68 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
LOCKHEEDMARTINBY NOLA TAYLOR REDDitching to put boots on the Red Planet.
Human exploration could certainly
improve the science performed on Mars,
but our arrival could also have important
implications in the hunt for life.
Whether or not life ever managed to
evolve on Earth’s red neighbor remains
an open question. Conditions on Mars
don’t support large creatures, but micro-
scopic life-forms may have once thrived
in the planet’s oceans. They may even
survive today in the sparse pockets of
water on and below the Martian surface.
If so, it’s possible they could be similar to
Earth’s life-forms: Life may have man-
aged to jump from one world to the other
by riding on rocks flung off their surfaces
by asteroids.
The alternative would be no less sig-
nificant. If Mars is barren, and research-
ers find that life evolved only on a single
planet in the solar system, it reveals how
difficult it is for living organisms to arise
in the first place, with implications for
the rest of the universe.
But there’s an automatic difficulty in
clearing up the mystery of “life on Mars,”
an inherent catch-22: Any astronauts
touching down to investigate life could
contaminate the area with their own
microbes, making it impossible to know
the truth. NASA has long had protocols
in place to limit such contaminations,
but with the increased pace of private
efforts, and the growing likelihood that
actual humans may reach Mars, those
standards might have to change.
Steve Clifford, a senior research sci-
entist at the nonprofit Planetary Science
Institute, thinks any human landings
made without serious precautions are
bad news. “If the commercial firms are
allowed to pursue their agendas, Mars
will be irreversibly contaminated when
the first human sets foot on Mars,” he
says. Right now, we’re stuck between our
ambitions and our curiosity.HALTING THE SPREAD
Interplanetary contamination is a
very real concern. When the Apollo
astronauts returned home after their
lunar jaunts five decades ago, they wereProtecting
Mars From...
Ourselves
As humans close in on the Red Planet, some
researchers worry the rules preventing
contamination are too stringent.Humans have walked on only two worlds in the solar sys-
tem — Earth and its moon. But it’s looking more certain
that Mars may be the next member of this exclusive club. Along
with NASA, private companies like SpaceX and Mars One areO
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OUT THERE
Future astronauts
landing on Mars,
as in this Lockheed
Martin illustration,
face a conundrum:
How do you study
alien life without
doing harm?