The Indirect Case For Life On Mars

Deinhard writes "Space.com is reporting that '[a] pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.' It is all based on methane signatures and not direct observation. Now plans for using the Genesis Device on Mars are out ... unless this is just a particle of preanimate matter caught in the matrix."

Comments

Nonbiological methane production

[nizo]

Methane can also be produced by volcanic activity. By all means keep coming up with ways to look for life on Mars, but most likely the only way we will find out for sure is to actually go there in person.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

the only way we will find out for sure is to actually go there in person

This is a patently false statement. I can name any number of scenarios that would make us sure there was life on mars without requiring a person landing there. Anything from a microscope on a Mars rover showing as a picture of a microrganism to it returning a photograph of a sign saying "KEEP OUT".

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Daniel Dvorkin]

IIRC, Mars is geologically (or "areologically," if you prefer) dead -- obviously it had significant volcanic activity a long time ago, as evidenced by Olympus Mons, but none that we've ever detected going on now or in the recent past. So fluctuating methane levels, while they don't demand a biological explanation, certainly seem to point that way.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Chuckstar]

One of my college roommates also produced a lot of methane. Based on his ability to consume large amounts of alcohol, I'm pretty sure he was inorganic.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[jxyama]

>the only way we will find out for sure is to actually go there in person.

why? for the cost of sending any number of human to mars, we can probably send even more non-manned missions, each having equipment with much greater observation and data acquisition/analysis capabilities than any number of human beings.

there is no sure way to find life on mars. but the easiest and most direct way to survey the largest area and greatest depth of mars for signs of life certainly do not require manned missions to mars.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[KiltedKnight]

There's also the buried black obelisk...

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[cephyn]

absolutely true. mod parent up. For the methane on mars, as far as we know, biological production is the BEST answer. It's not the only answer -- but right now, its actually the most likely.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[DJStealth]

This would contaminate the planet with human life, and as a result, if we find life, it'll be difficult to determine if it was as a result of our visit or not.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

We also know of no liquid water trapped in pockets under Mars. So, your argument is invalid either way.

I'd call speculation on the origins of such a simple molecule without any evidence "really stretching it". Heck, few suspect that there's life on Titan, and yet the place is awash in methane. We don't know the source of it there, either (some speculate vast subsurface resevoirs). Why didn't it all react during it's formation? Titan, like Mars, has a reducing atmosphere (not an oxidizing atmosphere). There's insufficient free oxygen to react with everything, so in the absense of forces breaking it down (such as solar radiation in the upper atmosphere), it will last indefinitely.

On Mars, we have no clue what is going on beneath the surface. For all we know, the subsurface ices are packed with methane hydrates, or that there are giant hydrocarbon deposits. Just assuming that the source of methane is life without any other evidence but the methane itself seems like going so far out on a limb that you might as well just cut the limb off.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[RetroGeek]

it'll be difficult to determine if it was as a result of our visit or not.

Only if there is a common DNA signature for life on the two planets.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Nah! There are countless obelisks here but nobody claims there's intelligent life in Ireland. No...wait...I phrased that wrong...

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Begossi]

Don't forget the buried black soul-sucking spider ship.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting thought. But it begs the question: unless our robotic explorers are completely sterile (and for the record, there are microbes that survive quite well in high radiation and low pressure environments), aren't we contaminating Mars' biosphere anyway?

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

Exactly. Which is more likely to find life on mars - sending a stack of insturments to one spot on Mars (with the benefits of reduced latency and perhaps better local navigational ability - the two benefits that humans provide), or sending 50 stacks of insturments (with the option of having different insturments in each group, and the further benefit that you can stagger launches and thus send higher-tech insturments on each successive trip) each to different parts of the planet?

Heck, there's even proposals for robotic missions to "hop" across wide ranges of Mars via multiple takeoff/landing cycles, taking samples and examining the soil in each location. Such a mission would be many times more expensive if it had to carry humans, life support, food, etc, but is feasable for a robot-only mission.

Really, the only thing humans get you is slightly better local mobility and much reduced latency, and neither of those are particularly critical issues. The "baggage" that comes with people - tons of food, water, air, shielding, housing, etc - can't really justify the mobility and latency benefits.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Elder Entropist]

I think it's the significant temporal VARIATION of methane content in the atmosphere of Mars that is peaking interest in this theory, not just the presence ot methane.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[mopomi]

Actually, the deal with the methane is this:
Its lifetime in the atmosphere is ~ 350 (earth) years. Thus, for the amount of methane detected, either there was recent (years ago, not Ma or even Ka) volcanic activity, or there is life currently producing the methane. Either of these two speculations is valid.

Your other suggestions are valid also, but require something to help them release their trapped methane. Ices/clathrates need to be melted, which means they need energy input. Hydrocarbon deposits would require life to have existed in the past, and would require something to release just the methane form rather than a bunch of other stuff. i.e., we would see other (than just methane) evidence for a degassing hydrocarbon resevoir.

The volcanism argument is very difficult to sustain because we don't see evidence for it NOW (however, as my advisor is always looking for opportunities to point out, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."). I like the volcanism argument because I like volcanism, but the most recent flow fields are 10 Ma, and seem to have been the last gasp of a dying planet. Unless they released a LOT of methane into the atmosphere, the current methane is not from those flows.

The life argument has some major problems, but it's at least worth investigating. There needs to be some sort of energy to maintain these putative methanogens, and that's one of the issues right now (we don't know where to look for life because we don't see any* evidence for subsurface energy).

We can't directly look for concentrations of methane because the in situ measurements would provide something like 1 PPM, and averaged through the atmosphere would be undetectably low compared with the amount of the methane in the (presumed well-mixed) atmosphere (ppb).

* There are small east-west trending fissures (canyons) that may be the best places to search for life-sustaining energy because they collect daytime sunlight but don't effeciently reemit it at night, thus increasing their temperatures relative to the surroundings and possibly conducting heat to the subsurface and possibly collecting enough heat to sustain life. . . I'll let you know in a week or so if this pans out. . .

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

And as such, methane hydrates or underground hydrocarbon deposits would vary over time as well. In fact, I can't think of an inorganic methane scenario which *wouldn't* be affected by, say, temperature.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, by golly, call me a romantic, but I would like to think that there is actually something on Mars happily farting its way through life. Oh, what a wonderful world it would be.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Prof.Phreak]

...the only way we will find out for sure is to actually go there in person ...I doubt they'll be able to claim there's no life on mars when they're standing right on it.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

> Actually, the deal with the methane is this:
Its lifetime in the atmosphere
> is ~ 350 (earth) years.

300-600. On Titan, it's about 10 million earth years - a ~20,000fold difference. However Mars has methane at 10.5 parts per *billion*, while Titan has 2-5% methane; methane on Titan is over *3 million* times more concentrated. Consequently, Mars is actually producing a rather small amount of inorganic methane compared to Titan. Titan has the advantage of being in deep-freeze, of course, but it's still an example of how huge quantities of methane can remain subsurface and be released steadily on a geologically inactive (presumedly) world.

> Thus, for the amount of methane detected, either there was recent (years ago,
> not Ma or even Ka) volcanic activity

Incorrect. There are many ways methane can be released inorganically; they're just not known by your average slashdotter. There's methane hydrates, which only need variations in temperature to outgas (which we know happen on Mars, and have happened to an extreme extent over its history). There are dozens of subsurface reactions apart from vulcanism that can produce methane - for example, it is an *expected* product of low temperature fluid-rock interaction; all it takes is enough low-level residual heat to melt ice:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/23 32 .pdf

However, even concerning vulcanism itself, the jury is still quite out. There is evidence of recent vulcanism on Mars, as you hinted to:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsyste m/ mars_volcano_011113.html

Contrary to how you tried to make it sound, 10 MY is very recent geologically. I see no reason to suspect that, if volcanoes have been erupting that recently, that it's suddenly going to peter out at the exact time (geologically speaking) that humans start observing the planet.

> Hydrocarbon deposits would require life to have existed in the past,

Not true. Hydrocarbons form in all sorts of circumstances; you can get short chains from UV interaction with methane alone. You can even have hydrocarbons formed from such basic reactions as the subduction of calcium carbonate and water in with Iron(II) oxide. Hydrocarbons are all over the place; for example, the Saturnian system is littered with organic "goo" (not just on Titan, but all over the place, from Phoebe to the rings).

People here just seem way too ready to grasp onto anything that could remotely be a product of life - even if it's something that forms inogranically all across our solar system, and is constantly outgassed from dead worlds.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[techno-vampire]

Personally, I'd be more than happy if we discovered the ruins of the Twin Towers of Helium.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[myowntrueself]

I was wondering if there might be a way to test.

I know that ethanol produced by biological processes is always of one isomer only, whereas ethanol produced by industrial processes (ie from ethane gas) is equal proportions of both left- and right-isomers.

Any chance that methane isomers might be a way to check? Or does methane come only in one version?

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Aglassis]

You said: "IIRC, Mars is geologically (or "areologically," if you prefer) dead -- obviously it had significant volcanic activity a long time ago, as evidenced by Olympus Mons, but none that we've ever detected going on now or in the recent past."

