Water notes
This blog is always on the lookout for stories concerning precipitation, condensation and the like. It's not called Rainy Day for nothing, you know. That said, to business. Item No. 1 comes from Claire Tomalin's biography of Samuel Pepys. She observes that John Evelyn made a special note in his diary of August 1653 that he was going to experiment with an "annual hair wash." Bears thinking about, that.
Item No. 2: Just found a UPI story called "Water found at Martian south pole":
"Scientists reported Thursday they have discovered frozen water near the south pole of Mars, a finding that will help to create more accurate computer models of Martian climate and could be useful when human space missions reach the planet."
What was your reaction upon reading this? Excitement? Disinterest? Considering that today marks the 30th anniversary of the launching of the
Apollo 17 mission, which led to the last human footsteps on the Moon, I think the time has come to renew space exploration efforts. How about setting a goal for a manned mission to Mars?
Nick Mallory feels passionately about this as his posting on on Rand Simberg's Transterrestrial Musings shows:
"The ISS has been a disaster, Columbus didn't spend ten years pottering around the bay to test his systems, who can name two people who've been up there? Who even knows that it's up there at all??What will the 20th century be remembered for? Two world wars, nuclear weapons and Neil Armstrong. What's the 21st going to be remembered for? Reality TV? We've e mail and cell phones and we've nothing to say. Lets do Mars Direct, let's say boys you've a five percent chance of not coming back but a 100% chance of becoming heroes. People would queue up from New York to Florida. The safer we are the more scared of the slightest risk we become."
Mars Direct. I like the sound of it.
