On September 10, 2025, NASA announced (again) that it had found potential evidence for life on Mars. A few people asked me about it, so I’m dusting off (and updating) this Quora post from March 2014 on the subject. First, let’s discuss the most recent find, from a rock outcrop investigated by Perseverance in July 2024, last year. Speculation about this data, which is uploaded daily, has been rife in the community. Now the paper in Nature outlines the extraordinary efforts taken by the Mar...| Casey Handmer's blog
This week NASA announced evidence for life on Mars, for the sixth or seventh time. This time it was an incredibly cool rock, and would you believe the Mars Perseverance rover already has a sample, taken July last year, banked and ready for return to Earth? In addition to this, NASA has already been working on a Mars Sample Return mission for many years! Unfortunately, that mission has been “paused” for almost two years after costs grew from $7b to a projected $11b, and after $3b had alrea...| Casey Handmer's blog
It’s not news, at least in my circles, that much of the developed world is seeing economic stagnation. Last month Australia convened a Productivity Summit/Economic Reform Roundtable to try to…| Casey Handmer's blog
