Martian soil "could support life"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7477310.stm
"Martian soil appears to contain sufficient nutrients to support life - or, at least, asparagus - Nasa scientists believe.
Preliminary analysis by the $420m (£210m) Phoenix Mars Lander mission on the planet's soil found it to be much more alkaline than expected.
Scientists working on the spacecraft project said they were "flabbergasted" by the discovery.
The find has raised hopes conditions on Mars may be favourable for life.
'We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life, whether past, present or future,' said Sam Kounaves, the project's lead chemist, from the University of Arizona."
This is terrible news. I hate asparagus... 
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I don't think anyone is actually even considering living on Mars en plain air. Artificial colonies are much more probable, even if some get all excited upon hearing "terraforming." And asparagus is...yuck...
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen
asparagus eh? 
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♥´¯`♥Blah♥´¯`♥
I'd hate to visit a Martian toilet in a few decades from now.
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen
This is just as funny as it was the time I saw it on the NASA channel. You see, I live in Huntsville, Alabama and we have NASA here. I remember them saying that the soil is alkali based, but I also remember the same broadcast where they said they are still looking for the water that now they are almost SURE is there. The real funny thing about all of this, is that even if you can grow asparagus in the soil from mars, you still cannot grow it in the TEMPERATURES from there so what's it really matter anyway? we can grow asparagus in our back yards here in the USA.
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~ PSYKO ~
Temperature can be controlled in closed environments. Do you actually think they plan to grow crops en plain air? Pretty interesting bucolic vision, there.
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen
sorry bro, but "closed environments" is one discovery I have NOT seen in the satellite photos.
again... wishful thinking... fact is, maybe mars could sustain life if we tinker with it a bit and take enough of OUR natural resources to the red planet and live a cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but life has not existed there in the past nor is it there in the present.
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~ PSYKO ~
sorry bro, but "closed environments" is one discovery I have NOT seen in the satellite photos.
Because they haven't been built yet? Because there has been no manned mission to Mars yet? I think you're missing the point entirely.
again... wishful thinking... fact is, maybe mars could sustain life if we tinker with it a bit and take enough of OUR natural resources to the red planet and live a cheesy Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but life has not existed there in the past nor is it there in the present.
Again, you don't really have the evidence to rule out past life on the planet. It might make your anthropocentric self feel real good, but you really can't. But I agree on something, Total Recall kinda sucked.
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen
it was cheesy wasn't it?
My point, shaka, is that there are other things needed to produce/sustain life on mars that simply are not there nor have been there in the past as speculation suggests, and will not be there until we travel and build these "closed environments" that you speak of... until that point, there is not, nor has there been life on mars.
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~ PSYKO ~
it was cheesy wasn't it?
My point, shaka, is that there are other things needed to produce/sustain life on mars that simply are not there nor have been there in the past as speculation suggests, and will not be there until we travel and build these "closed environments" that you speak of... until that point, there is not, nor has there been life on mars.
You argument - your only one, at that - so far has been temperature. Well, extremophiles are pretty hardy. Hardy enough to withstand and even thrive in such conditions, I'd say. Again, you can't rule out the possibility, above all if we consider the planet's past.
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen
you're talking about the possibility of one organism or type of organism existing without a balanced ecosystem shaka... get real bro.
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~ PSYKO ~
Define balanced ecosystem, bro.
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen
go open a third grade science book and that will give you a start. BRO.
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~ PSYKO ~
I'll rephrase. Do you think extremophiles are named that way because they thrive in "balanced ecosystems?"
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How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter? --Woody Allen
So you keep up with this stuff too.
Alkali soil means no trees or woody plants, no trees means not enough oxygen to ever live there. Asparagus isn't bad! 
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