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Interesting. I read that in Jeff Goldblum's voice as well. Were there any missions that lifted off Mars and came back to Earth ?

icoder 11y ago
I think your parent post was talking about that we may have taken earth-life to Mars (not vice versa)
- a3n 11y ago
  Correct. But there are Mars rocks that have been busted loose from Mars, and orbited down to Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite
jkaunisv1 11y ago
No, we don't have the capability to land something on Mars with enough fuel for it to take off again.
- outworlder 11y ago
  Its a hard engineering problem, yes - but not that far-fetched. It's an even harder political problem, though. It's hard to justify the required R&D expenses without appealing to emotion (such as sending humans).
  - jkaunisv1 11y ago
    Oh, I wasn't discounting the future possibility - there's definitely nothing impossible about it, and in fact I agree it's quite doable. Just that we don't have it yet.
- wtracy 11y ago
  We don't need to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturing_propellant_on_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturin...
  - jkaunisv1 11y ago
    You're right! Even though I cited the Sabatier reaction to a coworker today when discussing the news, I didn't really think about it when answering. Also, for some reason I thought it wasn't yet a technical reality. I guess also wrapped into my statement was the thought that to be able to launch something back it would have to be landed very well and require some very complex machinery to prepare for launch, given the success rates of just being able to land something on Mars without it breaking. I went with the first reason off the top of my head :)
- gaius 11y ago
  Well, yes and no. There is the Sabatier process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturing_propellant_on_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturin...

icoder 11y ago

I think your parent post was talking about that we may have taken earth-life to Mars (not vice versa)

a3n 11y ago
Correct. But there are Mars rocks that have been busted loose from Mars, and orbited down to Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_meteorite

jkaunisv1 11y ago

No, we don't have the capability to land something on Mars with enough fuel for it to take off again.

outworlder 11y ago
Its a hard engineering problem, yes - but not that far-fetched. It's an even harder political problem, though. It's hard to justify the required R&D expenses without appealing to emotion (such as sending humans).
- jkaunisv1 11y ago
  Oh, I wasn't discounting the future possibility - there's definitely nothing impossible about it, and in fact I agree it's quite doable. Just that we don't have it yet.
wtracy 11y ago
We don't need to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturing_propellant_on_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturin...
- jkaunisv1 11y ago
  You're right! Even though I cited the Sabatier reaction to a coworker today when discussing the news, I didn't really think about it when answering. Also, for some reason I thought it wasn't yet a technical reality. I guess also wrapped into my statement was the thought that to be able to launch something back it would have to be landed very well and require some very complex machinery to prepare for launch, given the success rates of just being able to land something on Mars without it breaking. I went with the first reason off the top of my head :)
gaius 11y ago
Well, yes and no. There is the Sabatier process: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturing_propellant_on_Mars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction#Manufacturin...