What NASA’s discovery of possible life on Mars means for Musk’s ambitions

Recently, NASA announced that the Mars Perseverance rover has found indications that life may have at one time existed on the Red Planet. The announcement did not mark the first time the space agency had announced life on Mars. 

If it pans out, it may complicate Elon Musk’s dreams of founding a settlement on the fourth planet from the sun.

The idea that NASA may (and we must emphasize the word “may”) have found evidence of life on Mars could be history-changing. Scientists have always thought that Earth is not the only place in the universe where life emerged. The possible findings of the Mars Perseverance rover might confirm that supposition.

According to Space.com, Mars Perseverance found minerals in the western edge of Jezero Crater that might be the result of microbes consuming organic matter. The caveat that scientists offer is that the minerals might also have been created by non-organic processes — which is to say it may not be proof of life on Mars.

The news gives one a sense of déjà vu. Back in the mid-1970s, the Viking landers, the first human-made objects to have soft landed on Mars, also may have found indications of life on the Red Planet. Scientists soon raised doubts, however, suggesting that those initial results were a false positive. Some believed that the life-detection process on the Viking landers may have inadvertently killed Martian microbes.

How can we confirm whether or not life exists or has existed on Mars? The Mars Perseverance has left containers filled with geologic samples, ready to be picked up by the proposed Mars Sample Return mission. Unfortunately, the Mars Sample Return mission is in limbo because of spiraling costs and the Trump administration's proposed budget cuts.

The Mars Perseverance discovery is an argument for jumpstarting Mars Sample Return, likely as a commercial venture supported by NASA. Rocket Lab believes it has a solution along those lines.

Let us suppose that Mars Sample Return is mounted and retrieves samples from the Red Planet for study by scientists on Earth. Let us further suppose that the study confirms life on Mars, either present or in the distant past.

A debate will then ensue about sending humans to Mars. Would humans “contaminate” the Red Planet with earthly microorganisms, as invasive species? Would it matter?

Seven years ago, David Weintraub, a professor of astronomy at Vanderbilt University, suggested that human explorers on Mars, not to speak of the colonists that SpaceX’s Musk would send to the Red Planet, would certainly contaminate that world with Earth-born life.

“Does humanity have an inalienable right to colonize Mars simply because we will soon be able to do so? We have the technology to use robots to determine whether Mars is inhabited. Do ethics demand that we use those tools to answer definitively whether Mars is inhabited or sterile before we put human footprints on the Martian surface?”

One can already hear the voices demanding that Mars be set aside as a kind of nature preserve, unsullied by humans carrying earthly lifeforms to the Red Planet. They will have quite a lift attempting to explain why that desire trumps the need to spread humankind across space in order to preserve the species.

Dr Greg Autry, nominee to be NASA’s Chief Financial Officer, addressed the planetary protection arguments in a debate at the Oxford Union on Mars colonization a few years ago.

Autry argued that future Mars explorers and colonists should be able to shield the outside Martian environment from Earthly organisms. Should humans decide to terraform Mars, then any native Martian microbes could be segregated into separate enclosed biospheres for study.

Autry also suggested that Mars and Earth may have already exchanged life through material kicked up by meteor impacts and carried across the interplanetary gulfs over hundreds of millions of years. He also ridiculed the idea that Martian “slime mold” should have more rights than human beings when it comes to survival.

If life on Mars were ever to be confirmed, the discovery would spark a debate over how we regard the fourth planet from the sun. Will it become a new home for humanity, a venue for the second branch of civilization? Or will it become a science preserve, prohibited to all but limited human exploration?

After some period of wrangling, the answer is likely to be the former. The possibilities of life on Mars ultimately being humans from the planet Earth are simply too profound.

Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond” and, most recently, “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.