The idea that Mars is geologically dead is based on old data. After the Mars Global Surveyor mission, alot of new information came about. One of the estimates was that Mars had volcanic activity about 20 million years ago. Considering a 4.5 billion year existance, 20 million years is hardly dead. This data was from crater counting. Older structures will have many craters and younger structures will have few craters. Obviously this has a fairly large margin of error (but a 2 billion year old structure still won't be confused with a 20 million year old structure). New studies from the Mars Express mission have said that vulcanism may have occured as early as 4 million years ago. This tends to support the idea that volcanos on Mars are dormant, not dead.

As far as having a magnetic field or having plate tectonics, yes Mars is dead. Mars may have had plate tectonics (which in general is due to convection of the mantle) in one localized region in its early history, but there is no evidence of it now.

Recent studies of gullies, volcanism, and the planet's precession tend to indicate that Mars may be alot more active than we think.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[b-baggins]

but none that we've ever detected going on now or in the recent past.

You mean other than puffs of methane in the atmosphere?

Seriously. To claim trace amounts of methane in the atmosphere is a signature of life is a huge stretch. Methane is naturally all throughout the solar system. This could be nothing more than a subterranean fissure opening into a methane pocket in the crust of Mars and venting periodically.

Heck, the amounts they are talking about are so small, it could be the remnants from a comet impact ten thousand years ago.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Vombatus]

That be Northern Ireland, not the Republic of Ireland.

Not that I would know, I am an Aussie.

But then again, I was travelling thru Ireland (both of them) a while back, and in a small B&B in Galway where a group of USains were also staying, one of them asked where I was from. When I said "Australia" she replied "Is that around here?"

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[jayhawk88]

It's a good point of course, but if the guy works at freaking NASA, I gotta belive he's thought of this already, and ruled it out as the cause for some reason (valid or otherwise).

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[b-baggins]

Robotic probes are so incredibly limited in what they can accomplish compared to humans that it's insane we're even having this conversation. I attribute it to the typical slashdot geek technology worship factor.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Anonymous Coward]

You have based your criticism on an oversimplified understanding of the methane scenario on Mars. Here is the link supplied by the article which attempts to clarify the "methane signature" of interest to astrobiologists.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

You don't get off that easy. State your claim as to what robots can't do that humans can, and put it into cost perspective.

Can humans do a spectral analysis with their eyes? Can they drill a core sample with their feet? Can they separate isotopes in their mouths?

All of the *real* scientific work is done by machines. On Mars, all humans would be is route planners and limited mobility devices.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Ah hah, I didn't know that. Thanks!

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[mikael]

or that there are giant hydrocarbon deposits

If there were hydrocarbon deposits, then that would be indicative that there was once life on Mars. Hydrocarbons (ie. oil reserves and coal) are formed from compressed fossilized forests.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Mr. Slippery]

Any chance that methane isomers might be a way to check? Or does methane come only in one version?

It's been about 20 years since my last chemistry class, but I'm pretty sure methane is CH4, and that there's only one way to fit one carbon and four hydrogens together with covalent bonds.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[RKBA]

All planetary landers are assembled in clean rooms and sterilized prior to launch for this specific reason.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[tylernt]

Given the direct TWOK quote in the article, I think that this would be a better movie reference than 2001/2010.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

You should inform the scientists studying the Saturnian system (even the rings) of this fact.

Hydrocarbons - in large quantity - are everywhere. The most common are simple ones, like methane, but more complex hydrocarbons abound as well.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

> is done by human beings

People On Earth.

We're not sending people over to Mars just to crunch numbers here ;) That would be the most colossal waste of money in history. That'd be like hiring Bill Gates to dust your living room.

On Mars, people would only give two benefits: greatly improved latency, and slightly increased mobility. Neither of these are serious problems. The cost? A 50-fold increase in your mission budget. Hardly worth it. :P

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[amliebsch]

People can fix things that break. They can wipe the dust off a solar panel. Most of all, they can respond to an almost infinite array of unanticipated scenarioes. They can conduct intelligent stereoscopic pattern recognition faster than any computer AND - they learn how to get themselves to other places more efficiently in the future.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[jimoc]

(Fourteen hours later).....
Hey wait a minute, that was an insult!!!!

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[gedhrel]

..? What you "know" is wrong. Ethanol doesn't have a left- and right- isomer. Ethanol is CH3 CH2 OH. There's only one way to make it. There's another compound with the formula C2H6O, and that's dimethyl ether: CH3 O CH3.

However, you're right in general that some biological processes only produce one particular stereoisomer.

But no, methane is just CH4. One version only.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[mirko]

How can you already be so sure that DNA sig should be planet-specific ?
You don't even know if there is DNA elsewhere !?

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[OhHellWithIt]

Um. Did you write this yourself, or should you have added a note of attribution?

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[RetroGeek]

Well, yes. That is what I said.

IF there is DNA, and IF it has commonality with life on earth, THEN it may have come from earth, BUT if it does not have commonality, or it it completely different, THEN there is a good probability that it came from somewhere else.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[mirko]

IDMTBANAL (I don't mean to be anal) but it wasn't obvious maybe it's what you meant rather than what you said :)

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Darby]

Just assuming that the source of methane is life without any other evidence but the methane itself seems like going so far out on a limb that you might as well just cut the limb off.

But if you just cut the limb off, you don't get the opportunity to laugh at the person hanging on to the end of it when it breaks off.
Sheesh, where's your sense of humor ;-)

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

Actually, I will 100% agree with that - it's just like Apollo, and I think Apollo was a wonderful thing that we did (even though the Soviets did just as much lunar science on a much smaller budget thanks to an extensive robotic program).

My only gripe is with people who think that you'll get more science for your dollar by sending humans; your dollar only goes 2% as far if you send people, and the benefits hardly justify that.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[Rei]

> People can fix things that break

Even if the *entire probe* breaks, it would cost 4% as much as a human to launch a brand new one - with more modern tech, at that! Sending people is not getting much bang for your buck.

Besides, when was the last time you fixed a CPU or a motherboard? Yes, a person can dislodge a rock caught in a wheel or possibly fix a short circuit, but the majority of components they're not going to be much use for.

> They can wipe dust off a solar panel

If that was a concern, we would have installed windshield wipers on it or used RTGs. We didn't. Why? Because there was only so much science that we planned to do at Meridiani and Gusev. The longer you stay at a particular location with a particular set of insturments, the less valuable your time there becomes.

MSL, on the other hand, has a wider range of scientific activities that it can do. Since we want a longer lifespan out of it, we design accordingly: it will be run on RTGs. When you do a cost/benefit analysis, RTGs tend up being a better option than wiping off solar panels if you want a long lifespan.

> They can conduct intelligent stereoscopic pattern recognition

I.e., route planning. Which is really just a latency issue; slow route planning just means that it takes longer to gather your data. Latency is not a problem, given how infrequently we can afford to send stuff to Mars anyways. When you're averaging 5-10 years between landing surface probes, taking a year to get your results is nothing. With the cost of a single manned mission to just one part of Mars, we could be averaging a probe per year to Mars, a probe a year to a Jovian moon, a probe a year to a Saturnian moon, a probe a year to other parts of the outer solar system, and a probe a year to other parts of the inner solar system for the next 10 years.

> faster

See above. Latency is *not a problem*.

Once again, I sum up: an improvement in latency and minor mobility benefits (plus, lets add the ability to extend a mission in a given location by fixing "bulk" equipment problems, but not small-scale problems) is hardly worth A) being tied to a particular location on Mars instead of covering the whole planet, B) having to send all of your eq at once instead of being able to take advantage of successive tech improvements, C) having a much less diverse array of knowlege, and D) paying 50 times the cost.

That doesn't mean I don't think we should go to Mars with humans. But trying to justify it based on scientific returns is completely unreasonable given the cost of getting people there, keeping them alive, and getting them back. The Soviets gathered just as much lunar data as we did with a far lower cost, via robotic missions (and concerning Mars, the difference would be even more dramatic because it's so much harder to get people there and back). However, how many people here would trade our Apollo program? Not many. It's a source of pride for humanity and a great inspiration. Sure, the science wasn't justified by the cost, but the achievement was.

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[stonecypher]

Not to mention a dramatic reduction in the risk to human life...

Re:Nonbiological methane production

[MadDirector]

And what about the geek factor? C'mon people, this is slashdot, we are supposed to be geeks!!!

PROOF!!!

[Arctic Dragon]

Here is the scientist's proof:

http://xmlx.ca/images/37/o_martian.jpg

Re:PROOF!!!

[DigitalHammer]

No, but this is: http://img101.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img101&image=titan ssecret2yd.gif :-P

Re:PROOF!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

You want me to click on a .cx? Are you kidding?

Re:PROOF!!!

[uncoveror]

For people not convinced by that, here's some info about how NASA has known about life on Mars since the '70s, and have covered it up! Here's more.

What they most want to hide from us is really alarming!

I wish them...

