large lander that can relaunch requires more fuel to initially launch and travel to mars, alot more. Then it has to be able to navigate home, and somehow be rocovered, either in orbit, or have some additional system to safely survive rentry.
One way trips are way cheaper, simplier, and lighter. The huge difference of price also allows you to fund many other projects for the money of just one return trip.

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crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 50 of 64 (94341)
03-24-2004 2:47 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by berberry
03-24-2004 2:04 AM


Look at the size of the lander compared to the size of the rocket that it took to get it there.
Now imagine the size of the rocket it would take to get that rocket to Mars.
Now, admittedly Mars has only 1/3 the gravity of Earth, but you still need a fairly large rocket to get it back, so the rocket to get it there is simply too large to be practical. It's just cheaper to send whatever instruments you want to use on the rocks rather than try to bring the rocks back.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 51 of 64 (94415)
03-24-2004 11:13 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by berberry
03-23-2004 4:53 PM


Re: Evidence continues to mount
No, I doubt it highly. I once tried to explain this in some threads on cosmology a while back but before I came across Cohen's work on Newton I was visually influenced in a Kantian question as to the non-planar attitude of the asteriod belt such that anything beyond Mars seemed unsual philosophically for me but finding ICE wayYYYYYYYYYYYYYY beyond Pluto has indeed disabused me of that norm but seeing that indeed in my lifetime we may find a procaryote on MARS I am thinking ahead to any gene sequences we might be able to extract and wondering if 1-D info thus garnered might be able to extend Kant's question to the reader as to why we have 3-D space. I think that if Einstein IS wrong then this kind of data could subsequently enable us to retrodict time changes as to distributions beyond the earth-mars area, much like we do with protein families today. Sorry to have mislead you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by berberry, posted 03-23-2004 4:53 PM berberry has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by berberry, posted 03-25-2004 3:28 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 52 of 64 (94473)
03-24-2004 2:56 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by crashfrog
03-24-2004 2:47 AM


mars direct
there are other options
Zubrin's Mars Direct is probably the best known
Forbidden
uses resources on mars to fuel a return rocket
one of the next landers is set to launch a return pod ... may have to wait a while for it to get into a retrieval orbit

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist

This message is a reply to:
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berberry
Inactive Member


Message 53 of 64 (94482)
03-24-2004 3:26 PM


New life on Mars?
I have no idea if the source is credible, but if this is true we could be starting something we won't be able to stop. What do you folks make of it?

Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 54 of 64 (94490)
03-24-2004 3:42 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by berberry
03-24-2004 3:26 PM


Re: New life on Mars?
if life found on mars is substantially different from anything on earth, the question is answered.
if it is Escherichia coli it is also answered.
I will wait until it is found.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist

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berberry
Inactive Member


Message 55 of 64 (94627)
03-25-2004 3:28 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by Brad McFall
03-24-2004 11:13 AM


Re: Evidence continues to mount
What you're talking about sounds fascinating, Brad, but I think you're grossly overestimating my knowledge of planetary science. Your brain is about a light-year or so ahead of mine. In order that I might fully understand you, I hope you'll answer a couple questions.
1. Can you briefly (and in dumbed-down language) describe Cohen's work on Newton?
2. What is the Kantian question you're referring to? Is it simply "why do we have 3-D space?" or is there more to it than that? I remember that Kant was an 18th century philosopher and that Kantian questions always seem to be existential, but I can't remember specifically what it is that makes a question Kantian.
3. In what way do you think Einstein might have been wrong? If it is related to relativity, please make it extra simple as I don't fully understand that concept.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Brad McFall, posted 03-24-2004 11:13 AM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by Brad McFall, posted 03-26-2004 11:00 AM berberry has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 56 of 64 (94938)
03-26-2004 11:00 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by berberry
03-25-2004 3:28 AM


Re: Evidence continues to mount
iI-IB Cohen of Harvard came out with a new edition of Newton's Principia where the symbol "h" was discussed but also he CONCLUDED (I think too narrowly given his jacket comment on the book THE AMBIGUOUS FROG)that Newton was ACTUALLY discussing "electricity" when he talked of "spirit"(aka Hawksbee for Bridgman's Huygens (that dreaed letter not scarlet agin.).
III'll have to track that down if you are really interested, I think it was in the C of Reason? Anyway Kant asked "why is space 3-D" and the question and subsequent text impressed me. I now think that future 1-D info may simply only recategorize and NOT answer the question, thus Kant's question stands for me but many since Russel have writ it off, wrongly again I think.
3-E could have been off BECAUSE the atom emiision must be a clock and we can have distant simultaneity in group theory population genetics potentially should I actually demonstrate this with a reduction of the two way to a one way Bridgman type operationalism of theory in biologiacl change which may be back to E's idea of Lornez electron instead of photon stat mechanics due to dimensional analysis of heat in genes (metabolism vs replication not as local logic currently dictates).

