Green Baron

Sure it is. A simulant is well defined composition of some sort of regolith. Attention: it is not soil as soil contains organic matter, which the Marsian surface does not ! Marsian regolith is mostly volcanic, tephra, glassy stuff etc. This can contain nutrients necessary for plant growth, on earth it does. It only takes a few decades for lava until first pioneer plants show up in earthly weathering conditions. Nasa has articles on how and with what they compose their simulants, last i read was from April when they said they wanted to prepare something derived from the Marsian rovers' data. I didn't expect them to deal out the stuff that fast For now, it's all earthly stuff. Edit: the worm's were probably planted mentioned to attract the media's attention. They are, of course, contaminations in this context and did not grow there "naturally" as a simulant is of course initially sterile.

Ahah. And then you can force a magnetic storm into a torch and shoot down all the aliens that attack Mars. Pyu pyu pyu ... Can we ... please, please, please ... stay on the carpet ? I mean, this is a game forum, but also a subforum named science & spaceflight that somehow should not loose all the contact to reality. At least i feel so. Or not ?

The goat above seems rather peaceful. Is begging for food .... :-) "Give me, or else ..."

[irony] Really ? Tell me more ![/irony] :-) @PB666: one of the tunnel boring machines weighs 2700t (German brand Herrenknecht, machine type S 210) and needs a train network connected for supply and disposal of waste. And the industry for Steel, concrete, spare parts ... .... and a replacement if it breaks down or gets stuck. As happened. They "drove" it to the side and ordered a new one.

Ok, so these are fantastic concepts for a far future, nothing to do right away. You should have said that because "we can" means for me "we can now". We can't now, no state pays 1000s of launches and no firm builds thousands of rockets for stuff that is more than doubtful to work. Btw. satellites tied together will fall down ;-) As to the life, i go with science. Archaea underground on Mars is beyond science. Sorry, guys ... That's why ... If its not a published peer reviewed paper and its from Nasa it is sure to have a half life of lets say weeks to years. Somebody had an idea and could not hold back but write it down. Happens often in these huge official aparatusses.

Childish and ridiculous. And, no, simply not true. Seriously, do you have an idea what it means to dig a tunnel thousands of kilometers and in a size that fits a noticeable amount of water ? The whole idea is .... (half-)un-baked. Pseudo science ? Edit: If you want to convince me than give me more than a bad photocopy of a paper ...

If he hasn't done so yet and launch, flight or landing take him out of the game: http://www.darwinawards.com/ :-) Always granted posthumous.

Paint it Black. Also a proposal for Mars colonization ;-)

I like papermodels. I don't have mine from younger years any more as they tend to attract moisture and cramp up. But i still have built some waiting to be built :-) I think there once was a Saturn V on the web ...

Aww, man, ihate to be so realistic, but here it comes: We cannot send 1000s of satellites to Mars. And if, these then convert solar radiation into ... what exactly ? And how ? And ground stations do emit .. what exactly :-) Sounds like Startrek, Mr. Spock :-) You know how earths planet wide field forms ? Somewhat viscous iron core, planetary rotation, convection ? What energy magnitude is that ? The problem with water on Mars is that first and foremost it has to be found and verified in quantities and useful combinations. Then, if somebody feels the urge to bring it to some use, they can think of how to do it. Problem is first to invent a fusion reactor. Physicists of Greifswald, Germany, where they build the Stellarator Wendelsten X, say that whatever technology comes to being, it will be the second half the century (Interview a few weeks ago in an German news magazine, no official statement). Yeah, do the same thing as on earth :-) Seriously, there is no technology to do such a thing in the scale needed. Mars is a real life planet, no KSP spaceball. There is nothing to support that. The heated gases can well just go off into space. You musk errr must be joking, right ? We can't dig such a tunnel on earth. Need a strong pump because of coriolis ... Ok, now it's clear, haha ! You fooled me all the way until here ;-) Well done, sir ! :-) Edit: to add to the funny proposals: paint the icecaps black ;-) That'll trap more energy than any reactor can produce ! Somebody got a brush ?

