Water Found on Moon After Lcross Impact

sfsuphysics said:
ack no edit.

that should say hydrogen is too light to exist in our atmosphere (in any appreciable amount)

and Venus if you tossed it out around Mars' location, I'd expect a vastly different evolutionary path it would have taken. The surface gravity is still 90% of Earth's after all.
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It would...the water that once where in Venus atmosphere has been stripped away by the solarwind...put it out in Mars orbit and things look differently...the "double distance -> square thingy" matters ;)
 
Azhar said:
The next step should be building a space dock so we can assemble our long range ships in space rather than building them on Earth and watch them waste 90% of their fuel getting off the planet.

I'm thinking space elevator to that dock, or perhaps a space elevator from the moon to the dock to carry hydro fuel up there.
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oh man...listening to elevator music all the way up into space...jesus, 3 floors worth is all i can take...fuck that
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I said "terrestrial bodies." ;)


Yes, as is Saturn's moon Titan. The point I made is that Earth is the only terrestrial planet in the solar system that is large enough to retain hydrogen after formation. Less hydrogen = less water = no oceans.


Venus doesn't have a magnetic field (well, almost no field), and at 82% Earth's mass it isn't wasn't massive enough to trap gaseous hydrogen. You are correct though, its proximity to the sun and many other factors keep it from being Earthlike.
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Ah, didn't catch the "terrestrial" there. :cool: As far as Venus goes... what is the mechanism of H2O dissociation? H2O has a lower thermodynamic energy state than H2, so I am assuming some sort of energy input dissociates the water molecule. Is it simply solar radiation?

I also thought H2 can escape from Earth's gravitational field.
 
ordovician said:
Ah, didn't catch the "terrestrial" there. :cool: As far as Venus goes... what is the mechanism of H2O dissociation? H2O has a lower thermodynamic energy state than H2, so I am assuming some sort of energy input dissociates the water molecule. Is it simply solar radiation?

I also thought H2 can escape from Earth's gravitational field.
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http://venus.aeronomie.be/en/venus/water-greenhouse.htm

"Just like the Earth, Venus used to have large amounts of water. In fact, this water came from volcanism.
However, it has been completely evaporated due to the proximity of Venus to the Sun. Venus is 1.38 times closer to the Sun than the Earth, and so receives almost 2 times (1.91) the energy flux that the Earth receives.
High temperatures provoke the evaporation of water. This is exacerbated by the fact that the boiling point of water depends on atmospheric pressure: at low pressure, water boils before 100°C, facilitating evaporation".
 
This seems like a huge deal, I bet in 50 years we will be pioneering planets ourselves.
 
Kayk said:
This seems like a huge deal, I bet in 50 years we will be pioneering planets ourselves.
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I highly doubt it. While this thread seems to support colonization, I think the majority of the public is against it, re-hashing the same old argument of "Why are we wasting money on space when people are still starving/dying/getting-sick/ here?"
 
Darn, I don't mind going to the moon for a summer getaway. I've always wanted to go on a cruise on one of those big space cruisers as well! Okay anyway, if there happens to be an odd chemical in the water... and someone decides to drink it... "hello x-men"
 
It cracks me up, the fact that they actually brought back Moon water 40 years ago, and thought it was just condensation.

It was infact the water from the moon rocks when they warmed up. Good thing there wasn't some killer space virus in that water.
 
While I think it's great that we found water on the Moon...

Doesn't it really make you curious exactly what crap we'll find on Uranus?
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
It cracks me up, the fact that they actually Good thing there wasn't some killer space virus in that water.
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unless birds got ahold of that water and made bird flu! or pigs had some and developed swine flu! or... a human had some to drink and developed aids. Anyways, I didn't know that they brought back moon water 40 years ago, thanks for the info! :D
 
Xee said:
I highly doubt it. While this thread seems to support colonization, I think the majority of the public is against it, re-hashing the same old argument of "Why are we wasting money on space when people are still starving/dying/getting-sick/ here?"
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Two words, back-up plan. The human race should consider levels of existence and being able to sustain such existence other than here on earth
, and the exploration of space, this is one of the first steps. We should also work on learning how to control our own atmosphere, and how to regulate the oceans in order to re populate the poles with ice, as to keep your climate stable, and not trigger and ice age.

