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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Feb 14, 2016 - 07:58pm PT
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Durn't it self generate from the magma something?
Before we get all spacey whyn't we get down to earth?
Gross or not, might as well get some livin and lovin and laughin. R something.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Feb 14, 2016 - 08:06pm PT
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^^^^^^^^^^+++++++1
Bill Nye mediates.
Ha! isn't Bill a children's mediator?
"You double NASA's budget and you do it all." -Tyson
Ha! Ha! it's always the bottom line isn't it??
"Lawrence Krauss is very smart man. He can see before the Big Bang and yet he doesn't want to spend money on human space travel?"
i shouldn't even have to punch the keys,,, Ha! Ha! Ha!
All these guy's are lobbyist first, scientist second.....humanist eighth?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 14, 2016 - 08:17pm PT
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The Wiki is a good place to start...
The origin of water on Earth, or the reason that there is clearly more liquid water on the Earth than on the other rocky planets of the Solar System, is not completely understood. There exist numerous more or less mutually compatible hypotheses as to how water may have accumulated on the Earth's surface over the past 4.6 billion years in sufficient quantity to form oceans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_water_on_Earth
and as far as comets, "...That the Earth's water originated purely from comets is implausible..."
any references to papers would be a good contribution...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 14, 2016 - 08:24pm PT
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ah, the JWST, a robotic satellite which is designed to be repaired by robots... and beam the results down to us waiting on planet Earth. No humans required.
that way, it doesn't have to fly in the junk-bands accessible to the Space Shuttle (as was required for the Hubble).
Most botanists I know (and I know quite a few) would be welcome to get a tiny bit more research funding attention for their Earthbound studies and would certainly consider a space mission to be irrelevant to the important questions of botany and sure to spend many more times the total amount currently spent on botanical studies.
As far as studying plant growth on Mars? the only reason to do it is for the human space mission there, no science is served by doing it. You can easily simulate everything on the Martian surface on Earth...
and BDC, I rolled my eyes when I read: "...and running a deep drill rig..., is a lot more than a robotic system could ever hope to do, at least not under the weight restrictions of interplanetary travel..." the weight required to launch a human would more than compensate the weight of a robotic launch.
Knowing the number of guys I do in the oil patch, if robotics could work, they'd be doing it here instead of on Mars!
my point exactly, why the development of robotic systems benefits activities on Earth... they don't do it because the R&D isn't justifiable under the current securities laws... the R&D has to be something that the stockholders benefit from, quarter by quarter. The USG is the perfect place to do this...
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 14, 2016 - 09:05pm PT
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What I'm talking about is a self contained robotic drill system is really implausible . It might--probably would work--for a while. The tools need changing, drill rod sometimes gets bent and jams, or cracks. Under totally ideal conditions, sure a drill rig could do the job. Zubrin mentions drilling a long way down, and that would requite a helluva lot more rod than could be incorporated into a robotic system. Sure, a robotic system might handle a 30 meter deep hole, and then what?
Doing robotics implies we know everything about the system we are investigating, w/r to the local soil properties. Does a robotic system "know" how to evaluate a possible paleontological sample? Controlling systems remotely when there's a signal transmission time of 10 minutes really doesn't cut it.
From the Wiki reference, Comets heads the list of extraterrestrial sources, followed by trans Neptunian objects and water rich meteoroids.
I also never stated that the water on Earth arrived purely from cometary impact.
In general, the Wiki article is pretty inconclusive. My source of the cometary info was from a lecture I heard at the local Astronomy club meeting presented by the Professor of Astronomy at SUNY, Binghamton. It's been too long for me to recall his name, but we met earlier at the Planetarium and had a one-on-one for about 2 hours on the chemical composition of comets.
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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Feb 14, 2016 - 09:49pm PT
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And soon, Ed, with development and maturation of AI wedded to tomorrow's super computers, there will be no need for scientists of biogenic origin. Too wasteful and inefficient when all science can be done with tireless, flawless, robot computers.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 14, 2016 - 09:52pm PT
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If we had the interests and passions of romulans or vulcans we'd already be on Mars. Searching for life in suspect water fields. And growing potatoes.
But we're human.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Feb 15, 2016 - 08:54am PT
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The origin of life is an interesting topic. The answer is, we don't know. Except for Werner.
As Ed pointed out, there is good evidence that life began VERY early in the Earth's history. Basically as soon as everything cooled down and liquid water was available. Then came the Late Heavy Bombardment, and after that we have really good information that life either survived the bombardment or began again relatively quickly.
Now. The problem is that we have a sample size of one. There is only one planet that we know has life. So a lot of it is inference.
Life began so quickly that it seems like it was easy. I've talked this over with the OU evolution professor, who lives next door to me, many times. My question to him was, If it was so easy for life to begin, then why has it not originated many times after life began. His answer was that all life has a certain chemistry, and it points to one origin. So perhaps on other planets with liquid water, it might be difficult for life to begin.
