Jinn
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Original Join Date: April 4th, 1984
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Post by Jinn on May 8, 2017 10:23:59 GMT
Inspired from the NASA reveal that its Cassini probe has detected chemotrophic activity near hydrothermal vents from Enceladus (one of Saturn's moons).Which is a strong possibility of biological activity (or maybe some weird unfamiliar geological process) Hypothetical scenario. Subsurface microbial life has been confirmed on Mars. There is the strong possibility of encountering more complex lower level organisms in cavern systems and near tidal areas near polar regions. What option would you choose? Intended Mars colonization project with an international collaborative effort with a unified Biome - strengthening global relations and possibly alleviating some level over conflict for resources. Declare Mars a protected biological reserve, do the bio-ethical thing and respect it for what it has been confirmed and leave things alone.
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Masamune
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Original Join Date: January, 2002
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Post by Masamune on May 8, 2017 14:19:43 GMT
If we ever have the means, we should absolutely colonize it. Yes, there may be some tiny bits of life on there, but Mars doesn't exhibit the conditions that would allow for truly complex life to ever emerge. If we have no trouble declaring war on the flu here, then settling on another planet isn't an issue. Especially since it'll be a long while before we have the technology to truly make the whole planet habitable. More likely we'd be living in bunkers or bubble cities, leaving the majority of the planet in its current state.
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Egann
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Post by Egann on May 8, 2017 17:16:49 GMT
Interesting hypothetical. I'm not sure.
Big picture, any life we find would need to be moved. Mars is dying and leaving it on Mars is a death sentence. And considering we can safely keep any Martian bacteria in any biohazard lab on Earth with a vacuum pump and a fridge (which would be all of them)? Yeah, not tough.
So on the one hand, anything we find will wind up being hosted here on Earth. Why let Mars go to waste afterwards?
Granted, getting it OFF Mars without first exposing it to Earth bacteria--which would likely eat Martian bacteria for breakfast, considering how absurdly biodiverse Earth is in comparison--is quite a challenge. Chances are, we would need to tread lightly on Mars for 15 or 20 years afterwards. But basically, any bacteria there are going to die, anyway, so once we have good archives...what would we gain by declaring Mars to be a protected reserve?
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Post by SteveT on May 8, 2017 18:16:19 GMT
I don't know, steamrolling the first extraterrestrial life we find seems like a bad precedent, even if it's the equivalent of bacteria. How desperate are we for colonies in this scenario?
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Selena
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Odinsdottir
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Post by Selena on May 8, 2017 21:24:23 GMT
In fairness, it's not like we'd ever colonize 100% of Mars unless we somehow had the resources to terraform it. Any colonies on a naturally inhospitable world will always be small and/or temporary. Environmentally-controlled settlements consume a lot of time and energy. We don't even fully colonize the less-than-hospitable regions of Earth.
In the rare event we encounter something more complex than tiny microbes that have been dormant for 400,000+ years, those areas could be easily made into protected sanctuaries.
If we're unwilling to even touch planets that have the most primitive, basic forms of life, then humanity is doomed to extinction. Almost any planet we could comfortably settle would likely have some kind of life already on it. The most logical thing you could do is conduct planet-wide biological surveys and then pre-designate "sanctuary provinces" before colonization begins.
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Turtlebro
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Post by Turtlebro on May 9, 2017 1:31:51 GMT
Considering that human society is built off of steamrolling other species, and each other, I don't exactly see what the dilemma is. Not that it makes it right, but we do have to be honest with ourselves about the reality of the situation.
Besides, it's like Lena said, it's not like we'll colonizing all of Mars, as it's simply not feasible. So again, the problem seems like a moot point.
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Egann
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Original Join Date: Sometime in 2008
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Post by Egann on May 9, 2017 22:49:10 GMT
Well, to be more to the point, do you actually expect to stop all forward plans whenever you come across sludge that can be considered to be microbes? We probably wouldn't even find the stuff until we're already there to stay, anyway. It's just not practical to say a bunch of bacteria warrant a change of plans. Compare this with proper biomes; we can detect most Earth-like biomes from orbit or even from across the solar system. Whenever we come across a major biome, we can build around not causing it problems.
And consider this; most biologists think bacterial life will be pretty common. There's a real chance we'll be scraping bacterial sludges off our boots from every potentially terraformable planet we come across.
Basically what I'm saying is our ability to detect a biosphere should also dictate it's conservation value. If we can detect it from deep space, it's a major biosphere and warrants full protections. If we can't detect anything until we're already established a landing, then it's probably not worth changing our plans over. It probably would be worth scooping into a petri dish for further study.
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