Mars isn't the garbage wasteworld you think it is: Swirling polar ice cap photographed Mars is not quite the featureless red wasteland scientists once thought it was. New images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express probe orbiting the Red Planet have revealed delicate swirls of ice at the alien world's north pole. The idea that Mars may be capable of harboring life has fueled the space industry’s …
That's a worry. I suggest the initial space explorers are politicians. Being universally dim they've got less far to fall. And being universally narcissistic they'll do anything to get their faces in front of a TV camera. Computers can do all the difficult stuff, so it won't matter that we're sending people not clever enough to complete an expenses form honestly, and who believe that smart meters, Hinkley Point C, or HS2 are all good investments.
> "Being universally dim they've got less far to fall."
Ahh, but you misunderstand the physical effects. Those cosmic rays don't stop doing damage when you reach the 'impaired' stage (typical glad-hander). So your idea would only hasten the day when our big interplanetary mission ends up being crewed by troglodytes (out of the loop).
The story as presented is not news - we've known what Mar's polar regions look like for many years, the stepped terrain, the swirling, the big chasma, etc. (indeed it;s so well known that Kim Stanley Robinson mentioned all of those things and wrote about them very convincingly in his Mars trilogy). Even NASA having stiched that pic together isn't terribly interesting, unless in the process of so doing they noticed features previously overlooked.
What was the point of this article, again?
@Major Tom - hey, I don't mind things like this being in the limelight again, but it was the polar features of Mars being reported as if we'd only just found out about them that I was contesting. I mean, presumably there must have been SOMEthing new from NASA in order for the article to get written - if so, then what the heck was it? I can't imagine the writer simply thought 'hey ho, what can I write about today? I know, Mars has a big swirly thing at the pole that we found out about years ago, that'll do....'. It'd be about on a par with putting up an article reporting that Venus isn't a hot swamp as was once thought. I mean, sure, true insofar as it goes, but we've known that for a very long time.
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