Extremophiles seek extremophobes for hot new life !
While I had thought the question of life on Mars had been finally settled, according to this article it seems not.
“Before proceeding with sample returns or human missions to Mars, we must review measures for planetary biological protection.”
His warning appears in Science magazine in an article accompanying the first formal publication of the mass of data from Opportunity, which continues to operate on the Martian surface.
The search for life on Mars, now more than a century old, is still not finally resolved. But the odds that life existed there and may still exist are shortening, according to planetary experts, Dr Kargel said.
Nobody any longer expects Martian life forms to be anything like those on Earth. But there remains a possibility that bacteria or other microscopic organisms may survive in regions where there is still water. On Earth, almost every imaginable habitat, including deep underground, has specialised bacteria — called extremophiles — living and thriving.
The risks are twofold: probes sent from Earth may contaminate Mars with terrestrial bacteria, wrecking future studies of Martian life; or, more important, bacteria brought back from Mars may contaminate the Earth with unpredictable effects.
A space colonization expert I am not. And shame on me for not being a science fiction reader either. But I do have a question based on common sense: if we earthlings are worried about contaminating Mars with terrestrial bacteria, what are the implications for colonizing the place with people?
Or is the universe to be regarded as somehow pristine and virginal, like the "virgin" trees which have never been cut down? This view that man is always the enemy (of everything -- even things completely unknown), strikes me as a self-defeating form of self-hatred which is inherently anti-nature. I say "anti-nature" because we are as much a part of nature -- or the environment -- as the extremophiles we fear.
If not, then the nature of the environment was redefined to exclude humans when I wasn't looking.
Hope I'm not being an extremist.
UPDATE: My question about the implications of contamination was thoroughly adressed more than two years ago in Glenn Reynolds' TCS column. Mutual contamination may have been a done deal long ago -- all concerns of "bacteria rights activists" notwthstanding.
(As is so often the case, my impure thoughts were as unoriginal as sin.)
posted by Eric on 12.03.04 at 09:45 AM
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Eric, I am much enjoying your postings as they speed by. A couple of remarks:
1) If pidgeons are known as "flying rats," what can we call Canada geese? Do they even fly?
2) I hope Brian Williams wasn't chosen for the anchor job for looks. He is a seriously weird-looking dude.
3) I think most environmentalists want to protect "the environment" because they believe that "nature" provides benefits to man that would be difficult to otherwise replace. Not just that they are fetishists about the idea of untouched nature.
4) Tenet is deranged.
5) You are right about segregation in the North. It is complicated by the issue that White Flight is not just flight from people who happen to be black or Hispanic, but also flight because living around people who are really poor is depressing.
bink · December 3, 2004 11:52 AM
I think they're more worried about "contamination" because they would like to know for certain if there's life on Mars, and if so, how did it come about. If terrestrial bacteria gets there first, we'll never know for certain.
Once we *have* figured it out - and it's likely that we will, because the chance of there being a large biodiversity is improbable, and a small one can be studied fairly quickly - then it will be okay to start the moving in process. It's like paleontology at construction sites; you study everything down to the required level, then you build on it.
Let's cut to the chase here. Who the HELL wants to live on Mars? You might as well live in the Sahara or Mojave desert while wearing a bunny suit and living in a cave. You can do that right now without worrying about getting your rear blasted off by a malfunctioning rocket. If you tire of that lifestyle, you could just walk away and come back to the real world any time you want. And who gives a damn about tainting the natural beauty that the Mars bacteria forest represent. It's Friday, my head is going to explode.
EXTREMELY interesting. Many profound thoughts. Somebody once wrote a science fiction story in which the "Greens", who wanted to terraform Mars, were pitted against the "Reds", who wanted to leave it as is.
Is there life on Mars? Life on Venus? Mars is under martial law, and, on Venus, they all have venereal diseases.
Extremists? Wicked Wanda and her women visited Venus, they had a _hot_ time there. Holy Dawn and her holy Negro wife Norma orbited the rings of Saturn, they got _high_ in their Divine tribadic embrace. Then, when they got back to Earth, they found that they had once again to battle the Communist Conspiracy.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Eric, I am much enjoying your postings as they speed by. A couple of remarks:
1) If pidgeons are known as "flying rats," what can we call Canada geese? Do they even fly?
2) I hope Brian Williams wasn't chosen for the anchor job for looks. He is a seriously weird-looking dude.
3) I think most environmentalists want to protect "the environment" because they believe that "nature" provides benefits to man that would be difficult to otherwise replace. Not just that they are fetishists about the idea of untouched nature.
4) Tenet is deranged.
5) You are right about segregation in the North. It is complicated by the issue that White Flight is not just flight from people who happen to be black or Hispanic, but also flight because living around people who are really poor is depressing.