I am happy we have a rover on Mars, but we have to stop calling it science. This is theater.

 

We recently celebrated the rover creating 10 minutes of breathable oxygen. That's great, but we knew it could do that before it left the laboratory on our humble planet. At the same moment in time, one of our largest countries faces an oxygen shortage due to a pandemic. Golf clap.

 

The purported purpose of the mission is to search for water (which we already know is there in very small amounts) and to search for signs of life. Okay. So then we land the rover in the middle of a desert? If you were to search for water and life on earth, would you drive out to Death Valley? 

 

If the goal is to search for life, there is a zone just due south of the polar ice caps which is the only place it would be. The Martian atmosphere, which is almost pure carbon dioxide, can't support life anywhere else. If the goal is to find life, why wouldn't we look where life could be, even if just microbial?

 

 

You seem to make an awful lot of assumptions here. I’m not sure they’re all correct. 

I make no assumptions when I ask questions.

 

Counterpoint, if you are not asking questions, you are assuming.

Changing the subject completely, I really like playing Terraforming Mars.