Life on Earth is basically proteins and DNA, so we can wonder if there is life on Mars will also be DNA and proteins, the same type of DNA, the same type of proteins. One might think that DNA is such a complex arrangement of molecules that it's unlikely to have the same set on another planet.

Equally we may find that DNA is also on Mars. It may be that our way is the only way of life.

On the other hand, we might argue that DNA is the optimal way to do it and that life is gonna discover this best possible solution no matter where it starts. So we're not sure if life will be different or the same, my guess is that it’ll be different. If life started separately on Mars, it'll have a different genetic structure than life on Earth.

But there will only be one way to find this out conclusively. To examine life in this detail, someone will have to get up close.

We really have to go find the facts, the facts on Mars, we're gonna go find them. We can hypostasize all we want but until we actually find the facts on the ground, we won't know for sure.

It means that someone will have to go to Mars. And it just so happens that there is an organization already preparing to go. Bo Maxwell is the UK President of the Mars Society, a group dedicated to colonizing our neighboring planet.

Humans by their very nature are explorers. In our time, we've traveled from the African Rift Valley, climbed mountains, crossed oceans and settled just about everywhere there is to settle on Earth. We've built our houses, our towns, our cities. And now the time has come to move beyond the Earth, and Mars offers us the very best opportunity to go to another world and settle somewhere else.

The Mars Society have their very own low cost plan to get to Mars. Bo is one of the masterminds. He's working on it from his home in Milton Keynes.

The aim of the Mars Society is definitely to go to Mars, we want to go there, we want to explore and colonize.

The advantage of sending humans to Mars is our greater ability to explore. We are much more efficient than robots.

Human beings have a tremendous advantage over robot vehicles. We have our own intuition, our own intelligence which leaves our robot vehicles standing. A human being on Mars can stand on the surface, he can look around, she can look around and instantly spot areas where life may well be possible and life may exist.

The discovery of water ice on Mars has reinvigorated their plans. Water is the one thing any colonizers would need.

rift valley: A deep fracture or break, about 25-50 km (15-30 miles) wide, in the earth's crust, creating an elongated valley bounded by two or more faults 这里是指东非大裂谷