Water on Mars.
Until a few weeks ago, it was the very stuff of sci-fi. Then they found liquid water on the surface of Mars. Of all the discoveries made in the last century, this is the equivalent of having your face shoved in 'it' and then rubbed vigorously. If the 'experts' don't realize that their holy writ of infallibility is null and void, then what more can the universe do? Sadly, it also punches small holes in the latest stranded astronaut movie, but movies are works of fiction anyway, right?
To make up for that, it may also make colonization easier. Yes, I am in favor of colonizing, even though the main direction of this blog is interstellar. We need a dress rehearsal. Something easy, but not too easy, where we can test even more theorems. The most critical thing I want to see is some drive better than a toy rocket, They are leaning towards an ion/plasma drive, which is efficient, but slow. This baby step will no doubt help, but we all know it won't make the interstellar cut. Let's hope we can eventually test out a fusion drive.
Speaking of propulsion, it turns out that there is a very effective launch vehicle for heavy lifting to orbit. IF we can stand the secondary effects! It consists of digging a deep cylindrical hole, placing a metal plate over it with the load on top. Then firing off a nuclear bomb at the bottom of the hole(!). It gives the payload a final velocity of 42 miles per SECOND. Somehow I doubt that it will be useful for lifting poor, squishy people, though it may be possible to engineer around that. And then there's the mess left behind... Well, we chip the stone into a circle and grind a hole in the middle...
But let's spend a moment thinking about Mars. There are still things about the planet (it still is a planet, right?) that we can't explain. Certainly it's been a solar system's punching bag, much like our moon. I assume that there are plans at a high level to terraform the place. I have no idea what we could do to liquefy a planetary core and spin it.
Now we get to some things that scientific experts don't want to deal with!
Mars rotates. Is this a leftover from times of a liquid core? Is there a liquid core, but one too cool to generate a liquid mantle? We'll want to know. A fire is a lot easier to start if some coals remain. And Mars' rotational axis is tilted!!! I haven't heard anyone mention that! Supposedly, there is life on Earth because our moon stabilized our axis at about 23 degrees. Where is the moon that did that for Mars? No-one in their right mind had better suggest that those two little captured asteroids that pass for moons did the job! Yes, there are a lot of things that needs facts and not theories.
Speaking of asteroids, let's just touch on that. What happened to Planet 6? We know by math that there sbould be a planet there. My favorite theorem is that Jupiter made things too dicey for planetary aggregation. It would like trying to build a concrete block wall with a 7.0 quake every day at noon. Every time Jupiter passes, progress resets to zero. The jury is still out on the idea of it being enough to disrupt an already formed planet. It will take a survey of the number and composition of the asteroid belt to tell. If we looked and found the different pieces of a planet, then the question will need further attention. I mean that should we see that there are certain proportions of core material to mixed materials to silicon/iron/carbon and other light elements, then the idea of a planet ripped apart becomes a possibility. I do wonder how big a planet it would have been.
Let's see what happens next in Mars: the soap opera.
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