"Mitchell Jones" <mjones@21cenlogic.com> wrote in message
news:mjones-69A17F.19465231032005@spectator.sj.sys.us.xo.net...

Nevertheless, witches will ride brooms before that's anything other than
a lake on Mars. :-)

Mitchell Jones has a powerful NEED to believe there is a lake on mars, even
though here in the reality based community we know that this is quite
impossible.
Mitchell Jones suffers from a host of other faith based delusions which a
quick web search will readily illustrate.

In article <OLSdnSY0Z68n99HfRVn-pA@giganews.com>,
"Bob Harrington" <rch.NOS-PAM@blarg.net> wrote:

Mitchell Jones wrote:

In article <UJ6dnQwD2PliN9bfRVn-ow@giganews.com>,
"Bob Harrington" <rch.NOS-PAM@blarg.net> wrote:

Mitchell Jones wrote:

Bottom line: Witches will ride brooms before that's anything other
than a lake on Mars.

If that ~is~ liquid water, or even a thin sheet of clear ice
floating on water, the simple test would be to look for specular
surface reflections from the sun. Shouldn't be hard for NASA or
ESA to arrange a photo pass or two looking for same.

Lack of such reflections would surely put a small dent in your
theory, unless Mars has some new form of "matte" water...

***{How reflective is the surface of water at a pressure of 10 to 12
millibars? Myself, I don't know. I do know, however, that a lot more
molecules are going to be jumping through the surface in the upwards
direction, per unit area, than is the case for water at 1013
millibars, which is sea level air pressure on Earth. Will those
differences alter the reflectivity of the surface? Do you know the
answer? If so, let's see your reference. And if not I would suggest
less sarcasm and a more open mind. --MJ}***

If the surface is indeed boiling, then you lose a lot of the clarity
you claim to be seeing - try reading the date on a coin on the
bottom of a pot of boiling water. If it is merely rapid
evaporation, then the surface is still smooth enough to cast
specular reflections.

***{I don't really know that. I would have to see some experimental
data. In any case it doesn't matter, because the Reull Vallis Lake is
never positioned where a direct, overhead photo would show a
reflection. --MJ}***

As to open minds, there is such a thing as ~too~ open... for
example: making assumptions about something that one does not have
all available information for

***{Such as assuming water at 10 mb has the same reflectivity as water
at 1013 mb? :-) --MJ}***

(i.e. how much manipulation has been done on the image

in question

***{I'm partially guilty there, I guess. Dr. Moehlmann told me there
hadn't been any special manipulation done on the fog photo--i.e.,
nothing other than what is routinely done to all color photos from
that source--and I did generalize: I assumed that is also true of the
Reull Vallis photo. But nothing has been said here so far that
contradicts that assumption. --MJ}***

?), and then making concrete conclusions based on those

assumptions (your definitive claim that this can ~only~ be open,
clear water.)

***{Hey, I had to make an extreme claim. Nobody was responding to the
thread! Don't you know nothin'? :-) --MJ}***

I took this photo of the moon that proves it has been attacked by
clowns with paint cans:

***{I saw 'em do it. :-) --MJ}***

http://home.comcast.net/~bobqatphotos/2004-12-27_Moon_Saturated.jpg

Or not. It is actually just this natural color image of the moon -

http://home.comcast.net/~bobqatphotos/2004-12-27_Moon.jpg

- that I used Photoshop's saturation tool to absurdly stretch the
very subtle color variations on the moon (and likely some camera
sensor noise as well)

***{Seriously, are you suggesting that something similar has been done
to the photos we are discussing? If so, I hope you plan to cite some
sort of evidence. I am very much *not* willing to simply assume that
on your say so, because it doesn't make any sense that ESA would do
such a thing. (Hell, I don't even think NASA would deliberately
doctor a photo in that way, though in their case I would be a lot
more receptive to the idea. :-) --MJ}***

Most images produced for public consumption by NASA and ESA have had
some - or much - color and contrast manipulation applied, both for
enhancement of details, and for just plain 'wow factor' intended to
attract the very public interest you suggest they disdain below...
The details of that manipulation are not always made clear, and
sometimes omitted entirely - a pet peeve I've held for decades.

***{OK, so you *are* saying they doctor their pictures for spin
control purposes. Are you aware that would constitute scientific
fraud? Are you aware that a number of people in recent years have had
their careers wrecked when such allegations came to light? I'm not
saying you are wrong, mind you. I've seen some pretty funny looking
stuff myself, over the years. However, I have never seen indications
that NASA, to be very specific, tried to *create* excitement. Quite
the opposite: they seem to go out of their way to pour cold water on
everything. --MJ}***

From my own experience in image manipulation, the Mars image in
question shows obvious signs of both contrast and saturation
enhancement. Were you able to view the same Martian scene with your
own unaided eyes, you would most likely see little more than
variations in reddish rock and dust, with some slightly darker,
coarser sands in the lowest parts of the valley just as occur in
many other places on Mars.

***{Are you talking about the fog photo, or Reull Vallis? --MJ}***

Or would it just be another government coverup?

