Seeking Signs of Ancient Martian Life

StonyandCher writes in about a collaboration between NASA and a leading Australian exploration and mining scientist, Dr. Brent McInnes, to search for signs of ancient life on Mars. The plan is to develop and miniaturize the "Alphachron" — an exploration technology currently employed by the Australian minerals industry to determine the age of minerals. If the Alphachron can be miniaturized, it could fly with the next rover mission set for launch in 2010. "The highest priority is to understand when liquid water was present on Mars. 'The same minerals that can be found in [Western Australia]... can also be found on Mars,' McInnes said. Accordingly, by using the Alphachron to date minerals on Mars and thus tell when liquid water may have been present, it can be inferred when life may have been sustainable near the surface of the planet."

Comments

Re:Minerals = Funding

[TheLink]

If you land on Mars you have to expend lots of energy to get off, whereas if you mine the asteroids, it's a lot cheaper.

We're doing things the wrong way.

Steps should be:
1) Space station with artificial gravity (classic spinning wheel, or stuff on tether)
2) Space station with artificial gravity and decent radiation shielding
3) Figure out how to build space stations from asteroid materials
4) Send space stations to asteroid belts or wherever.
5) Space colonies.

Whereas right now, there's crazy talk of
1) Space trip to Mars

That sure sounds like a one way trip. That's only worth the $$$$ if we can vote for politicians to send on that one way trip. Do that regularly and it'll be a net benefit to the world ;).