[starglider29a]

Khabp'LA!

Re:I wish them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom must be so proud that you can speak Klingon.

obligatory

[bersl2]

KHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNN!!!

Re:obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, if you had put in a link you would have gotten modded up to +5. You were *so* close.

Re:obligatory

[dabigpaybackski]

Here, let this man elucidate.

Hiding in caves

[gaber1187]

And they are just over the horizon with their Atomic Pistols!

Re:Hiding in caves

[CrixelGarten]

So that's where the Taliban is! We've been looking in the wrong place the whole time... ....

Re:Hiding in caves

[ackthpt]

And they are just over the horizon with their Atomic Pistols!

One of the beautiful things about my satellite radio is getting a bunch of old radio shows (when they aren't runing some college hoop games) which include radio plays 'X Minus 1', which were based upon many short stories in 40's and 50's sci-fi magazines. Some of it's kinda shallow, but others can be quite cool.

Re:Hiding in caves

[MouseR]

Fat chance the US will ever be able to photograph life on mars now.

Ancient Life

[fembots]

If ancient life can be discovered under Antarctic ice, nothing is unpossible.

Given our accessibility and coverage on earth, we didn't know about this ancient life until recently.

And now we only have few rovers on Mars...

Re:Ancient Life

[nizo]

People keep mentioning this kind of thing, however while life can live in some pretty extreme environments, can life form for the first time in these kinds of environments? Just because stuff is living in harsh conditions now doesn't mean it didn't need perfect conditions to form in the first place. Granted conditions probably weren't as harsh on mars as they are now, but how long was it before the oceans disappeared, and were they around long enough for life to form?

All that said, the antarctic find is pretty cool :-)

Re:Ancient Life

[Have Blue]

Yeah, but I don't think looking for ancient life frozen in ice is really a good idea. I saw this documentary that illustrates some of the risks.

Re:Ancient Life

[Anonymous Coward]

I think passing English Ralph would be pretty freakin' difficult, unless he's really really small.

Re:Ancient Life

[ndogg]

Cool. Ralph Wiggum became smart.

It make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

considering some of the extreme conditions organisms have been found to exist under on earth, Mars's landscape would be easy to survive in in comparision. One wonders how contaminated the Martian environment may have been from terrestrial probes sent there already.

Re:It make sense

[slapout]

So these signs of life could simply be ones that probes from Earth carried there.

Re:It make sense

[Rob Carr]

This might make sense as a scenario except:

• Earth life that might survive on Mars would not be found anywhere near the spacecraft.
• The signature's too big. There's no way Earthlife that would survive on Mars (see point 1) would spread that fast.

If there is life there, it's Martian or came from Earth back when Mars was more habitable. And yes, just as Mars rocks can make it to Earth, Earth rocks might have been blasted to Mars by a meteor impact, and life could have survived both the impact and the trip.

Alas and dang it, the methane's probably due to non-life chemical reactions. Still, life's an interesting possibility.

Re:It make sense

[Tab is on Slashdot]

Momentarily dismissing the fact that they would have had to survive absolute zero and uninhibited intergalactic radiation, yes.

Re:It make sense

[rbgaynor]

Not a problem

Re:It make sense

[Billly Gates]

There is an international treaty which forbids non sterile instruments in other worlds. The rovers were heavily cleaned with rubbing alchohol.

Re:It make sense

[Glowing Fish]

Whenever I do anything scientific or medical, I always remember to "sterilize" myself with alcohol beforehand. It makes things go much more cleanly.

Re:It make sense

[m50d]

We found life on the moon iirc 2 years after the probe carrying it had landed. Don't underestimate the durability of life.

In other news....

[slapout]

...Santa may be real because he leaves me presents...

Re:In other news....

[djward]

Santa left me presents of methane once too. I think the cookies were OK, but I guess the milk had soured.

How long...

[chill]

...before the first Starbucks, Walmart and McDonald's now appear on Mars?

Re:How long...

[tehshen]

I don't know, but I'm sure the second will be built immediately after the first :) What if you were on the other side of the planet and wanted coffee?

books

[Altec at LM]

KSR needs to rewrite Red Mars...

Re:books

[J05H]

he hedged his bets with the "little red men" scenes in the Mars trilogy.

Re:Genesis device?!

[chaffed]

KHAAAAAAAAN!

and no there is no genesis device. Nor any ancient device to reorganize matter built by people long ago. However there are some very large fire letters that spell out something. Alas the message escapes my memory...

Re:Genesis device?!

[EnronHaliburton2004]

There ain't no genesis device in real life is there?

Well, you exist, right? So there is at least once...

I just feel sorry for the microbes which inhabited this planet before the device went off...

The show's not off apparently ...

meanwhile...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft releases the new Microsoft Genesis:

1. Terraforms any planet within 2 minutes.
2. Can only be used on Micrsoft Authorized, Genuine Planets and Asteroids (MAGPAs)
3. Any matter may be used, however the Matter Standard may be extended in the future.

Microsoft has critiziced GNU Terraform system, calling it 'anarchist'. Richard Stallman has responded, reminding about how Microsoft once lamented about how 'if people knew how planets were terraformed when the Earth became inhabitable, people would be in dystopian alien governments today.'

Meanwhile in an unrelated incident, a person has sued MMOINC for not letting him use a used copy of Marsland MMO.

The WiMax Foundation has come out saying that WiMax could blanket 99% of Mars. Microsoft has responded to GNU Terraform by making Microsoft Genesis free-of-charge.

Life on Slashdot

[Tackhead]

> hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.' It is all based on methane signatures and not direct observation.

Creature that secrete methane gas and spend their lives hidden in caves, never coming out for observation.

Well, of course, th-HEY! This isn't the "EULA Confusion w/ Used Copies of WoW?" thread!

Martian Life!

[salvorHardin]

At last, there's a strong factual basis supporting the life on Mars theory, I knew this day would come ever since... oh, wait. Just speculation. Damn! I thought they *really* meant it this time.

Another false alarm?

[Lightning Hopkins]

I do hope that this isn't another false alarm. This comes at about the same time as this odd lichen-like feature was photographed: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_life_05 0216.html >. Fascinating developments.

On a slight tangent, I wonder if Larry Lemke is related to the savant Leslie Lemke.

Re:Another false alarm?

[Lightning Hopkins]

...Of course, the circular feature is probably another false alarm. Sigh.

Re:Genesis device?!

[albeit unknown]

"We apologize for the inconvenience"

Under Rocks?

[Derling Whirvish]

Years ago we were told that the best place to find life on Mars would be under rocks where there could be lichen-like lifeforms. It would shield them from the harmful UV and solar radiation effects. But so far JPL hasn't used the Instrument Deployment Device (the remote "arm") to turn over a rock and examine what's under it with the microscopic imager. They've looked all over the exposed surface of rocks and even dug small trenches in the soil and examined that. Perhaps they don't want to break it, but still I would like for them to at least try to look under a rock or two. There might be something interesting there!

Re:Under Rocks?

[sighted]

I've often had that same thought.

Re:Under Rocks?

[planckscale]

Very good point. But what I can't understand is why they send the rovers to the Martian desert. Why couldn't they drop them on top of the polar ice caps? Or better yet, near the very edge of the ice caps where run-off is most likely to occur? Is it impossible because of the orbits?

Re:Under Rocks?

[Dunbal]

There might be something interesting there!

I'll bet that the interesting thing under that rock is: more rocks...

Re:Under Rocks?

[sighted]

They tried. It crashed. They may try again. Meanwhile, the rovers have to go to the equatorial region of the planet because they're powered by solar cells that require strong sunlight. And, while there is probably no life on the surface now, exposed layers of rock might yield clues about past life, if it ever existed.

Re:Under Rocks?

[Derling Whirvish]

So why not try to flip a rock over and examine the area under it for past signs of life? It would seem to be the area with the highest possibility of success. There's very little wind and no water (recently anyway) to move the rocks around so what's under there has been sheltered for a long time.

Re:Under Rocks?

[Tablizer]

IIRC, one or both of the Viking landers turned over rocks and sampled soil from underneath for signs of life (using chemical means). The results were inconclusive either way.

As far as the rovers, their arms are designed to hold instruments, not turn rocks over. Maybe near the end of the mission they can play with the idea more, but there is still a lot of exploring to do. Spirit is still climbing a hill, finding different kinds of rocks at different elevations, and Oppy is headed toward a bigger crater and odd flatlands. Ruining the instruments by rolling rocks seems too big a risk at this point.

Re:Under Rocks?

[PsiPsiStar]

Heh. It's like looking for your keys under a lamp post. That's not where you lost them, but that's where the light is.

Well...

[GillBates0]

"They are desperate to find out what could be producing the methane," one attendee told Space News. "Their answer is drill, drill, drill."

...it is primarily produced by symbiotic bacteria and yeasts living in the gastrointestinal tract of mammals.

The proper way to avoid flatulence (colloq: farting) is through a controlled diet, avoiding beans, cabbage etc. Drilling is apt to get them nowhere.

Re:Well...

