Would you like for us to send a manned mission to Mars to discover if there is life on Mars or if life ever existed on Mars?

[KelleyNice]

If live exist or ever existed on Mars, likely the universe is teeming with life. Otherwise, earth may be the only place in the universe that has life. Unless we discover life elsewhere, it is impossible to know. However, since highly intelligent scientists cannot create life, the probability of life out matter that has zero intelligence may be like 1 divided by infinity; that is, zero probability but possible.

Updates

+1 y

I am planning to ask a question about colonizing other star systems but since you seem to be knowledgeable, perhaps even than my scientific father, I'll ask you first for part of it. My father said, in time we will be able to travel at 10% of the speed of light and by then we will be about to build artificial wombs for mammals. If there is no life and a CO2 and nitrogen atmosphere, we can seed oceans, lakes, clouds, etc. with blue-green algae and drop seed all over the planet.

[NamerOfStars]

Whoa, whoa- first thing's first: what is life? If we're going to decide whether something we find elsewhere is alive, we need to be able to define it. Primates are alive. So are ferns and tardigrades and DMV employees. What do they all have in common? Fire consumes, reproduces, moves, fades, and dies- is IT alive? Because we can make fire.

It seems kind of silly to assume that any form of life we find will be so similar to us that we'd recognize it right away- suppose the rocks on Mars are alive, but we don't know because they're rocks, and have no way of demonstrating it, at least that we recognize.

When I was born, there were 58 known moons in our solar system, and the four "rocky midget" inner planets held to be weird exceptions, with gas giants being the norm, ane Earth being REALLY weird, because our moon is ENORMOUS compared to the planet. Today, Saturn alone has over 70 moons, and there's evidenge from the Kupier belt that not only are rocky mudget planets quite common, there are likely several other bodies with similarly-sized planet-and-moon setups; Pluto and Chiron, to name just one.

If all we look for is lizards or srime molds, wemay take decades to notice that a planet's inhabitants are living sound waves, or something equally weird. Just because Mars doesn't have life (if it doesn't), that doesn't mean NOWHERE does; it's just one planet.

Bonus points: Mars *is* the bost Earthlike of the other planens me know, but it was believed to be inhabited long before we knew that. An early Italian astconec described the channels, or "canali" that crossed the surface of the planet, and this was mistranslated as "canals", structures more obviously artificial. This also means we were only one letter away from thinking Mars was covered in cannolis, and if THAT had been the mistake, we'd've landed there by now.

[ChiTown33]

Of course but realistically there isn't a will by our elected officials to do it. I've said for a long time will become a multi-planetary species and eventually a multi-star system species when the private sector finds a way to make space faring profitable. That's why I like Elon Musk. Like him or hate him, he's a forward thinker.. and those are the people that drag our species forward and change the course of humankind. I mean there's an outside chance China colonizes space first. But I see the most gains coming from the private sector.
But we still have to keep in mind this isn't another "moonshot". I think the shortest distance one way with our fastest rocket would take 9 months. There's a lot of hurdles to this
We might have settle for going back to the moon and colonizing it before trying to make the leap to Mars.

[KelleyNice]

@
ChiTown33 I meant to reply to you; see update. To continue, once sufficient oxygen is created from CO2, using artificial wombs and very advanced robotics, mammals can be place on the planet as well as fish, spiders, and insect eggs. I don't if that can include honey bees. However, it may not be possible to have birds, snakes, turtles, and other animals with large eggs because I believe large eggs frozen to near absolute zero cannot hatch. Can you think of any way for example to have turkeys or falcons?

[ChiTown33]

I'm certainly no expert. Nor that knowledgeable in astrophysics lol. But I do have affinity for learning about the cosmos.
There is no friction (since there is no atmosphere in space) so INSIDE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS I see no limit to how fast we can go. As far as artificial wombs for animals. Through genetic engineering theoretically we should be able to do much more than that in the future. We as humans are accustomed to colonizing a place and making it more hospitable to us. I. e. places like Las Vegas in the desert. Well through genetic engineering we may be able to alter our DNA to the point that we can breathe underwater on Waterworlds. Or since there is no gravity in space. 4 arms instead of 2 legs. The possibilities are vast. Question is being humans we're arrogant and I don't know that we'd ever want to do that lol. As far as the cloud, lake ocean comment. You're essentially talking about terraforming. And yes terraforming is doable. But it takes a long time. Again, I'm no expert. But what annoys me whenever people talk about terraforming Mars they never reference that Mars lacks the strong magnetisphere that earth has. Mars is basically geologically dead so it can't generate a magnetic field like Earth to protect it from solar wind like earth. Over time the solar wind strip away at Mars's atmosphere. So until we find away to fix this I don't see how we can terraform Mars.

