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| Mars |
Earlier this week, or maybe it was last week (time has no fixed
reference point when you live the life of the idle moderately-comfortable) NASA
announced unequivocally that they had found water on that planet most likely for
extra-terran human migration, Mars. For
those of you unfamiliar with our solar system, Mars (so named for the Roman God
of War due to its reddish appearance; the planet, not the god) is the fourth
planet from the Sun (we’re number three, and we appear to be blue; the color,
not the state of mind). It is also, due
to feature similarity and proximity of orbit, the most likely target for
establishment of a permanent human colony.
As such, Mars has become a frequent subject for science fiction genre
literature and films, e.g. The Martian
due to be released Oct. 2nd.
(Ray Walston will always be my favorite Martian!)
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| Venus |
When I was in my youth, about fifty-five solar orbital cycles
ago, Venus was portrayed in science fiction films as the most likely candidate
for human exploration, perhaps even having produced indigenous intelligent life
forms. Venus, after all, is in the
goldilocks zone; that distance from the sun where a planet may experience a
temperature range not hazardous to life
as we know it (someday I will take on the implications of that phrase, but
I need to be in a particularly snarky state of mind). It is also very similar in size to Earth
which suggests comparable gravitational parameters, necessary to hold an
atmosphere. But as our science acumen
increased we learned two things. One:
Venus does indeed have an atmosphere; unfortunately consisting primarily of
carbon dioxide. This atmospheric
chemistry yields surface pressure of nearly 1,400 psi (92 times that of Earth:
15psi). Two: Venus’ rotation rate is one
per 243 Earth days, (and it rotates backwards, it is the only planet in the
Solar System that rotates from east to west (we, as you could infer, rotate
from west to east). This causes the
extreme temperature of 872oF and results in wind speeds of 220
mph. Russia has successfully sent
several probes to Venus, delivering data for twenty-three minutes to two hours
before giving up and going to satellite heaven (or wherever atheist satellites
go). Venus is also the obvious
inspiration for that Earthly phenomenon that began to signal our future doom in
1970, the runaway greenhouse effect.
Venus’ atmosphere is does indeed exexperience greenhouse warming. However,
Venus: CO2 percentage > 95%.
Earth: CO2 percentage < 0.05%. We are not planning to colonize Venus in the
near future, she is a false seductress.
But I digress.
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| Venus Surface Image |
Do you understand the implications of flowing water on
Mars? If sufficient free-flowing water
is present, it significantly reduces the amount of weight a spacecraft would
have to devote to carrying potable water.
There is no substitute for potable water, how else would an astronaut
make his Tang?
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| Hydrates Salts Streaks |
But wait! Before you
launch that rocket take note. NASA has
pulled back a bit from the overly enthusiastic reporting of the popular
press. The New York Times opening line
was “Scientists have for the first time confirmed liquid water flowing on the
surface of present-day Mars, …” Well
isn’t that nice? Doesn’t that just
conjure up an image of a riparian paradise with a rippling rill flowing down a
gentle slope into a mirror-like tarn?
Get your picnic basket, Yogi.
We’re going a wandering in the lea.
But as one reads paragraph after paragraph it seems the flowing water is
indicated not by direct evidence of standing pools. Rather, dark striations (streaks in NY Times
parlance) photographed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (not the Mars rover Curiosity, although they boldly inserted
a picture of that vehicle in the article) that may be hydrated salts, evidence of damp spots at some recent
time. Now damp spots are hardly free
flowing water. The spectrometer on the
orbiter is not sensitive enough to provide chemical analysis on said streaks
which are a few yards wide at most.
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| Curiosity Selfie |
So, why not just send Curiosity
over and take a sample of one of these “evidence of flowing water” skid
marks? Well there are two concerns. One: The Rover is two years away from the
suspected hydrated salts trails (yeah, but I’ll bet he’s getting’ great gas
mileage). Two: It seems the eager little beaver, whose prime
mission was to search for life, is not
sterile and some scientists fear contaminating the Mars aquatic environment
with Earth born microbes. NASA tells us,
that building the rover and transport craft to standards allowing Earth-bound
sterilization by heat prior to launch would have required the addition of too
much weight. (I’m sterile and all it
took was a bit of novocaine, two judicious snips and a bag of frozen peas… but
I digress) In space travel, weight is
everything. So I ask: In building a
rover (actually, two rovers) to go to another world where we knew there was
some probability of the presence of water from orbital photographs of the
erosion patterns on the planet’s surface, not to mention the ice at the polar
caps, did we not think we might just stumble across one of these damp spots by
chance and contaminate that?
The estimated cost of sending a manned mission to Mars is $6
billion to $500 billion (wow, that’s razor cut budgeting, huh?). What’s a half-trillion when your national
debt is approaching $20 trillion? I say,
let the market decide. If some clever entrepreneur
can convince private investors there is gold in them thar red hills, let
him. And welcome to the profits. But I’m seeing little real benefit for the common
taxpayer. I believe I will continue to
focus on Earth-bound investment opportunities for the time being. Unless of course you are planning to send
Matt Damon along with the first sortie; then all I need to know is where to
send my check.
Breaking News Post Scripts:
PPS Your Chinese manufactured prayer rugs are on
back order.
PPPS To paraphrase (British Prime Minister) Neville
Chamberlain: The world will fall to
pieces in our time!
PPPPS Sea
monkeys found on ISS!
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