If we find a structure on Mars

Morrus said:

You added that "altruistic" bit yourself. I didn't say that.

In the 60s it was a Cold War with Russia. In the 2020s it'll be something else, maybe with China or somebody else. Mabe it will be a private enterprise. The point being, "resources" isn't the only reason to do something, as history has proved a thousand times.

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..I never claimed that you said anything about altruism. It was my own personal sentiment. I apologize if you thought it was some sort of poke at you. It wasn't meant that way.

..Yes, the fight over resources is not the only reason to do something. Historically, however, it has been the primary motivator behind expansionism. Given the current population explosion all over the world, the fight for dwindling natural resources is only going to get worse. It could most definitely spur on further space exploration to find new sources of raw materials.

..The Chinese expansion into the South China Sea, the fight over water rights in South America and the numerous territorial claims being placed on Arctic are just a few examples of the ongoing quest for resources.

tuxgeo said:

Wikipedia has a list of Martian meteroites found on Earth. Their historical impacts here didn't introduce biological agents to wipe us out, as far as we know.

(Maybe the fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere burned all the malevolent critters to a crips?)

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that was my assumption when I talked about transporting rocks from mars to earth deliberately. We'd scoop them up, put them in sealed containers, sterilize the exterior, and take precautions on arrival before opening them in a sealed environment.

Ok, time to fess up: When I read "structure on Mars" I thought of something alien and technological. That colored my posts.

Others clearly thought of different images. A mention of an alien monolith. Another of natural formations which could be mis-interpreted as unnatural.

An alternate to what I immediately imagined would be a badly worn stone structure, similar to Stone Henge or to the numerous ruins here on earth.

In the interest of sharing my misery, what image sprang to mind when folks read "Structure on Mars"?

Thx!
TomB

tomBitonti said:

Ok, time to fess up: When I read "structure on Mars" I thought of something alien and technological. That colored my posts.

Others clearly thought of different images. A mention of an alien monolith. Another of natural formations which could be mis-interpreted as unnatural.

An alternate to what I immediately imagined would be a badly worn stone structure, similar to Stone Henge or to the numerous ruins here on earth.

In the interest of sharing my misery, what image sprang to mind when folks read "Structure on Mars"?

Thx!
TomB

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Actually two things jumped into my mind, almost simultaneously, when the idea of a structure in a cave was mentioned. One was something like a constructed doorway, using at least our own level of technology. The second was the sort of worked cave structure that we would associate with either an Earth-style prehistoric culture, or perhaps like Vardzia.

Joker said:

Let's say one of the future robots on Mars finds an ancient structure hidden in a cave. No aliens or other apparent signs of current occupancy, but just a building visible from the mouth of a cave.

How would we go about exploring it?

I'm talking practically, what would be the proper procedure? How much time would it take before we moved the drone closer?

I'm not too interested in the societal impact the finding would have. I'm more interested in how we would go about understanding it, scientifically.

Assume that there is no conflict back on Earth after finding out we weren't alone. All the space agencies are working together harmoniously.

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Photo, photo and photo the structure, the cave, the outside area. Then find lose samples to bring home (somehow) to age and test.

tomBitonti said:

In the interest of sharing my misery, what image sprang to mind when folks read "Structure on Mars"?

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I specifically tried to keep my mind as general as possible, without specific image, to first consider what's *generally* needed for such an exploration, and what is specifically needed afterwards.

megamania said:

Then find lose samples to bring home (somehow) to age and test.

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Getting things off the surface of Mars is hard. Not because launching the rocket is hard, but because getting the rocket to the surface to launch it back up is hard.

All the fuel for that rocket must (currently) launch from earth, be taken all the way to Mars (and moving that fuel takes fuel). It must then be soft-landed on the surface, and then take off again. There's a reason why we haven't done it already.

Umbran said:

Getting things off the surface of Mars is hard. Not because launching the rocket is hard, but because getting the rocket to the surface to launch it back up is hard.

All the fuel for that rocket must (currently) launch from earth, be taken all the way to Mars (and moving that fuel takes fuel). It must then be soft-landed on the surface, and then take off again. There's a reason why we haven't done it already.

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So presumably this project is going to need multiple avenues going on. Probes and relay setups just to get eyes on the ground early on, which will still take years.

getting a MAV style lander/take off vehicle setup near the area for when we really do want to get something back to earth

getting a human team out there to do research on the site, and be able to use the MAV to get back home.

Given the fuel costs- as well as environmental support concerns- it is probably more efficient to start with probes that are designed to perform specific investigations in situ and transmit their data back to earth. It might be a couple generations after its discovery before an archeological investigation on a Martian structure could be done by humans.

Umbran said:

I specifically tried to keep my mind as general as possible, without specific image, to first consider what's *generally* needed for such an exploration, and what is specifically needed afterwards.

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What is done, though, will depend a lot on what in particular is seen.

I would think, since such a discovery is rather quite extraordinary, the first steps would be to verify what was initially seen, and to take all possible steps to make sure the discovery is real. The whole pipeline for incoming data would be examined to make sure no fraud was taking place, and the data, if found to be real, would be examined for any possible misinterpretation.

Following, I would expect a great deal of tension between doing additional investigation and perturbing the site to a minimal degree. I'm thinking of modern minimally invasive archeology techniques. We would want to not perturb a possibly very fragile site: Important details could be effaced, or the site could be contaminated. Perhaps the first step would be to back off from the site, with a long deliberation of how to proceed.

After a long deliberation, we would proceed very slowly and very cautiously -- continuing with the theme of minimally perturbing the site.

I imagine that after a long process, a new probe would be designed and sent. Given current technology, I can't see us sending people for a very long time. Ideally, new probes would be done as international cooperatives. That fits how things are done now. But I can't rule out countries going it alone for nationalistic reasons.

What kind of probe would be sent is an interesting question, but I'm not qualified to comment on it. Space technology is a field unto itself, and folks with degrees in that field will have to say what is realistic in terms of how much of a payload could be sent, what sort of power, propulsion, communications, memory and control systems, and sensors, would be advisable and possible within the engineering constraints.

This is all for a dusty ruin, which seems most likely as what would be discovered. If the discovery showed any signs of an advanced technological nature, I imagine what happens would be more as I envisioned in my original posts.

Thx!
TomB