People are against it because of its immense cost to even consider it, that and they are too self centered (not so much in a bad way, but short sided) You live for what? 75 years? The moon as atleast a partially sustainable moon base and launching pad depending on research and funding is a generation away, probably two, and thats if things go better than expected, its kind of like oil companies downplaying the significance and even downright obstruct of trying to find other, more self sustaining sources of energy, they only think about the here and now. Lets not get started with the fact that 3 quarters of this country believes they are "going to a better place" when they die, that just adds to the lack of "interest" in either trying to slow the use of oil or reach for the stars. And to be honest, with how broke this country is right now, I don't blame them. With that being said, Its probably going to take longer to get past ourselves to see the "greater good" than it will to actually build this colony on the moon, even if its not even to populate the moon, but just to do research.

That and, its our moon, we should use it, which is probably the best reason of them all :D
 
^ woops I meant We should also work on learning how to control our own atmosphere, and how to regulate the oceans in order to re populate the poles with ice, as to keep your climate stable, and as to try to keep an ice age from triggering.
 
Tokamak said:
There's also the massive greenhouse effect of a mostly CO2 atmosphere. Lead would melt on the surface of Venus because of it. It's hotter even than Mercury even though Mercury is much closer to the Sun.
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Venus atmosphere only started go "greenhouse" after the water ect. had vaporized.
Do not compare the CO2 debacle on Earth with the situation on Venus ;)
 
Simpson5774 said:
^ woops I meant We should also work on learning how to control our own atmosphere, and how to regulate the oceans in order to re populate the poles with ice, as to keep your climate stable, and as to try to keep an ice age from triggering.
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The norm for Earth is ice free polar caps...2/3 of Earths history that has been the norm.
We are leaving an iceage, not the norm on earth...changes are bound to happen ;)
 
So basically we're swimming across an ocean, solo, but there's an island near shore with some ponds. And then if we do cross the ocean, we either have to set up camp, go back, or just send info.

I'm torn because I support the space program but so much more can be done here.
 
Atech said:
The norm for Earth is ice free polar caps...2/3 of Earths history that has been the norm.
We are leaving an iceage, not the norm on earth...changes are bound to happen ;)
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Well.. yes and no. Though the Earth has usually been warmer throughout its history, it's also been colder. Glaciation has a fairly frequent occurrence in the geologic record, and is a primary cause of sea level changes in the sedimentary record. It is debatable whether ice-free poles are the norm, because it can depend on whether there's even a continent there to collect precipitation. Even if the earth were warmer with the current continental configuration, it's not likely that glaciers would completely disappear from Antarctica.
 
singe_101 said:
So basically we're swimming across an ocean, solo, but there's an island near shore with some ponds. And then if we do cross the ocean, we either have to set up camp, go back, or just send info.
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Yeah basically.

I'm torn because I support the space program but so much more can be done here.
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With that attitude however, we'd never get anything done... with anything. The argument that "oh there's hungry/sick/retarded/etc people here that could use help instead" really is invalid because 1) sometimes you can't fix a problem by just throwing money at it and 2) the amount of money needed would dwarf the small budget the space program has.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yeah basically.


With that attitude however, we'd never get anything done... with anything. The argument that "oh there's hungry/sick/retarded/etc people here that could use help instead" really is invalid because 1) sometimes you can't fix a problem by just throwing money at it and 2) the amount of money needed would dwarf the small budget the space program has.
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+1. If an alien species were to come here and take note of human civilization, what do you think would be the main criterion for judging us? By how well we treat each other? Absolutely not. That would merely be a footnote. They'd judge us by our technological advancement. Have we colonized our nearest planets yet? Have we managed not the blow ourselves into nuclear oblivion? Have we cured cancer? Have we figured out the origin of life on our planet? Have we unraveled the mysteries of time on our own planet, or the universe?

Scientific inquiry is the apex of human achievement and the measure by which our species should be judged, and no expense should be spared to continue it.
 
ordovician said:
Scientific inquiry is the apex of human achievement and the measure by which our species should be judged, and no expense should be spared to continue it.
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I agree. I'd like to think our curiosity and the continuous quest for knowledge is what got us to the level of development we are at now and it's the only thing that will allow us to grow. Take that away and there's a good chance we'd all still be running around the forests naked.
 
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