Joel Levine: Why we need to go back to Mars

http://www.ted.com At TEDxNASA, planetary scientist Joel Levine shows some intriguing -- and puzzling -- new discoveries about Mars: craters full of ice, traces of ancient oceans, and some compelling hints at the presence, at some time in the past, of life. He makes the case for going back to Mars to find out more.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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Science & Technology

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• Joel
• Levine
• TEDTalks
• TED
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• TEDxNASA
• NASA
• Mars
• space
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• water
• planet
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• rover
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[aSheeple]

this project costs pennies compared to our war budget and has a real return on investment, (war = 23% of our national budget, NASA is less than .5% (yes thats less than one half of one percent) we need to cut the war budget and boost the science budget.

but yes, I do agree that we need to beat poverty and et cetera.

[HimmiJoe]

The US must amp up the educational standards if they hope to produce the next generation of scientists to continue the legacy of the great country that used to be the United States.

[aSheeple]

@HimmiJoe its not about education standards, its about inspiration. inspired kids will push themselves to learn, raising testing standards makes kids hate school. if you want to inspire people, new, ambitious scientific exploration is what we need. the Apollo program inspired the last generation of scientists, but all this generation has to look at are programs being shut down all around them. no more human space program, no more fermilab, no more vision of what humans can achieve.

[spaik007]

@aSheeple of those two, war is the one makking the least progress in beating poverty and et cetera.

[DerAnstifter]

The funny thing about his joke "IT WAS ON A TUESDAY" is because Tuesday is called like that after TYR, the Germanic god of war, actually, Tuesday in Spanish, for example, is MARTES, the day of MARS, the Roman god of war. And the airplane he talks about is called ARES, the Greek god of war. (Damn, I'm a nerd!)

[AlexanderLee1]

@branboom If that was true, why wouldn't they pay for it voluntarily? In fact, we don't even know if they would, because they have always been forced to pay for the federal space programs. And let me refute the "they voted for it in a free election" argument. No, the people who _pay_ are not the same people who _vote_ . You must understand that a small minority, the people in the upper income levels, pay nearly all tax money. They represent only a small percentage of votes.

[OodlesOfDoodlesZOMG]

how will it be fueled? and how will it be controlled once in the atmosphere of mars, i love the idea of this project and i really think it should be pushed

[elisei00]

go back to britania

[DeadWhiteButterflies]

That's actually quite a big plane for what's effectively a space probe. Though I suppose it makes sence when you want something to fly in a not so dense atmosphere. You'll need all the help you can get.

It always saddens me how I see these great ideas and projects going on, & still only a small amount of money (in terms of a country's budget, whatever it may be) is ever invested in them. Perhaps we need someone like Carl Sagan to reinvigorate & stress the importance of science space travel

[yonieter]

very interesting! I only have one question.. is the structure of the air at a 100.000 feet altitude on earth the same as the structure of air on 1 mile altitude on mars? He only told that the density is the same. But also is the structure of gases not important for flight performance?

p.s sorry for my english

[Pluvialis]

Why are days of the week so funny :P "It was a Tuesday"...

[WavyMinds]

@sondano yea but u might have also consider genetic engineering and mutationn development.. :) together thngs will settle I presume.. :)