The real question is where did the water go and does it still exist somewhere on Mars? Finding a little bit of ice or water is one thing, finding an old streambed is another — but potentially finding an underwater ocean/ecosystem filled to the brim with undiscovered organisms makes me excited not only from a study of different organisms perspective but perhaps because the key to curing diseases that plague Earth might be found on Mars not to mention unlocking other discoveries like how to live longer and even more exciting finding organisms that don't age and have been alive since Mars was created.
My mind is teeming with excitement of the possibilities, is anyone else as excited as me?
If traces of life are found, however distant in the past, it seems quite likely that any Mars colony or even exploration would be delayed by decades, if not longer. Preservationists would be against any interaction whatsoever.
As someone who would take such a preservationist position, I think this is my best argument: It is morally inconsistent to think that super-intelligent life should leave us intact if we were found, and at the same time be willing to interfere with vastly less advanced life, for our own gain.
I totally get you; I'm really torn on it. But part of me hopes that there are signs life existed there, and that gets more people on board with wanting to get there to investigate more. Maybe it even raises interest enough to get people there quickly. I have a hope that once that starts, going there will be become more regular. But then I remember the moon...
Actually if we're going to colonize Mars a large source (like Great Lakes quantity) of accessible water would solve a number of problems. So yes, that would be quite exciting.
It would also be fun to discover that in its first billion years of existence as a wet planet Mars supported life in one form or another, simply to give us a data point in the probability function.
One of my favorite thought-experiments is to imagine what it would be like to have lived in a solar system that developed intelligent life on two independent planets in the same system.
Imagine what that would do to culture, mythology, technological development...
Without a strong magnetic field, solar winds would blow away the atmosphere -- water vapor included.
Earth has a hot, churning, iron core and therefore still has a strong magnetic field to protect our atmosphere from the solar wind. Mars cooled long ago and its magnetic field weakened.
My mind is teeming with excitement of the possibilities, is anyone else as excited as me?