Water on Mars...

[Boerseun]

So, they've confirmed water on Mars' south pole, enough to cover the whole planet in 36 feet of the stuff. They reckon the sheet is bigger than Texas, and about three kilometers thick! Now that is clearly a step in the right direction.

 

Now - ignore NASA or ESA's priorities. What, from a geeky science-forum participant's point-of-view should we do about it, and in what order?

[Tormod]

Terraforming, of course. B)

[Boerseun]

There's a big ethical question about what to do with Mars in the event of us finding life there. The existence of this amount of ice raises that possibility in my view, but the ethical guys reckon that if we find life, we should leave Mars to its own devices. Personally, in my opinion, life on Mars be dammed. If its single-celled or even lichen-like, it'll take billions of years, perhaps even longer than the sun's life expectancy, for anything remotely unique to come from it. We'll deny our relatively intelligent species a second home to make sure a couple of lichens gets roasted once the sun blows up. If there is life on Mars, I think it should be studied, and left alone to see if it could survive alongside Man. Much like the Australian kangaroos - it was an oddity when first seen by Europeans, but they are still thriving, side-to-side with modern culture and technology. Or, you might say, Mars life will be more like the Dodo. Which is also fine - if Mars life dies out, so be it. It was superceded by a fitter species. That's the way it works. However, for all we know, Mars life might be viral, and kill every human setting foot there. In which case the 'being superceded by a fitter species' argument still holds, and we have to make our peace with it - or devise a way of destroying Mars life. We'll have to see.

 

But to make a long story short, I don't subscribe to the ethical dilemma of what to do on Mars in the case of Life being found. It'll be akin to the first humans to see kangaroos in Australia deciding to leave again because the kangaroos got there first.

 

And water in the quantities they're describing makes it simply that much more attractive! B)

[freeztar]

Once we master global warming, then...

<Bill and Ted> "Surf's Up Dude!" "Mars is most excellent!" </Bill and Ted>

:P

 

But really, so there's water...big deal...

Water has been suspected on Mars for how long????

 

I'm more interested in Martian (NOT alien) takeoffs involving solar-electrolysis machines to create the fuel. :)

 

Anyone ever seen 'Total Recall'? B)

[freeztar]

Ok, enough malarky, back to science...

 

There's a big ethical question about what to do with Mars in the event of us finding life there. The existence of this amount of ice raises that possibility in my view, but the ethical guys reckon that if we find life, we should leave Mars to its own devices. Personally, in my opinion, life on Mars be dammed. If its single-celled or even lichen-like, it'll take billions of years, perhaps even longer than the sun's life expectancy, for anything remotely unique to come from it.

 

I don't think we will find life, but if we do, the scientific value of such a find would certainly merit a ban on destruction (much like I think we should, at least faintly, study earthly-species before extirpating them completely).

We'll deny our relatively intelligent species a second home to make sure a couple of lichens gets roasted once the sun blows up.

 

I'm surprised by a comment such as this from you. We can't predict the rate of mutation. :shrug:

 

If there is life on Mars, I think it should be studied, and left alone to see if it could survive alongside Man.

 

Quite contradictary and surprising again.

 

Or, you might say, Mars life will be more like the Dodo. Which is also fine - if Mars life dies out, so be it. It was superceded by a fitter species. That's the way it works. However, for all we know, Mars life might be viral, and kill every human setting foot there. In which case the 'being superceded by a fitter species' argument still holds, and we have to make our peace with it - or devise a way of destroying Mars life. We'll have to see.

 

I can agree with this to a point. A "conquer" philosophy has its downsides as we see today in everything from rice production to cattle farming.

But to make a long story short, I don't subscribe to the ethical dilemma of what to do on Mars in the case of Life being found. It'll be akin to the first humans to see kangaroos in Australia deciding to leave again because the kangaroos got there first.

 

A bit of a daft comparison no?

And water in the quantities they're describing makes it simply that much more attractive! :)

 

Temperatures ranging hundreds of degrees does not sound like my idea of paradise, but maybe one day we can terraform.

