Evolving Tomorrow

The Record’s newest adventure with Ayden Planker

The future has fascinated mankind for thousands of years. We’ve had prophets and fortune tellers for at least as long as we’ve kept written history, today is no different. Only now we have cutting-edge instruments and technology to help predict every facet of life. We have forecasts for finances, harvests, public opinion, weather… But have we advanced to the point where we can change our destiny, now, more than ever before? Evolving Tomorrow follows the twisted road to our future wherever it may lead.

Life on Mars?

By Ayden Planker

For millennia, the night sky has been a source of wonder and reverence for humanity. Before the time of satellites and telescopes, the stars served as compasses and calendars, and more than that, they inspired cultures and religions across the world. Yet it wasn’t until the year 1543 when Copernicus proposed heliocentrism that we began to suspect some of the lights in the night sky weren’t stars at all, but entire worlds. Seventy years later, Galileo Galilei, maker of the first astronomical telescope, laid eyes on our planets, and among them, Mars. Many names have been given to the red planet throughout history, names like Nergal, Ares, and Mangal, and we have viewed the planet as many things in that time, but if you’ve heard much about it in recent times, you might have even begun to view it as a habitat.

Space Research in the United States has been in progress since about the 1950s, and for the majority of that time it has been spearheaded by the United States Government first through the Air Force and then through NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It wasn’t until recently that the United States’ interest in space colonization began moving into the hands of the private sector. While NASA uses its funding for research and scientific exploration, the developing world of private astronomy has turned its interest to colonization and human spacefaring. For Mars, no company can be said to have more lofty goals than the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, known more commonly as SpaceX.

SpaceX emerged as a frontrunner in the sector with its first NASA partnership project Red Dragon but pivoted to its current flagship project, Starship, in 2017. Starship is focused on the development of reusable spacecraft; while the launch equipment shed by NASA’s single-use rockets is always collected to avoid pollution, its lack of reusability means that it will always end up as waste. Reusable equipment would be more environmentally conscious and economically valuable, saving money across launches through reuse.

In 2024, SpaceX had its first successful starship flight and launch gear recovery. That same year, the company stated their intention to send five starships to Mars during the 2026-2027 window, aiming to have a safe planetary landing by the end of it. Should the project fail, the company will have to wait years for the next window, but should it succeed, they aim to have their first manned mission to Mars before 2030. This mission would be designed for the establishment of a base on the planet that they hope to establish into a self-sustaining colony by 2050. The equipment needed would vary, but SpaceX has stated that it would need to produce fertilizer, oxygen, and fuel from elements of the planet. 

This colonization plan is not without controversy, particularly in its attachment to the company. SpaceX has faced criticism for its political outspokenness and its economic rivalry with Blue Origin Enterprises, a rival in the field who favors a lunar approach to private spacefaring. Through a series of legal skirmishes, the companies have battled over NASA partnership contracts, particularly centered on the Artemis program, and SpaceX has been accused of abusing its legal sway to eliminate competition.

This is only a small obstacle compared to the more recent developments surrounding Mars colonization. While the private industry views the planet as a new and exciting habitat for mankind, academics have recently made certain discoveries that indicate Mars might already be home to something much, much older.

Enter the Jezero Crater, a region 28 miles in diameter that, in the days before Mars’ atmospheric deterioration, had been flooded with liquid water. It was here that NASA’s Perseverance Rover detected small “leopard spot” formations on a rock, dubbed Cheyava Falls, from a dry river valley. These patterns were small areas of ringed-discoloration which were assessed by NASA scientists to be small point-reactions on the rock’s surface. This, combined with water’s importance to life and the ability of clay like that in the riverbed to preserve microbes, led them to study a sample of the rock using Perseverence’s laboratory tools. The sample, called Sapphire Canyon, was analyzed with the PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) and SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), two of Perseverance’s most powerful instruments, and it was found to contain three primary materials of note, those being sulfur, phosphorus, and chemically-organic carbon, the form of Carbon that can be found in living things.

Electric bacteria are a type of microbe that thrive in low-oxygen environments like water. While larger organisms like humans get their energy through nutrients, electric bacteria have the remarkable ability to get their energy by siphoning electrons from the materials in their environment, materials like the aforementioned carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus. On Earth, there are other processes that could yield near identical results but for the larger part these processes need some sort of ignition-element like heat or acid, both of which NASA is confident had no presence there in the Jezero Crater. With these possibilities deemed implausible, NASA has good evidence that at some point in history there was Martian life.

To prove or refute this theory, NASA would need to analyze the sample further, which means bringing it to more advanced labs on Earth or bringing a more advanced lab to where it remains on Mars. Because of how recent this event was, NASA has not yet stated any definitive plans for tackling this, but by publishing their findings they hope to encourage the academic world to formulate their own thoughts for life on Mars.

With this in mind, Mars colonization becomes a difficult subject. If life were to have existed on Mars, it is not implausible to think that it might still, and it would most likely share some origin with Earth bacteria. By bringing living creatures from Earth to Mars, we would be bringing Earthen bacteria with them. While Mars would have very little bacteria, Earth has plenty, which means that ours is likely to have evolved to be stronger and more aggressive than any we might find on the red planet. This would mean the introduction of the most drastically invasive species in history and if rampant, would spell extinction not only for a species, but for an entire biosphere.

Thus, the astronomical world is left with a dilemma. Thus far, no public information has come forward regarding Martian integrity and SpaceX’s planned projects, but SpaceX receives a substantial amount of its funding through government grants and contracts. If NASA values the science of Martian life over the expansion of Earth life to Mars, SpaceX and other private-sector entities focusing on the planet will likely be put between a rock and a hard place.

Whether as a bastion for new life or a longstanding home for old, Mars has undoubtedly crossed the bridge from astronomy into biology. What might be a promising new habitat could also be host to something far more valuable, and now, mankind is left with a question not of engineering and industry, but of ethics. Is our need to expand more valuable than the life we’d step over to get there, or can we balance innovation with the importance of life?

Life on Mars?

By Ayden Planker