***{I don't see it as a coverup. I see it as institutional memory
operating. The last time NASA stirred up a lot of excitement
vis-a-vis space exploration was when their astronauts were walking
on the moon. Naturally, NASA supporters used the publicity to go
for a bigger budget. Result: other groups in Washington who wanted
that money turned on them. Those groups included welfare recipients,
"environmentalists," "education," and a lengthy laundry list of well
organized groups who could put a lot of bodies on the streets on
short notice, as well as lots of lobbyists in the halls of congress.
The result was a massacre in which NASA not merely didn't get a
budget increase, but actually got its budget cut, and almost ceased
to exist altogether. What they learned from the experience was
simple: don't pick a fight with groups that, when push comes to
shove, are much more powerful than you are. Instead, always step off
the sidewalk and into the gutter when your betters come walking by.
Always accept your intrinsic inferiority, where pressure group
warfare in Washington is concerned, and never attempt to be more
than you can be.

The reality, however, was that NASA had lots of fervent supporters
whom it could not control. If, in fact, a lot of public excitement
developed due to some event related to space exploration, then the
reality was that those supporters would lobby congress for a bigger
NASA budget, whether NASA administrators wanted them to do that or
not. In other words, if *excitement* developed in the press and the
public due to some event related to space exploration, whether it
was an accomplishment of NASA, ESA, or someone else, it was a
threat to the very existence of the agency, because supporters who
did not understand the political realities would pick another fight
that NASA could not win. Result: for decades, NASA administrators
have had an unstated policy of discouraging excitement vis-a-vis
space exploration, by cutting off the flow of funds to any
researchers who were prone to generate excitement.

But wouldn't 'definitive proof' of a huge standing body of liquid
water on Mars be just the thing to upstage one's 'betters'? I now
begin to doubt your understanding of the bureaucratic mindset as
well... ;^}

***{Do you try to upstage someone who has proven that he can beat the
living crap out of you? I think not.

Well, that's the situation NASA
is in. The reality is that, in a democracy, the winos, retards,
degenerates, "teachers," blue collar workers, homeowners, the elderly,
and most of the others who have their hands in the public trough,
taken singly or taken all together, have the rocket scientists
outvoted. Major discoveries in space exploration simply do not come
quickly enough to sustain the support that they elicit immediately
after they occur. Result: if you take advantage of such an
opportunity to get your budget raised, your support will not be there
when the counterattack occurs, and at that point you will give back
all of your gains, and then give up some more. Result: if it happens
to you once, as it did to NASA, you learn, and you don't repeat that
mistake again. From their perspective, such a modus operandi is
necessary. It is not, however, in the best interests of the human
race. --MJ}***

For example, do you remember the early Mars mission which put out a
scoop into the Martian soil, pulled back a lump of dirt, perfused it
with sterile nutrients, and measured byproduct gases to see if the
emanations were of the sort that might indicate life? In particular,
do you recall that the results were precisely what had been publicly
announced, prior to the mission, was to be taken as indicative of
life? I certainly do. And I also remember that, rather than make
such an announcement, NASA bigwigs went into a huddle for several
days, and then announced that the results proved that there was, in
fact, no life on Mars!

I recall that there were slightly ambiguous results from the test,
subsequent study showing that there were non-biological processes
that could also have produced the same outcome. It's been a while,
I don't have links to those studies handy.

***{There is always ambiguity in science. The point, however, was
this: they agreed in advance what a positive result would be, and,
based on what they agreed, the result they got was a positive
one--which means: indicative of the presence of life on Mars.
However, that came as a shock to those in charge, because it was not
what they wanted. Result: they changed their standards after the
fact, to kill the excitement. --MJ}***

The point of all this is that institutional memory of the funding
disaster which resulted from the spectacular success associated with
the Apollo program has taken the form of a NASA culture that is
ultraconservative to the verge of insanity. They are ultracautious
and prone to downplay anything that might engender excitement,
because researchers who were not ultraconservative have been
systematically culled by means of denial of funding. The result is
a form of madness, and it is doing damage to one of the most
important goals of mankind: the goal of spreading ourselves to
other places in the solar system, and, ultimately, to other other
systems around other stars. That goal is important for a very
simple and obvious reason: as long as we are confined to Earth, we
are subject to extinction. Numerous possibilities, including
asteroid impacts, large increases or decreases in solar luminosity,
nearby supernovas, erupting supervolcanos, a global collapse of
civilization due to economic blunders by governments, and Zeus only
knows what else, offer a virtual guarantee that, if we remain only
on Earth, we will eventually be wiped out.

I also recall a 'scientist' back in 1996 or so who saw a blob on a
photo of the then inbound comet Hale-Bopp, neglected to use his sky
mapping software properly so as to identify the fact that it was
merely a faint star his software didn't show - and instead made
several amazing leaps of logic to conclude that since the blob was
adjacent to the comet in his image, it was therefore also at the
same distance - and thus must be an alien craft following the comet
into the solar system. Subsequently, three dozen and change other
'open-minded' folks in San Diego bought new athletic shoes and
thumbed a ride on the mothership via sedatives, vodka, and plastic
bags over their heads...

***{It's always possible to embrace something because it's what you
want to believe, even if the evidence doesn't support it. But the way
to avoid that is to do what we are doing here: argue out the pros and
cons in a public forum, and, if the stronger case is made by the
other side, you change your mind. --MJ}***

Even if humanity spreads from Earth, we only postpone our final
annihilation as the Universe approaches absolute entropy and our very
protons decay... ;^)

***{I'm a steady state guy myself, so I don't have to worry about that
scenario. :-) --MJ}***

In the meanwhile, I support enthusiastic but logical expansion of our
exploration of the solar system and beyond. NASA and ESA are
already providing some spectacular results from Mars and Saturn, and
via the Great Observatories, glimpses of the wonders beyond.

Bob ^,,^