[roman_mir]

Drilling is apt to get them nowhere. - I am quite sure that drilling will get them somewhere, but do they want to be there with all that methane around?

Oh, please

[Reality Master 101]

Jeez, this is so transparent. Translation:

"Because know any sort of possibility of life on other planets is a hot button, we'll pull this theory out so that we can beg for funding."

It's all about getting more funding, and justifying what they have.

Re:Oh, please

[C10H14N2]

...sort of like what everyone does during any performance review, eh?

"Sure, I spend six hours a day on company time reading /., but uhm, it's job-related research, yeah, yeah, that's the ticket... can I have my raise now?"

Re:Oh, please

[Evil Pete]

Jeez, this is so transparent.

Not necessarily. Back in the 1960s James Lovelock (of Gaia Hypothesis fame) was working for NASA on detecting life on other planets. He reasoned that to detect life all you needed to do was to see if the atmospheric chemistry was far from equilibrium. He used Earth as his example explaining that the presence of highly reactive oxygen and other clues indicates life. He suggested to NASA that a 1000 inch telescope be built to get detailed chemistry information on the other planets to determine if there was life without the need to send probes. NASA turned it down.

So the presence of methane on Mars is not a trivial thing.

Is the "possibility of life" a grant magnet? Of course, so is cancer, HIV, etc. Doesn't mean they don't have something important to say.

Proof that martians exist...

[vrmlguy]

... and that they eat at Taco Bell!

Let's hear it from an expert!

[frozenray]

Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.

Dan Quayle, 8/11/89

I rest my case.

Re:Let's hear it from an expert!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah Dan - those were the days. He even makes Dubya look like a Rhodes Scholar by comparison.

Re:Let's hear it from an expert!

[RatBastard]

You must be a youngin'. Dan Quayle was one of the dumbest men to walk the face of the earth. I think George Sr. picked Danforth for two reasons:
1: so no one would dare assaninate him.
2: to get us used to a moron in the Whitehouse.

Re:Let's hear it from an expert!

[Tablizer]

Ah Dan - those were the days. He even makes Dubya look like a Rhodes Scholar by comparison.

But the diff is that W seems to put his hairbrain ideas into legislation.

Re:Let's hear it from an expert!

[PsiPsiStar]

Or because
1. He was good looking
2. His family was rich and owned newspapers.
3. He didn't realize what the hell he was getting into

Re:Let's hear it from an expert!

[Shadowlore]

Actually, he's right. If there is water, we can get oxygen and with that, we can breathe. And we know there is water there.

taking the heretical position

[circletimessquare]

i personally think that terraforming mars for human habitation is more important than the possible threat to the welfare of some ancient non-earth simple life forms

really

if we were in some hypothetical situation where a mars genesis project would commence or not depending upon the fate of the POSSIBILITY of martian microbes, i would push the button

because the sum total of what MIGHT be lost does not outweigh what WILL be gained

Re:taking the heretical position

[Vulture101]

and that is why humans will need another planet to live in the first place , because we dont respect the "lower" lifeforms

what WILL be gained now WILL be your doom tomorrow

"Humans are like virus"

and after mars? where will we go?

We are not bound by the "Prime Directive"

[AHumbleOpinion]

... Now plans for using the Genesis Device on Mars are out ...

Since the "Prime Directive" is centuries in our future we are free to f' over anything we find there as we terraform.

Re:Genesis device?!

[EnronHaliburton2004]

once..

I meant one.

Let us see if my typo-Troll notices...

Martian Farts?

[Anonymous Coward]

[ nizo wrote:] Methane can also be produced by volcanic activity. By all means keep coming up with ways to look for life on Mars, but most likely the only way we will find out for sure is to actually go there in person.

Unless a Martian creature suddenly appears within either of the camera viewfinders of the Mars probes Spirit or Opportunity and decides to ham it up.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that Martians shot down the NASA Mars Polar Lander and the ESA Beagle 2 8^)

Please Share Your Stash of Happy Fun Drugs

[ackthpt]

Now plans for using the Genesis Device on Mars are out ... unless this is just a particle of preanimate matter caught in the matrix."

Cor.

Don't assume for a moment that we won't colonize and terraform Mars. It may take 100 years and start with little research outposts like those on Antarctica, but soon enough it'll all be plowed up and paved over and we'll bring all the plagues of earth, litter included.

I suppose there will be an environmentalist coalition of some sort and some fine parks will be set aside, i.e. Olympus Mons, but when competing national iterests pit India and China against any other comers, it'll be a race to colonize it and damn the environment and anyone who pipes up to protect it.

Re:Please Share Your Stash of Happy Fun Drugs

[Retric]

Personally I think there is no point in terraforming anything.

My guess is we are going to get fusion in 30 - 80 years and have energy costs drop to 1/10th what they are now within 80 years after that. At which point we start a few HUGE scale projects. Think underwater tunnel from Europe to the US. Freaking HUGE desalinization projects to create fresh water. But, instead trying to turn deserts into rainforests we are going to take the desert formerly known as the Amazon rain forest among others and turn it into green houses. Just think how many uneconomical projects will suddenly seem reasonable? In 300+ years I expect large chunks of the population to start living under water. But, terraforming is going to wait a long time after that.

PS: In the next 150 years I expect energy costs to drop to 1/10 what they are now the cost of getting to LEO to be 1/10 (or less) what it is now and most CPU's to be about 100,000+ times as fast as they are now ditto for HDD @ 10,000x. But most other costs should stay about the same (Ok Bandwidth should be 100,000x what we have now as well but most other costs will be the same aka Bread will cost about the same amount.)

What do you think we would do with those 3 changes in cost?

Re:Please Share Your Stash of Happy Fun Drugs

[PsiPsiStar]

Yeah, but there's so much to colonize near to Earth. The oceans. Antarctica. The moon. Heck, near earth orbit has a ton of energy waiting to be exploited.

There's very little immediate utility in going to Mars. It's not the most effective place for a colony since it's hard to ship material back to Earth. It's not a solution to overpopulation, given the energy required to get people there in the first place.

It may offer a deterant to Mutually Assured Destruction by providing an outpost that can't be destroyed in a first strike, but what is it good for that a space station in near earth orbit is not?

It'll happen, sure, but it'll be a while.

Yup, life is there...

[the_skywise]

And we probably sent it there on the Viking Probes!

(or it's from the remains of a long dead civilization that had a war with the fifth planet of the solar system. The fifth planet was turned to rubble and the aftermath of the war destroyed Mars. So the survivors fled to Earth and feasted on dinosaur meat until they hunted them to extinction...)

Re:Yup, life is there...

[SeaDour]

Looks like somebody's been reading a little too much of Richard Hoagaland's web site. ;)

Re:Yup, life is there...

[myowntrueself]

I dunno but I just can't see giant glass worms producing methane... spice, yes, methane, no...

Finally ...

[GnoMoreGnuPuns]

we can answer David Bowie's question.

Re:Finally ...

[Artifakt]

we can answer David Bowie's question.

Uhm, Was that "Why am I so f*ing strange?"?

Re:Finally ...

[Billly Gates]

Ziggystardust

More importantly

[Anonymous Coward]

Weren't large subterranean gas deposits on Mars of inorganic origin the plot of Total Recall???

I recommend we send Governor Schwarzenegger to investigate.

Re:More importantly

[FinestLittleSpace]

that film is so awesome.

Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[El_Smack]

Is finding some form of life less evolved than bacteria really a reason not to terraform Mars? From a practical standpoint, it seems like if we are going to try, and are capable of, making Mars habitable, finding microbes shouldn't stop us.

We displace plenty of animal life here on Earth; after all, we are the dominant species. Why should Mars be any diffent? Because in 2 billion more years something may evolve? Doesn't sound like a reason to stop to me.

Re:Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[Angry Toad]

In the long run no, I think it would be rather silly to allow a few bacteria to deny us an entire world.

In the short run absolutely yes. Investigating a possible completely alternate abiogenic event? From a scientific standpoint that would be *more* than worth holding off the colonization for a century or two. The value of that information for understanding the distribution of life in the universe is incalculable.

On the other hand if it's just Earth gunk transported to Mars, away with it.

Re:Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[Aristos Mazer]

Might be worth it for medical reasons... a completely separate instantiation of Life might have developed unique solutions to various issues. From a science standpoint, as previously stated, there's likely a lot to learn. From an economic standpoint, they're toast.

Re:Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[cephyn]

What if we're descended from Mars gunk transported to earth?

Re:Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[Angry Toad]

Right, point taken. I left that bit out. I'd still vote for a few decades of intensive study in relative isolation, followed by allowing people to do as they will.

Re:Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[lampajoo]

damn imperialist humans...

Re:Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[cephyn]

wait, you're posting on /. and calling someone ELSE a nerd?

Hey pot? Yeah. This is kettle. Just letting you know, you're black.

Re:Sounds like a troll, but I'm not.

[Darby]

Might be worth it for medical reasons... a completely separate instantiation of Life might have developed unique solutions to various issues.

