by nkrisc 14 hours ago
I’m curious why you seem to believe that all exploration of Mars would cease as soon as life is discovered there? It would be one of the biggest scientific discoveries of all time and would open up a huge number of possible future missions, for the next few centuries at least. It would also make for good justification for missions to other worlds that could harbor life.
Scientists can string out things. It is a means of securing funding for long periods.
I think there has been evidence of life in the Venusian atmosphere since the 80s and on/in Mars since the 70s.
Weak evidence for life, at best. Which is why exploration continues, to search for stronger evidence. If irrefutable evidence of life were found it would open up many new avenues of exploration and research that would need funding, with strong justification - much stronger justification than currently exists.
I don't think it was weak at all. We got two positive results from the Viking landers and then tried to explain them away. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence, which combined builds up a case.
The public believe we should be looking for cities and skeletons, when in fact we should be looking for extremophiles. It is possible that some of these are due to cross-contamination within the solar system (before human intervention), but that is another matter.
The two Viking landers, 6500km apart, had positive results. That would suggest that life is widespread and close to the surface. But the atmosphere of Mars is in chemical equilibrium, which means life can't be widespread and close to the surface because it is not affecting the atmosphere. If life is present on Mars it would have to be deep underground, perhaps in a geothermally heated brine lake, which would be very hard to detect with current technology. The Viking data was probably non-biological, it really isn't strong evidence for life today.
Two positive results that had non-biological explanations and a lack of any other significant evidence. Extreme skepticism is warranted.