vast amounts of oxygen on mars

Ill start this by asking why is mars red. It is red because it is covered in iron oxide or "rust".
Long ago in earths past this happened to our own planet, the whole of the planet rusted over until there was no more free iron to react with oxygen then it began to biuld up in the atmosphere.
Now to create iron oxide you need both water and oxygen. Therefore I would say this is quite conclusive proof that there either is or was significant levels of both water and oxygen on mars.
Or at the very least the water was there, and there is a vast amout of oxygen stored in the iron oxide ore, all over the planet.
Plus the fact that the whole planet is rusted means that there must have been alot of oxygen production, which would imply that life was abundant.

well how do you argue with that ?? there is ice under the surface of mars nasa has said this before

Im just saying this because it must make obvious that the offical NASA view that mars's atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide must be wrong.
Although i am open to the possibility that is is now as all the free reactive oxygen has been used up, and thus only CO2 remains, which is no where near as reactive.

That's an awful lot of implying... The thing is, we can't assume that life on Mars, if it exists, is automatically similar to Earth. Mars is in a different orbit. It has different temperatures, atmosphere, and make-up than Earth. Sure there is oxygen there...there is oxygen all over the universe...but yes, water is the important compound... Just because it has the pieces, doesn't mean it has the compound. I may have eggs, milk, butter, etc. in my kitchen, but not a cake...

There is some reason to believe that water exists at the poles... There is also better evidence that water once flowed on Mars (such as dry riverbeds, erosion signs, etc.) However, whether it was water, or some other compound in liquid form...we can only speculate...until we do some more research...

I'm more curious about why we haven't gone back to the moon. Guess we'll find out if China ever makes it there...hmm???

I agree that we cant imply that life is idenctical to earths, if it is on mars. But i am of the school of thought that mars actually seeded the earth in the first place, so that why i believe any life on mars will be very similar to earths.

Actually you dont need to have water to oxidize iron. As long as iron of the correct isotope is in contact with oxygen under the correct electrostatic condition, oxidation will occur.

Granted, there is thought to be a decent amount of free water (in one form or another) on Mars, although still far less than what is found on earth obviously.

The idea that there is more free oxygen on mars than once believed may have some validity to it, although I would not point to the existance of red beds on the planet as evidence of current atmospheric conditions.

By the way, one of my personal favorite theories for Mars current condition includes the impact of a large asteroid: around 1 billion years ago, it is estimated that a large asteroid impacted at a very oblique angle and on impact, the shock wave ripped a large amount of the atmosphere off and blew it out into space. (Previous to this, Mars was thought to have an atmosphere 1/3 to 1/2 earth normal pressure, compared to 1/100 earth normal now). The asteroid impact likely blew large chunks of the crust (or possibly skipped back up) into orbit to form the current two moons.

In this scenario, the composition of the original atmosphere is very much conjectural.

has anyone here seen Total Recall ????

Originally posted by Gazrok
I'm more curious about why we haven't gone back to the moon. Guess we'll find out if China ever makes it there...hmm???

I'd like to know that myself. I've seen this topic discussed on several boards and the response tends to be "it's too expensive and there's nothing to see". Eh, I'm young and I'd like to witness such an event during my lifetime. Cough up the bucks, buddies. I apologize for my post being off topic.

The main factor limiting our return to the moon is budget. The moon race of the 1960's was motivated by the cold war. Now that the motivation is gone, so is the budget. The moon isn't nearly as important as controling the high-ground of earth orbit.

Surely...if the moon could be mined...and used for future launches, etc., it would more than pay for the trips there.... there's more to it than economics...

Interesting bit there DR with the asteroid... No doubt that at one time, something cataclysmic happened on Mars...

Or perhaps it is currently being so (has been so since the 70s), and we just havent been told about it...

Out of sight, out of mind... and of course the budget makes a perfect excuse, meanwhile trillions of dollars disappear into the Black Budget... hmmm, wonder where that is all going to?

Originally posted by Gazrok
Surely...if the moon could be mined...

Very expensive to get the equipment there, then send back the results. I do not think we have reached the point where such extreme resource hunting is required.

Total Recall... I watched that movie again on Sci-fi last weekend. I laughed most of the way through. Funny i never noticed how hoakey it was before.

If someone were to be exposed to a vacuuous low pressure atmosphere, it would not bug out your eyes. You would exhale yourself to death. There would be no point of return. There would be no survival, you would simply be dead.

And the sky of Mars is very dark, like a very deep blue, or black. Kinda like how you can see the stars in the sky from the moon, because there is no atmosphere.

[Edited on 16-10-2003 by lonestar]

where do you think we got most of our from after the "deluge"...

Originally posted by bigsage
where do you think we got most of our from after the "deluge"...

Could you expound on that a little?

Aint you guys just on a little bit of a tangent here? LOL
Please stick to the topic.