NASA found clues of life on Mars, but budget cuts threaten future missions

An exciting discovery on Mars is being overshadowed by turmoil at NASA, with budget cuts threatening to destroy a scientific legacy that has been built over decades.

Yesterday, the agency shared a finding, published in Nature, of potential biosignatures identified by the Mars Perseverance rover in a 3.5 billion-year-old rock.

“This very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars,” said Transportation Secretary and Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy in a press conference.

Scientists involved in the research were careful to emphasize that the findings — related to unusual textural features of rocks sampled in the Neretva Vallis region in Mars’ Jezero crater — are a possible, but certainly not definitive, indicator that microbial life could have existed on Mars billions of years ago.

The features observed in the rock on Mars, nicknamed “poppy seeds” and “leopard spots” due to their appearance as black dots and ring shapes with dark rims, are typically seen on Earth as the result of microbial life. But there could be other, non-biological explanations for how these features were formed.

“This is the kind of signature that we would see, that was made by something biological,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “In this case, it’s kind of the equivalent of seeing leftover fossils.”

The announcement, while certainly intriguing, comes at a troubled time for NASA. These findings were initially announced in July 2024 and have been going through the usual slow and steady process of scientific peer review. For the agency to hold a press conference to reiterate findings that have already been announced is somewhat unusual — and, a cynic may argue, an attempt to divert criticism away from the issues currently roiling the agency.

Donald Trump’s administration continues to push for enormous cuts to NASA’s budget, including a 47 percent cut to the overall space science budget; termination of two supporting Mars missions, the MAVEN and Mars Odyssey orbiters; pulling out of a joint project with Europe’s space agency to look for further evidence of biosignatures on Mars; and slashing the Perseverance budget by nearly a quarter.

Experts say these budget reductions could have brutal consequences on the agency’s ability to do space science. The cuts are “draconian,” The Planetary Society’s Casey Dreier tells noti.group, particularly as the new potential biosignature detection “only underlines the unique value of space science at NASA.”

To return or not to return

But the most glaring elephant in the room is the administration’s proposal to entirely cancel Mars Sample Return, the mission designed to return the very samples that Perseverance has been collecting to Earth for further study. Though scientists have long debated whether sample return should be a priority for Mars science, most agree that with the samples already collected by Perseverance, it would be unforgivably wasteful to give up on the mission now.

That’s because it’s simply not possible for a current-generation rover, even with its impressive array of instruments, to determine whether a given rock contains definite indications of life — a point emphasized by the lead author of the new research, Joel Hurowitz of Stony Brook University.

“What we need to do from here is continue to do additional research in laboratory settings here on Earth, and ultimately bring the sample we collected from this rock back home to Earth to make the final determination for what process actually gave rise to these fantastic textures,” Hurowitz said.

When pushed on whether the administration would therefore reassess its priorities and support Mars Sample Return, Duffy equivocated. Referring to “manned” exploration, an outdated term that NASA itself has not used in decades, he said that Mars science was important for future human exploration, and that “this is consistent with the president’s vision and mission of continuing the science to support human exploration beyond Earth.”

There is arguably some connection between robotic Mars exploration and human exploration of the moon — the Perseverance rover carries small samples of spacesuit materials to see how they withstand wear from exposure to the Mars environment, for example — but the link is tenuous. The missions to determine whether microbial life was ever present on Mars billions of years ago, and the aim to send astronauts to the moon today, are vastly different projects requiring separate technologies and approaches.

This points to a broader schism that appears to be developing within NASA: whether the focus of the agency should be on human exploration and sending astronauts to distant locations for the sake of bragging rights over China, or whether it should be on the less flashy but ultimately more important path of scientific discovery, primarily through the more efficient means of robotic exploration.

Even the administration’s plans for human exploration of space have not been without controversy. At an internal employee town hall this week, Duffy reportedly warned NASA staffers that they should not “let safety be the enemy of progress,” with a priority of beating China to the moon.

This outlook has experts like astronomer Phil Plait deeply worried. “This attitude blows up rockets and kills the crew,” Plait wrote, recalling previous NASA disasters such as the loss of the Challenger and Columbia shuttles and their crews, which were blamed in part on an agency culture that discouraged staff members from raising concerns.

Though the administration may continue to claim it is promoting American excellence in space, the budget cuts it is attempting to push past Congress tell a different story.

“The contrast here is striking — we are capable of pursuing the historic breakthrough science. And we see hints of such astonishing discoveries today,” Dreier said. “Instead, the White House has proposed to unilaterally abandon this effort … I hope that this causes some reflection within the Administration about the unique capability they are proposing to eviscerate, and how much would be lost if we did so.”