Human Missions to Mars Must Search for Alien Life, Landmark New Report Finds

"The best reason to send humans to Mars isn't for guts or gloryor the construction of colonies to safeguard against existential Earth-bound risks. Instead it's to answer a single, simple question: Is or has there ever been life on Mars? That's the upshot of a new report published on Tuesday by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that presents an ambitious, science-centric vision for human missions to the Red Planetwith the search for alien life as their guiding star."

"The report attempts to bridge the gaps between NASA's science and its human spaceflight program in pursuit of a common goal, says report co-chair Lindy Elkins-Tantona planetary scientist who helms the University of California, Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, as well as NASA's Psyche mission. Learning how to blend these different disciplines is critical to our future as an interplanetary species, she says."

"The report lays out an additional 10 science objectives beyond the primary search for life and ranks four potential crewed campaigns, each composed of three sequential missions. The highest-ranking campaign suggests targeting an as-yet-unselected, geologically diverse 100-kilometer-wide exploration zone rich with near-surface glacial ice, where signs of past or present life might be found. That project would involve astronauts initially staying on Mars for 30 sols (Martian days)."

Human missions to Mars should prioritize determining whether life exists or has ever existed on the planet. A science-centric approach aligns human spaceflight objectives with planetary science and emphasizes blending disciplines to enable meaningful discovery. Ten additional science objectives complement the primary life-search goal, and four potential crewed campaign architectures are ranked. The top campaign targets a geologically diverse, as-yet-unselected 100-kilometer-wide exploration zone with abundant near-surface glacial ice where biosignatures could be preserved. That campaign would include three sequential missions and initial astronaut stays of about 30 sols to enable fieldwork and sampling aimed at detecting extant or extinct life.

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