---
title: "Bill Nye: Humans May Be Descendants of Ancient Martians"
description: "Noted TV personality and public science advocate Bill Nye made an unusual pitch for NASA funding this week: that humans could be descended from Martians."
date: "2020-02-21"
modified: "2020-02-21"
authors:
  - name: "Jon Christian"
    job_title: "Executive Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/bill-nye-humans-descendants-ancient-martians"
categories:
  - "Off-World"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "bill nye"
  - "mars"
  - "NASA"
  - "the digest"
---

# Bill Nye: Humans May Be Descendants of Ancient Martians

![Noted TV personality and public science advocate Bill Nye made an unusual pitch for NASA funding this week: that humans could be descended from Martians.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/bill-nye-humans-descended-martians.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Ed Schipul\</em\>*

## Science Guy

Noted TV personality and public science advocate Bill Nye made an unusual pitch for NASA funding this week: We should fund the space agency because its research could nail down whether humankind is descended from ancient life on Mars.

"If life started on Mars first, it’s extraordinary but not crazy to suggest that you and I are descendants of Martians. That is an extraordinary hypothesis," he said in a [new interview](<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/bill-nye-space-q-and-a-115809>) with *Politico*. "It’s not that much money to change the course of human history."

## Big Pitch

As the head of the influential Planetary Society, Nye is lobbying Congress to crank up the funding for NASA. He told *Politico* his top priority is supporting the space agency's upcoming Mars rover mission, which will attempt the first-ever feat of sending Martian rock samples back to Earth.

"The first thing every congressman said is… Are they worried about contaminating the Earth with Martian dust?" Nye told the site. "My answer is yes! If you thought of it, they thought of it. Those rocket scientists thought of it."

## Space Case

Even more fundamentally, Nye sang the praises of space as an ideological project that represents hope and progress for humanity.

"Space is optimistic," he told *Politico*. "If you stop looking up and out, what does that say about you? Whatever it is, it’s not good."

**READ MORE:** ['It’s not that much money to change the course of human history'](<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/21/bill-nye-space-q-and-a-115809>) \[*Politico*\]

**More on Bill Nye:** [*Bill Nye on Terraforming Mars: “Are You Guys High?”*](<https://futurism.com/bill-nye-mars-terraforming-high>)

## Author
I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/jonchristian.net>)