Mars Life Proof - Or Just a Pile of Shaved Pubes....???

[neuteredcats]

I'm sure this has been discussed before but what do y'all make of the Mars 'vegetation' images snapped by the Mars Global Surveyor? You know, the ones NASA have remained tight-lipped about.



http://www.joshuaalmond.com/mars/plants.jpg
Check this link - aside from looking like a pile of shaved pubes - it had me pretty convinced!!!!



I think its interesting that they plonked their 2 landers in areas they knew were uninhabitable. The pictures come from the polar regions where the ice melts every spring. Of course their polar lander malfunctioned just before touchdown 4 yrs ago - a conspiracy???

[hencole]

Dust devils.

[Speciality meat product]

Dust devils.

What? The little hand held vacuum?

Anyway, i've said it before and i'll say it again, why would NASA go to the expense of sending a craft to Mars, with the intention of finding life, only to deny it when it does find some. Makes no sense to me.

[MonkeyDrummer]

The don't want us to know cos they sent marines in to shoot the fucking shit out of anything that was living.

[Regular John]

Those are macro photos of skin diseases!

[Alberon]

They're just rock formations of course. As Mr Greedy said, why would NASA cover it up? Discovery of life on this scale on Mars would see their budget problems evaporate overnight.

All the conspiracy theories are utter rubbish. When the US was trying to keep it's stealth fighter secret and one crashed they threw large exclusion zones around the crash site, but you could go into most model shops and pick up a very accurate one of the stealth plane.

There's this guy called Brad Guth who believes Venus is inhabited, his website has all these radar pictures of Venus' surface and annotates them with things like 'aerodrome', 'bridge', 'power plant' and (most amusingly) 'rock'. Obviously no one else can see anything other than natural formations, but he's convinced Venus has intelligent life.

[Pinball]

I guess rock is most likely, but wow if it is vegetation! What concerns me though is if we do find life or colonise Mars we'll just repeat the same old same old with respect to human behaviour. Better we limit the human curse to Earth I'd say. Marines going in and pacifying the area is precisely what would happen, and yes it would of course be kept secret.

They should be able to tell if those areas are organic with mass spectrometers and the like, so why the secrecy? Hmmm, I'll have to watch Alternative 3 again ;-)

[fanny splendid]

but he's convinced Venus has intelligent life.

I used to be convinced of the abundance of intelligent life on this planet, but now i think it's just an anomaly.

NASA is the 'space' agency, not the 'object' agency. What else did you expect it to find?

[Purple Tentacle]

All the conspiracy theories are utter rubbish. When the US was trying to keep it's stealth fighter secret and one crashed they threw large exclusion zones around the crash site, but you could go into most model shops and pick up a very accurate one of the stealth plane.

This is me being a pedantic arsehole, but I'm sure they were more concerned about the interior of the plane being captured rather than snaps of the outside.


As for conspiracy theoriests, if they REALLY believe that NASA would send a prove to Mars to find fungus, and then cover it up when they do actually find fungus, for some reason, then they'll believe anything.

[Speciality meat product]

All the conspiracy theories are utter rubbish. When the US was trying to keep it's stealth fighter secret and one crashed they threw large exclusion zones around the crash site, but you could go into most model shops and pick up a very accurate one of the stealth plane.

This is me being a pedantic arsehole, but I'm sure they were more concerned about the interior of the plane being captured rather than snaps of the outside.

Obviously it's because they use the engines from the alien space craft which crashed at Roswell in the 60's.

[neuteredcats]

Lots of interesting theories, I'll wager. All of which I completely agree with and totally disagree with at the same time...

Of course, if they're not giant alien pube shavings, and really are bushes, trees and herbs, then imagine what effects smoking them might engender???

It might also explain this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3577551.stm

[Munday's Chylde]

Anyway, i've said it before and i'll say it again, why would NASA go to the expense of sending a craft to Mars, with the intention of finding life, only to deny it when it does find some. Makes no sense to me.

Conspiracy theorists would suggest that NASA dont send crafts to mars with the intention of finding life at all, that's why. They already know there's life there and they're busy setting up a new home amongst it or something. They need some valid reason for their ships going there incase they're picked up by satellites and telescopes or something so its a case of "we're off to find life... la la la... dum de dum.... nope none there, we'll check again next year and take some big steel girders with us... just incase."

[neuteredcats]

The don't want us to know cos they sent marines in to shoot the fucking shit out of anything that was living.

[Partridge's Love Child]

Discovery of life on this scale on Mars would see their budget problems evaporate overnight.

The biggest financial winner in the long run will be David Bowie.

[Purple Tentacle]

It is impossible for bushes, large foliage etc. to grow on Mars, what with it being a near vaccum and -30 degrees on a hot day on the equator.  And tres dusty.


If a tree can't grow in the comparitively tropical Antarctic, it can't grow on Mars.

[Munday's Chylde]

[JesusAndYourBush]

What annoys me is that on the several times nasa have landed a probe on mars and sent back pictures it's been the same flat featureless landscape.  Mars has some spectacular mountains/volcanos much higher than the higest ones on Earth.  They could at least have landed near one of them so we'd get some new photos.

[Bill Oddie]

What annoys me is that on the several times nasa have landed a probe on mars and sent back pictures it's been the same flat featureless landscape.  Mars has some spectacular mountains/volcanos much higher than the higest ones on Earth.  They could at least have landed near one of them so we'd get some new photos.

The problem with that is you don't really want your multi-million (billion?) dollar probe landing anywhere other then a flat featureless landscape, they've lost that many probes already that they don't want any more risk then is absolutely necessary.

I want to know how they can be *absolutley* sure that all these probes are totally sterile when they land.

[glitch]

All the conspiracy theories are utter rubbish. When the US was trying to keep it's stealth fighter secret and one crashed they threw large exclusion zones around the crash site, but you could go into most model shops and pick up a very accurate one of the stealth plane.

This is me being a pedantic arsehole, but I'm sure they were more concerned about the interior of the plane being captured rather than snaps of the outside.

This is me being even more of a pedantic asshole, but I'm sure they were moreconcerned about the exterior of the plane, considering it's the precise shape and external paintjob/material that makes it "stealth" as opposed to any ECM.

[JesusAndYourBush]

What annoys me is that on the several times nasa have landed a probe on mars and sent back pictures it's been the same flat featureless landscape.  Mars has some spectacular mountains/volcanos much higher than the higest ones on Earth.  They could at least have landed near one of them so we'd get some new photos.

The problem with that is you don't really want your multi-million (billion?) dollar probe landing anywhere other then a flat featureless landscape, they've lost that many probes already that they don't want any more risk then is absolutely necessary.

I want to know how they can be *absolutley* sure that all these probes are totally sterile when they land.

They can land the probes very accurately though.  They could quite safely land 10 miles away from Olympus Mons and get some very nice snapshots.

As for probes being sterile, they should send then loaded with microbes and they might help to start life there.  Maybe it'll give them a head start on the terraforming that they plan to do sometime way in the future.

[mwude]

Of course, if they're not giant alien pube shavings, and really are bushes, trees and herbs, then imagine what effects smoking them might engender???

hehe!  What a fabulous response!  Yes, we might not be the only living beings in the solar system / galaxy / universe - but bollocks to that!  Let's get stoned on space herbs.