Brought to you by Elon
SpaceX Mars Water. Each numbered limited edition litre will contain 1 cubic millimeter of Mars water. Preorders now available. Delivery date to be determined.
There’s water ice buried below the surface of Mars, and all you’ll need is a shovel to dig some up, according to research published in Geophysical Research Letters this week. “Our results are consistent with widespread water ice at latitudes as low as 35°N/45°S buried sometimes a few cm below sand‐like material, with high …
Rocks have left Mars and landed on Earth as meteorites. Rocks are smaller than people and don't need to breath or eat or stay unirradiated. Musk (or someone else) might find a way to send Martian ice to Earth but that won't necessarily solve the 'we can't get home' problem.
We'd need a *lot* of knicker elastic. That stuff's heavy. Maybe too heavy to ship to the Arean plans. It's a shame there's no oil or we could make it locally.
It's a shame there's no oil or we could have our over-puddleian friends liberate the faex out of it.
Should we tell them there's oil on Titan?
"... he'll have solved the 'we can't get home' issue."
*What* 'can't get home' issue?
Once one has got to Mars why the Hell would one wish to come back here? Isn't the whole point to have many unborn chickens in many baskets?
NASA, Mr. Musk, ESA, JAXA, JPL, Whoever, if you send me I don't need a return ticket. I'll happily stay to wander about fixing up all your lost and broken toys, poke about for Martians [germs and lichen, probably, unlikely to be thoats and Greens] and dig up dirts for you to remotely analyse.
Hell, I'd even do a potato plantation thingy for you.
I'd consider it an honour. .
For those who want a bit more detail, look here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasas-treasure-map-for-water-ice-on-mars. This says what the black patches on the map mean: basically Don't Land Here because its most likely a sea of deep dust and sand and hence not a good place to touch down.
Its also worth following the link in that article. One talks about meteor strikes exposing big enough white areas for MRO's instruments to confirm that it is ice, something I hadn't previously heard about, and also a reminder that the Phoenix lander was able to dig down to buried ice in the northern Martian plains.
Have a few cold ones, guys, you've earned them!
Thanks for that URL Martin but does Mars really spin on a vertical axis? If it does then that would make it easier for me to walk in a straight line unlike her on Earth with its 23.5° tilt that causes me to walk funny. Life is not easy being D'Under.
based on previous examples of human civilisations on Earth...
no.
Humans seem incapable of maintaining civilisation, as soon as things are improving, the self-interested and opportunists will be undermining, and exploiting any weaknesses for personal gain
Depends on the soil conditions where you are trying to dig. If it's primarily dry dust & sand with nothing cementing them together, shoveling should be no problem. If it's alluvial with multiple sizes of grains from dust to bowling ball (or larger), it'll be rough even here on Earth ... and the larger the largest particle size, the harder it'll be. If it's sandstone bedrock, you'll have major issues with just a shovel.
"So, use a nuclear powered shovel."
Mars has already been invaded by nuclear-powered, semi-intelligent alien robots armed with death-rays and teentsy, little shovels and drills so dropping larger ones onto it shouldn't present much of a challenge. It's just engineering, politics and money. Of those, the engineering is the easiest bit.
"Nuclear-powered, alien robot invaders", it sounds like 1950's SF movies. Only more fun.
1) Getting there is the easy part.
2) What is your proposed energy source to perturb the ice?
3) How do you propose that the ice actually hits Mars, given that as it enters the inner Solar System for the first time in umpteen aeons it'll start to warm up and begin to violently out-gas in random directions?
4) When all is said & done, you'll have earned those $$$ if your plan succeeds, but probably for your Great*30 grandchildren. I suspect that investing in property here on Earth will yield a better return for you, your kids, and their kids. Unless some nutter starts lobbing chunks of ice at the inner system from out around Saturn and gets in a lucky hit on your condos in Hawai'i, that is.
Unless some nutter starts lobbing chunks of ice at the inner system from out around Saturn and gets in a lucky hit on your condos in Hawai'i
The size of icy spaceburg needed to survive reaching the inner system will determine how accurate the shot has to be. I think it's probably going to be sufficient to aim at half an ocean rather than at a single condo.
"... Go to Saturn and start perturbing some of those convenient icebergs"
*NO!*.
NO, no, no, not ever, never, no and bloody *N*O*. In case I was not clear: *NO*!
One does *NOT* interfere with The Rings. That's a Crime Against Beauty and Nice Things.
Besides, Jupiter is nearer and has loads of rocky, icy, otherwise useless blobs falling around her. She has hundreds of Trojans, too, that are not doing much besides filling up space.
Added to those, there are Mars-orbit-crossing falling rocks and ice-blobs that could be made to become Mars-merging with far less effort, in far less time and with far greater efficiencies than taing chunks of Rings.
"The Martian Way", by Isaac Asimov was a brilliant and far-sighted vision of the plasticity of Man and his tools but he aimed them at the wrong target.
Due to tiny effects accumulating to make The Rings what they are, the entire Saturnian system should be considered an area of outstanding scientific interest, an area of outstanding natural beauty and a Humankind's Heritage Site and be placed under permanent Let Well Alone status.
Yes, even the "gas" on Titan, in spite of my humour.
I agree with the beauty of the rings... but they're ephemeral, and will disappear soon anyway[1]. But equally, I don't think that there's much chance of us ever moving enough of it to make a difference. Though this could all be moot, if there is sufficient ice just under the Mars surface... but an iceberg landing at high speed provides not only water (breaking down to hydrogen which leaves and oxygen which hangs around) but quite a lot of 1/2mv^2 heat.
But unless there are similar, i.e. small, icy things floating around in the asteroid belt, as far as I know all the rest of the water available in the solar system is at the bottom of a gravity well.
And the Trailing Trojans are, of course, riddled with Moties. And we don't want to encourage the Watchmakers...
[1] for some value of soon...
Where to get a G&T? Well, most of the ingredients are easily made locally, even quinine can be. There may be minor flavourings that need to be grown in hydroponic plants but that's just engineering and patience.
Given a few years, *whiskey* could be made locally, including the oak casks. With genetic engineering making milk [for the cream] from bugs or fungi, Irish Coffee isn't too far a stretch within a decade.
Dull Citizen asks: "But what would *I* do on Mars?"
Star-Dreamer responds: "If naught else,'Do you want fries with that?'"
Not everyone is cut out to be Chief Para-Optics Officer.
Hoping to find water bound to the rocks, or even in microscopic bridges gluing itty-bitty rocks together while held in place by the luck of being in the shade of other small particles.
Water is persistent and even on a Summer's day, Mars isn't too warm.
Dropping Phobos onto her to make a blackish coating might help warm it up a bit. Moonfall Spring?
That makes sense. With no "sea level" because, um... no sea, you get much more extreme variations between lowest point and highests point.
The atmosphere is prevented from going that low, and high a pressure (from the norm/average) here, because, well, the sea is in the mariana trench. :P
Arcadia is low. Lower than the "Mean non-Sea Level".
Fluids pool into low pits, forming higher pressure regions. Just like the deeper Ocean on Earth, the Arean deeps are higher pressure regions.
Not "high", not on Mars, but a little higher. .
The [Italian] word he used was translatable to the English "channels", not "canals".
He meant that his telescope was showing him that the Martians had yet to invent cable and were still using old-fashioned broadcast TV.
They were also so technologically backwards as to not then have invented pizza and so were, despite Mr. Wells and company, no military threat to the Earth.
You can't invade if you've nothing good to eat en route.