I feel like I've linked to this before, but even if I have, it's worth repeating (note well: large download; requires Shockwave plugin).

(Hat tip: Jerry Pournelle)

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It appears that both the Mars Express orbiter and an earthbound team have independently detected Methane in Mars' atmosphere, on the order of 11 parts per billion. This is exciting news, as it points to the possibility of life, or of vulcanism (or both).

(Hat tip to Fred Kiesche at Martian Soil who turned me on to new blogroll member MainlyMartian).

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One nice thing about an article like this one is that it helps to incrementally decrease the "giggle factor" associated with discussing such outlandish notions as terraforming and colonizing Mars. For a more serious examination of the giggle factor, see this military article on planetary defense.

I literally remember an event at my high school (in Physics class, no less) in which I saw the giggle factor implemented mercilessly. In sharp contrast to the Thomistic, sophisticated, and rational priests and teachers in the vast majority of my other classes there, this class was taught be a priest whose thoughts seemed to predate Vatican II (heck, his ideas even seemed to predate Galileo!)

One day, our classroom discussion veered away from pure Physics (we were talking about Kepler, I think, and duplicating his experiment of plotting Brahe's data and discovering that Mars' orbit was elliptical) and one of the students asked about the prospects of life on Mars. Not just life that might have evolved there, but our prospects as a species living there.

I'll never forget how that ignorant ass of a priest dismissed him out of hand, essentially stating that G-d had created "Man" for this Earth and that there was no other life in the universe and no place for Man elsewhere in the universe. Of course, most of the other guys in my class were your run-of-the-mill mundanes, and they were seized by a fit of the giggles. He wouldn't hear the end of it for some time.

The poor guy. At the time I hardly knew him (although I knew him all too well, in a sense, as I had almost identical thoughts about Mars, but somehow had the sense not to chum the shark-infested waters of high school with them), but he is now one of my better friends. How ironic that after all this time, what we geeks felt intuitively back then to be possible, to be true, may finally become a reality.

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Thursday March 4, the US House of Representatives approved HR 3752, The Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act.

The bill adds definitions to the existing Commercial Space Launch Act for "crew," "space flight participants," and "suborbital rockets," among others and clears the way for suborbital rocket flights with passengers, at least on an experimental basis. The Act is aimed at encouraging X-Prize participants and other similarly-situated rocket developers by removing the legal uncertainties they face, as bill sponsor Rep. Dana Rohrabacher makes clear:

"It is my sincere hope that this bill will encourage individuals like Burt Rutan and others to continue leading the way in pushing the boundaries of technology and safety by building and flight testing hardware, something NASA has yet to do. This fine piece of legislation carries forward my goal of promoting this new industry and cutting back bureaucratic red tape, while protecting the public health
and safety."

Let's hope that with some regulatory certainty, we'll see many private launches in the near future.

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Brian Doss at Catallarchy summarizes Robert Zubrin and Christopher McKay's ideas on terraforming Mars, linking to numerous resources regarding the technologies and timescales required.

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There is a fantastic scene in one of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books (either Red or Green, can't remember off the top of my head) in which the colonists tap an aquifer under the Martian surface, triggering a torrential flood. Is there that much water there now? We don't know.

Yet.

But NASA announced today that Mars was once awash in water. Drenched, in fact (at least at the Opportunity landing site).

This is great news. If there is still an appreciable amount of water on Mars, then the costs of exploration and settlement decrease drastically. And the chances of finding current or past life increase dramatically.

Posted by: JohnL at 09:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Via Adot's Notblog.

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