Perseverance: Will NASA Find 'Life on Mars' With Their New Rover?
After 25 years of Continuous Scientific Exploration of Mars, Not One Drop of Martian Water Has Yet Been Examined
I find it exasperating, that despite Nasa having already landed three expensive rovers on Mars since 2004, to drive around, explore, take pictures and analyse the Martian surface, they are still unable to answer the single most important question that the human race wants to know about our nearest planetary neighbour...
"Is there life on the Red Planet?"
After over two decades of examining Mars with billions of dollars of taxpayers money, you would think that by now this crucial question would have been settled. Consider that since 1997, we have sent an armada of spacecraft to both orbit and land on Mars. The orbiters have studied extensively the planet’s atmosphere, taken breathtaking pictures of the whole planet, and penetrated deep beneath the surface with radar, while the landers, have analysed soil and rock samples, taken close up pictures of the surface, and even touched exposed Martian ice … such a shame they couldn’t examine it for the presence of Martian life.
“Is there life on Mars?” is a question that Nasa does indeed seem strangely reluctant to answer with any degree of urgency. They have feigned to address the question with pedantic mission goals such as, “Did Mars once possess habitable conditions for life?”, or, as now, “Did Mars ever have life?”. All we want to know is, “Does life exist on the Planet Mars right now, in the present day?”
How many more missions will it take to answer the question? Given this obvious science failure, it is incredulous that scientists are still hoping to study the atmospheres of planets orbiting far distant stars many light years away, in order to determine whether they might harbour life! Clearly, there is no point in attempting to work out if life exists around other stars, if we cannot do it successfully on a planet within our very own solar system.
Not since the Viking Mission in 1976, some forty-five years ago, did Nasa send an astrobiology mission to hunt for life on Mars. All missions since then however have been focussed on geology and looking for signs of ancient water on Mars that flowed over a billion years ago - a fact their orbiting science instruments and imagery confirmed decades previously without the need for a craft to ever land on its surface.
And now we have another new rover, Perseverance, that will also not be searching for extant life on Mars, only for ancient, long-dead microfossils.
But should we be hopeful, even grateful, that Nasa are finally going to look for actual signs of life? Well, 'dead' life anyway.
Will Perseverance Avoid Martian Water?
"Where there's water, you'll find life," most biologists will tell you. But once again, Nasa will be doing their best to avoid any water, or any life that might be lurking within it. And yes, even though Martian organisms may find it difficult to survive in the brief, transient appearances of surface liquid water on the Martian surface, for their scientists not to at least make the effort to examine that water, is to my mind inexcusable and a dereliction of scientific duty. The fact is that the new Perseverance Rover will have the ability to locate underground caches of water, but it won't be allowed to touch any of it to search for signs of life, and it doesn't have any instruments to either.
Are Planetary Protocols Restricting the Search for Life on Mars?
So why are Nasa so reluctant to examine Martian water for signs of living organisms?
Not since the Viking Mission in 1976, some forty-five years ago, did Nasa send a real astrobiology mission to hunt for life on Mars. All missions since then have been focussed on geology and looking for signs of ancient water on Mars that flowed over a billion years ago — a fact their orbiting science instruments and imagery actually confirmed decades previously without the need for a craft to ever land on its surface.
And now we have another new rover, Perseverance, that will also not be searching for extant life on Mars, only for ancient, long-dead microfossils.
But should we be hopeful, even grateful, that Nasa are finally going to look for actual signs of life? (…well, ‘dead’ life)
Will Perseverance Avoid Martian Water?
Given the fact that Nasa has not managed to put a single drop of water from Mars under a microscope during eighteen years of robotic exploration, I find it hard to get too excited or hopeful for this new Nasa mission or its goal. They have lamely attempted to label this mission as ‘astrobiology’, although perhaps a more fitting label would be ‘astropaleaontology’, because they’re looking for fossils, not living creatures.
“Where there’s water, you’ll find life,” most biologists will tell you. But once again, the Nasa Mars science team will be doing their best to avoid any water, or any life that might be lurking within it. And yes, even though Martian organisms may find it difficult to survive in the brief, transient appearances of liquid water on the Martian surface, for their scientists not to at least make the effort to examine that water, is to my mind inexcusable and a dereliction of duty. The fact is that the new Perseverance Rover will have the ability to locate underground caches of water, but is forbidden to touch and examine any of it to search for signs of life.
Are Planetary Protocols Restricting the Search for Life on Mars?
So why are Nasa so reluctant to examine Martian water for signs of living organisms?
Well, from a rudimentary perspective, it’s because of the space exploration treaty signed by various nations and regulated by COSPAR (Committee on Space Research). Protocols have been drawn up that prohibit contamination of Martian life with Earthly organisms. So, in the case of Mars, in order to search for life and have direct contact with any Martian water, spacecraft and landers have to be sterilized to a degree that will destroy most Earthly organisms that may have hitched a ride to the surface of Mars.
