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Why Mars Is Not the Best Place To Look For Life

Posted by Soulskill on from the red-dead-emption dept.

EccentricAnomaly writes "A story over at Science News quotes Alan Stern (former head of NASA Science missions) as saying: 'The three strongest candidates [for extraterrestrial life] are all in the outer solar system.' He's referring to Europa, Titan, and Enceladus. So why is NASA spending $2.5B on the next Mars Rover and planning to spend over $6B more on a Mars sample return when it can't find the money for much cheaper missions to Europa or Enceladus?"

1 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Honesty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is someone over at NASA finally being honest? Let's face it the odds on other life being discovered in our solarsystem is virtually zero. It is extremely extremely extremely unlikely.

    But NASA is always wetting our appetites with the "possibility" of life. Why?

    Funding.

    Would US taxpayers be happy about funding extraterrestrial geologists to study rocks for the sake of studying rocks?

    Face it, the most boring person at a party is a geologist. Most people don't care about rocks.