The Search for Extant Life on Mars @ Foresight Space Workshop ’23

Carol Stoker’s presentation at the Foresight Space Workshop ’23 delves into the fascinating topic of the search for extant life on Mars. She provides an overview of the pioneering Viking missions in 1976, which detected metabolism on the planet but faced challenges in confirming it as biological. Stoker then explores the three potential habitats for life on Mars: salts, brines, ground ice, and caves. Salts, including perchlorate brines, have the potential to create liquid water environments, while ground ice contributes to saturated conditions. Mars caves, with their warmer and wetter conditions, offer the possibility of habitable environments. However, Stoker highlights the limitations of previous Mars missions, which primarily focused on rocks and lacked the necessary instrument capabilities for identifying biosignatures of life. Moreover, she emphasizes the potential conflict between sending humans to Mars and the search for life due to contamination risks. Assessing the risks of human exploration on Mars, particularly the consequences of bringing Martian biology back to Earth, is crucial before any manned missions.