Plus, they might get you really high ;-)

case for Genesis Device test site

[jafac]

Now plans for using the Genesis Device on Mars are out ... unless this is just a particle of preanimate matter caught in the matrix.

I don't think that the preponderance of evidence suggests that any present life on Mars has any chance at all of evolving into an intelligent species. Given the current environmental conditions, and the planet's very stable geology, there's no likelyhood of a climate shift favoring such developments.

Unless we terraform the bitch.

Re:case for Genesis Device test site

[the_2nd_coming]

perhaps a mix of vulcans and antarians.

Re:case for Genesis Device test site

[Dunbal]

I don't think that the preponderance of evidence suggests that any present life on Mars has any chance at all of evolving into an intelligent species.

As compared to say, Earth, you mean? There's not much evidence of intelligent life here either... :)

Martian Fusion

[Fractal Dice]

Proof of life on Mars is becoming strikingly similar to commercial fusion or anti-balistic missile defences - always just another contract down the road. It's not that I have anything against the exploration of Mars, nor do I not appreciate the difficulty of understanding an alien environment, but every time NASA hypes to the public I feel like I'm watching/reading politics, not science.

Re:Martian Fusion

[grozzie2]

Nasa is a government organization, dependant on congressional allowances for funds. They compete for funds with organizations such as the Parks departments.

An announcement like this is absolutely perfect for the political game played in washington. Now Nasa can say 'we think there's life on mars, we need to design probes to prove it'. The bush administration can agree completely, knowing full well they will only have to provide financing for the early part of the program, studies etc to design the experiments / probes. Some future administration will be stuck with the bills to actually build and launch it. It's a win-win, the administration looks good (at little cost), and nasa secures future funding.

The only little catch to it all is, the interpretation of the 'evidence' is highly subjective, and anything but scientific. That's why the 'results' were leaked thru the popular press, and not thru normal scientific journal channels. To go the latter route, it would be exposed that this is a case of 'determine the conclusion we want, then hunt thru all evidence, and selectively cherry pick that which may support our desired conclusion'. And that sir, is the difference between science and politics. In science, you let evidence draw you to a conclusion. In politics, you selectively search for evidence to support the conclusions you desire to find.

It's not just methane....

[SirBruce]

Dammit, I submitted that story, and with better linkage, too.

According to http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7014 the scientists have not only detected methane, but also formaldehyde, which was measured at levels of 130 parts per billion. From the article:

He thinks that the gas is being produced by the oxidation of methane and estimates that 2.5 million tonnes of methane per year are needed to produce it. "I believe that until it is demonstrated that non-biological processes can produce this, possibly the only way to produce so much methane is life," he says. "My conclusion is there must be life in the soil of Mars."

Bruce

Re:It's not just methane....

[trtmrt]

Your post refers to a different researcher with a different theory. The main post talks about a different group with a theory that might seem more convincing.

Re:It's not just methane....

[Gob Blesh It]

I just cut and pasted it back into the submission queue. Let's see if the editors pick it up. :)

Re:It's not just methane....

[FleaPlus]

It seems to have already been accepted. I give a 50/50 chance that your submission will end up being a dupe in a few days. :)

hmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

last I heard, Methane was frequently produced on Uranus.

Re:Possible source of life:

[FLAGGR]

What are the chances of those bacteria dudes actually coming in contact with mars. The universe is like, big, like kilometres big. alot of killometres. maybe more than a thousand. bacteria are like nanometre big. or smaller. i dont know. dont care. crazy stuff.

To the, uh.. Martian Cave!, .... Rover!

[QuietRiot]

I wonder how far the nearest cave is to the rover's current position? Does the rover have a flashlight?

Re:To the, uh.. Martian Cave!, .... Rover!

[glebfrank]

Considering that the rovers operate on solar power... I don't know about this idea :)

Methane Gas!

[Evil W1zard]

It is giant cave dwelling space cows!

Huh?

[Dunbal]

Is it just that I'm a cynic? They haven't even found liquid water and now there's "strong evidence" of life on Mars? Come on, I would be happy at the news just as much as the next guy but let's not jump the gun here...believing something is true does not make it true, not here, nor on Mars.

much simpler explanation

[frakir]

Evidence of methane and its coverage with water can be expained in at least one trivial way. Note Mars atmospheric composition:

C02: 95%
H2O: 0.03%

Now huge ultraviolet radiation breaks down H2O and CO2 to loose hydrogen/oxygen/carbon atoms (this process along with mars weak gravity is co-responsible for mars losing its once dense atmosphere). Additionally there is huge evidence of Electrical Discharge On The Martian Surface

Try simple high school science project: Load a container with water and CO2, add electrodes to create some discharge ('lightning') and you'll have your own PanGea in a bottle.

After some time all sorts of 'organic' chemicals will be present in the bottle along with most common methane (but also alcohols, higher carbohydrates and more complex molecules). I would think decent scientist would at least mention such possibility in reocurring articles on 'OH-OH methane is evidence of life on mars'

Re:much simpler explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it amazing how easily one ignores the problem of complexity. The gap between a simple organic molecule and an organism capable of reproduction is extraordinary. Evolution is all about accepting the transition between a theoretical possibility to practicality without doing the math.

Don't accept facts blindly just because they seem to be a reasonable explanation for reality. As many slashdotters say, correlation != causation. We now know enough about biochemistry and genetics to actually do the math. Try calculating the probabilities involved as an exercise and you'll realise that developing organisms by chance is essentially a miracle, even after considering the universe's size and age.

Re:much simpler explanation

[b-baggins]

If you really are a biochemist, then you would even be making this statement.

Come talk to me when you can find an inorganic mechamism to create 10-formyl-tetrahydrofolate.

Re:much simpler explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok show us the math bible thumper....

Re:much simpler explanation

[Shadowlore]

How about you load the containers up in the proportion present on Mars? Then mix and see what happens.

So let's bring Martian life back to earth...

[VegeBrain]

... and find out that it able to survive better than any life on earth because it has evolved in a much harsher environment. Then let it escape from the lab, like the killer bees did, and destroy all other life.

The end of the world is at hand!

Make your peace with whatever god you worship!

It's a god-awful small affair

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

To the girl with the mousy
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen...

But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on -

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know...
He's in the best selling show -
Is there life on Mars?

It's on Amerikas tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes -
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns...

But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on -

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know...
He's in the best selling show -
Is there life on Mars?

what respect

[circletimessquare]

does simple celled life deserve?

in the time it took you to compose your post, your body killed a couple thousand such life forms

we might learn something from them, and that would be a loss, but that is about it

oh and btw, after mars, we'll go to venus

yes, humans are like a virus... so what?

Re:what respect

[Vulture101]

in case you didnt know, your great and noble existence started with a single cell. Now imagine if i didnt respected that cell and i just squashed it, now it would be impossible for us to share your great and iluminated views about life and ecosystems.

well, virus have advantages that we dont share with them, we can NOT cristalize if the environment is adverse, we can only DIE

you think that your view reveals respect and concern for human life, you are WRONG. it only reveals despise for life

Re:Possible source of life:

[Locke2005]

If you shoot enough b-b's into the air, one of them will eventually put somebody's eye out...

Ogilvy, the astronomer, said

[eexlebots]

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one"

But still, they come!

Cromulent

[ThreeDayMonk]

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

Contamination

[slashzero]

I wonder if the mars rover could carry terestrial lifeforms, i.e. mold, that could then start populating mars.

This whole destroying other life thing

[Dominic Burns]

reminds me of a thing my friend says..."If we weren't s'posed to do it, we wouldn't be able to do it."

Works for religionists and evolutionists alike.

Just a thought - make of it what you will.

To the girl with the mousy

[BeerCat]

Well, Mr Bowie, we nearly like your new song, but I'm not too sure about that second line. Now I'm only a record executive, and no nothing of rhyme and rhythm, but I think that it would scan better with an extra word tagged on the end.

How about the word "hair" ?

Re:To the girl with the mousy

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The manuscript was eaten by rats the size of cats.

with everything that we've sent over there...

[jessecurry]

...what if we brought life to mars?

Re:with everything that we've sent over there...

[thasmudyan]

Not likely. But astronomically speaking, Mars is so near Earth, that it is very likely Earth already seeded it with microbes somewhere during the past 2 billion years. Space is not sterile. Planets do not provide good bio containment. Also, there is also a slight chance that the seeding may have occurred the other way around...

Re:with everything that we've sent over there...

[darkmeridian]

Earth might have seeded Mars. Think about it. There are chunks of Mars on Earth.

Re:with everything that we've sent over there...

[Illserve]

Slow down there, you are being ridiculous. Planets provide "reasonably good" bio containment, in that it is far better than anything we've ever developed on earth, probabilisitically speaking.

The probability of cross contamination is "tiny".

Not only would a rock have to smack the earth so hard that bits of rock containing bacteria (that can survive deep freeze and unprotected exposure to space radiation for months if not years), but said bits of rock would have to land on Mars, a probability so astronomically small that it defies calculation(by me)

Re:Possible source of life:

[cnettel]

I'm more afraid it would be the uncommon cold -- a virus that once might have pested the Earth and mammals, but which haven't been exposed to in a great while.

