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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @08:55PM (2 children)
Where are you gonna get the water/air for that?
Mars doesn't have either in any significant volume; there's no evidence that it ever did.
...and what water it does have is sequestered at the poles in solid form.
...and Spirit|Opportunity didn't sink into sand when they were roving.
You are concocting scenarios that aren't the case on Mars.
...and lifeforms on Mars would need to be significantly different than where liquid water and oxygen-rich atmosphere are common.
Quit thinking that every place is|needs to be just like Earth.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @08:57AM (1 child)
Huh? This was based on the hypothesis that a long time ago Mars was more Earth-like. That cannot currently be ruled out as far as I know.
Besides, in a billion years there will be a lot of asteroid impacts alone, throwing material into the atmosphere and covering up the surface. Let alone small amounts of wind-spread erosion material building up over time. And even a small amount of atmosphere blowing around dust grains would erode buildings after awhile. I do not think you appreciate the timescale.
You seem to be responding to me as though this is some kind of crazy conspiracy theory or religious thing. I am just saying it is possible.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday July 23 2017, @09:38AM
A lot of people fail to grasp just how long 1 billion years is. Dinosaurs were around 1/10th of that time ago.