We had a race to the moon. And now it's a race to Mars. But now there's a lot more
players in this game, right? I mean, we've got
the Chinese and-- TRAVIS TAYLOR: Right now you've
got the three governments. You know, the
Russians, the Chinese, and the Americans are going
to get to the moon and Mars from a government standpoint. But I'm telling you, some
of these rich billionaires are going to get there whether
we want them to or not. DAVID CHILDRESS: And
they can probably do it a lot more cost effective
than these governments. Well, now that we're
getting close to Mars, do you think we'll find
some answers to a lot of our questions there? TRAVIS TAYLOR: Well,
I'll tell you one answer that I can't wait to find. There's a photograph
that you can still find it in the
database from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. And it shows like a
little pool of water and an iceberg and a cloud
all in the same picture. So I think we're certainly
going to find water. And if we're going
to find water, and we know it gets 67
degrees in the summer-- We find life. Absolutely that's what
we're going to find. GIORGIO TSOUKALOS: See,
but here's the thing that, you know, to me,
the life I'm looking for looks like you and me. It is humanoid in form. If we find bacterial life, OK. And in my opinion,
I'm going to say it. Big whoop. TRAVIS TAYLOR: That's what
most people, I think, will say, Giorgio. I agree. Let me tell you this, though. It's possible that Mars was
the blue-green planet here, you know, a billion years
ago, instead of Earth. And when whatever
happened to Mars, they migrated from
there to here. NARRATOR: Migration
from Mars to Earth? Some ancient astronaut
theorists have proposed the incredible notion
that the human race did, in fact,
originate on Earth's closest neighboring planet. And it is their belief that
all of humankind's journeys into space have been
leading towards a return to this ancestral homeland. While it may sound like the
premise of a sci-fi movie, some scientists have proposed
that based on what we've learned about the red
planet, this is not such a far-fetched notion after all. Mars, at one time in its past,
looked more like the Earth. It was a blue ocean world with
a significant amount of water. We know for a fact that
billions of years ago, when we were first getting started
here on Earth, Mars was a much more clement place,
a more clement world in its own. We know that it had thick
atmosphere to shield and blanket the planet. And it would have had organic
molecules, the building blocks of all life as we know it. So it stands to reason that
maybe Mars had its own genesis, its own origin of life. NARRATOR: If Mars was
once an Earth-like planet, could it have
supported human life? Curiously,
researchers have found a remarkable link between
human physiology and conditions on Mars. When astronauts
actually go into space, their circadian rhythms, their
body clocks change from 24-hour days to a 24.9-hour day. And that happens to be the
exact rotational period of a single day on
the planet Mars. Given the fact that our body
clocks are tuned to the planet Mars, not to the planet Earth,
that indicates to me that we actually came here from there. NARRATOR: Could we,
in fact, be Martians? And might this be why
we are so compelled to explore beyond Earth? In April 2020, NASA announced
that three private companies-- Blue Origin,
Dynetics, and SpaceX-- will compete to design
America's new human landing system, or HLS. Its ultimate purpose-- to
send astronauts to Mars. NICK POPE: I think
the next few years are going to be absolutely
pivotal in Mars research. We are seeing
mission after mission after mission going to Mars. And again, one might wonder why. Is it because when humanity
expands out into the cosmos, we are going to have to
have a planetary base and Mars is a good
place for that? Or is it because
scientists know or suspect that there's something there?
