Posts tagged life beyond
Mars Life Search To Go In High Gear
Looking to make planetary exploration lemonade out of budgetary lemons, NASA says it is open to taking a quicker route to the holy grail of Mars — learning if there is or was life there.
Citing lack of budget, the Obama administration wants to pull out from a flagship expedition with Europe to return soil and rock samples from Mars.
The point of the multibillion-dollar, multi-spacecraft campaign, slated to get under way in 2016, is to determine if Earth’s neighbor has or ever had life. NASA was to provide the launches, landing system and some science instruments, among other contributions.
Even if Congress nixes a U.S. pullout from the project, it may be too late. Europe already has a new partner for the mission — Russia.
