where should a manned mission land on Mars to search for signs ancient or otherwise existing life?

Question

provide scientific justification of your choice of location

Answer 1

The best place to land a manned mission to Mars for the purpose of searching for life on Mars would be somewhere that was believed to have had water before the planet "dried up". Water is the key for life (at least as far as we know it). Also from recent missions they believe they have evidence suggesting that there is a large concentration of water ice in Mars' southern hemisphere. So this would also be a good bet for a good landing sight for a mission. As for a specific place, in my opinion I would probably land near a canyon as this probably means that it used to be a river of somesort. I would try the Hellas Basin.

Answer 2

Your question wrongly assumes that a manned science mission to Mars would devote a lot of resources to search for clues of life. It wouldn't.

What would devote a lot of resources on life on Mars, however, would be the political campaign to get the financing for a Mars mission politically accepted.

The reason for that has nothing to do with Mars life and everything to do with Earth life: most tax payers in the US are simply not interested in UNDERSTANDING the basics of planetary research. As a result, the politicians who are pushing the Mars mission on behalf of their real constituents, the aerospace industry, will tell an elaborate lie to make it easier for the "little man on the street" to swallow the price tag of $250 billion to a trillion dollars.

The scientists will, of course, have to go along and do some "life on Mars" search, which they will find highly unsatisfactory as a "primary" science goal (because it takes valuable resources away from the real work). But there will be a lot of REAL science be done in parallel, all of which has to do with understanding planetary atmospheres, interaction with the solar wind, surface chemistry, geology, climatology, the history of the solar system etc.. And, yeah, some people will write a few papers about how they have not found any life and how the chemistry makes protein based life basically impossible. The same papers that were written years ago... just with more and better data in the background.

And as a result, the real believers in Martian life will spin another set of conspiracy theories on how the government has found giant ancient cities with future technology etc.. and has covered it all up. Right.

Answer 3

each challenge that NASA performs ought to have congressional approval, a particular fund volume precise, and can't deviate from this script. Congress has in basic terms appropriated money to NASA's Human Spaceflight courses for Low Earth Orbit missions, no exceptions, ever through fact the Nixon administration canceled the Apollo challenge. A manned software to return to the Moon replaced into approved by using G. W. Bush, yet canceled by using the Obama administration some year in the past. So now, even the Constellation software seems to be killed off. keep in mind, now that each and all of the companies that had contracts for the Apollo missions have had to alter their centers to the desires of as we communicate's marketplace, or went out of employer, the startup costs for manned spaceflight previous Earth orbit would be severe. and finally, the obtrusive answer is... our robotic probes can do ninety% of the failings human beings can do on Mars, with 0 threat to existence or well-being of folk, and at approximately 0.002% of the full fee.

Answer 4

Well, you should probably try to land in a low, flat spot close to a high strata of rock. Then use a long arm to drill into the various layers and extract samples. But the machine that's on its way now can only grab soil around its base and can't move once it's down and planted. They might find something but I kind of doubt it. You really need to get into and under layers of rock.

Answer 5

Cydonia of course!

That is if you believe Mars ever sustained life!

Answer 6

Hi. Just about any site that shows signs of early water. http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/life/

Answer 7

life only exists on earth

Answer 8

polar ice caps. water in any form would indicate life is possible.