On the other hand, common cold corona viruses won't last for many hours outside of a host. Hopefully, they are shattered to pieces if they got there.

The possibility of remnants of ancient Earth life on Mars is, IMHO, a possibly larger threat of disease for humans getting there anything separately evolved on Mars, as that's more likely to be different enough to be harmless to us.

Re:Another explanation

[mopomi]

We need a reason to be seeing the methane. It is destroyed in the atmosphere pretty quickly, so there needs to be a recharge mechanism.

Regardless of the mechanism, the discovery of methane in the atmosphere is a very important result. . .

Bye bye Star Trek references

[sammeal]

Now plans for using the Genesis Device on Mars

Come May 13 (and it cannot come soon enough), "Star Trek" will be history. Making Trek references everywhere will quickly become as quaint and passe as making "Buck Rogers" references.

Re:Bye bye Star Trek references

[psykocrime]

Come May 13 (and it cannot come soon enough), "Star Trek" will be history. Making Trek references everywhere will quickly become as quaint and passe as making "Buck Rogers" references.

That's Ok, since the BBC is bringing back Doctor Who, we can replace all those Trek and Buck Rogers references with Whovian references...

Wait for peer review

[Noco]

Scientists releasing papers and ideas, especially ones that are obviously controversial, before the peer review/publication process has been completed is poor science. While the peer review process is not perfect with the potential to overemphasize mediocre/bad work or miss good work, the system is the checks and balances upon which science has relied for decades to ensure quality work.

For an example of how releasing scientific results to the media before it is fully evaluated can have disastrous effects, check out cold fusion.

Not the Future Legend, but the past...

[BeerCat]

Totally OT, I know, but there really were rats the size of cats (see about half way down), although the interviewee may have been turning Bowie's lyrics into fact. Or something.

Getting slightly back OT, the answer to the question "Is there life on Mars?" would seem to be a "definite maybe"

Real evidence..

[adeyadey]

With respect, at the moment this is a lot of hypothesis built on a very small base of data. I am prepared to speculate that there are many ways in which these very very very tiny proportions of methane (and they are small) could have ended up in the atmosphere - given our limited knowledge of mars (only 4 successful landers with limited capabilities) there may be many subtle mechanisms by which stored methane could leak, at least in these sort of quantities..

Having said that, I believe it is even probable that live did exist on mars, and very possible it is still there. Thanks to the MERs, we know that mars was wet for some length of time in history, probably for millenia. From evidence of martian meteorites on earth, we can assume a high probablility of cross-fertilisation of DNA between earth-mars during that time. Given that, and given how tenacious we know DNA is once created, it is probable that it still thrives in some sub-terranian (sorry sub-martian) pocket..

Once thing is sure - we should be investing more to find out..

Here's why we haven't colonized Antarctica

[iced_773]

Decades ago, a treaty was signed stating that Antarctica would be used for scientific purposes only.

Also, terraforming there would not be a good idea. We would have to warm up the climate, and before the temperature would rise, the glaciers there would melt, raising the ocean level significantly. The resulting death toll would make the recent tsunami look like a small splash. The same thing goes for draining the Mediterranean. The water has to go somewhere.

Eventually, we will have to expand out into space, if not for practical reasons (natural resources, living space), for psychological purposes. Throughout history, people have constantly been going west because of the belief that it was their duty as humans to control the land out there, an idea commonly known as manifest destiny. Now, if we go any further west, we'll end up in the Far East. The only direction lefr is up.

An entire universe is out there to explore and bring civilization to. All we have to do is grab it!

The Shuttle Thunderchild

[RatBastard]

So, the next shuttle will be named Thunderchild?

Re:The Shuttle Thunderchild

[eexlebots]

It would be pretty awesome. The next rovers need to be tripods, too.

Reminds me of theologians...

[Caspian]

...making the indirect case for the existence of God. This is all very well and good from an "armchair philosophy" standpoint, but until I see electron micrographs of the native Martian fauna (or flora?), I won't believe there's anything alive there except any stray bacteria trapped deep within Terran probes (I'd say "Earthling probes", but that'd sound even sillier, not to mention like it's something that probes an Earthling...)...

Correction then

[SuperKendall]

He meant to say "Find life on Mars before our Sun enters the Red Giant phase and makes teh question meaningless".

We can keep sending robots, but if we do so likely the first really good proof we have of life is when it evolves and flies here. "Why didn't you just come over?", they will ask, and we'll respond "Exp thought it was too hard so we didn't bother".

Re:Correction then

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I don't see why what you say is true. Hey, it might turn out that all of the life on Mars is deep underground where it's warmer and where there might be hidden reserves of water and if we landed on Mars we still wouldn't be able to detect it. When it becomes easy to send humans to send Mars then yes, we should do it. But for the cost of one man on Mars we could probably send dozens of probes to other planets and satellites on our planet. The latter strategy seems more sensible to me.

Re:Correction then

[spungebob]

When it becomes easy...

well, yeah... that's the clincher, innit? How the hell is it ever supposed to become easy if we keep putting it off?

I know there's a lot of reasons - some good and some bad - for why we should send a manned mission, but for me the most important reason is that we need to learn how. And we need to start learning NOW.

It's not just about figuring out what color the sky on Mars is or if there's life in them thar hills - hell yeah, we can send a TON of bots up there to tell us that. But its a lot more than that... as a species we are literally trapped at the bottom of this gravity well and we're in serious danger of ending our days here. The sooner we get off this rock the better our chances of survival will be.

Learning to life and survive in space and on other planets is not going to get any easier or cheaper by waiting for some future to come of its own accord - we have to make it happen first. It's our experience and fine-tuning that makes anything cheaper and easier. You don't get 500Ghz processors with terabytes of RAM to build PC's with until you've cranked out a lot of 286's and 386's first.

You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of humans

[SuperKendall]

You should try reading Zubrin sometime. We can get there fairly cheap, and we can do a lot more in person.

But you already know that since I proved it time and time again in endless debate - I now realize you are nothing but an Eliza style bot repeating the same tired arguments again and again and thus am limiting my responses only to posts where you have managed to fool moderators into elevating your mistaken diatribes against humans on Mars.

In short, Humans on Mars could be brought for about the same price (or only 2-3x) as the simplest hopping robot, and give far better results since a human would know where to "hop" to.

But then you are the same person that thinks a shipping crate costs about the same as an unfolding lander, so I'm sure your counter-argument will dramatically underestimate the cost of the hopper.

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[jxyama]

>In short, Humans on Mars could be brought for about the same price (or only 2-3x)

if you take humans to Mars, you need to bring them back. that alone can double the cost. what about the cost of developing space suits that can tolerate extreme environment? oxygen and food supply? removal of human waste? safety precautions that needs to be made? etc. etc.

i really doubt it will be 2-3x, i can't see anything less than an order of magnitude difference.

Re:Methane Lifetime on Mars

[Rei]

I was using the range provided by Sushil K. Atreya, Director of the Planetary Science Laboratory at the University of Michigan and keynote speaker at the International Mars Conference in Ischia, Italy, 19-23 September 2004. A single number is rather misleading, since there's a wide margin of error.

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[Rei]

Laf, the debate that you ran off from after making all sorts of ridiculous assertions and completely avoiding most of the issues that I presented?

For all of the people here, SuperKendall thinks that we should send robots in parts, then have people assemble them on the surface, and then relaunch them to get to their destination (for some bizarre reason), instead of just sending them to their destination to begin with. And a lot more outright batty stuff.

And that number is 50x, not 2-3x. Manned mars mission costs typically are near 50 B$, while robotic missions are typically ~1 B$. And I already discussed the reasons why with you, which you ignored, just like you ignored the issues with radiation shielding.

Re:Possible source of life:

[FLAGGR]

The b-b size / size of earth ratio is slightly bigger than the bacteria size / size of universe ratio.

Infinitely more valuable

[The Wicked Priest]

The prospect of an entire new empire of life should be celebrated, not bemoaned as an impediment to colonization. It is of infinitely more value to the human race.

Who needs to sink back down into another gravity well, anyway? When we settle off-world, I don't think it will be onto planetary surfaces.

Contamination

[vistic]

I hope we haven't contaminated the planet already with some Earth super-virus/bacteria from the rovers.

modern philosophy

[Jodka]

The authors infer the existence of life on Mars from detected methane. If it emits methane, then it exists.

In about 3.5 centuries we have progressed from René Descartes to this: "I fart, therefore I am".

Re:KH Call Out

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

What are you talking about? The issue of whether or not to send manned or unmanned vehicles into space is a hot topic of debate and my statement still stands whether or not I leave in the "most likely". I think you might be a bit paranoid.

I personally used to be in favor of manned exploration, but having seen the results from Mars and Titan over the last year I am a convert to unmanned space research.

