Mars Extant Life: What's Next? : November 5-8, 2019, National Cave and Karst Research Institute, Carlsbad, New Mexico ; Mars Extant Life: What's Next? 2019 (LPI Contrib. No. 2108)

Focused on understanding and discussing strategies for exploring for extant life on Mars. We are especially interested in hypotheses that can be tested by means of robotic spacecraft sent to Mars, and hypotheses that can be tested with or without the benefit of sample acquisition systems. The four primary questions posited are: Where would new robotic spacecraft be sent to test for extant life on Mars? What would they sample? What would be measured in such samples? Are there viable strategies that don't involve sample collection? ; Institutional support, NASA Mars Exploration Program, Mars Program Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, NASA Astrobiology Institute, Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research Association. ; Conveners, David Beaty, Mars Program Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Penelope Boston, NASA Astrobiology Institute, Brandi Carrier, Mars Program Office, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, Lindsay Hays, NASA Astrobiology Program, Michael Meyer, NASA Headquarters, Mary Voytek, NASA Headquarters, Science Organizing Committee, Corien Bakermans, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona, Tom Kieft, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Richard Leveille, McGill University, Rachel Mackelprang, California State University, Northridge, T. C. Onstott, Princeton University, Richard C. Quinn, NASA Ames Research Center, Andrew Schuerger, University of Florida. ; PARTIAL CONTENTS: Searching for Martian Bio-Indicators and Extant Life Using Spacecraft / C. C. Allen and D. Z. Oehler -- Terrestrial Permafrost as a Model for Microbial Growth at Low Temperatures: Implications for Mars Extant Life / C. Bakermans and L. G. Whyte -- Human Forward Contamination Assesment: Towards Protecting Potential Extant Life on Mars / M. S. Bell, R. E. Davis, A. B. Regberg, M. A. Rucker, and S. L. Wallace -- Detecting Extant Life on Mars. An Instrument Design that Avoids Guesswork / S. A. Benner -- Detecting Life ...