Nasa: evidence of shallow sea on Mars.

[rodbarnett]

press confereence in process now here

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

[Soloflecks]

1. Catch me before I faint and fall in it!

How much more of this NASA excitement can the public take? Sorry, it's just not that big a surprise. Is this how they plan on whipping up public enthusiasm?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. ME: evidence of starving people in my town

who gives a FUCK about Mars?

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Non sequitur

The money spent on NASA isn't responsible for starvation. With higher taxes on the rich and a much reduced military budget, we could spend far more on NASA and a host of other worthwhile scientific and technological undertakings while also eliminating hunger in America.

Personally, I give a fuck about both Mars and starving people. It's not either-or.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. My apologies to pro-NASA people

I'm alittle keyed up and frustrated. Please except my apologies for using profanity in a topic that you care about.

Caffeine and the Bush administration get me running off half cocked. You're probably right. We should look to other things as well when we talk about poverty and the factors that contribute to it. We do have a very lopsided, defense heavy budget and a very eilitist Capitalist society. I just think that its a hard sell to astreet person that its worth it to send billion dollar rovers to mars.

*Fig leaf*

[theHandpuppet]

17. Or look at it this way...

The knowledge we are gleaning from Mars is something that can be shared by all. It is not proprietary and not to be owned by only those who can afford it. That's why I can be short two nickles to rub together and still be excited about Mars! :)

(As an aside: I deliver food to our local food bank every week even though doing so sometimes strains our budget. I have yet to see a single person of wealth bringing food for the poor. And the volunteers at the food bank say donations have gone down dramatically since 911, even though need continues to rise.)

[mobuto]

5. Silliness

Scientific knowledge is an absolute good and a worthy object of our efforts. Instead of complaining about scientific discoveries, maybe you should complain about unsustanable agricultural subsidies that make no sense for anyone other than farm-state politicians, or maybe complain about military appropriations that do nothing to protect our men and women in uniform, only helping defense contractors. Or maybe you should complain about the redistributive efforts of the Bush Administration, with their billion-dollar handouts to the very wealthy.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

6. Actully I wouldn't give a crap about NASA if we shaved off some of defense

money. Just enough to fund schools and help people eat. I think scientific advances are important. I just think our priorities are out of whack.

And the attention paid to this crap is out of whack to the cruel realities of life in the world and this country

[mobuto]

9. The problem

of course is that NASA is seriously and increasingly underfunded. It needs to pull off publicity stunts like this in order to get Congress to sustain appropriations. This isn't a zero-sum game, and I think your typical NASA scientist would be the last person with whom you would need to argue about the importance of funding local schools.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

10. I'm sure you're right.

A lot of the people I talk to simply shrug NASA off as an expensive joke. You know, testing frogs in zero gravity and such. I suppose it's a shame they have to have dog and poney shows like this.

Then there's the tinfoil folks who say that they're on a lot in Arizona and we're being duped.

[mobuto]

11. Well

I think testing frogs in zero gravity is a joke. The ISS and, to a lesser extent, the Shuttle are largely a waste of money. But the Mars rovers certainly aren't.

[Ediacara]

15. Most experiments are paid for by the research institutions...

...and not necisarily by taxpayers; although many of those are paid for through NSF grants.

Experiments using animals in zero gravity actually are very telling and in no way a joke, as they tell how animals both act and react without the aid of gravity. They can also be informative concerning motor function and muscle atrophy compared to humans.

And they're definately on Mars, and not Arizona....

[hunter]

7. The Bush Administration is out Raping the World...

And you complain about this?

I'm sorry, but this news about mars is a cheerful little island of hope in the raw sewage I swim through every day.

You are contributing to Bush's reverse Midas touch, where everything turns to crap.

[belle]

16. I do.

[FlaGranny]

4. Thanks for posting. I'm always interested in the latest

news from "off world." :-) It's probably a lot like the feeling that early explorers got when they saw Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon for the first time - wonder of nature and the universe.

[BiggJawn]

12. "If there's WATER, that means there's OXYGEN!"

"If Oxygen, that means we can BREATH!"

A quote from my Commander Codpiece talking action figure....I think it's in the rotation behind "I Know about Small Business Growth...I WAS One!"

[mobuto]

13. "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully"

at least in Mars' shallow ocean.

[BiggJawn]

14. Yeah, he says that one, too...

Wonder if they have fish on Mars?

No wouldn't THAT finding just frost the Taliborn-Agains? They'd tie O'Keefe to an old Atlas gantry and burn him for SURE!

[Lisa]

18. shhh!

Where there's shallow water, there's life ... and the next thing you know, Cheney and Scalia will be blasting away with their duck-hunting gear.