Confirmed: Life on Mars.

[kandrathe]

Substance? Ok. I think it is wrong to generalize and frame the debate as all the land grabbers "Conquerors" vs all the knowledge seekers "Discoverers". History is replete with incidents of abuse by the greedy, no matter which type they are. Nobility and morality must be tied to harms (minimizing in my book) and goal of the one taking the action. If the action we are attempting is to gain knowledge of Mars, including possible martian life forms, then we need to be careful not to muck it up. But, if our goal is to get a 2nd Earth up and running as quickly as possible, then perhaps the investment in time for the former is not worth it.

Pete's original statement; "But, you know, the people going after knowledge have historically contributed a hell of a lot more than the people going after land." seems valid. Knowledge can be posessed by many simultaneously, is reusable and extendable, and the mere acquisition of it does no harm. Historically, taking land displaces it former occupants and there are limits to how it can be shared. The misuse of knowledge on the other hand has also had profound consequences. But, as he indicated the alternative is to remain ignorant. If you don't care if life existed on Mars prior to our invasion, then we may muck it up and remain ignorant of the prior life on Mars.

I think there are many goals in a Human endeavor to Mars. Paramount for the success of continued human interest in Mars will be to examine whether it is worth it. That is, are there exploitable mineral deposits and is it possible to build a self sustaining habitation. Terraforming is a fantasy, IMHO. Mars has roughly 1/3 gravity of Earth, which means that an atmosphere will not be the same as Earths, and any humans staying for any length of time will need to work hard to keep from losing bone mass.

Here are the opinions of some scientists at NASA:

On August 7, 1996, a team of scientists lead by David McKay at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, announced their discovery of microscopic evidence of possible Martian fossil life in a meteorite recovered from Antarctica. How might this affect future Mars exploration and settlement? What are the practical and ethical issues of the discovery of life on Mars? What should our course of action be toward possible Mars life? How much time and effort should we make towards searching for life before we declare Mars to be lifeless? Martian life could be almost anywhere.

We will need to decide, as a planet, how long we should spend searching Mars for evidence of life. What about contamination if life does exist on Mars? Humans on Mars will be exposed eventually to any Martian life that exists. Returning spacecraft and astronauts could also introduce alien organisms to Earth. Many scientists think it is unlikely that independently evolved Mars life would have enough in common with life on Earth to cause harm; but it is impossible to know for certain.

What about our contamination of Mars? People and unsterilized robots will contaminate Mars with terrestrial organisms. Even if we are willing to risk our own lives, what about the rights of the Martians? If we did contaminate Mars with terrestrial microbes, that could complicate studies of any life that was found later on Mars.

The author Mark Lupisella, in 1997, wrote in an issue of Space Policy, "Could we forgive ourselves if we caused the extinction of the first extraterrestrial species we came into contact with?".
aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov -- Terraforming Mars