Life on Mars

Life on Mars -- As someone who came of age in the Apollo era, the current fascination with and exploration of Mars is an exciting situation. As someone who cares about the [far] future of the human race, the need to understand other worlds (and eventually other solar systems) is clear and compelling. It really should have become a real world-wide effort. Hopefully, someday it will.

One of the things that have bugged me about the current exploration is the goal of looking for whether Mars might have been able to support life at some time in the [distant] past. Rather than obsess over water under the bridge or over the dam, we should be looking to the future and determining what kind of life it can support today and what we need to do to help that life. Nava Spivack agrees, in Minding the Planet: Humans Should Intentionally Seed Life on Mars. Why We Must Start Now., and makes a compelling argument for proactive action on this front.