Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Getting straight

re: Getting straight
Greg — (archived)

One interesting aside to the MSR. I was on a mailing list at one stage and Mike Caplinger posted there regularly. The subject of MSR came up and the idea of an orbital facility and the need to slow down enough to go into orbit. At the time he worked it out and stated on the group that it is impossible to do, that the capsule could not contain enough propellant to slow down, it would end the whole idea.
I suspect then that is the real reason behind bringing it straight down to Earth.

The other point is we have found a lot of meteors and none of them have clear life signs, not even really indicating a livable environment. So there is no actual evidence that life has been raining down on us through history. If they do find life on Mars then the lack of it in meteors indicates this panspermia didn't happen for some reason and that the life on Mars will be different from here. It may be the meteors are an unlucky sample but that's the evidence we have.
A large impact like Hellas would be different as much more material over a wide area would go into space. If there was life there at the time it would almost guarantee some of it went into space and from there some fossils at least would have got here. So if contamination ever occured it probably happened then.
If there was a mingling of life forms it would then have happened early if at all, and we've all passed a lot of water over the bridge since then.

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