Craig Venter (Human Genome Project, Craig Venter Institute, etc.) has previously proposed sending a small DNA sequencer to Mars to look for DNA on Mars, and the

Craig Venter (Human Genome Project, Craig Venter Institute, etc.) has previously proposed sending a small DNA sequencer to Mars to look for DNA on Mars, and then radio back any DNA sequences found back to Earth for study: http://www.space.com/24923-faxing-life-from-mars-craig-venter.html http://www.space.com/24923-faxing-life-from-mars-craig-vente... With a sequencer the size of a USB stick, that seems very plausible. Of course, it assumes that the same nucleotides are used by any microbes found on Mars.