NASA officially poo-poos idea of life on Mars

news.yahoo.com...

Two things of interest:

1) The "lethal dose of cosmic radiation" would indeed be lethal to humans, but certanly any "alien" life form would be physiologically different than we are, and therefore might be able to live under such conditions.

2) NASA themselves admit that Mars MAY contain life, beneath the surface. This, along with their admitted discovery recently that water may still exist on the planet, makes one wonder why/how they came to such a final conclusion that Mars is completely devoid of any life?

Let's hope that Richard Hoagland doesn't jump off a bridge now.

Your thread title is misleading as NASA never said life on Mars was impossible. They simply point out that life as we understand it could not survive on the surface due to the extreme radiation bombardment from space. They do say that life as we understand it could still exist below the surface.

They also mention that any life on the surface would have to be radically different from anything like Earth based life in order to survive.

The also plan on looking under the crust and the article even details some future missions that have that potential as well as discussing some specific locations worth investigating.

People love to bad mouth NASA, often without getting the facts right.