Space.com jumped the gun with an article with the headline: NASA researchers claim evidence of present life on Mars.
The intro is below:
A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water.
The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed.
What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.
These two scientists are colleagues of mine at NASA Ames. I am sure they are not happy to have this information leaked out of context of their journal article. And in fact, NASA has issued a correction stating that while their research suggests where to look for life on Mars, there is no data from Mars as yet to support any conclusions.
Whether or not they have really found evidence of life on mars, the article underscores a bitter irony facing NASA today. In order to support the new Exploration initiative (sending humans to the moon, and eventually to Mars), NASA is redirecting large portions of its funding away from science to pay for the construction of a new Crew Exploration Vehicle. The NASA research centers (including Ames, where I work) are being hit hardest by these cuts. The same scientists and technologists who have dedicated decades to support understanding and exploration (NASA Ames has been the center of excellence for Astrobiology and Intelligent Systems, among other things) are now faced with deep cuts to their research programs and the possiblity that the entire center will be closed. When I spoke with one researcher today, he said: "This is what I love, and what I want to do with my life." But given the dissolution of his world-class research group, he might just have to go work at google instead (joining several other NASA Ames alumni).
Wouldn't it be ironic if NASA finally sends humans to Mars, only to find that the experts to tell them where to look for life have all moved on to new jobs? Maybe this headline will be an alarm call to the new NASA Administrator to save the world-class institution before it is too late.
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