I think you miss the point here Nick.
If Mars's surface was once covered with water or battery acid or some other fluid compound of water. At a time when impacts were happening often (geological time) to Earth and Mars and when the Earth was know to have life...
Then as the atmosphere was stripped and the "water" retreated into the subsurface then the odds go up that Mars has microbial inhabitants some 2 or 3 kilometer below the surface. I'm still sitting on the fence but I'm excited by the possibilities.
What make this all really interesting is it would be far enough down not to be effected by our activities on the surface for centuries yet accessible by men on the surface for study. The contamination issue could be pretty much nonsense, just chicken little crying out again.
I love science!
Space/Science » in reply to Unfortunately...
re: Nope it a fortunately...