The other thing to keep in mind is this: Life began at least 3.5 billion years ago. Perhaps a only 500 million years after the creation of the planet. The gig is that for 3 BILLION years, life was simple and unicellular. Soft tissue fossils such as bacteria leave lousy fossils, so we look at things like stromatolites, which leave very obvious trace fossils.
So, complex multicellular life began in the Cambrian, only 540 million years ago. Life evolved and spread for 3 billion years until complex life showed up only half a billion years ago. If you assume that a bacteria divides 3 times each day, then that is 9 billion generations of evolution until complex life showed up. So it looks like complex life is difficult to form. After the Cambrian Explosion, life took off, and the rock record is filled with fossils. Some of the organisms still survive today, even the 3.5 billion year old stromatolites survive today, little changed.
If you have ever studied the topic of intelligent life in the Universe, you will be familiar with the Drake Equation, which has so many variables that it is almost worthless. Still, we can pin down a few of the variables, such as planets in the Goldilocks zone, where we know life on Earth would be able to survive.
So it appears that life is easy to begin. How exactly, we don't know, but we have ideas. The thing that appears to be difficult is complex life. Perhaps 999 out of 1000 earth-like planets have simple unicellular life. How many have complex life? We know that it took billions of generations of evolution for complex life to appear (the majority of Earth's history), so perhaps it is very difficult for complex life to begin.
That is part of my field, geology. We look at evidence. The biologists then play with that evidence, but the evidence is there, it is well-dated, and the history of life on Earth is fairly well understood. Certainly not completely, though. The origin question remains as one of the questions.
The idea of Panspermia is interesting. We are close to having the ability to create a huge number of mini-vehicles that could carry a package containing a number of types of simple life, that could then travel for tens of thousands of years to seed other earth-like planets, which hopefully we will be able to image with the James Webb telescope, which will be a Hubble on steroids. The vehicles don't need to be big. They could be very small, but if we decided to seed the universe, we aren't that far from having the technology. Certain micro organisms could survive the VERY long trip.
It just takes the will. It brings up a number of questions, though. Is it ethical to seed a planet with simple life? What if it already exists, and what we send displaces existing life on that planet?
Tech-wise, we could do it, though. The payload only needs to be an ounce of bacteria. It is possible that an intelligent species did the same thing to Earth, but that is a wild conjecture. We just don't know how life began.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 15, 2016 - 09:23am PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Excellent post, Base!
I'm opposed to sending out Earth bacteria to "seed" other planets; strictly on an ethical basis.
I'll admit to being something of a geological ignoramus, and since I know little (actually, next to nothing) about doing geological field work, will ask stupid question: judging from the numbers stated by Dr. Zubrin re: water on Mars for 4 Billion years, in the You Tube clips posted here, is looking for fossil evidence of earlier on Mars a realistic pursuit?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 15, 2016 - 05:29pm PT
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haha... haha... haha...
Since posting I've learned neither Romulans nor Vulcans eat potatoes.
.....
Speaking of robotic, hey BASE, how's that chaos-causation relationship study going? Eager to hear if that escape (from causal det) notion/belief you were pushing was diminished or buttressed by your reading of Chaos by Gleick. Did you finish it? Let us (i.e., in partic, Moose and Me) know, eh? Remember last summer you were pretty passionate if not preachy about it all - pretty ensconced you were - citing turbulence, the subtlety of initial conditions, chaotic process (providing something of escape), etc.
You think there's a micro-part (micro-lever, micro-button, micro-whatever) deep in a cell or nerve axon or dendrite that just kind of floats freely, unconstrained by any underlying physics or chem? Is it just one cell in the entire body of the organism you think? Or perhaps just one atom or molecule given some kind of special exemption from physics and chemistry in a neurotransmitter vesicular membrane (perhaps a special connection to the mysterious dark matter or dark energy)? What say you now, today?
If (1) chaos is indeed in some way the "escape" from causal deterministic process and if (2) we modeled this chaos as a component in a system (think system diagram) then how would/could this component feed (forward or back) onto a thought or feeling or decision-making moment as input - and of course necessarily in a controlled and meaningful kind of way for it to be useful- to provide us the freedom of volition so many of us think we have or want?
We've all heard the term, "God particle". Catchy. Colorful. Arguably it has its place in these conversations. So let's adopt a similar term for sake of this exchange: "ghost part" or "ghost atom" or "ghost lever" that frees the living thing, in particular, the human body or human mind or human thought or human decision, from causal deterministic process. Where is it you think? Did Gleick or your reading of Gleick shed any light on this mystery?
You know my position already.
It's causation all the way down.
We are automata.
"What are we, robots?!"