Of particular significance, regarding Mars, are the areas that have been designated “Special Regions”. These are locations that could theoretically host life, due to the presence of water ice or liquid water — and where Nasa has consistently avoided landing with their rovers. Some words from the Perseverance Press Kit under the section ‘Avoiding Sensitive Areas’ explain why:
“Places on Mars where Earth organisms would be likely to replicate, or that could have a high potential for the existence of Martian life forms, are known as “special regions.” These include regions on Mars that could have water ice or liquid water in some form within 16 feet (5 meters) of the surface.
A key goal of Perseverance’s mission is to seek signs of ancient microbial life, not current, or extant, life. The rover does not need to visit a special region, and its landing site — Jezero Crater — is not considered one.”
So there you have it. In Jezero Crater, Nasa has deliberately landed a spacecraft in an area where they don’t expect to find life. But how do they justify telling the world they are searching for it, when in actual fact they are deliberately avoiding its discovery? Surely, if you want to find life on Mars, then you land in the places where it is most likely to be found, near where liquid water is known to exist. But Nasa has deliberately avoided those places, those ‘special regions’, refusing to plan a mission with a lander sufficiently sterilized to hunt for possible life.
Some will say that Nasa doesn’t want to repeat the same mistakes of the Viking mission, where the results from their life detection experiments were officially declared inconclusive, and that their plan since then has been to develop and follow a painstaking trail that will eventually lead them to look in the right place for life, if it exists at all on Mars.
However, former Chief Scientist of NASA, Ellen Stofan, believes there is not even much point in searching for life on Mars until astronauts actually land there:
“Understanding if life evolved on Mars during its relatively short, wet, early-Earth-like period, means searching on its rocky surface for fossilized microorganisms. That is why I feel strongly that astronauts — astrobiologists, geologists, and chemists — are required to do extensive fieldwork on the surface.”
Which is a fair point. If the chief Nasa plan is to set up a scientific base on Mars, as perhaps a first step towards colonization, and use the current robotic missions to mainly scout ahead and to learn more about the planet before landing there, then the search for life may now be a purely secondary consideration.
Has the Discovery of Life on Mars Been Deliberately Delayed?
There may also be another reason too why the discovery of life on Mars has being curtailed, in that some have decided that humanity is just not ready yet for the implications, as Nasa Chief Scientist Jim Green revealed:
“It will start a whole new line of thinking. I don’t think we’re prepared for the results. I’ve been worried about that because I think we’re close to finding it and making some announcements.”
He is also open to the possibility that we will sooner or later run into other civilizations:
“There is no reason to think that there isn’t civilizations elsewhere, because we are finding exoplanets all over the place.”
There’s no doubt that the impact on human society from the discovery of life on other worlds, such as Mars, will have a profound effect, especially on Earth-centric views of life as rooted in some religions. There is some evidence, too, that the discovery of life on Mars — or perhaps the public declaration of it — has therefore been deliberately slowed down to prepare and acclimatize the world for an eventual announcement.
This would mean that some already know there is life on Mars, and perhaps elsewhere in our solar system and beyond, and that Mars has been selected as the officially sanctioned place from where it will first be declared. We have seen, too, that a gradual media induction for the official acceptance of UFOs as a source of intelligent life in the universe, has also been rolling out for quite a few years now through various legacy media and former intelligence personnel.
So, will Perseverance declare that life exists in the Martian soil, in the present day?
No, but I’m sure it will take a step towards that. It will discover some biosignatures and fossilized remains, to show life used to exist on Mars a few billion years ago, which will be hailed as a major scientific discovery to the waiting world media.
But will anything more dramatic show up? If the rover is not going to be used to search for something important such as extant life, will the cameras and video be deployed to investigate unusual objects perhaps? Will they get up close to some of the many strange, geometrically-shaped anomalies that might just be exoarchaeological artefacts?
Up until now, Nasa has shown absolutely no interest whatsoever in this pursuit, indeed Nasa scientist Ken Farley upon being questioned by Senator Rohrabacher if Mars could have had a civilization in the ancient past, with a wry smirk, dismissed the possibility as “Extremely unlikely”.
However, with the Chinese now having landed their own rover on Mars, have the stakes been increased perhaps? Has Nasa’s unimaginative, snail’s pace monopoly exploration of Mars been threatened by someone who might not want to play their game?
Veteran Mars investigator Richard C. Hoagland, who has long championed the hypothesis that Mars was once host to an ancient civilization, speculates that Nasa’s hand might be forced by the Chinese to reveal something about past inhabitants on the Red Planet, if indeed Nasa has, up until now, been keeping quiet about any knowledge they have on the subject.
Quite frankly, I think it comes down to this. When a space agency fails to answer the question of whether there is life on Mars, after twenty-five years of continuous state of the art scientific investigation, then quite frankly, there is something amiss and I don’t trust it.
Either:
They are not very good at their job (…pedantic, yes, but undoubtedly highly qualified).
They are delaying the result in order to preserve their pay checks for as long as possible (…well, I wonder how geologists would react if their mission time was taken over by exobiology, or even exoarchaeology).
They have received orders to keep quiet about a few things they’ve discovered (…NASA does still remain subject to National Security restrictions remember).
Interesting times ahead? Watch this space.
© 2022 M. J. Craig