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MAJOR discovery on Mars!

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I don't see why people want to establish colonies on Mars so badly. I mean... it's cold on Mars. :p

I sometimes daydream about an operation that uses million of taxpayer's dollars to set up a camp on Mars, only for everyone there to die. It makes me laugh. XP

Oh, but I guess this is good news. Yay for running water! But... "unhoped for"? What do you mean?
 
Mostly, that it's something very cool, that no one really gave much serious consideration to. Water in the past, sure, it was a seriously considered possibility. But water still there? It's not really something anyone was looking for.
 
*remembers Total Recall and nods*
 
Considering during the summer the poles disappear (mostly through sublimination but also some melting) and the temperature at least at the surface reaches above freezing so some liquid water should be expected though short lived.

The real problem with Mars is the radiation from the sun. Despite being farther from the sun, Mars' almost nonexistant atmosphere provides no protection. So any colony would either need some kind of shielding are be far below the surface.
 
And it's the same lack of atmosphere that keeps water on the surface for very long. The low pressures allow the water to boil away at much lower temperatures thus we're never able to catch these veins that pop out from time to time.

I can't seem to connect to that link Damian posted, but I read a similar article from the Washington Post.

I think you're absolutely right TBA. The best colonies looks like they would be best suited underground for now. If those predicted water veins are indeed underneath the surface, it could be a phenomenal win-win situation where astronauts would have the water resources to live and have radiation and abrasive protection from the Martian surface. Now all we have to do is find how safe it is to live under the surface and see if any potential dangers like trapped gases sit there.
 
And find whether there are any strongly earthquake prone areas worth avoiding.

And possibly figure a way to defend ourselves against asteroids, if there are cratering impacts in the region.
 
I don't know if Mars is seismicly active or not. I know the moon is is but not the extent of the Earth.
 
That's why we need to go there many, many times before we even think of setting up a colony. Also need to see why it is that the rovers have had such success there and how they've FAR outlived their expected lives.
 
GrnMarvl13 said:
That's why we need to go there many, many times before we even think of setting up a colony. Also need to see why it is that the rovers have had such success there and how they've FAR outlived their expected lives.
Click to expand...

Actually, there's a simple explanation for that. The engineers that put the rovers together weren't sure how long the solar panels would be able to collect and store light and thought dust and debris would eventually cover up the entire craft clogging mechanisms and block sunlight from the solar panels inhibiting movement. What they didn't count on were rather frequent wind driven dust storms that actually helped remove debris from the rovers allowing them to function longer. It was a rather lucky break indeed.
 
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Really? Last I heard it was "mysteriously" clean (granted, that was a few months back). I was wondering if the wind might not be cleaning it, but...I'll admit that that's not what I hoped for.
 
Yeah, I see now. I think I remember reading something you read and I had to go look for the articles to back it up. It seems the windblown cleansing is just a proposed theory, but it makes the most sense.
 
There was this sci-fi short story by Isaac Asimov, which was basically a description of what the hypothetical idea of a colony on Mars would be like. Really interesting.

It was situated in a canyon I believe, with a cover over it. With residences in the walls.

Funny, I actually just looked it up, and it is actually called "In the Canyon". But is is definately a good read, and it is just a short story. It was in Gold I believe.

Yeah, a fairly realistic thing. It really had no plot besides describing the colony.
 
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