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Astrobiology

NASA Can't Figure Out What Astrobiology Is – Or Who Does It

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
June 19, 2019
Filed under ,
NASA Can't Figure Out What Astrobiology Is – Or Who Does It

Keith’s note: If you visit the NASA Mars 2020 website and go to the Science page it talks about the mission’s strategy as being to “Seek Signs of Life” on Mars. That is what NASA’s Astrobiology program does, right? Alas, this JPL website does not use the word “astrobiology” – anywhere. Not even in the Instruments page. Nor does this other JPL website on the mission.
Oddly If you go to the NASA Mars Exploration Program page on science there is a link to “Astrobiology” which refers to Mars 2020. If you go to the NASA Astrobiology page on Mars 2020 it describes the Mars 2020 mission as a mission with lots of Astrobiology on it.
If you go to the main NASA science page (which makes no mention of “Astrobiology”) and use the search function to search for “astrobiology” you get a search results page that says “no results found” but has some old Astrobiology press releases from 2008.
Oh yes the NASA Mars 2020 website has two different addresses: https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/. Then there is another Mars 2020 webpage at NASA HQ which does not point to either of these web links but points to yet another Mars 2020 page at NASA HQ instead.
Why are these parts of NASA incapable of presenting a common description of this mission and/or its relevance to Astrobiology?
Overhauling NASA’s Tangled Internet Presence, earlier post
NASA’s Semi-Stealth Astrobiology Mission, earlier post
Dueling NASA Websites Update, earlier post
NASA’s Astrobiology Programs Ignore One Another, earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.