"...whereas on early Earth hydrated rocks tended to float until they dehydrate,”
So rocks float? Who knew....it really is an alien planet after all..
Mars is dry, frozen and arid because its water reserves dried up. A large chunk of that water was lost when the planet’s magnetic field collapsed and it could no longer shield itself from the energetic solar rays. And top of this, research out this week shows that a portion of that liquid was absorbed by its rocks, too. How …
"All we need now is a giant advance in technology to allow us to squeeze water from a stone."
No need for technology, just ensure that the first landing on Mars is a contingent of HMRC officials, accountants and system integrator financial officers. They can all suck fluids from a stone.
There is a concept in Hindu mythology that one sage was angry with the Sea God so he drank up (CHALU) the entire water of the sea. But scientifically speaking, water has been changed to gaseous materials due to high level of molecular division of water due to high level of heat that burned the oxygen in the water and in the atmosphere. Water can be regenerated if we can be able to grow certain type of plants and by doing Yagna/Homo those are done in India. Not convinced?
"scientifically speaking, water has been changed to gaseous materials due to high level of molecular division of water due to high level of heat that burned the oxygen in the water and in the atmosphere. Water can be regenerated if we can be able to grow certain type of plants and by doing Yagna/Homo those are done in India. Not convinced?"
No. The water was not split by heat but by UV and you can't burn oxygen out of anything, burning is the combining of oxygen (or some other reactive gas) with another material to produce a lower energy compound. And good luck finding a plant from this planet that can recombine oxygen and gaseous hydrogen. Water expired from plants comes from a combination of water from its roots and nighttime respiration of stored carbohydrates. There may well be some bacteria or archaia than can deal with H2 direct however, I don't know.
Some lessons in basic science wouldn't do you any harm.
"The odd thing about Hindu mythology is that it describes so many concepts about the universe"
yes, if you cherry pick it. Vimanas and all of that. I like watching "History" channel too, quotes because it's sometimes less about history and more about 'whatever the hell they want to put on the network'. "Ancient astronaut theorists" and all of that. Sometimes it's palatable, and sometimes I can't stomach the nonsense. And sometimes they 'get it right' in between the "ancient astronaut theorists" parts SO well that I'm intrigued. So it's worth watching, if you can 'cherry pick' the good stuff from the weird/bad.
[not to say UFOs nor ETs don't necessarily exist, I just don't buy into the Von Donnakinism, and if they ARE manipulating us, they're HOLDING US BACK and not "helping", to 'keep us in our place' and NOT become a threat to 'them' - that would make MORE sense, to me... sort of like in "The day the earth stood still", the ~original~ one, not the re-make, which missed the point entirely]
Anyway... Mars still sounds like a great place to set up a permanent base or colony, if you can grind up and heat rocks for water and oxygen. That could work, using nuclear power. Sci Fi has suggested things like that for DECADES, and I think Sci Fi authors are pretty good at predicting what's possible.
"then spend the first few minutes recapping the bit they showed you before the adverts"
Where have I seen that before? Let me CNN... The question remains: is it that they're doing this to accommodate the fact that you've been conditioned to have a short-term memory a bit shorter than the length of a commercial break, or that they're conditioning you to have a short-term memory that is a bit shorter than the length of a commercial break, or that they're doing this to ensure that the conditioning that's left you with a short-term memory a bit shorter than the length of a commercial break sticks? Find out... after this commercial break.
You were doing great till then. I'm an SF Author. I've read thousands of SF books. It's not Futurology. Fiction's (or Futurologist) predictions of the future are mostly rubbish. You'll notice the odd one that gets it right. It's not prediction, it's story.
Most SF doesn't even much concern itself with actual science at all, but is simply fairy tales set in the future or off the Earth. Magic by another name.
Dune? Psychic powers.
Superheroes. Basically magic.
Pern. Teleporting telepathic Dragons.
Star Trek: Technobabble and the logically impossible.
Avatar. Magic and lots of visuals.
Such as what exactly? There's nothing unique about Hinduism or it's "insights", it's simply common garden Paganism. Pretty much any pagan myths of any tradition are relatable to science by way of metaphor but the moment you use metaphor it ceases to be science. Utter b*llocks the lot of it.
IIRC the classic example of this is Copper Sulphate. Blue when hydrated, but heat up and it forms a white powder with steam given off.
Of course how much energy you'll need to apply to what minerals you find to get that water is another question. You'd probably want to stay with drilling a conveniently located glacier.
Still good news all round I think.
"Of course how much energy you'll need to apply to what minerals you find to get that water is another question"
A well-designed regenerative process could probably do the job. The question is whether or not forming complex hydrates is endothermic or exothermic, and how much energy is needed to release the water.
From what I just read, CuSO4 5(H2O) is exothermic when forming the hydrate, having a negative hydration enthalpy [and apparantly they're ALL negative, so it's exothermic to form the hydrate]. So it requires energy in to release the water. I didn't research very long, so maybe that chemical formula is wrong. I haven't done that kind of chemistry stuff since 1979...
Still, if you have a large enough power plant (nuclear, let's say), producing sufficient heat to have a continuous process of extracting water from [and grinding up aqueous] rocks, and you use an efficient process that includes regenerative heat exchangers, it would probably be VERY practical.
I'd also be interested in seeing what it would take to melt the Martian planet core sufficiently to get a magnetic field back. OK probably WAY beyond our technology level, but still an interesting idea.
[Citation please]
Random Commentard suffering from delusions of adequacy (and who probably can't even solve a differential equation) believes that magically, a single body in the solar system did not get hit by the very abundant H20 of the early solar system. It's not like any of the balls out there show revelatory signs of water abundance. Not at all, right?