If you have anything to back that up then bring it on ! I am more than interested, but please no magazines, blogs or wikipedia articles if they are not supported by citable sources. As to the lineages on Mars and their "reinterpretation": gravity, grain size/roundness and density define a slope angle, an angle of repose, which a dry and loose material can have before it slides down the slope. The features on Mars are apparently at the edge of that angle, without any more cohesion as of water or humidity. I say apparently because nobody has yet been there and actually taken a look at either of the numbers. The angle plays a role in shifting sand for example or wandering dunes. It cannot be excluded that brines or, if you want, humidity, might play a role in the initiation of such a process. On earth this may also be the case with e. g. tremors or some sort of ground motion and, before all, wind that blows things up one side of a dune and deposits it on the other side. But this is speculation and probably not applicable on Mars because Mars is a dry and barren place. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-017-0012-5

Hair/wool and horns are bad indicators. The woolly goat above is cashmere goat. Too much variability in skin/skin colour/hair, they always vary, especially in domesticated species, Btw. horn is skin (not the bone under it of course). The tail can serve and a parted lip, sheep have a cleft philtrum, but even that is a watery feature. Archaeologists have a hard time distinguishing between sheep bones and goat bones. And gourmets have a hard time distinguishing between goat and sheep cheese :-)

Yep, but the chromosomes don't show in the pictures ... Sheep or goat ? Edit: does mouse over show the link ? It doesn't for me ... i never understand the forum software. 'nother one (a sheep):

I love the Tintin comics and still read them from time to time :-) Looking at all the pictures above: how can we distinguish between sheep and goat when we see them in a picture ?

Question (am too lazy to calculate): what's the dV-capacity of that proposal ? Would it suffice to get off the runway, assuming tank sizes of the earthly design ? Mars' curvature might help if the tyres survive the take off run :-) Nay, since we cannot even get such a thing and the industry to operate it to Mars i think the extreme light weight, high aspect ratio, high lift wings with an instrument compartment are would surely be the better choice. But, really, this is all a play of mind for me ... i leave the discussion again :-)

50.000ft riding the wave, incredible. That's flying ! Yes, something like that i would think. You can't fly an SR71 on Mars, it is (was ? Since 20 years retired wikipedia says ...) a highly specialized craft with oxygen breathing engines and a huge industrial apparatus to keep a few flying. Much too heavy and wrong propulsion system. Even on earth it needsed refueling to climb to a height it would have to take off from on Mars.

Hehe. That took some time to notice, @KerikBalm :-) For a design proposal one could have a look at stratosphere craft proposals for earth, like the mentioned Helios. Slow flying, ludicrously high aspect ratio gliders might work to some extent and altitude. Could they carry anything more than their own weight ? Idk.

Among the first domesticated animals, independently several times from genetic evidence. Time of domestication: Pre pottery neolithic. Sites: Cayönü, lower layers of Jericho and others.

Morning :-) I fear this one cannot be answered in a serious scientific way since it includes ignoring physics in many ways. The answer is left to imagination. We are still trying to fully understand the current configuration ....

Arguing between colleagues about a subject both are proficient in is a different thing. This regularly leads to new insights, for all of them. We are, if we come freshly from university and have had a natural science formation, able to critically deal with other's arguments. Or should be :-) But, let's say, arguing with a child about something it rejects with stomping feet is fruitless. It either lacks the knowledge (= education/schooling ?) or is unwilling to accept it. A believer like a flat earther has similar deficits i think. Somebody with a firm belief can of course be a good scientist but if the belief is in conflict with a scientific finding than he/she regularly fails ("... the Old One does not roll dice."). I argued with a computer scientist in a pub, young guy from my point of view, here on holiday. His belief forbid him to accept the notion that an island like La Palma, volcanic, relatively young, is 2-3 million years old. That's not much, but his calendar starts at 4500 years ago (or before christ ?), the only argument he could bring forward was "Human knowledge is nothing compared to God(*)". All education becomes irrelevant at that point. The work of thousands of geologists, generations of physicists ... wasted and in vain :-) Yeah, well. This post may be irrelevant as well, no doubt. (*) General operational device. Stanislaw Lem, "Fiasko" :-))

Well, it does take a whole lot of ignorance not to realize the curvature on a clear day just from a mountain near the sea for example. You don't even need a mason's water bubble. The problem is that like with any belief it cannot be overcome with rationality. Rejecting reason isn't exactly a sign of advanced education, at least in the natural sciences ;-) I feel tempted to utter ...

Goat-cheese, cucumber, salt and retsina. Alternatively fresh apple juice. :-)

IRL ? Never !

None until now. But that really means nothing since nothing is known about its forming yet. But it can add to our knowledge in the future when a larger database allows for better explanations and models. Not from "our" solar system because it is too fast.

My faith in my colleagues returns :-)