Bummer! Just when I was hoping for Marvin the Martian to make an appearance not only is Phoenix experiencing difficulty but I read an article speculating Mars was a pickled egg from the beginning, so briny it could never have supported any life forms. The “Raiders of the Future” project presupposed Martian mummies to work with, but the amount of salt now supposed for the red planet since its formation would preclude any life to be mummified:

Mars may be too salty for life: Signs of water alone may not prove Martians exist(ed). By Andrea Thompson; Space.com. May 29, 2008. In 2004, NASA's Opportunity rover found evidence in Martian soils that water had once flowed across the surface there, buoying hopes that the red planet may once have supported primitive life. But a new study throws some cold water, and a big pinch of salt, on those hopes. "Liquid water is required by all species on Earth and we've assumed that water is the very least that would be necessary for life on Mars," said study team member Nicholas J. Tosca, a Harvard University postdoctoral researcher. "However, to really assess Mars' habitability we need to consider the properties of its water. Not all of Earth's waters are able to support life, and the limits of terrestrial life are sharply defined by water's temperature, acidity and salinity." Tosca and his team analyzed salt deposits in the 4-billion-year-old Martian rock investigated by Opportunity (and by spacecraft orbiting the planet). The new analysis shows that the water that would have flowed across these ancient Martian rocks may have been exceedingly briny. "Our sense has been that while Mars is a lousy environment for supporting life today, long ago it might have more closely resembled Earth," said Andrew H. Knoll, also of Harvard and on the study team. "But this result suggests quite strongly that even as long as four billion years ago, the surface of Mars would have been challenging for life. No matter how far back we peer into Mars' history, we may never see a point at which the planet really looked like Earth." The research was presented in February at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. Halophiles, or organisms that can tolerate high-salinity waters, are known to exist in places on Earth, but they likely evolved from organisms that lived in purer waters, scientists think, making it unlikely that life would actually arise initially in extremely briny waters. The high salinity, however, "doesn't rule out life forms of a type we've never encountered," Knoll added, "but life that could originate and persist in such a salty setting would require biochemistry distinct from any known among even the most robust halophiles on Earth." Knoll and Tosca also say the finding doesn't rule out the possibility that less salty waters once flowed on the planet, though Meridiani Planum, where the Opportunity rocks were found, is believed to have been one of the wetter, more hospitable places on the planet.

Whether Mars ever had life or not I believe space exploration is one of the few instances in which government has done good work. Unfortunately it has suffered mightily at the hands of political appointees and the typical government clones that are never held accountable for blunders resulting in loss of lives and enormous amounts of money. But when it comes to such massive spending including that involved with the Large Hadron Collider I’m reminded of the wealthy guy in the film Contact. Are the super wealthy hoping for the Fountain of Youth or possibly trying to establish a colony on another planet because they know something we ordinary humans don’t, something like the demise of our planet for example? For that matter, does Ray Kurzweil actually think he can live forever?

As a lover of SciFi all my life and having read so much by Ray Kurzweil and being on his subscriber list I was anxious to see him with Glenn Beck yesterday. But the most interesting part came when Beck asked him if he believed in the soul and Kurzweil demurred as though taken aback by the question, and with a slow shake of his head and slight smile replied uncertainly he wasn’t sure. So, despite the many contributions to futuristic thinking the matter of the soul and a resolution to the question is not yet in sight for Kurzweil, and those familiar with his writing and thoughts know there is allowance made for a spiritual dimension even in futuristic thinking.

In fact, this is one of the things most scientists are very cautious about; and due to the possibility of the soul and a spiritual dimension to life and the universe it is a question of just how far we want to go in allowing machines to do our thinking for us? It was one thing for Klaatu to display Gort as an answer to violence, but would we actually want machines without a soul to make the decisions as to which planets to obliterate? Well, first things first: Is there any such thing as a soul to even be concerned about?

Soul or not the decision may already be out our hands. Right now black holes in the Internet are driving some people nuts trying to get a handle on them. But computers are so much a part of controlling life worldwide that a massive crash poses the possibility of disasters of truly Biblical proportions. There are thousands of people trying to stay ahead of the curve as thousands attempt to hack, many of these maliciously trying to do real damage. There are many dangers facing our planet and our species, and while we need futuristic thinking and planning, the work of scientists and space exploration like Phoenix unless we can get a handle on the dangers posed by wicked people all such futuristic thinking, planning and work will come to naught.

Mars may have been too briny for life in any form from the beginning, but what are we doing for our own planet to ensure it remains habitable for human life? However, this requires the cooperation of nations too many of which are led by those caring nothing about the future of our planet. Gangs are terrorizing many cities of America, and litigation has blunted any effective countermeasures. And if what is happening to morals in America is any predictor as per the polygamists in Texas and elsewhere preying on children just what are the standards left? But when the means for an honest life is reduced to even the righteous stretching forth their hand to steal just to put bread in the mouths of their children hope of improvement becomes very dim.

On the bright side, Thoreau remarked about fish that had been packed in salt for years as a means of preservation. And then there is the story of Lot’s Wife. Carthage is said to have been strewn with salt by the Romans so nothing would grow. If some wicked people are determined to turn our earth into a pillar of salt by one means or another the best that may be hoped for is mummies inviting speculation from some futuristic race of extraterrestrials exploring our planet and trying to make sense of our species. Good luck to them; it seems we can’t make sense of it ourselves.