Life on Mars? Why Not?

Guillaume Filion writes "IEEE spectrum has an interesting article about a new probe sent to Mars searching for life: 'Recent missions to Mars have focused on the search for water, past or present, as a surrogate for life itself. But now a British-led team is working to renew the search for life directly, fueled by doubts about the equipment that prompted NASA to declare Mars a dead world some 26 years ago.'"

Comments

Do we always have to scream "FIRST!"?

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

First off, the article is worth the read. They are going to do a pile of cool things, and with the PAW robotic arm, they'll be very adaptive based on what they discover. Tres' cool.

But I must object to the following:

Clearly, if the British lander does find life on Mars, a scientific symposium will have to be convened to sort out who may have discovered it first: NASA or ESA.

Must we? Could we for once view science as the continuous stretch of micro-advances that it really is? Whether it's flight, or the TV, or beer the credit for doing it "first" seems to overwelm the real credit that I will lavish on the Brits at the end of the mission, and that is: the credit for doing it well.

Re:why water?

[FortKnox]

Now, IANA Astronomer/physicist/biologist (I'm just an engineer), but here's my input.
What you said is ENTIRELY true. We have no clue as to how other types of life can be formed. However, we DO know that water CAN cause life (worked for us, right?), so that's the 'first step' to finding life. Find stuff that formed like we did. Once we rule that out, we go into the void known as theoretical life, and try to piece something together.

Its easier to prove something exists when you have a good understanding of it before looking at something that could be 'anything'.