Whenever any sort of discovery is made in space, it is always viewed through the lens of a search for life.
Organic compounds on Churyumov-Gerasimenko? The building blocks of life! An ocean on Europa? Great place to look for life! Water on Mars? That could mean life!
I wonder how these discoveries might have been received 50 years ago, back when America was actually working to put humans on other worlds. Would we have thrilled over Martian water because of the prospect of finding microbes? I wasn’t there, but I think we would have been more interested in water because of its usefulness to humans. Whether or not there were microbes would have been a secondary consideration, viewed through the lens of human exploration. Continue reading Life on […]