The sad outcome, as I see it, is that Mars would be a governmental base first and foremost, and only later become a resort. Then it will become...

 

 

Has anyone seen 'Total Recall'? :hihi:

[Boerseun]

I don't think we will find life, but if we do, the scientific value of such a find would certainly merit a ban on destruction (much like I think we should, at least faintly, study earthly-species before extirpating them completely).

'Course! We won't intentionally go out of our way to kill the little beasties, but I don't think we should declare a planet off-limits to humans because there's primitive life on it.

I'm surprised by a comment such as this from you. We can't predict the rate of mutation. :shrug:

You're right, of course, we can't predict the rate of mutation anywhere. But we can infer something of what we know of Mars:

 

Mars is about the same age as the Earth. It had about as much time for evolution via mutation as Earth had (if there was life). It took Earth roughly three billion years to get out of the oceans, onto land. Mars doesn't have a single plant, or species of animal big enough for the eye to see. This, of course, is not to say that there's not a different kind of life that we haven't conceived of yet - some kind of Mars life that's totally incomparable to plants or animals. Mars is quite a bit further from the sun, meaning that the energy input that might drive any ecosystem is quite a bit less than at the Earth. Mars doesn't have an ozone layer, meaning that any organic compounds at the surface will quickly fall apart. Mars life (if we understand the chemistry correctly) will be limited to underground, out-of-the-range-of-UV life. Underground life normally consists of tiny bacteria eating dust grains and living in the first couple of millimeters of rocks. This doesn't leave a lot of room for further evolution into more elaborate shapes and forms. This is to say if it actually exists at all, because of what we know from methane and oxygen, if there was life on Mars, it would have used light to break down water into H and O, eating the H and expelling the O as waste gas. The oxygen and methane components in the Martian atmosphere doesn't seem to look too promising to life in general.

 

Also, if the above is the case, and the only life on Mars is primitive bacteria-like things living underground and eating rock, then we can infer from that that further evolution on Mars will take longer than the life expectancy of the Sun. On Earth, Life had an ocean to play with. A vast, dynamic system which protected life from UV, etc. That kind of dynamism is lacking on Mars. Yet, on Earth, with such a handy system, it still took more than three billion years to get out of the sea. So, yes - we certainly can't pinpoint the exact time of how long it'll take Martian evolution, but we can definitely take very broad and sweeping jabs at the issue, I'm sure.

Quite contradictary and surprising again.

Why? Biomes get invaded by new species. It happens. It's either that, or we don't attempt terraforming at all, ever. We can't expect to terraform and leave the species found on Mars as is, surely. That's exactly my point.

A bit of a daft comparison no?

Not at all. I think its perfectly fitting in the discussion, and serves to illustrate perfectly well the point I'm trying to make. There's two case: The Dodo, and the kangaroo. Europeans got on the scene in Mauritius, the Dodo didn't cut it. No more Dodo. Europeans got into Australia, and the kangaroo is still around, living successfully side-by-side with the kangaroo. If the Europeans got to Aus and saw the roos and decided to depart, never to try to colonize again simply because of the presence of the roos, it's exactly the same argument as not colonising Mars because we found life there. It says nothing of the ability of the two species to live together, and we won't know whether Mars life fits the Dodo or the roo bill. I don't think it's a daft comparison at all.

Has anyone seen 'Total Recall'? :hihi:

Yes - little bit of trivia; the prostitute with the three boobies, which everyone thought was simply an effect of radiation, was simply homage paid to Douglas Adams' 'Triple Breasted Whore from Eroticon 6', according to the 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' Wiki.

[max4236]

The first thing that came to mind was wow think of all the snow cones that would make. I'm rather sleepy I was just on my way to bed, but this is really cool.

[REASON]

I tend to think that the colonization of Mars is inevitable, assuming the human species is able to sustain itself. Considering the rate at which we are reproducing, the rate at which we are consuming the Earth, and the rate at which technology is expanding, spreading out to a neighboring planet would only seem a natural progression over time. The existance of abundant water on Mars along with it's proximity make it the obvious choice for human expansion.