Re:Life transplanted from earth...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

But we do know that there is a small amount of commerce of material between Mars and Earth without the use of space probes. Well, a billion tons has moved from Mars to Earth (see here). It's much harder for stuff to move the other way but it's not completely implausible. (It would require quite a kick of energy from somewhere, not just to get it out of the earth's gravity well, but also to push it out from the Sun. But it could get that by looping around other planets - eg. Venus. The journey might take many tens of thousands of years. But it's not impossible.)

What?

[mt v2.7]

Naw.. real nerds Khan.

Re:Possible source of life:

[Locke2005]

Yes, but 14 billion years is considerably longer than your supply of b-b's is going to last... in fact, I would speculate that if you shot b-b's into the air for several billion years, you would be virtually guaranteed to put some eyes out! Yes, the odds against a bacteria making it from one planet to another and surviving the trip are astronomical, but remember, the moon is covered with the results of astronomical odds...

Here's a thought: suppose life originated inside a large asteroid somewhere, then later when the asteroid broke up both earth and mars were seeded with descendants of that original extra-terrestrial bacteria? We've already proven that chemical-based bacteria can survive deep within rocks...

Positive Viking Lander Results

[north.coaster]

For some years now, the principle investigator for the 1976 Viking Lander Labeled Release Experiment has claimed that his experiment did find evidence of life on Mars. The problem is that the results from the other Viking experiments was inconsistent with this, so NASA decided that the LRE detected a non-biological chemical reaction.

Is this new data about methane consistent with the Viking LRE data?

Re:Positive Viking Lander Results

[AJWM]

It wasn't so much that the results from the other Viking experiments were inconsistent with life -- they weren't -- but that they could be explained by non-life processes (such as superoxide chemistry). The labeled-release experiment's results required a lot more handwaving to be explained that way.

I used to explain that the Viking biology experiments package was very carefully designed to answer the question "is there life on Mars?". The two Vikings landed, carefully performed their experiments, and broacast back the message "could you repeat the question?".

Of course, if Martian soil were that rich in superoxides, it's hard to imagine methane lasting even 300 years.

Re:Positive Viking Lander Results

[Tablizer]

My understanding is that they concluded that the Viking results *could* be explained by soil chemistry instead of life. They thought the experiments were pretty good before launch, but the more they pondered the results, the more they realized that the tests were imperfect, and that sure-shot tests for life are difficult to design.

One interesting result was the "cicadic patterns" (spelling?) where the soil appeared to change its chemistry based on the time of day, even though it was kept at the same tempurature inside a dark chamber. Earth microbes often have internal clocks to adjust to the day-night cycle. It appears that Viking detected such behavior, but other factors have not been ruled out, such as faulty censors.

The Life Saga continues.

Re:Positive Viking Lander Results

[euthman]

Although three of the Viking experiments did give results that would be expected if life had been present, the 400-lb gorilla was the fourth experiment, the GCMS (gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer), which showed that there were no organic compounds present.

Obviously, this was pretty much a dealbreaker, lifewise, especially considering that non-organic chemical reactions that could produce the oher postive results were soon elucidated.

Programmers

[TheAdventurer]

"strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water."


Cool, there are programmers on Mars.

Easy Fix

[spineboy]

When it's power supply gets low, it can just use it's arm to shine the flashlight onto the solar cells, thereby recharging it's batteries.

Somehow I seem to remember a Simpsons qoute about thermodynamics that's applicable to this situation. NASA should investigate this.

Re:Genesis device?!

[istewart]

If there was, would we tell you?

Star Trek is not real

[don.g]

I hate to break it to you, but Star Trek and the universe it portrays is fiction. Thus, the future as seen in this work of fiction is quite probably also not going to happen. Which means that we won't end up with a "Prime Directive".

How will we ever get to Mars? Hhmmm.

[newpath4comVersion2]

I know the answer to that question. http://www.newpath4.com/forsalespacecraftenginecon stantpowertheory.htm . Interesting things, inter-planetary engines. Just so happens any engine worth its salt in weightless space is also anti-gravity inside any planet's gravitational field. Two birds, one stone. Interstellar or transtellar is also non-interstellar. Who woulda thought? Everybody WANTS IT; who will pay for it? Excellent question. Probably the Saudis, altho the Chinese are just hungry enough to grab it. Americans? Too big a ego. They'll pass. Saw where MIT visited my page yesterday. One shot deal, won't last long. Bill Gates can have it if he wants it. Does he? Space-X told me they're too busy. They're working on a PROPULSION ENGINE. A plane engine for Outer Space. Wow! What a novel idea. What a waste of money.

Life on Mars? So What?!

[Simonetta]

There might be life on Mars?!? Small microscopic organisms with enough DNA info to fill a floppy disk.

So What? We got lots of life here on earth. Earth is the life planet. So would you cut the health care and education budgets to spend billions of dollars to find out if there is or isn't life on Mars?

Maybe these guys are just a plant for Steven Spielberg's big new movie where the life on Mars comes to Earth with hostile intent. But good-ol' Tom Cruise kicks their rubber-masked ass back home where they belong.

Jeez. $250 million remakes of cheezy $40,000 movies of the 1950's. Or 1930's, "King Kong" anyone? Aren't you just pissing in your pants in anticipation of these once-in-a-lifetime millenium-event movie blockbusters?

More Jeez and crackers. Some scientist quote-unquote who is about to lose his government grant because he can't think of new and expensive ways to kill people who don't shop at the Baby Gap, forms a committee of other poor white-coat schumcks in the same position in order to concoct a weird theory that life may exist on Mars. (and if you only give me another $200 million in research funds...I won't ever have to go back to teaching undergrads, er.. what I mean to say is "Our team will be able to confirm whether this theory will lead to the most exciting discovery in human history!"

Gassholes

[Ranger]

they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.' It is all based on methane signatures and not direct observation.

I for one welcome or new Martian methane overlords.

I think we should explore Mars for what it is and not what the NASA PR hounds want it to be. If we go with the expectation of NOT finding life we do not jeopardize public interest (and funding) for future missions, because we are going there to find out what's there. There are bound to be some interesting surprises in store for us. If we DO find life it's the icing on the cake.

Mars could never had had much water. There are large swaths of Olivine on the surface of Mars which readily decays in water. There still may have been sufficient water on Mars at one time for life to have evolved or to be infected by a lifebearing meteorite blasted off the surface of the Earth. I would wager that if we DO find life on Mars it closely related to Earthly life. The only question then would be who contaminated who and how long ago did it happen?

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[SuperKendall]

if you take humans to Mars, you need to bring them back.

Why? Why not make it a mission for life?

that alone can double the cost. what about the cost of developing space suits that can tolerate extreme environment?

Not nearly as extreme as suits we already have take, and we've also already designed a lot of suits for very extreme environments like extreme heat, extreme depth, etc.

oxygen and food supply? removal of human waste? safety precautions that needs to be made? etc. etc.

Yes there are issues to work out.

But lets take that hopping robot as an example. First of all, you have to get it there. We had two rovers for a reason - because we wern't totally sure it was going to make it. Indeed one had a flash memory problem and all through the program they ran itno things that almsot blew the whole thing like malfunctioning parachutes, airbags not as tough as they thought, etc. You can't take the tremeendous success that NASA has had for granted and assume that whatever you want to send is going to make it. Sending humans means human pilots and a lot more leeway to generate a successful mission.

And as for the robot itself. The rovers have worked pretty well but a hopping robot is an order of magnitude more difficult to build properly than waht we have so far. It has to hop, land OK, and somehow absorb a lot of G's so that instrumnets on board all survive. That's going to take a lot of timer, effort and money - making the apprent cost of a manned mission shrink in comparison, especially if you might have to build and land two of them to really have a good chance of lasting success.

Sending humans requires more resources but that is offset by the flexibility you get from having humans on the scene to adddress issues that arise.

You make the only argument I can really understand

[SuperKendall]

I do agree that it's a hard choice to make, send humans to Mars or send more probes to interesting places like Titan.

But I think that long term, it's far more useful to have an extended manned presence through the solar system that will enable even more such missions than we might be able to manage only from Earth. Not to mention the mental boost we would get from really having a permanent human presence on Mars itself. It's a question of sending many questionable one-off mission rather than increasing the base of our reliable capability to send even unmanned missions.

I really recommend Zubrin's book for a very sober view of how we can get to Mars realistically. Indeed they are currently engaging in terrestrial-based experiments that address a lot of the little but crucial small practical details of the effort.

Although I am pleased with the current direction of the space program, I think the timeframe for that effort is rather long and I fully believe it will be a private mission that lands on Mars in about fifteen to twenty years or so.

SemiOT: Earliest Human Remains Dated

[stephenMF]

So what was going on with mars 195,000 Years Ago?

Similiar theory shown on PBS's NOVA

[jyang]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/caves/

I thought about this NOVA serie as soon as I read the news. Not conclusive, but ineresting.

Space Official -- The Real Question

[lordbad]

What does a "space official" do and how does one become one??

Even more important, how much do they make? :)

Of course there's life on mars.

[GISGEOLOGYGEEK]

You don't really think the many space probes that have landed on mars were all absolutely perfectly sterilized do you?

