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Michio Kaku: The Search for Life on Mars | Big Think

Big Think | March 21, 2026



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Where should NASA go to look for intelligent life on Mars? To get to the truth, journalists say follow the money. Astronomers say follow the water. Dr. Michio Kaku says “if you were a Martian on Mars three billion years ago when Mars was probably a lush environment with liquid water oceans—and you realized that the water was escaping to the icecaps, escaping into outer space or going into the permafrost,” then you would “probably go either into outer space to leave Mars or drill into the permafrost or go into the polar icecaps. So I think that’s what NASA is going to do next.”
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MICHIO KAKU:

Dr. Michio Kaku is the co-founder of string field theory, and is one of the most widely recognized scientists in the world today. He has written 4 New York Times Best Sellers, is the science correspondent for CBS This Morning and has hosted numerous science specials for BBC-TV, the Discovery/Science Channel. His radio show broadcasts to 100 radio stations every week. Dr. Kaku holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York (CUNY), where he has taught for over 25 years. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study as well as New York University (NYU).
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TRANSCRIPT:

Dr. Michio Kaku: Congratulations to NASA! NASA scored a gold medal on Mars, a ten. It was a perfect launch, perfect execution, and the dismount was a perfect ten on the Red Planet. But that’s just the first step of many steps to come. Next we want to go to perhaps the polar icecaps or perhaps even drill underground.

If you were a Martian on Mars three billion years ago when Mars was practically a—probably a lush environment with liquid water oceans—and you realized that the water was escaping to the icecaps, escaping into outer space or going into the permafrost, where would you go? Journalists say follow the money. Astronomers say follow the water. And if the water is going to go into outer space, underground or the polar icecaps, you would also probably go either into outer space to leave Mars or drill into the permafrost or go into the polar icecaps. So I think that’s what NASA is going to do next. Of course, it’s more difficult to land on the polar icecaps because the terrain is quite rocky.

Also, rock retrieval; we need to actually take rocks from Mars and bring them back to earth because we have tantalizing evidence that possibly microbial life existed on Mars. We have Mars rocks right here on the planet earth, and when you slice them open you see little tiny, squiggly things that look like multi-celled organisms. Well, we’re not sure. It’s a raging debate. Some people say bah-humbug, it’s nothing but a crystalline structure that seems to look like a multi-cell organism. The result of the question is we have to have rock retrieval and after that I think perhaps we should put a blimp or a helicopter on Mars. Now the atmosphere of Mars is quite thin, only one percent the atmospheric pressure here on the planet earth, so the wings of the helicopter or the size of a blimp would have to be different to compensate for that.

And then of course we should try for a manned mission to Mars. But let’s be real. It’s going to be expensive and it will take time. It costs $10,000 to put a pound of anything into near earth orbit. Imagine your body made out of solid gold and that’s the cost to put you into orbit around the planet earth. To put you on the moon costs about $100,000 a pound. To put you on Mars costs about a million dollars a pound. So think twice before you think that we’re going to go to Mars with astronauts in the next few years. It’s going to take decades to prepare for a manned mission to Mars.

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Comments

This post currently has 44 comments.

  8. @SLiceOfFun1994

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    Today they are already preparing for a team to go to Mars. In 2024 I think will be the launch. Sad thing is the 2nd sample space shuttle exploded when it tried to land.

  10. @mkivy

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    Why why why… why should we waste money on traveling to another world when only a handful of humans will go and I predict we will loose several humans before we realize that the endeavor is wasteful!

  30. @silashellebrand462

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    since my brother was very young he's been having these unexplainable dreams where he is somewhere in the galaxy and whenever he gets injured in one of them he feels it, physics apply, but I'm not here just to talk about his dreams I should get to the point in one of his dreams he goes to mars he goes inside a crater there's a civilization down there and they actually know about us they have these devises that record what goes on here

  31. @Georgeee1995

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    "It's going to take decades for a manned mission to mars." Or it could take only a couple of years if we would put "money" aside and see the bigger picture.

  34. @biljitzu607

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    can someone help me? I really think I found something on google mars that is earth shaking…" " I need help finding who to contact???? any ideas?

  35. @thomasgrabowski2202

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    We need to focus human relations and interactions and building better individuals. We are so glued to technology that it tearing away from our human instincts. I am not talking about technology that can make advancements but the stuff that wastes time. Lets be honest, there is a lot of wasting here. Focusing on unconditional love for ourselves sharing it by accepting others unconditionally is the right start. Living in the moment with people and ourselves and focusing our logics to science.

  36. @KluorpivhlanderP

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    anyway waht we have i mars robots, but NASA wont tell us about life on mars if they'll find it, anyway mars is prety much dead now, back then it had oceans and life of course, in my opinion if we'll find life on mars that im sure, its gonna be bacteries or other micro-organisms and that will be big evidence of lfie on other planets with curent gen. tech. we are able to do this.

  39. @Unluckyamateur

    March 21, 2026 at 6:34 am

    Octavio, we had plenty of chances to reduce the need for currency, but the greedy politicians made it so they couldn't see the light of day. Like those water power cells or the tesla coil, both would remove the need for polluted sources of energy.

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