QUESTION:
Now that we have found the bacteria in the meteriorite, what further
investigation will be done to prove the exisitence of life on Mars?

ANSWER from Jack Farmer on September 11, 1998:
There is still a lot of disagreement about the origin of the structures,
minerals and organic chemicals found in the meteorite from Mars. Simply
put, the evidecne we have so far is not at all definitive or compelling.
In fact there seems to be a broad concensus emerging from a number of
other
scientists who have also examined the meteorite that the things found
were not biological at all, but were all formed inorganically.
Therefore, the
whole question of life on Mars is still open and we must continue to
explore Mars in a way that will provide the answers we seek. There are
missions going on right now that will help us find the best places to go
on Mars to expore for evidence of past life, and we hope that by 2005 we
will be able to send a mission that will collect samples and bring them
back
to Earth for analysis in our labs here. From that highly targeted
sampling
we hope to have the observations we need to answer the question about
life
on Mars.

Jack Farmer