We've planted life there. Maybe not the life that has made the extra methane, but either way there is life there.

Life on Mars does not require that life originated on mars. There are martian meteorites on earth, Presumably there are earth meteorites on mars ... which could have seeded life there.

panspermia lives.

'Hello John, Got A New Motor'

[payndz]

Finally, we can tell Alexei Sayle that there is life on Mars! Results for Peckham, however, remain inconclusive.

Waiting for Mars Science Laboratory?

[MtViewGuy]

I think serious work on looking for current life on Mars will come when the Mars Science Laboratory lander arrives on Mars in 2010.

Unlike the current Mars Exploration Rovers, MSL is designed specifically to look for the possibility that lifeforms existed on Mars either in the past or even now. Also, because it will most likely use the same type of "nuclear" battery that powered the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft, it could run for two Earth years or more doing soil sampling, with the rover travelling well over 200 kilometers (124 miles) during its mission. It also means MSL can land and operate at higher latitude regions of Mars, which means the possibility of landing MSL near the polar cap regions.

Why not venus first?

[PsiPsiStar]

The planet actually has an atmosphere. If we could find a way to seed the upper atmosphere and cool it down or somthing...

A *nuclear* powered rover for 2009??

[Viol8]

Why nuclear? Is this so if the microbes look hostile old GW can push the red button and sort them out? :)

Seriously , I can't see the greenies going for that and I have to say that if it crashes , you can't 100% guarantee that it won't spread nuclear contaminants over a huge area of Mars. Hardly a good start for possible colonisation or the bugs that may already be there. Whats wrong with solar panels and some wiper or fan to keep them clean?

Re:A *nuclear* powered rover for 2009??

[corngrower]

If I'm not mistaken, the earlier Viking landers were powered by RTG generators.

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[jxyama]

>Sending humans requires more resources but that is offset by the flexibility you get from having humans on the scene to adddress issues that arise.

and that's exactly the point i was countering at the beginning. for the added resources required to send humans, we can send so many more non-manned missions as to offset the benefits of one manned mission.

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[jxyama]

btw, pretty much all the things you listed above applies equally for manned or unmanned missions. malfunctioning parachutes will screw the mission in either case. it's not like those parachutes can be repaired even with human intevention. since human will need observation instruments, the entire mission is just as sensitive as if it were unmanned.

and you weren't serious about making it a permanent mission, were you? can you show me an oxygen and food generators then? or are we gonna make it a one way mission and sacrifice a scientist or two?

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[m50d]

I would volunteer to do that. I'm sure I'm not the only one. You can fit a person and enough consumables to last them to Mars on a short trajectory in pretty much any medium-lift rocket, at a pinch a Falcon 5 would do. Anyone with the cost of that want to send me to mars?

Quote from a Moon Astronaut

[Juiblex]

"Damn... they found my fart!"

Did anyone else read...

[corngrower]

your topic as

Earliest Human Remains Dead.

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[Rei]

I already went over this with Kendal, and more. I analyzed every last Mars mission that's failed; out of the dozen or so, humans could have saved at least one and possibly two; however, one Mars success would have killed humans due to an unplanned delay in its ability to aerobrake.

He cites Zubrin, but then gives numbers that are an order of magnitude out of the ballpark from even Zubrin, who is one of the most optimistic promoters of manned mars missions in existance. He tries to attack things that have *never* been a problem (i.e., latency and mobility - neither of them have limited the science we've been able to do) in exchange for, what is even by Mars Direct a 50x increase in costs. He has completely ignored the issue of Bremsstrahlung radiation, insisting that it's been addressed but refusing to back up the claim. He made one false statement after another about Mars exploration and about Zubrin's numbers. And he's obsessed with this crazy concept of sending rovers to Mars in pieces, then assembling them on the dusty low-tech surface like tinker toys, then relaunching them and having them reenter (i.e., the *guge* added expensive of having to escape the gravity well with large engines and then redissipate your kinetic energy with an intact heat shield) on a different part of the planet to do their exploration, for some god-unknown reason (claiming that it will save the probe from having to unfold - which has never been a problem, and is one of the most minor steps of all of the effort to get a craft to the surface - and ignoring the fact that when it gets to the spot on Mars that you actually want it to explore after relaunching it, it will have to "unfold" there anyways).

Is it really worth talking with someone like that?

But it's not as much as you think

[SuperKendall]

Because so many more things can go wrong that are uncorrectible on an unmanned mission, it takes away some of the cost differential.

Re:Silly scientists

[strikethree]

" Don't they know that the biblical flood wiped out all form of life everywhere save what was on Noah's boat?"

oh my god that was hilarious. why are so many people with moderator points so humourless? oh well, i get moderator points at least once a week and meta moderate every day. maybe i will get a chance to meta moderate this one later.

strike

Why not permanent?

[SuperKendall]

btw, pretty much all the things you listed above applies equally for manned or unmanned missions. malfunctioning parachutes will screw the mission in either case. it's not like those parachutes can be repaired even with human intevention. since human will need observation instruments, the entire mission is just as sensitive as if it were unmanned.

Not the same - does the shuttle suffer if a parachute fails? No, because it does not need one. Note that obiously you cannot use a shuttle lander on the surface because there are no runways, but the principal holds in general.

Similarily a human mission could rely to some extent on a pilot to provide direction on where to land rather than spending a lot of money hardening the craft because you cannot intelligently pick a landing site and direct your craft there rather than having to assume the craft may smack into a house-sized boulder and survive.

Yes humans will need observation instruments, but it's a lot easier to let humans configure and use them on the ground than it is to set them up so they work semi-autonimously, have to maintain constant contact, and have to be conpletley manipulatible remotley. There is a reason why a Hotwheels car is a lot cheaper than an RC vehicle.

And you weren't serious about making it a permanent mission, were you? can you show me an oxygen and food generators then? or are we gonna make it a one way mission and sacrifice a scientist or two?

Why not, we know at least enough to set up habitats that could sustain people for a year or two. And with continual resupply missions, we could extend that a lot longer. Frankly I would be perfectly fine with spending the rest of my days on Mars knowing that I would be removed from any real medical care or what have you. Even if it only meant a few months of time on the surface a lot of people would jump at the chance.

But it does not have to be that drastic, Zubrin again does actually lay out a plan for rotating crew that come back. I just happen to feel you could save some of that expense.

I saw that Rei responded to you, and didn't read what he said - he has some crazy idea about how robots can do anything for a fraction of the cost of humans and tens to ignore the real cost to automated missions and discounts the possibility of somewhat cheap human travel to Mars using exisiting technology. All I can say is that some people are stuck in the past, doomed to live without vision and then become astonished as things they predicted to be impossible come to pass.

Re:You obviosuly underestimate the capacity of hum

[Bearel]

We lose one crew on a manned Mars mission and all the time/effort/money we spent up to that point will be wasted due to the public outcry at the loss of important people on TV. Never forget that Americans really are that shallow.

Re:You make the only argument I can really underst

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Well I'd like to see both. But I'd like experience a whole bunch of things in my lifetime. Stuff like the ice cliffs of Europa and and its sub-ice oceans, the oily oceans on Titan, the view of Jupiter as it hangs in the sky from Io and so on. It isn't going to happen in person. But I can do it by proxy with unmanned probes. People aren't traveling to Titan or Europa in my lifetime. And it's not just about pretty pictures. Each of these things offers interesting science too. I'm not convinced that a manned presence in space is going to help with these things much.

Gravity

[mboverload]

You mean they used motors to put robot's feet down instead of gravity? Wow.

Wouldn't be so sure...

[SuperKendall]

People aren't traveling to Titan or Europa in my lifetime.

I'd like you to reconsider that - if you're younger than 40-50, you may very well be wrong. I don't think we're far away at all for real real and meaningful increases in longevity - I'll bet we see people at least around, if not on, Titan within 100 years (after we've got more a foothold on Mars and are launching trips from there).

Actually a "prime directive" is likely

[AHumbleOpinion]

I hate to break it to you, but Star Trek and the universe it portrays is fiction. Thus, the future as seen in this work of fiction is quite probably also not going to happen. Which means that we won't end up with a "Prime Directive".

You are probably wrong. If we get off our rock and if there is anything else out there, something heading in the general direction of the "prime directive" would be likely if current western social values continue. Attitudes embracing environmentalism and endangered species protection are not necessarily confined to Earth. Similarly attitudes towards respecting "primitive" cultures would not be confined. And on the less respectul side there is also the "practical" angle of leaving "primitives" in their "primitive" state. Less likely to be a threat and more easily controlled, there is some historical precedent for that too.

The real world is far more complex than fiction and far more difficult to make prediction about. Definitive statement like yours are foolish.

NASA Press release

[bedessen]

RELEASE: 05-052

NASA Statement on False Claim of Evidence of Life on Mars

News reports on February 16, 2005, that NASA scientists from Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., have found strong evidence that life may exist on Mars are incorrect.

NASA does not have any observational data from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific journal asserting martian life.

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/feb/HQ_05052_ mars_claim.html

How about

[the_skywise]

Glass Cows?