Lost in the delight over the news of Heller today, the gang of happy boffins running the Phoenix probe on Mars were smiling even broader when tests showed the soil could support life. Oh, you'd have to bring a bushel back here to grow asparagus in it but it is a bigger deal than you might think.
"So what," you might say, "dirt's dirt!"
Which it sort of is, except when it's not: for quite some time now, the best guess was that Martian soil was loaded with superoxides, more alkaline than household bleach. It would not be farmin' material.
So today's news changes the possibilities. Life on Mars just became a little more possible.
Always thought NASA should put some wheat seeds and algae sporse on those bots why not plant a little something for the colonists?
ReplyDeleteCause then you won't know if there are life forms there already.
ReplyDeleteDominate the matians,imminent domaine, manifest destiny, Rah Rah
ReplyDeleteMars Needs Asparagus!
ReplyDeleteCapture that creature and return my elunium pu36 explosive space modulator! - Marvin the Martian
ReplyDelete"...You're making me very angry..." --Marvin
ReplyDeleteI dunno. If there is life on Mars, that just might whup up some interest in the place.
We're not all that far away from commercial tickets to orbit; since getting the freight and crew to Earth orbit is nearly half the total cost of going anywhere in the Solar System, we are almost in the "polar explorer" era of space travel, in which governments are not the only entities with deep enough pockets to play.
Go space bugs, go!
"Life. Don't talk to me about life."
ReplyDeleteMarvin the Paranoid Android
"Hello, you th-th-th-thing from another world, you!"
ReplyDeleteSo according to all the data so far, the only thing required to grow plants on mars is pressure, heat, and water.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a formula for an inflatable greenhouse to me.