Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
May 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agusm.p51a..02w&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2002, abstract #P51A-02
Mathematics
Logic
5470 Surface Materials And Properties, 5494 Instruments And Techniques, 6215 Extraterrestrial Materials, 6225 Mars
Scientific paper
The Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration (COMPLEX) of the Space Studies Board recognizes the importance of returning samples from Mars for study in terrestrial laboratories, and in a recent report (1) evaluating prospective missions to Mars it assigned the highest priority to sample return missions. The Apollo sample return, 30 years ago, dramatically illustrated the amount of information planetary samples contain, mostly on a microscopic scale, and the qualitative increase in our understanding of their host planet the return of samples can bring. Rocks contain a near-infinite amount of information on a microscopic scale, some of it crucial to an understanding of the rock's origin and history. Most in-situ studies of surface materials made by robotic spacecraft treat their macroscopic, not microscopic properties. At our present state of knowledge and technological expertise, and probably for the next several decades, it is unlikely that robotic in-situ exploration will have the capability of demonstrating to an acceptable level of certainty whether there once was or is now life on Mars. Results obtained from any life-detection experiment carried out by robotic means are likely to be ambiguous because (1) results interpreted as showing an absence of life will be challenged because the experiments that yielded them were too geocentric or otherwise inappropriately limited; (2) results consistent with, but not definitive of, the existence of life (e.g., the detection of organic compounds of unknown, either biological or nonbiological, origin) will be regarded as incapable of providing a clear-cut answer; and (3) results interpreted as showing the existence of life will be regarded as necessarily suspect, since they might reflect the presence of earthly contaminants rather than an indigenous martian biota. (1) Space Studies Board (2002) Assessment of Mars Science and Mission Priorities, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
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