What could lead from here to a teeming biosphere, I wondered, but also to an empty rock like Mars?
Although dubious about the funding, the technology and the impact of radiation, Love applauds small enterprises like Mars One.
They have come in because they know sponsors like Mars can have success.
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Like all Mars subsidiaries, she said, the company doesn't market to young children.
Unmanned probes and landers like the Mars Rovers have been able to explore terrain, take measurements, analyze samples and send reams of data back.
Mars is more like Earth than any other place in the known universe, and while astronomers now believe there may be millions of earth-like planets in our galaxy, Mars is the only one that is within reach.
For years, he had been making the case that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) would be the best way to test for the existence of Earth-like DNA on Mars.
This is the kind of subtle detail the scientists are looking for as they build a picture of what conditions were like on early Mars and the possibility that the planet could once have harboured simple lifeforms.
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It seems there are now going to be two kinds of planets: the real thing, like Earth and Mars and Jupiter, and then something called plutons, which are funny things that are kind of planets and kind of not planets.
And it would help the mission to land humans on Mars because it "looks a lot like sending a crew to Mars and returning them safely, " Grunsfeld said.
Some scientists suspect Mars once sheltered primitive, bacteria-like organisms and previous missions found evidence Mars at one time boasted ample quantities of water.
Oh, and it would really rather like to go to Mars, someday, if at all possible.
At the news conference, Lansdorp said he'd like to go to Mars himself, but he isn't because his girlfriend won't come along.
Some are asking why the MPL did not bounce onto the surface like the highly successful Mars Pathfinder spacecraft of two years ago.
The first two are plentiful in outer space, and mounting evidence, like recent photographs of Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa, suggests that water is plentiful as well.
This find is just one more piece of the puzzle about what Mars looked like hundreds of millions of years ago, when there was water on the surface.
Data from the Sharad (SHAllow RADar) instrument (on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter), document that some of these glacial-like features, which you find at Mars' mid-latitudes, have a significant volume of ice left below a surface of rock debris.
The atmosphere of Mars today is like the Earth's atmosphere is like at 100, 000 feet.
Russia and China also have ambitions for new space exploration but some argue that future trips are best left to robots like the rover now on Mars.
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"We're about to start a major project with the UK Space Agency, putting our sensors onto things like landing vehicles for the Mars rover, " Mr Howard said.
Some scientists said they thought they saw evidence of tiny fossils that looked like dried-out life from Mars embedded in the meteorite.
Flying high in the earth's atmosphere, where the air is thin, is, he says, rather like flying near the surface of Mars.
In this way, things like rocket engines, satellites, Mars-exploring rovers, space suits, and water purifiers on the International Space Station become part of everyday life on Earth.
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You've explored your scientific curiosities just like NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars.
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"To us it just looked like somebody came along the surface of Mars with a jackhammer and lifted up the sidewalk that you might see in downtown LA at a construction site, " he joked.
Not a lot to smile about at Dodger Stadium except a Korean pitcher named Hyun-Jin Ryu who looks good and a Korean entertainer named Psy who comes to a game to dance in the aisles between innings while a wide-eyed Tommy Lasorda looks at him like he's a man from Mars.
Looking like a sportier version of NASA's Mars Rover, the first wireless, Web-connected robot sees, hears and speaks for you.
The base will actually be built inside a real crater and the daytime temperature of -23 degrees Celsius is like a nice summer's day on Mars.
The expatriate crowd is leavened by plenty of locals, who come to sample items like chips with curry sauce, and fried Mars bars, a delicacy unknown outside Scotland and out of fashion even there.
The polled executives represent almost every industry including consulting, manufacturing, advertising, architecture, accounting and education, and companies and institutions like Accenture, ArcelorMittal, Mattel, Mars, Novo Nordisk, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Siemens, Sodexo, and the University of Denver.
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