MarsBlog.net

Looks like JPL is gearing up for a big announcement next week on results from Spirit and Opportunity.

The discovery of water in the soil wouldn’t be all that surprising, since we already know there is plenty of water on Mars (the novelty would be in its ubiquity, specifically in low latitudes where the conventional wisdom says it shouldn’t exist in near-surface soil). Such an announcement, while certainly a scientific coup, wouldn’t have much impact on space exploration. The public won’t rush to spend tens of billions of dollars in a crash program to send humans to Mars by the end of the decade, for example, just because water is found in surface soils.

If the announcement is life-related, however, who knows? The spherules, filaments, and rotini have raised the life question, but can we be certain it is life from just the imagery (assuming it doesn’t move, change shape, procreate, create expressionist sculptures, perform a tensor calculus solution, etc., between frames)? At the least, it would mean greater public support for spending money on robotic exploration — bigger, more sophisticated, and more numerous rovers, for example, to return to these sites and perform conclusive tests for life. Less likely, but still possible, is that it could generate increased public support for sending humans to Mars, either on the Moon-Mars timeline or even on an accelerated schedule (skipping all but the shakedown activities on the Moon, for instance).

Unfortunately, I suspect that if indications of life are announced, it will mean the quarantine of Mars, for the long term. Rather than risk further forward contamination, future landers would likely be terminated (aside from maybe an additional lander sent to confirm that life is indeed present). Future orbiters might be terminated as well, to prevent any contaminated spacecraft from inadvertently reaching the surface. Manned missions would be out of the question, not only because we humans are walking microbial menageries ourselves and would of necessity bring Earthlife to Mars with us, but also because of the unknown “risk” of backward contamination via the returning astronauts.

It would be interesting to find life on Mars, but it would be something of a mixed blessing if as a result of such a discovery we lost the only other planet in the solar system that we could settle in the near term.

UPDATE: Apparently it wasn’t clear, but the “quarantine” scenario was intended as a lament about what could happen, not what would automatically follow from a discovery of signs of life on Mars.

Posted on February 29th, 2004 under Space Science. Comments: 13

I expected this article on energy from waste to be a rehash of the “oil from waste” hype from last year.

Not at all. This technology involves dissociating the waste material via “plasma torch” (by which I take it they mean “turning it into a plasma” rather than hitting it with a flame as the term suggests), and capturing the released hydrogen and other materials for reuse. In particular, the hydrogen extracted from the waste material is expected to be a significant source of hydrogen for the long-anticipated hydrogen fuel-cell cars of the future.

I’m still a bit skeptical about this technology being used as an energy source. While not touting it as a panacea, the article does handwave a bit on thermodynamics:

Some argue that using the torch requires almost as much energy as it produces. Startech’s Chief Operating Officer Joseph Longo, however, said the system can produce three to four times as much energy in carbon-rich gas, and 50% more energy than it uses in the form of hydrogen gas.

That makes the technology, along with nuclear, wind and solar power, an alternative to fossil fuels like coal to build a hydrogen supply, said DOE’s Russomanno.

“Will it significantly meet the needs of the U.S. for hydrogen? It will be one technology of many,” he says.

I’m not convinced that this process will yield the net energy surplus that those interviewed claim, but then, it doesn’t really need to. Even if it breaks even or is slightly on the consumption side, it still sounds like a useful development simply for getting rid of waste in a productive fashion — the ultimate in recycling. The article hints at this (that the recycling aspect makes it worthwhile, energy surplus or no), but doesn’t quite nail that point.

I’ve long thought that landfills should be thought of as storage rather than disposal sites, as someone will eventually realize what a treasure chest of materials are heaped up in them and invent a way to extract useful materials from the waste. If this technology pans out (and the number of big-name companies involved with it around the world is a promising sign that it may), the giant, mastaba-like hills dotting the rural landscape may eventually disappear.

Posted on February 29th, 2004 under Useful Technology. Comments Off

Ben Bova opines on space spinoffs, commercialization, Hubble, and the Moon-Mars plan.

Posted on February 29th, 2004 under Space Policy. Comments Off

I haven’t been covering Spirit and Opportunity much at all here, mainly because other blogs are putting a lot of effort into doing so. For example, Martian Soil. Check it out.

Posted on February 29th, 2004 under Space Science. Comments Off