Astronomy / Space Mars Catch 22.
- Thread starter Surfinjo
- Start date
X-Terminator
Banned
It's salt water so we may have Mars fish but nothing to drink. It may make a great Spa though as gravity is also much lower. Just imagine, the first Fish & Chip shop on there!
They just need to ask these guys.
http://www.nature.com/news/lakes-under-the-ice-antarctica-s-secret-garden-1.15729
http://www.nature.com/news/lakes-under-the-ice-antarctica-s-secret-garden-1.15729
I think it's our responsibility to spread our contaminants as far as possible. This way when we screw this planet up, there's a chance some microbes will develop elsewhere. 
That's the general attitude, if Mars proves really dead - we'd be free to colonize it, terraform it, pollute it, do whatever we want with it. But if there's primitive native life there, it's generally held that "Mars should be for the Martians" and we should leave the place alone, and treat it like Antarctica - maybe build a few research stations, but no exploitation or full-blown colonization.
Which raises a couple of interesting quandaries.
It's nigh-on-impossible to prove or disprove a negative: "there is no life on Mars". How long do we have to look before giving up? What if there is life on Mars, somewhere, but it's hiding in places that are really, really hard for us to detect it? Like deep under the icecaps, or 20km down in extinct volcanic vents? What do we do if we decide "Yep, Mars is dead, let's go Humanize the place", only to find later that we were wrong and we weren't the only Martians?
What if the life we discover on Mars turns out to be genetically indistinguishable from Earth life? Would we still say, "Mars for the Martians", or would we dismiss this life as descendants of long-ago accidental stowaways from Earth rocks blasted into space? Would we still leave the Martian microbes in peace if it turned out they were just colonists from Earth, too?
Which raises a couple of interesting quandaries.
It's nigh-on-impossible to prove or disprove a negative: "there is no life on Mars". How long do we have to look before giving up? What if there is life on Mars, somewhere, but it's hiding in places that are really, really hard for us to detect it? Like deep under the icecaps, or 20km down in extinct volcanic vents? What do we do if we decide "Yep, Mars is dead, let's go Humanize the place", only to find later that we were wrong and we weren't the only Martians?
What if the life we discover on Mars turns out to be genetically indistinguishable from Earth life? Would we still say, "Mars for the Martians", or would we dismiss this life as descendants of long-ago accidental stowaways from Earth rocks blasted into space? Would we still leave the Martian microbes in peace if it turned out they were just colonists from Earth, too?
There are estimates that say there was neutral water flowing on mars 4 billion years ago,( http://www.space.com/24386-mars-could-support-life-opportunity-rover.html ),which happens to be almost exactly when we think life first evolved here,so we could easily be martians,not nessasarily the other way round. Although,should we find that life evolved on both planets at the same time, I would be leaning strongly towards the theory of panspermia.,with both planets being seeded by passing comets or other objects..or intergalactic little green men.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
You raise the point.
Should we have an immigration policy for Martian microbe?
How can we differentiate between refugee microbes and economic migrants?
Well. Do they want to be free of contaminants because they dont want wrong scientific data or is it because they don't want to go and spoil yet another planet?
If its the data they are concerned, then perhaps it is possible to trace DNA or other markers that would indicate the origin of the sample they are researching.
If they don't want to contaminate the Mars in order not to kill whatever life there may be, then perhaps they dont have to worry about it as our microbes may not prosper and take dominance over the native life which had time to evolve around the conditions.
I guess they can make the ship and equipment clean enough to be safe? Certainly the space radiation on the way there will help?
And what about the probes that already reached the surface of Mars? What if they already contaminated the planet and the humans will be greeted with mutated supervirus of undoubtedly terran origin?
Please DON'T do this to me I lived in UK for 4 years and I do remember how great the fish'n'chips tasted made from fesh fish. I also lived across the street from one really great chippies in Gateshead... Oh man,how do I miss this food!
If its the data they are concerned, then perhaps it is possible to trace DNA or other markers that would indicate the origin of the sample they are researching.
If they don't want to contaminate the Mars in order not to kill whatever life there may be, then perhaps they dont have to worry about it as our microbes may not prosper and take dominance over the native life which had time to evolve around the conditions.
I guess they can make the ship and equipment clean enough to be safe? Certainly the space radiation on the way there will help?
And what about the probes that already reached the surface of Mars? What if they already contaminated the planet and the humans will be greeted with mutated supervirus of undoubtedly terran origin?
Please DON'T do this to me
I lived in UK for 4 years and I do remember how great the fish'n'chips tasted made from fesh fish. I also lived across the street from one really great chippies in Gateshead... Oh man,how do I miss this food!
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The answer is both.
At the risk of sounding flippant, which I don't intend, establishing research stations like Antartica would seem a given.
Though I can't help but think that those that take colonisation of space seriously appears to be increasing in intellectual level while the rather obvious questions remain.
I have to say I find it alarming that so many, otherwise intelegent people can be increasingly taken in by so many charlitans, be they Cambridge University Professors, (and other institutions), plausable politicans and show business companies like NASA.
I continue to fear for the future.