I did say their plan was "not a bad thing". I simply think it makes sense to include a friggin' microscope to analyze the drill samples. It could be a standard laboratory size microscope. This drone probe is the size of a small car. I can't believe they don't have the ability to put one on there to just look at the samples they drill. So what if Titanites are dissimilar to earth microbes?? If they are alive we will be able to tell. They'd be moving around and the bigger ones would be eating the smaller ones.
The sad truth here is that NASA is afraid that if they look for life and don't find it, funding will dry up for future missions like the way it did post Viking. So now they spread out the search for life over multiple probes... and decades... and lifetimes. Look for the "conditions to support life" a half dozen times. Look for biosignitures of life a few more times. Then maybe in a hundred years they'll finally send something to actually look for life itself.
Space/Science » in reply to Believe me, NASA knows what its doing.
To be fair
The whole thread (21 posts)
- Dragonfly mission to Titan
- Believe me, NASA knows what its doing.
- To be fair
- Dude...?
- Bro...?
- Microscopes are designed to identify EARTH microbes,
- NASA oversold the prospect of life on Mars in the 1970s
- Again, not a conspiracy
- Microscopes are designed to identify EARTH microbes,
- Bro...?
- Dude...?
- To be fair
- Believe me, NASA knows what its doing.