Mars Couldn't Support Life

According to NASA, Mars once had flowing water on it, but that water was far too salty to have ever supported life. Or at least, it was too salty to support any microbes that we know about.

They found that no known microbes could have survived in the salty and highly acidic waters that once flowed there.

[. . .] But new data from the [O]pportunity rover, which has been wandering the surface of Mars for almost five years, suggests the water that once flowed into the craters and valleys of the planet was far too salty to support most forms of life.

According to NASA, life on Mars would have been very challenging for even the toughest organisms any time over the past four billion years.

From JPL's own article:

Experiments with simulated Martian conditions and computer modeling are helping researchers refine earlier assessments of whether the long-ago conditions in the Meridiani area studied by Opportunity would have been hospitable to microbes. Chances look slimmer. "At first, we focused on acidity, because the environment would have been very acidic," Knoll said. "Now, we also appreciate the high salinity of the water when it left behind the minerals Opportunity found. This tightens the noose on the possibility of life."

So can we go ahead and terraform it now?

Oh, but wait. NASA has more science robots to send first: "The Phoenix lander, on course to reach Mars on May 25, will assess habitability of a shallow subsurface environment of icy soil farther north than any earlier mission has landed."

Are we really going to have to wait until we've researched every last cubic inch of Mars before we start making it fit for human habitation? Too much science! Not enough engineering! C'mon guys. NASA needs to get their priorities realigned.