Will Discovery of Mars Water Lead to Terraforming?

They've found water ice on Mars!  If this is news to you then we're proud that the Daily Galaxy is the only science-feed you read, probably delivered on parchment to your Himalayan cave by carrier pigeon. White material was uncovered by the Phoenix Lander remote robot digger arm, the most amazingly ultra-tech bucket and spade ever to exist.  It disappeared over time and exposure to sunlight, meaning that it's either frozen liquid or David Copperfield has been teaching salt some of his act.  NASA scientists are going for the former, in between high-fiving each other.

If a space-travel enthusiast was given a magic lamp with a genie by Father Christmas, he still wouldn't have dared to ask for news this good.  Water is one of the most vital of natural resources - never mind how your puny fleshbag gets very whiny (then very silent) after a few days without: the computer you're using, the desk its on, even the electricity powering it - not one of those was made without massive water costs.

Every industry on Earth is based on an assumed infinite supply of water - an easy state to reach when seventy per cent of your planet is covered in the stuff.  But while the life giving liquid is easy to find and easier to pour, getting it off planet needs a lot more than a big hose.  The huge thrust (fuel) cost for every kilo of matter lifted off planet makes water the most expensive essential for human life.

Spacecraft are masterpieces of recycling, reducing the huge initial costs of getting enough of the stuff into space.  As well as giving rise to one of the least-talked about aspects of space exploration: "boldly going where no one has gone before" gets a lot more press than "to boldly drink your own filtered urine."  But the presence of heavenly H20 really changes the entire picture of planetary exploration. 

Never mind survival or camp supplies - the word "terraforming" comes into play with this discovery.  That is a very, very big word - in implication and incredibility - and all made possible by some white patches on a picture.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Mars Water http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/06/22/scinasa222.xml

Comments

[Will]

"If this is news to you then we're proud that the Daily Galaxy is the only science-feed you read, probably delivered on parchment to your Himalayan cave by carrier pigeon."

Hahaha, great stuff.

[nyavogo]

ummm...can't they test for water? i mean they have sophisticated equipment on this Mars lander. surely they can do more than "guess it was water" cuz it's not there any more. if i were being scientific, i would have to eliminate wind as a factor, maybe it was blown away?

[Dave]

Crap...
Actually I was in Inuvik thank you very much, and it is indeed the first time I've heard about it. I see in searching the net they have convinced themselves that it IS ice as their sample has apparently 'sublimated'; turned from a solid directly to a gas...evaporated in other words. (heh...my new $5.00 word for the day.."Back off or I'll sublimate your sorry ass!") Why am I not all shocked though? Physics is pretty even across our observable universe. Actually, even if we find life in the form of molecules et al, that won't shock me either. We've only been expecting to come across superior extra terrestrial beings for a couple thousand years now, if only in our superstitions (religions also) and science fiction, what would a few molecules mean? Show me the Little Green Man. Or the 'Grays' as it were.

Regards
Dave

[Guest]

Actually it would just take a big hose because the surface pressure on mars is only .07% that of earth. Fill the hose up with water for siphon effect?

[Hamy]

So... the next payload is a solar powered sprinkler system and a pack of lawn seeds...
Someone please remind me to pack my golf clubs.

[Trilobyte]

NASA is a massive pork-generating revenue hog leftover from the Cold War. Time to defund and abolish this dollar-vortex.

[RP]

nyavogo; that's exactly what I was thinking. I love the idea of this but surely NASA can do more than just best-guess that it must have been ice because it was in one photo and then not in another?
There is wind on Mars too...

[Datzneat]

Maybe it got up and walked away?

[Jimmy Dean]

Wow that would be so totally cool wouldnt it.

www.FireMe.to/udi

[DeadPlanet]

Terraforming of Mars will never be an option since it lost it's magneticfield 4 billion years ago and any kind of atmosphere will be ripped of the planet by the solar wind. Thats how it lost all it's original water :(

[Randolph]

Ah, I think by "terraforming" they mean within a "big dome" that "keeps people warm" and "breathing" and even "alive" for more than the fifty+ seconds it would take you to completely die on Mars if there was a gaping hole in your space suit. Even if there was a viable magnetic field (which there isn't, partially because, unless I'm mistaken, the core of Mars has cooled off and no longer has churning magma), it would take longer than any of us to be alive for them to actually terraform it with tech we'll have in the next twenty years or so. I know, I'm mister "negative" but really I'm just glad there's something to "drink" or at least really cold "ice cubes" to put in my "bailey's" once I get there.

RL

I'm using so many quotation marks because I just finished watching the "Austin Powers Trilogy"

[FutureMan]

http://digg.com/space/Humanity_is_still_quite_primitave