It's true: We are robots. But the rest of the truth: We are exquisitely complex, highly sophisticated bio-organic robots tens of millions of years in the making under the supreme evolutionary guidance of Mother Nature. That makes all the difference!
Have a good one, fellow automaton!
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Feb 15, 2016 - 06:55pm PT
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I'm in total agreement with HFCS, but I totally, and I mean totally appreciate Base104's investment in this problem space.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Feb 15, 2016 - 07:20pm PT
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Good to hear, eeyonkee.
Anyone who takes the time to work through these difficult (if not destabilizing, lol) subjects is a good egg in my book.
Mars here we come!
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 16, 2016 - 09:39pm PT
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Don't hold your breath ;)
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Feb 17, 2016 - 09:08am PT
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some more views of the honeybee robotics drill rig...
http://www.honeybeerobotics.com/about-us/mars/
Deep planetary drills offer a wealth of information to planetary geologists searching for clues to the formation of our Solar System, and to astrobiologists seeking evidence for life beyond Earth. The Planetary Deep Drill is designed to support these science objectives by collecting powder that can be delivered to on-site analysis tools, such as instruments to detect organic materials. It can also contain embedded sensors for in-situ analysis. Such instruments can include microscopy imaging systems, temperature and salinity sensors, Raman Spectroscopy instruments, and luminescence probes for detection of organic compounds.
The Planetary Deep Drill is a wire-line system that can drill hundreds or even thousands of feet deep. An umbilical suspends the system and provides both power and data, so unlike traditional drills that are limited by the length of a drill bit, the Planetary Deep Drill is limited only by the length of the tether. The four-meter Planetary Deep Drill contains all of the motors, electronics and sensors required to operate the drill. The system uses a highly efficient rotary percussive drilling technology, which enables the drill to conserve valuable energy. It can operate on a little as 250 Watts, less than many consumer battery-powered drills.
This system is designed primarily to drill through water-ice at low temperatures, such as conditions at the Mars polar caps, Europa, or Enceladus. By exploring these environments, scientists can hunt for potential signs of life in extreme environments while gaining insight into planetary formation.
Here's there astroid water sampling device
ASTEROID WATER EXTRACTOR
Water is essential to human spaceflight missions. It is an immensely valuable resource to sustain astronauts, and as a building block for rocket fuel or other valuable compounds. Autonomously harvesting water from asteroids, however, is a nontrivial process for space mining technology.
Designed for a mission to water-rich asteroids, Honeybee Robotics’ Asteroid Water Extractor drills and acquires icy soil samples, extracts the water for later use, and disposes dry soil to prepare for another round of sample collection. The architecture enables each drill to generate significant down-force in the absence of gravity. The system could be used as a pre-mining surveying technology or as a mining platform on its own.
We designed the Asteroid Water Extractor to be resilient, with multiple systems integrated into spacecraft lander legs provide higher processing volume and system redundancy. The system provides a combination of low mass and strength to drill into tough icy and mineral composites that can be as hard as concrete.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Feb 17, 2016 - 09:24am PT
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and robots don't need no stinkin' PPE
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limpingcrab
Trad climber
the middle of CA
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Feb 17, 2016 - 09:29am PT
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The system uses a highly efficient rotary percussive drilling technology, which enables the drill to conserve valuable energy. It can operate on a little as 250 Watts, less than many consumer battery-powered drills.
Hopefully this technology trickles down to Bosch or Milwaukee or someone!
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Feb 17, 2016 - 09:52am PT
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and robots don't need no stinkin' PPE
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Feb 17, 2016 - 04:22pm PT
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limpingcrab,
you seem quite amazed at:
The system uses a highly efficient rotary percussive drilling technology, which enables the drill to conserve valuable energy. It can operate on a little as 250 Watts, less than many consumer battery-powered drills.
And does the fine print mean anything? water-Ice.
This system is designed primarily to drill through water-ice at low temperatures
Hopefully this technology trickles down to Bosch or Milwaukee or someone!
250 watts/ 18v = 13.88 amp for Makita drilling water-ice easy as toast. Been around for some time--rotary percussion. Neat claim by NASA to an already existing old invention. Looks like plagiarism to me.
Further more look at that big Shop Vac which appears to be part of rig? 120v x 10amp = 1200 watts.
Critical Observation?
Get this for your mathematical perspicaciousness. .....as little as 250 watts...// is a lower bound. This happens when it is free spinning? This bit of data is essentially useless. pun intended.........
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Feb 17, 2016 - 04:41pm PT
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As Dingus McGee just pointed out--the robotic drill rig is suitable for drilling through ICE. Yep. Perfect for Europa, but what good is a mere hole if it doesn't get through the complete ice layer? The ice layer on Europa is estimated to be up to several kilometers thick. Granted, this system probably won't bend a drill rod or get stuck IN ICE.
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