Life on Mars?

[Qalbert]

Martians dude.

Martians.

I was just baiting so I could post the ME pic, lol.

[Mizango]

I know man The last time I assumed and omitted a word some dude got offended and derailed our thread lol.

[archibaldcrane]

I was just baiting so I could post the ME pic, lol.

Ah ok lol.

[Mizango]

I was just baiting so I could post the ME pic, lol.

That was a well played card.

[Nevex]

Why do we have to live on a planet?

Explain this to me, why is it inherently superior to have a permanent gravity well to deal with, and VAST amounts of wasted material hidden inside of it?

Do you have more usable space on the outside of a solid sphere, or on the inside of a hollow one?

Because like food, water and breathable air, gravity is one of the elements a human organism needs to survive. Obviously as Earth-dwellers we don't notice it but apparently studies have shown that without gravity you're going to run into some serious health issues in the long run.

lolwiki etc. but

The most significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness are muscle atrophy and deterioration of the skeleton, or spaceflight osteopenia. These effects can be minimized through a regimen of exercise. Astronauts subject to long periods of weightlessness wear pants with elastic bands attached between waistband and cuffs to compress the leg bones and reduce osteopenia.[14] Other significant effects include fluid redistribution (causing the "moon-face" appearance typical of pictures of astronauts in weightlessness)[15][14], a slowing of the cardiovascular system, decreased production of red blood cells, balance disorders, and a weakening of the immune system. Lesser symptoms include loss of body mass, nasal congestion, sleep disturbance, excess flatulence, and puffiness of the face. These effects begin to reverse quickly upon return to the Earth.

[Atreides]

I've always thought of people who are against manned exploration of the moon/mars as fun-killing sciencevaginas who are the spaceflight equivalent of internet christians or overprotective mothers

[archibaldcrane]

Does the "rotating spaceship/station" work as far as eliminating the effects of weightlessness? Seems like it would (2001 style) - and have we implemented such a thing in space in any form?

[Kuya]

I just want to fuck alien chicks whilst being a female and relive my Mass Effect experience. Is that so much to ask?

[Atreides]

honestly if the future isn't anything like Mass Effect I'm going to be really fucking pissed

[Kuya]

Me too. I want fucking asaris, jesus christ.

[Kuya]

Fuck science, give me my ftl drive already.

[Mots]

The only problem with living out in open space as apposed too on a planet is dealing with all the radiation. Granted Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere anyways so it would still be a bad idea to try and live there in the first place.

In fact the problem with space travel as it is right now is that there is almost no way to perfectly shield a ship during space flight. Once you move beyond the earths magnetosphere you are constantly being bombarded with Radiation.

Living in colonies in space would be a better idea than living on a planet if we could figure out a way to properly shield ourselves anyways. You wouldn't have to worry about the insane amount of fuel needed to reach escape velocity of a planet whenever you wanted to send people or resources back to earth.

[Woozie]

Does the "rotating spaceship/station" work as far as eliminating the effects of weightlessness? Seems like it would (2001 style) - and have we implemented such a thing in space in any form?

Yes, it works. I don't know if we've implemented it. I've never heard of it being used, but the effect of being in a large rotating station is indistinguishable from that of gravity (if you rotate at the correct rate. But the station has to be large enough so that our head isn't feeling less "gravity" than our feet or else the tidal forces would make us sick, or at least I think they would).

Edit: Now that I think about it, there was a problem in my classical physics book that showed that a 6 foot tall astronaut would only experience like a 2% difference in force between their head and feet if they were in a 40 meter doughnut shaped space station rotating to give us a 9.8m/s^2 acceleration. I don't know how small the percentage has to be to actually approximate Earth, but I could probably derive that mathematically. I wonder how small the percentage needs to be so that it doesn't affect our health.

[Max™]

I've always thought of people who are against manned exploration of the moon/mars as fun-killing sciencevaginas who are the spaceflight equivalent of internet christians or overprotective mothers

I'm against it because it's like sending Columbus across the Atlantic for a photo opportunity.

You could just as easily send people over to start bringing back resources from the much vaster continent right there by the little islands... have them build homes, colonize it for a profit, etc.


Same with Mars, Mars is Cuba, the Asteroid Belt is North America.

Except pretend Cuba is at the bottom of a half mile deep hole.

[Plow]

As for the article, I am certain that there is some form of microbial life out there in many places in the cosmos. I mean we can look at things like extremophiles here on Earth and see organisms not only living but flourishing in extremely harsh environments. I too wondered what would come out of studying the Mars meteor.

I cant wait for this to be twisted and taken out of context again :D

honestly though, definitive proof of life, even if it's not as advanced or even evolved as us is pretty hueg

[Mizango]

honestly though, definitive proof of life, even if it's not as advanced or even evolved as us is pretty hueg

My thoughts exactly.

[Max™]

Just as long as your body can get used to it's signals saying the feet should be "below" the head, you can adapt without any damage to relatively low accelerations in place of a full earth level gravity well.

The problem is that your body is used to pumping all these fluids up and down against the force of gravity, in space it pushes up just as hard, but they don't get pulled down, a lot of the mechanisms only work because of the up/down orientation, like the valves in the blood vessels from a giraffes brain to it's heart.

[Eliseos]

vampires

Twilight makes the bitches crazy.

[Atreides]

I'm against it because it's like sending Columbus across the Atlantic for a photo opportunity.

You could just as easily send people over to start bringing back resources from the much vaster continent right there by the little islands... have them build homes, colonize it for a profit, etc.


Same with Mars, Mars is Cuba, the Asteroid Belt is North America.

Except pretend Cuba is at the bottom of a half mile deep hole.

dressing it up with even more metaphors makes you look like even more of a fun-killing spacevagina

[Kuya]

Oh, spacevagina.