 

If we discover microbial life on Mars, I tend to agree with Boerseun. We will study it and respect it until the point at which our needs become more important, and then we'll move in and try and protect it.

 

I figure that in the far distant future, as the sun begins it's expansion and the Earth becomes less and less inhabitable, Mars will become more and more inhabitable as it warms and the ice melts. Eventually, Mars will become far too hot as well and maybe we'll be forced out to Titan.

[freeztar]

Europeans got on the scene in Mauritius, the Dodo didn't cut it. No more Dodo. Europeans got into Australia, and the kangaroo is still around, living successfully side-by-side with the kangaroo. If the Europeans got to Aus and saw the roos and decided to depart, never to try to colonize again simply because of the presence of the roos, it's exactly the same argument as not colonising Mars because we found life there.

 

Destroy that which you do not understand.

[Buffy]

Destroy that which you do not understand.

Piffle. Its called Manifest Destiny. There's no one there so we have every right to lay waste exploit it if we feel like it can...

 

Forty Four Forty or Fight,

Buffy

[Boerseun]

I don't understand your rebuke, Freeztar. The intent is obviously not to destroy the little buggers intentionally. The intent is to live happilly, side-by-side with them. But if we decide to terraform the planet to make it more suitable to human needs, chances are that these critters will die from too much atmosphere and too much heat.

 

So - let's get down to it:

 

Simple Yes/No answer:

 

Given the amount of water found on Mars, which will make it much more attractive for future human exploration in the future, say we go there and find some form of primitive bacterial life. Should we take the ethical path and leave Mars to its own devices?

[freeztar]

I don't understand your rebuke, Freeztar. The intent is obviously not to destroy the little buggers intentionally. The intent is to live happilly, side-by-side with them. But if we decide to terraform the planet to make it more suitable to human needs, chances are that these critters will die from too much atmosphere and too much heat.

 

So - let's get down to it:

 

Simple Yes/No answer:

 

Given the amount of water found on Mars, which will make it much more attractive for future human exploration in the future, say we go there and find some form of primitive bacterial life. Should we take the ethical path and leave Mars to its own devices?

 

No.

But I think a thorough survey of all types of life we could find should be performed before we even think about terraforming or altering the planet in a significant way. I don't think it would be ethical for humans to deny humans the right to colonize/terraform mars.

Darwin says, "No way, survival of the fittest". :hihi:

 

[offtopic]

On an aside, how cool would it be if we found bacteria on mars that also exists on earth?! ;)

Imagine the implications that could have...is it even possible with our current understanding of biology?

[/offtopic]

[Boerseun]

On an aside, how cool would it be if we found bacteria on mars that also exists on earth?! ;)

Imagine the implications that could have...is it even possible with our current understanding of biology?

The chances of that is not so bad as you might think! It is thought that surface matter is routinely shared between planets when an impactor strikes planet A, and some of the ejecta goes in an orbit around the sun which eventually intersects planet B. Those meteorites found in Antarctica a few years ago were thought to contain microbes from Mars! So, it's not altogether impossible that some form of primitive life can survive being cooked on collision, ejected into space, being deep frozen for a couple'o thousand years in vacuum, to be cooked on impact again?

[freeztar]

All I can say is....lucky microbes!!

[Qfwfq]

Those meteorites found in Antarctica a few years ago were thought to contain microbes from Mars!

Were they able to culture them? Perhaps they were from Earth, after a big impact, and they had been in lowish orbit till microdrag brought them back.

 

I say that if life were found on Mars it would be damned interesting to study it! I would first do it by robot, at least until having some idea of how dangerous a contamination could be. If exchanges between planets happen often enough then perhaps immune systems can fare well enough on a different planet but careful first. Finding and studying alien cells, observing how different and how similar they are to terrestrial ones, would no doubt shed some light on the plausibility of there being life elsewhere.