Posted by spoonman Friday 1 August, 2008 11:41 PM
With the discovery of water on Mars, should we send humans to explore?
The trouble-plagued Phoenix probe dropped onto the surface of Mars recently has finally settled speculation that has been raging in the science community for years.
It has proved beyond doubt that there is water on Mars, in the form of ice.
The NASA probe scooped up some dirt from the north polar surface and cooked it in an on-board 'oven' to reveal water being evaporated out of the soil sample.
This is without doubt a stunning discovery. Mars is the only place in our solar system, other than Earth, that has water.
Sure, there are other 'possibles' - but water on Mars is now a definite.
NASA scientists are fairly certain that where there is water, there might also be life of some sort.
Perhaps we are only talking about some simple microbes or even just basic organic compounds.
Remember, we have only just scratched the surface of Mars - literally. Who knows what might lurk further beneath that surface?
But to find any kind of life elsewhere would be arguably the biggest scientific discovery of all time.
If two planets in the same solar system are found to support life, it would be naive to imagine that the rest of our galaxy and the larger universe have none at all.
If Mars has life, or even fossil evidence of life in the distant past, you can pretty much guarantee that life is everywhere. The universe will be teeming with it.
So we now have to get our stuff together, as a species, and do what we need to do to get people onto the Martian surface.
Not in 30 or 40 years time, but within the next two decades. Even sooner if possible.
Probes are great, but people are better.
And this is as big as it gets, at least in our lifetimes.
Over to you.....
