Water Found on Mars

[SALTIRE]

If its surface water I doubt there will be much in there, maybe some tough bacteria but not much else I'd say. Mars doesn't have much of an atmosphere and the surface will be heavily irradiated over time by cosmic rays. Still could have something though, I wouldn't entirely write it off.

 

[blade1889]

Incredibly simple life is most likely I guess, even simpler than Bacteria. Much like our assumed beginnings of clumps of RNA, fats and proteins. Will be interesting either way though and maybe give us an insight into earths earliest days.

 

[allouso]

Again, how would you (or Fox) know that?

Fox own the rights to The Martian, which means they are responsible for all the marketing and publicity for it. They own the movie and they're the ones who worked closely with Nasa throughout the making of the film and the marketing campaign.

As one of their employees we are made aware of all stunts, marketing updates etc well in advance so we could pounce on it. So if this conference was just another way to promote The Martian, we would have been made aware. That's about it (nothing to do with being important or not)

 

[allouso]

Besides, i very much doubt that Nasa would call an urgent press conference 2 days in advance just to promote a movie, that would be ridiculous.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Fox own the rights to The Martian, which means they are responsible for all the marketing and publicity for it. They own the movie and they're the ones who worked closely with Nasa throughout the making of the film and the marketing campaign.

As one of their employees we are made aware of all stunts, marketing updates etc well in advance so we could pounce on it. So if this conference was just another way to promote The Martian, we would have been made aware. That's about it (nothing to do with being important or not)

There is absolutely no reason NASA would need to inform Fox. The fewer people aware the better. I'm not going to contend that they actually were cynical in their timing, I have no idea, but this idea that you would know if they were is just silly.

 

[allouso]

There is absolutely no reason NASA would need to inform Fox. The fewer people aware the better. I'm not going to contend that they actually were cynical in their timing, I have no idea, but this idea that you would know if they were is just silly.

Pretty sure we're going in different tracks here. You're suggesting that NASA would pull off a publicity stunt to promote the movie without informing the people behind the movie? Am i getting this right?

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Pretty sure we're going in different tracks here. You're suggesting that NASA would pull off a publicity stunt to promote the movie without informing the people behind the movie? Am i getting this right?

Well publicity stunt is a bit of a grandiose term for them timing a press release a certain way, but yeah, essentially. There would be absolutely no reason to inform anyone at Fox.

 

[Magic]

They've found a fox on Mars?

 

[allouso]

Well publicity stunt is a bit of a grandiose term for them timing a press release a certain way, but yeah, essentially. There would be absolutely no reason to inform anyone at Fox.

Of course there would be mate.

Let's consider for a second that this was in fact intended as publicity for The Martian (I don't think that's the case at all); Fox own the rights to the movie, they're the studio behind it, they're the ones who invested in it, they're the ones who will make money out of it and they are behind all the marketing of it. Everything you have seen in the past year as ads for the movie, be it with NASA or any other partner are instigated by Fox, and not by anyone else. That includes every single activity the cast has recently done with NASA, all the articles that are appearing online about real life NASA technologies in the movie etc. They collaborate on stuff like that, it's simple.

I very much doubt that NASA went out on a limb here to promote a movie that they don't own and without mentioning a thing to their main partner and the guys that actually made the movie. That would be...odd and unusual.

Besides, from what i gathered the discovery was made by a Scientific journal and not Nasa themselves? I very much doubt that they all collaborated to make such a ginormous announcement just to promote a movie which they don't really have anything to do with

Saying that, The Martian will be great for NASA. Will definitely rekindle some interest in the space program from the public.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

The motive obviously wouldn't be to promote someone else's movie for the sake of it, but it's by all accounts a massively pro-NASA movie, and the bigger the hype feedback loop between the movie and the discovery the better for them. Seems perfectly reasonable to me that they might sit on it for a couple of weeks/months to maximize the impact, without feeling the need to tell Fox.

 

[Dave-Vale]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-amazing-announcement-pluto-alan-stern-a6684981.html

Any thoughts as to what it might be?

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Underground lakes maybe?

 

[Dave-Vale]

That would be incredible.

They've been saying over the last few days that Pluto is very active with weather and active geology. Truly fascinating!

Some amazing photos!

 

[blade1889]

And there's a film about Pluto coming out next week. Coincidence...i dont think so!

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 5m5 minutes ago

New images from @NASA reveal "blue skies & water ice" on Pluto's surface

 

[SALTIRE]

BBC Breaking News ‏@BBCBreaking 5m5 minutes ago

New images from @NASA reveal "blue skies & water ice" on Pluto's surface

Great news but it shouldn't be that surprising with all the ice hanging around that region. Can't wait to see the Sky At Night this month!

 

[spireite]

Exciting times. I wonder if we'll see viable off-world colonies in our life-time? it's a stretch, but you never know

 

[SUTSS]

Exciting times. I wonder if we'll see viable off-world colonies in our life-time? it's a stretch, but you never know

Nasa want a human colony on Mars by 2030

 

[SALTIRE]

I think they've postponed that date by a few decades especially with the recession and constant budget cuts they get.

 

[Dave-Vale]

We should be putting all of our efforts and a huge amount of money in finding somewhere to live once this planet goes to shit.

 

[blade1889]

Once?

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

We should probably invest a few quid in an arc to preserve humanity in the event of a catastrophe or else some means to detect and destroy/deflect asteroids given how vulnerable we are. We could seriously detect one late and be finished as a species before Christmas as things stand. It's mental.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

There's nothing like space travel to push the boundaries of technological development and invention (except perhaps war, but thats not so good).

A ridiculous amount of cool technology, and ideas came out of the moon efforts. There's an argument that goes, for every pound spent on space programs, long term several pounds are made on the back of the technology produced.

 

[allouso]

Does look like Nasa are planning to send the first humans on Mars in the 2030's and start the whole colonization process. I reckon we'd have some human settlements on Mars in the next few decades, but it's difficult to predict if we might end up on other planets anytime soon.

 

[Dave-Vale]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...structures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.html

Found this really interesting, mostly because I'm fascinated/obsessed with the prospect of finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.

 

[SALTIRE]

Yeah I read that last night and assumed something will crop up as an error in the data. If it does indeed check out it will be interesting to find out exactly what the structures are.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

How long before the tin foil hat brigade jump on this as evidence for a "twin earth" that's going to cause armageddon, or perhaps evidence that the ancient Egyptians were aliens from another world, and suchlike.

Pretty cool report though, let's hope they can dig into it more.

 

[blade1889]

That's so cool, if true. Find it hard to believe that there isn't another intelligent life form out there but also find it hard to believe we aren't being watched ourselves and that a more advanced life form hasn't made contact if they are as close and intelligent as this would suggest.

Look forward to hearing more about it!

 

[SALTIRE]

With the next generation of telescopes and radio astronomy coming soon we'll see some pretty amazing things I'm sure that will change our view of the universe.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

How long before the tin foil hat brigade jump on this as evidence for a "twin earth" that's going to cause armageddon, [...]

They can chill then because anything that far away could never reach here in their lifetimes anyway.