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NASA's Chief Scientist Predicts Evidence For Life Beyond Earth By 2025

Posted by Soulskill on from the and-it'll-take-just-a-few-years-after-that-to-make-them-angry-at-us dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA, predicts we're not far off from finding evidence for alien life. At a panel discussion yesterday, she said, "I think we're going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years." She added, "We know where to look. We know how to look. In most cases we have the technology, and we're on a path to implementing it." Stofan thinks putting astronauts on Mars will be a big part of that goal. As efficient as robot missions are, she thinks it'll take humans digging and cracking rocks to find definitive evidence for life on other worlds.

10 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. We don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    We have no idea how far off we are from finding life on another planet, and we won't know until we actually find it. Miss Stofan should stick to gazing at the stars rather rhan into a crystal ball.

    1. Re:We don't know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      People in high level government and academia positions have to say stuff like this to keep the funding flowing. It's an unwritten part of the job description.

    2. Re:We don't know by NotDrWho · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also note that she said "strong indications of life" not actually finding definitive proof of life. I think she's probably talking something along the lines of a spectrum analysis finding a chemical in the atmosphere of a foreign body that's associated with life, or finding some microbes on Europa or something. But if we're going to do it by 2025, we'll need some pretty huge leaps forward, and very fast. And the idea that we'll be putting anyone on Mars by 2025 is laughable. Maybe 2125, and even that's unlikely given the current funding levels of most space programs.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    3. Re:We don't know by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it's less " anywhere without liquid water touching bedrock equals no life" than we, at present, have have no direct evidence to suggest life is definitely possible elsewhere, and if it is we will likely have a much more difficult time recognizing it, as well as guessing where, specifically, it might be located (Titan is a big place after all). Basically it's the sort of work that would almost certainly require boots on the ground - its not worth even seriously attempting such a search without a proper laboratory - unless you stumble on a macroscopic colony of something that has experienced convergent evolution to resemble Earth-life, you're unlikely to be able to recognize it with the limited mechanisms available to a probe.

      Plus there's the whole factor that we're still uncertain just how likely biogenesis is, while panspermia is almost certainly possible within a star system, and there's a pretty good chance that Earth life or, at the very least, DNA, has littered the surface of the other planets, where it might be able to take root if conditions were similar enough to Earth to support the chemistry.

      And of course, finally, there's the fact that we don't yet have the technology to meaningfully explore an ice-world like Titan, or even Europa. Some ideas, sure, but nothing within decades of deployment on current budgets. Plus the time and energy cost of getting a probe there is much greater than to Mars.

      Yes, there a certain "I'm looking for my dropped keys under the streetlight, because that's where I can see" aspect to it all, but since we don't actually know where the "keys" might have been "dropped", that's an eminently logical place to start the search.

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      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  2. NASA's Chief Scientist Wants More Funding by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ellen Stofan, chief scientist at NASA, made a wildly speculative, headline-grabbing claim in an attempt to gain more funding.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  3. Re:And... by oodaloop · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Predicting is hard, especially about the future.

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    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  4. No astronauts are getting their asses to Mars by NotDrWho · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Stofan thinks putting astronauts on Mars will be a big part of that goal.

    In that case, you're going to be in for a VERY long wait. Man may one day set foot on Mars, but it won't be any time within our liftetimes, and they won't be wearing a NASA patch on their spacesuit.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  5. Re: You know it's just PR by cyber-vandal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Much worse than space nutters are you miserable bean counters. Let's not do anything or go anywhere because "my God the expense!". Let's carry on with pointless resource ears to enrich the already insanely wealthy even further.

  6. The Real Question Is... by wisebabo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Will they find extra-terrestrial life IN the solar system or Outside it?

    Frankly if they find it within the solar system then it would be a more significant find unless, of course, they found evidence of advanced (intelligent) life outside the solar system. It would mean that the universe is absolutely crawling with life; even if the life was somehow related to that on earth (distributed by asteroid impacts?) that would mean that panspermia is a viable method of distributing life over (at least) interplanetary distances.

    In addition, it would mean that there would be a chance of someone going and really examining it within what's left of my lifetime!

    So let's hope that it's on Mars (doubtful), Europa/Enceladus (possibly) or Titan. Of course if they find life on Titan, it'll have to be so radically different that our own that it'll blow the minds of just about every biologist in the world! Of course they'd be very very happy to find just fossils.

  7. Robots are proxies, not substitutes by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Humans operate it either way, the only major difference between a robot and a physical presence is higher latency for robots, and orders of magnitude greater cost for humans.

    That is not the only major difference. Humans can create new tools and are vastly more flexible in what they can do than any robot. It's more than mere latency. Furthermore there are some bits of information that simply cannot be obtained by a robot. There is a huge difference between looking through a webcam at an ocean and actually standing at the shore yourself. There is information about humans that can only be obtained by sending humans. There are economic benefits to developing the technology to send humans that go far beyond the mission itself.

    Going to other planets isn't just a geology project. There are some things we will only learn if we are there ourselves.