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During a hearing of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Tuesday, Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher managed to baffle and amaze when he asked about life on Mars.
[...] "You have indicated that Mars had a, was totally different thousands of years ago," the California congressman said, addressing a panel of space science experts.
"Is it possible that there was a civilization on Mars thousands of years ago?".
[...] Kenneth Farley — NASA Mars 2020 rover project scientist — had to start off his answer by correcting Rohrabacher's question.
"So, the evidence is that Mars was different billions of years ago, not thousands of years ago," Farley said.
[...] "Would you rule that out? That — see, there are some people — well, anyway," Rohrabacher said.
Farley answered: "I would say that is extremely unlikely."
Source: Mashable
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Saturday July 22 2017, @07:31PM (1 child)
Many here jumped to a conclusion that this is an instance of Young Earth Creationism, or a religious or political bent on it. It sounded to be more like someone confused about it, and its not unlike something you might here coming out of some Democrat as well like Pelosi who border on senility.
There have been however, some people, like Richard C Hoagland, quite far outside of any religious context, have made suggestions of past civilizations on mars, often around the face on mars controversy, and believe that the government is covering it all up. Many of these theories often revolve around it being an ET base from some other civilization based in another solar system. Hoagland was entertaining the possibility of his monuments being millions of years old.
Intelligent life is something quite different from something more simple, which is likely to be found there as some sort of fossil perhaps, maybe even some simple bacteria living there to this day. It doesnt sound to me like its possible that mars could have had its own home ground mammals or reptiles, not enough time for the prerequisites to come about like an oxygen atmosphere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 25 2017, @05:21PM
> It sounded to be more like someone confused about it
It certainly does. Unlike Ms. Pelosi or Mr. Hoagland, Mr. Rohrabacher is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. One might rightly expect him to be less confused.