Just on CNN now about NASA Da }-----)))))))*>

....or perhaps it is a pre-set excuse to invalidate any potential life forms found???

yep, that is exactly what I was thinking too.

Oh heres a link I found



[link to www.arcamax.com]






Sep 9, 2012 Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES -- For all the hopes NASA has pinned on the rover it deposited on Mars last month, one wish has gone unspoken: Please don't find water.

Scientists don't believe they will. They chose the cold, dry equatorial landing site in Mars' Gale Crater for its geology, not its prospects for harboring water or ice, which exist elsewhere on the planet.

But if by chance the rover Curiosity does find water, a controversy that has simmered at NASA for nearly a year will burst into the open. Curiosity's drill bits may be contaminated with Earth microbes. If they are, and if those bits touch water, the organisms could survive.

The possible contamination of the drill bits occurred six months before the rover's launch last Nov. 26. The bits had been sterilized inside a box to be opened only after Curiosity landed on Mars.

But that changed after engineers grew concerned that a rough landing could damage the rover and the drill mechanism. They decided to open the box and mount one bit in the drill as a hedge to ensure success of one of the most promising scientific tools aboard Curiosity. The drill is to bore into rocks looking for clues that life could have existed on the planet. Even if a damaged mechanism couldn't load a drill bit, at least the rover would have one ready to go.

Under the agency's procedures, the box should not have been opened without knowledge of a NASA scientist who is responsible for guarding Mars against contamination from Earth. But Planetary Protection Officer Catharine Conley wasn't consulted.

"They shouldn't have done it without telling me," she said. "It is not responsible for us not to follow our own rules."

Those rules required sterilization of any part of Curiosity that will touch the surface of the planet, including the drill bits and all six of the rover's wheels. The precaution was taken to preserve the ability to explore water or ice -- even if the chances of finding it were remote.

Conley, a microbiologist, said she learned about the unsealing of the box shortly before the launch. By then, it was too late to fix.


Read more at [link to www.arcamax.com]

Last Edited by Fish on 09/10/2012 02:06 PM

^^^^this^^^^

there is water on mars, as there is on the moon, and on comets, and in interstellar space, saturn and jupiters planets etc etc etc.

WHATS THE BIG FUCKING DEAL ABOUT WATER ON MARS?

i just dont get the subterfuge.

saturn and jupiters moons i meant to write

link?

They are merely seeding our future home.. since we've fucked this one up so badly.

Hint.. We won't all get to go.

Link



[link to www.arcamax.com]