Mars Explorations For Signs of Life - Is there any real hope of solving humanity's problems?

In 1999, NASA's attempt to landing on Mars failed because of a "software glitch". Mars explorations continue nonetheless as scientists rethink their strategies and launch again for a landing in 2004.

This search for signs of life - extraterrestrial life... How much real hope does it bring for us?

Is it a noble mission? Looking for life? What do scientists hope to prove? That God is indeed the awesome Creator the Bible portrays Him to be? Or, far from any desire to acknowledge the source of life, are they trying to prove that life originated from some cosmic blast?

The $820 million quest

The attempt to make a landing on Mars' Gusev Crater in January 2004 and to discover signs of life on the red planet is a $820 million voyage.

Is all this cost supposed to advance humanity? Sure, space exploration has done a lot in terms of medical and technological research. Although some of the products developed from the technology are beyond the financial grasp of the world's poorest peoples, we have learned a lot about our universe from these explorations.

Mars Explorations Timeline

1964

U.S. launches Mariner 3, which fails after liftoff.

1964

U.S. launches Mariner 4. First successful Mars fly-by in July 1965. The craft returns the first pictures of the Martian surface.

1964

Soviets launch Zond 2. Mars fly-by. Contact lost in May 1965.

1969

U.S. launches Mariner 6 and 7. The two spacecraft fly by Mars in July and August 1969 and send back images and data.

1971

Soviets launch Mars 2. Orbiter and lander reach Mars in November 1971. Lander crashes but orbiter sends back images and data.

1971

U.S. launches Mariner 8, which fails during liftoff.

1971

U.S. launches Mariner 9. Orbiter reaches Mars in November 1971, provides global mapping of Martian surface and studies atmosphere.

1973

Soviets launch Mars 5. Orbiter reaches Mars in February 1974 and collects data.

1975

U.S. launches Viking 1 and Viking 2. The two orbiter/lander sets reach Mars in 1976. Orbiters image Martian surface. Landers send back images and take surface samples.

1992

U.S. launches Mars Observer. Contact lost with orbiter in August 1993, three days before scheduled insertion into Martian orbit.

1996

U.S. launches Mars Global Surveyor. Orbiter reaches Mars in September 1997 and maps the planet. Still in operation.

1996

Soviets launch Mars 96, which fails after launch and falls back into Earth's atmosphere.

1996

U.S. launches Mars Pathfinder. Lander and rover arrive on Mars in July 1997, in the most-watched space event ever. Lander sends back thousands of images, and Sojourner rover roams the surface, sending back 550 images.

1998

Japan launches Nozomi. Orbiter suffers glitch in December 1998, forcing circuitous course correction. Mission fails in 2003.

1998

U.S. launches Mars Climate Orbiter. Spacecraft destroyed while entering Martian orbit in September 1999.

1999

U.S. launches Mars Polar Lander. Contact lost with lander during descent in December 1999. Two microprobes "hitchhiking" on lander also fail.

2001

U.S. launches Mars Odyssey. Orbiter reaches Mars in October 2001 to detect water and shallow buried ice and study the environment. It can also act as a communications relay for future Mars landers.

2003

European Space Agency launches Mars Express. Orbiter and lander to arrive at Mars in December 2003.

2003

U.S. launches Mars Expedition Rovers. Spirit and Opportunity rovers due to land on Mars in January 2004.

However, there are no signs that the high cost of these ventures is shedding any light on the dark craters of agnosticism and atheism in which many of these brilliant minds are languishing still. They still cannot see heaven's hope - the Creator's goodness.

At such high costs, it's a shame that the bulk of mainstream science watches and participates in these explorations and still is not able to see "How great Thou art?". In this sense, these ventures are almost a waste.

Hope to find life versus hope to save life

The scientists watch each venture with bated breath. Whether or not the mission is successful - maybe measured by a safe landing - there will be other missions.

One report on MSNBC early in January 2004 said of the Spirit mission, "If successful, the six-wheeled, 384-pound (175-kilogram) Spirit and its twin would become the fourth and fifth U.S. spacecraft to survive landing on Mars — following the two Viking landers and the Mars Pathfinder lander/rover craft."

"If neither survives, they will join the ranks of 20 other spacecraft from various nations that failed to successfully reach the planet."

One wonders how many lives could be saved at half the cost of each attempt to land on Mars. Hardly anyone would want to stifle our natural desire to explore and to know. But when our priorities are misplaced; I have to question.

People ignore the Bible's revelation of where we came from then spend billions of dollars trying to find validity in their notions of where life might have come from.

They choose not to embrace the sure hope of a better world and keep on spending millions on futile attempts of discovering a better planet.

Maybe it would be better if scientists rethink their hopes of finding extraterrestrial life and spend more time renewing the hope of saving lives on earth.

Are there signs of life elsewhere?

According to the Bible, earth is not the only place where created beings are found. We know from scripture that God also made the angels.

Humans were made "a little lower than the angels", (Psalm 8:5). And inthe King James version of the Bible we read the following statement:

"God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2   Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;" - Hebrews 1:1-2

Note the last phrase in verse 2 the phrase, "made the worlds". The plural certainly refers to more than just the earth.

So this raises some questions...

What if scientists find water on Mars (i.e. the sign of life that they are looking for)? That would not be a problem for the believer. We know God has been all over His universe. So what if he left a few molecules or some DNA on Mars?

It still doesn't say He doesn't exist and neither will that say He never created, although scientists will interpret this to be part of their evolutionary chain of evidence.

They might well find the "evidence" they seek. But there is an interesting description of the earth at the creation and this might be the condition of Mars.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." - Genesis 1:1-2.

Water was in our atmosphere (and on this planet) before God created the first trace of life here.

What if there is an abundance of water on Mars? We know that the Creator passed by there. In fact, He is there (and everywhere).

Would that cause evolutionists to stretch their "faith" a bit thinner in believing that, in the beginning there was "a bang!" Or will we all see that in beginning, God also made Mars?

It is in this discovery that God is everywhere that we find the real hope - heaven's hope - of solving humanity's problems. It is my hope, that you find and embrace heaven's hope for you.

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