Mars - Life

Methane gas could be evidential of life or just volcanic activity and can be manufactured by the Sabatier process from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The issue is surely where does it all go from here? Except, of course, attracting vast amounts of money to follow up and search for more bugs. It is not surprising that some form of life would inevitably be 'uncovered'. But allegedly just bacteria. So what?

In the primordial pond-life soup on Earth that is supposed to have ultimately produced human life and all the other species on the way, what does this new find actually demonstrate? That life (of sorts) can exist in very cold places and without oxygen. Life can exist in very hot places. And highly acid environments. Looking backwards into such an unknowable past (100s of millions of years ago), forms of life that possibly exist somewhere today do not really move human endeavours onwards and forwards to anywhere. It's an extraordinary backward leap into a future.

Such a fantastic (alleged and speculated find on Mars) is almost as fabulous as finding the HIV virus and claiming the discovery of life. This does not help to improve the quality of human thinking. It's currently so confused and backward that humans will (possibly) be known for being a very 'advanced' species that was so healthy in its economic attitude that it became extinct.

Money and fame are the two drivers to truth.

What a legacy. It would be more enlightening to discover life at a more advanced level than human (that has managed to survive) as something to encourage human endeavours. To consider the discovery of methane gas as important is really quite pathetic. Methane has been found on other planets. Why should such a discovery on Mars be anything more than just... ...interesting? It's the best (only) justification for continued searching and investing financially. This is nothing more than the spring board to more funding for that mooted manned trip to Mars. And where would that go? Far beyond scrutiny and nothing more than faith in the honesty and integrity of mankind. That some have integrity and honesty does not demonstrate the true nature of Man. Fraud is rampant everywhere on Earth and relies on faith and trust to work.

Hope is a rotten word by implying a future event that may happen. It might not happen, but this can never be tested. Politics offers many examples of hope for the future. If it's anything like the alleged Apollo affair and the Moon landings, it would be that much easier to create the hoax since Mars is so far away and it would be impossible to monitor events. The Moon itself is distant enough to deny any real evidential proof that a human has landed on the Moon. Space junk maybe, but human life? Space is a dangerous environment and human life is just too vulnerable for existence in transit to such a hostile place let alone being there.

There is a great deal about Moon that doesn't stand up to a forensic-type analysis, but 'accepted' explanation does not counter dogma.