[StevieNix]

Kelly, you're no longer allowed to us the term "manned." The woke have spoken.

But did you know we sent a space craft to Pluto? It took nine years to get there.

The "New Horizons" shuttle. So if we can go that far, we should be able to make it to Mars. But the way our government is spending money, it will most likely be Elon Musk that gets to Mars first. Heck, he might even buy the planet. But I definitely think we need to keep exploring. The cure for cancer might very well be found on Mars.

[StevieNix]

Thanks for the MHO

[Gollum]

One day we will send people to Mars. Actually Mars was once, a very very long time ago a lush and fertile planet, until the sun developed a sudden high-level of activity, whereby much more solar energy was released into the vastness of universal space in the area of the SOL-system, which unleashed a tremendously strong evaporation on the planet Mars, which had fallen to its present orbit. All CO2 settled down into the ground, whereby the planet practically 'died of thirst' and became a red and black dry desert. That was about 75,000 years ago.

[ObscuredBeyond]

I'd prefer if we sent Hillary to Venus. Zelensky too. And about a dozen other slimeballs. As their rocket reaches the surface, and they're ejected to it, have the machine play "Disco Inferno." They'll hear two seconds of the song before they turn to ash.

[SixFootSexy]

The process of creating and retaining a viable planetary atmosphere where there is none, is far more difficult an engineering undertaking than anything that has been done in human history. Sure they can create small bio-domes with breathable air, but a whole planet?

Building the Pyramids, the greatest canals, the tallest skyscraper, nothing matches the complexity and challenge.

[NorthwestRider]

Europa is the new player in finding life. It has a subsurface ocean that is much deeper than our oceans

[KelleyNice]

Europa's ice is 10 to 15 miles thick. We can't drill 10 miles below the surface on earth. It would be impossible on Europa. Without getting to he liquid ocean, there would be no way to detect life.

[Guardian45]

A manned mission to Mars is a good first step to exploring for life in our universe.

But there are MANY unknowns and scientific discoveries to come. Nanotechnology, biotechnology and Quantum Computing are about to converge.

Artificial cells ALREADY exist! And Artificial intelligence may have ALREADY sparked a Technological Singularity unbeknownst to us!

Your generation will explore this!

[KelleyNice]

I read that each doubling of technology occurs more and more rapidly. A doubling that used to take 100,000 or more years is now occurring in only 10 and soon may be so rapid that technology reaches what you call a singularity resulting in an explosion of technology advancement beyond what we can imagine. However, we cannot be certain that will happen.

[Guardian45]

I work in AI and there is evidence to suggest that if it has not already happened; it could occur within 10 years.

[TommyMountainFigure]

I don't believe life can be sustained on Mars. I think our best hope of finding other forms of life in the universe is to develop warp drive capability.

[Andres77]

I don't know but there's definitely some people I'd like to send to Mars.

[Waldoe]

we already sent a space probe, there is none, never was any

[Anonymous]

If anyone does that... hopefully they don't "accidentally" erase all data they gather... like the moon landing tapes...

[KrakenAttackin]

I would like to see a manned mission to Mars, but in the near term I would like to see an advanced probe sent to Europa.

[OddBeMe]

Can we have other mission objectives too? I think its highly improbable. But if this was a side project of say mining or looking for water, then sure.

[shortster]

I think that finding life on Mars should be a secondary goal for any future missions to Mars, manned or unmanned. That the primary goal should be colonization. As Mars is a good stepping stone towards learning how to expand out into the galaxy.

[KelleyNice]

It is important to know if life exist anywhere in the universe other than earth. It is impossible to colonize Mar. We can't even colonize the Antarctica which has an atmosphere, normal gravity, and is not near as cold as Mars.

[shortster]

It is possible; it just isn't financially feasible right now.

[exitseven]

yes, space is the final frontier.

[FunkyMonkee]

I guess but, there WAS life on Mars. Us!!

[KelleyNice]

NASA sent two pairs of orbiters and landers toward Mars in 1975. Viking 1 and Viking 2 both arrived at the Red Planet in 1976, and sent their lander to the surface while the orbiter remained working above. However, no humans went to Mars.

[FunkyMonkee]

Not yet but, we're working on going back there.

[Preeti161101]

US , Russia, Chinna and India is trying it