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Replies to this message:
 Message 57 by Brad McFall, posted 04-02-2004 11:42 AM Brad McFall has not replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 57 of 64 (97042)
04-02-2004 11:42 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by Brad McFall
03-26-2004 11:00 AM


Wence Kant can.
The question BECOMES "Kantian" for me not by some preadapted imperative or not but simply by visualizing the SOLAR SYSTEM. Newton never gave me as reader a "visual" sense of its extant but only the extent of parts that make that up. This is why I rarely (compared to disussing the information across generations bioloigaclly) can incline my mind to cosmological issues of larger exent.

This message is a reply to:
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3Hawks
Inactive Junior Member


Message 58 of 64 (100152)
04-15-2004 2:55 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by Brad McFall
03-11-2004 10:03 AM


an interjection
Excuse me for butting into this conversation but I have some questions of my own I'd like answered in this relm of conversation. I've read about the "out of Africa" theories on how we originated there and migrated in 2 waves across the Earth. My questions are these, (1), if we did mrigrate from there, Why aren't we all negroes? What I'm asking is, where did Neandertal man come from? They were light skined, heavily built people, unlike us. The current theories don't answer the question of where all the races of humans came from very well. If humans migrated out of Africa, why did the negro race stay there and all the rest left? Then,the is the religeous aspect of another question that has always intriged me. If God created Adam and Eve... That mad two people on the planet. They had 2 sons which then made 4 people. One son killed the other and then there were only 3 people. Cain was banished from Eden and still there were only 3 people. How and with whom, did Cain father children? Myself, I don't think we're getting the whole picture from any side and that's a shame. I,for one, think that humans have been on Earth far longer than we think and have reached heights of civilization as great, if not higher than we are now,but,do to Tectonic catyclisms as well as celestrial ones the proof has been destroyed or most of it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Brad McFall, posted 03-11-2004 10:03 AM Brad McFall has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by crashfrog, posted 04-15-2004 3:06 AM 3Hawks has replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 59 of 64 (100153)
04-15-2004 3:06 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by 3Hawks
04-15-2004 2:55 AM


if we did mrigrate from there, Why aren't we all negroes?
We are. We just have less skin pigment and hair designed for a colder climate.
If humans migrated out of Africa, why did the negro race stay there and all the rest left?
You have some funny ideas.
The humans that stayed were black people. The humans that left were black people. They got less black after they left, by adaptation to the area that they moved to.
I,for one, think that humans have been on Earth far longer than we think and have reached heights of civilization as great, if not higher than we are now,but,do to Tectonic catyclisms as well as celestrial ones the proof has been destroyed or most of it.
If the proof is gone then why do you think that happened?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by 3Hawks, posted 04-15-2004 2:55 AM 3Hawks has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by 3Hawks, posted 04-15-2004 3:37 AM crashfrog has replied

  
3Hawks
Inactive Junior Member


Message 60 of 64 (100159)
04-15-2004 3:37 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by crashfrog
04-15-2004 3:06 AM


If this is true then explain to me the envirnments that would cause humans to have the pigmentations there are. If the Indians migrated from Asia, then there would still be Indians there also but there aren't. I've been to most parts of this planet in my service travels and haven't seen any part of it that would make for different pigmented humans. If caucasions were once black then they would still carry the sickle cell to some degree. Natural selection takes miilions of years to happen doesn't it? If not, then my question is still... Why aren't we all Negroes? Yes, I may have funny ideas, but my questions are never answered very well. There a few evidences that exist today that humans are far older than believed. Take for example, the sandaled footprints found beside dinosaur prints in 70 million year old rock. The suposition of envirnment doesn't hold up up in the migration theory to me because 50-75 thousand years isn't time enough to change that much. If it were, then by now Chimpanzees and gorillas would be evolved more also and start migrating themselves.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by crashfrog, posted 04-15-2004 3:06 AM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by crashfrog, posted 04-15-2004 4:12 AM 3Hawks has replied

  
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