Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Mars Life Explorer – a general engineering model for MLE with solar panels, drill, and science payload on lander deck.
Courtesy: Amy Williams

There is one topic about Mars that generates extensive debate and discussion. The weighty question that remains is whether there is life today on the Red Planet, perhaps lurking in some protected ecological niche on that far-off world.

How to dig into and get to the bottom of that inquiry appears to mean doing just that – go subsurface.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter carries the Shallow Subsurface Radar, also known as SHARAD. It is on the prowl for underground liquid or frozen water.
Credit: NASA

Prepared for NASA by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and released in April, the report — Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology 2023-2032 – addressed the issue of spotting life that’s alive and well on Mars today.

Enter the Mars Life Explorer or MLE in space short form.

For extensive details on this proposed spacecraft mission, go to my new Space.com story — NASA’s Mars Life Explorer mission would dig deep to hunt for Red Planet life – If approved by NASA, the life-hunting mission could launch in the 2030s” at:

https://www.space.com/nasa-mars-life-explorer-concept-mission

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