Autotrophy on Mars (3): How Data Lost Out to the “Community Consensus”
Posted inAstrobiology Life on Mars Mars

Autotrophy on Mars (3): How Data Lost Out to the “Community Consensus”

Did Viking’s carbon-assimilation experiment actually detect evidence of Martian autotrophy—only to have that result buried beneath a later “community consensus” that declared Mars lifeless? This article revisits the Horowitz–Hobby–Hubbard data, argues that the life-positive signal was real and logically never refuted, and traces how GC-MS interpretations came to outweigh contradictory evidence in the story of Viking.
Posted inAstrobiology, Life on Mars, MarsNo Comments
Prioritize the Search for Extant Life on Mars with NASA-DARES 2025
Posted inAstrobiology Life on Mars Mars NASA Single Scoops

Prioritize the Search for Extant Life on Mars with NASA-DARES 2025

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and Mars Exploration Program (MEP) are hereby recommended by Christopher Temby and Agnostic Life Finding Association to ensure that the highest priority science objective in the coming decade for the 2025 Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (NASA-DARES 2025) is a search for an extant Martian biosphere before human arrival.
Posted inAstrobiology, Life on Mars, Mars, NASA, Single ScoopsNo Comments
NASA’s “Standards” White Paper. Does NASA’s drive for consensus make young scientists susceptible to being trampled by mastodons?
Posted inAstrobiology Single Scoops

NASA’s “Standards” White Paper. Does NASA’s drive for consensus make young scientists susceptible to being trampled by mastodons?

Survival in the Ice Age required youth who were able to balance instruction from their elders with a rebellious streak sufficient to reject their instructions when survival required adaptation. Does NASA's need for consensus upset this balance?
Posted inAstrobiology, Single ScoopsNo Comments
Is NASA making itself irrelevant to the search for life in the cosmos?
Posted inAstrobiology NASA

Is NASA making itself irrelevant to the search for life in the cosmos?

NASA holds this week a workshop to consider looking (again) for existing life on Mars … but only 20 years from now. By then, humans may have been on Mars for a decade, thanks to Elon Musk, or (maybe) someone less interested in planetary protection. Thus, in 2042, detecting indigenous Martian life will likely be much more difficult. NASA will be too late.
Posted inAstrobiology, NASANo Comments
The Search for Life on Mars Must Start Now
Posted inLife on Mars

The Search for Life on Mars Must Start Now

According to planetary protection guidelines, manned Mars missions could be a severe biological hazard. At the same time, Mars will soon be accessible for those who might choose not to follow these guidelines. If we are serious about planetary protection, we must know if life is present on Mars before humans land there.
Posted inLife on Mars1 Comment