Mars Expert With A Vision

When I met Chris McKay a few years back, at his NASA Ames Research Center office, he was excited. One gets the sense that he’s always excited.

And why not? He’s got an exciting job. He works for NASA and he’s an expert on figuring out how to look for life in strange places, especially Mars. In fact, behind his desk there was a large poster of Mars with his own hand-written red “x” on it near the north pole…and the notation “dig here.”

The Rock

But before talking about Mars, Chris showed me a rock. He’d just brought it back from Antarctica. “What do you make of this?” he said, handing me a flat whitish piece of stone. Not being a geologist, I looked at it…but couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Here. Hold it up to the light” said McKay. “You can see through it!”

Well, I couldn’t see through it, but light did pass through it at some of the thinner points. Unusual and unexpected. But I still didn’t get the point.

It turned out the point was this: life finds a way. In Antarctica, where it’s very cold (and there’s still somewhat of an icecap), light can pass down beneath the surface, and could allow buried plants to get sunlight…and undergo photosynthesis. McKay knows that life can exist under very severe conditions.

A Rose on Mars

McKay wanted NASA to land a robot on Mars, at the “x” near the north pole and dig. He said he told the engineers they needed to dig down ten meters at that spot. The engineers told him he was crazy. “I wanted to tell them to dig 100 meters down, but I didn’t have the heart to ask, ” said McKay.

Most people aren’t as enthusiastic about these kind of missions as McKay is. But he had an idea to change that. His idea was to put a rover on Mars with a clear dome on top. And, under the dome, grow a rose in martian soil, with the aid of some nutrients brought from earth. People would be transfixed by seeing photos of a living rose on Mars.

And who knows? Maybe there would be more public support and more money available for space missions.

NASA didn’t go along with this idea. There could be a downside. If the rose died, then what? It’s almost too depressing to think about.