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#1 2003-02-22 17:03:37

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Well, if there's life, I think we should still terraform, but make sure to preserve the life that exists.  However, I don't think that terraformation inherently means the life will die.  In fact, if we allow it to do so, I think terraformation would allow the life to flourish!

If we are afraid of "playing God," then we should go back into our caves and die-we have been terraforming Earth for many millenia, and our evolutionary tree has been doing it ever since the first microbes.

The life obviously isn't flourishing on Mars now, if it exists.  Perhaps human terraformation can lead to a mutualistic existence?

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#2 2003-02-22 17:40:03

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

I voted no opinion. The people will do what they want.

Assuming life is currently flourishing there, an environmental change caused by terraformation may make it go extinct. Terraformation would happen over a very short period of time, not allowing the organisms very much time to adapt. So if our actions were to affect them, then I'm not so sure about their survival.

The arguments against terraformation are arguably just as stupid as the arguments for terraformtion. The only really valid pro-terraforming argument you can make, is a resource argument. ?It's cheaper to make a self sustaining ecosystem than it is to maintain lots of technology.? Any other arguments are generally asthetic, or religious.

One should note that ?we? haven't been terraforming Earth at all. We exist within Earth's ecosytem, we don't ?make? it. Only in the past 200-300 years, have we really had an impact on Earth's ecosystem, and most of our impact is arguably negative to the ecosystem itself; preventing it from reaching a natural equilibrium.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
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The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#3 2003-02-22 18:22:03

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Josh, that's not true.  Since the very first oxygenating plants, organisms have been changing Earth's atmosphere, shaping its landscapes, and so on.

Humans created the Sahara Desert thousands of years ago.  Humans have cut down forests for thousands of years.  Humans have driven creatures extinct, brought new ones into existence, chosen which organisms they like best, mined resources, created landforms, mowed lawns, etc. 

We have been terraforming Earth since before we were humans, Josh!

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#4 2003-02-22 19:02:20

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Oh, well, you're right on that account. I just assumed you were saying that we made a conscious decision to make Earth. In most cases it's not a conscious decision.

I'm not sure about the Sahara Desert, though. I thought it was created by the Gulf Stream and the Mediterranean.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#5 2003-02-22 19:12:16

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

From what I've heard and read, it was created by Phoenecian deforestation of Northern Africa.  This dried out the soil, leading to the spreading desert.

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#6 2003-02-22 19:17:18

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

That's a pretty hard thing to believe. I mean, how would deforestation affect weather on those scales? It's possible deforestation did have an impact, but generally speaking, I think the weather conditions are more attributed to the Straight of Gibraltar.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#7 2003-02-22 19:36:53

Cobra Commander
Member
From: The outskirts of Detroit.
Registered: 2002-04-09
Posts: 3,039

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

That's a pretty hard thing to believe. I mean, how would deforestation affect weather on those scales? It's possible deforestation did have an impact, but generally speaking, I think the weather conditions are more attributed to the Straight of Gibraltar.

Actually, deforestation has a profound effect on weather patterns. It alters air currents over land, which affects the temperature and humidity of that air, which alters climate. Cutting down a large tract of forest will have a bigger short term effect on climate than pumping a buttload of pollutants into the air.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

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#8 2003-02-23 11:50:31

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Damned Phoenecians! You'd think they should've known better...some folks never seem to learn.

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#9 2003-02-23 22:48:05

Shaun Barrett
Member
From: Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Registered: 2001-12-28
Posts: 2,843

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

I'm not familiar with the theory that the Sahara Desert had its origins in the changes which accompanied the formation of the Straits of Gibraltar. (Or "The Pillars of Hercules" - a name I much prefer!!  smile  )

    It's interesting, though, to remember that North Africa was known as the granary of the Roman Empire. This would indicate that the climate there, even as recently as 2000 years ago, was at least good enough to grow wheat on a large scale. It's certainly too arid to grow significant amounts of wheat there today.
    So the changes which produced the Sahara seem to have been fairly swift and have continued to modify the climate, even in recent centuries.

    As far as I know, the North Atlantic 'broke through' the Pillars of Hercules about 4 million years ago - and may have done it more than once as the gap silted up and the Mediterranean Sea largely evaporated, only to flood again as the North Atlantic burst through once more. Spectacular stuff, I suppose, but it must have played havoc with the value of real estate in the Mediterranean Basin at the time!!  big_smile

    Some good news about the Sahara is that it's expansion southwards apparently halted about 20 or 30 years ago, and grasslands and light forest have begun to reclaim the southern fringes. It seems the Sahara is shrinking again - at least for the time being.

    Getting back to the main point about life on Mars, my opinion is that the discovery of any native Martian life (i.e. representative of a completely separate Martian genesis) should cause terraforming to be shelved - at the very least until a complete evaluation of the extent of the alien biosphere can be carried out. Such a survey could take centuries of research and study, and could postpone terraformation indefinitely. But we would be no better than barbaric vandals to wilfully alter the climate and introduce countless Terran lifeforms into such a biological wonderland before we'd even studied it!
    Fortunately for wild-eyed terraformers like me, though, (  :;):  ) the chances of there being a unique and wholly separate kind of Martian biosphere is virtually nil. I won't attempt to repeat the endless sermonising I've inflicted on the long-suffering membership of New Mars up to now(! ), but suffice it to say that unsterilised probes from Earth and almost continuous impact transfer of biological material over the eons have, beyond any reasonable doubt, produced a Mars with much the same microbial life forms as Earth.
    If this proves to be true, as I'm quite sure it will, then there will be no material objection (in my view) to fully terraforming Mars as soon as practicable.
    And the sooner the better!!
                                             cool


The word 'aerobics' came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we're going to charge $10 an hour, we can't call it Jumping Up and Down.   - Rita Rudner

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#10 2003-02-24 00:17:18

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Hmm, you're absolutely right. I took information from my little Atlantropa plan too significantly. Apparently if one were to plug up the Straits of Gibraltar, the Sahara Desert would become wetter, so I'd assumed that the Straits were the inherent cause of the desert (I guess my obsession with basic thermodynamics makes me shortsighted). Seems everything I read about the geology of the Sahara Desert points to too much deforestation, though there was a world climate warmth only about 10k years ago, which could have contributed.

It is definitely interesting that the Sahara is retreating.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#11 2003-02-25 10:04:58

Gennaro of Scandinavia
InActive
From: Sweden
Registered: 2003-02-14
Posts: 13

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

If there is life on Mars, we really cannot terraform the place, that's my opinion. No, I'm not a believer in rights for Martian microbes, only that we need to maintain the Martian ecosystem in order to understand more about life in the Universe.
In the final analysis we don't need Mars as a stepping stone to the stars either. We could use the Moon and asteroids instead and go for the "high frontier" solution of totally artificial interplanetary habitats, as originally propagated for by Gerard K. O'Neill... I hope... and think...

http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/settle.htm

Damn, I almost wish we don't find any life on Mars!
yikes

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#12 2003-02-25 11:06:43

dickbill
Member
Registered: 2002-09-28
Posts: 749

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Damn, I almost wish we don't find any life on Mars and that it's a stone dead planet!
yikes

Why's that ? as said Soph, If there is life it's certainely not a florishing tropical jungle. But maybe quantity doesn't matter. In his book "The Martians" KSR mentions martian archaebacteria whose metabolism is so slow that they would look dead in earth standard. But those archae live thousands of years.

Also, we need to prove that's it's really a martian life. Even if earth gravity is superior to Mars, I guess that some big meteor impact could deliver a terran archae containing rock to Mars. If lucky enough to find a relatively warm spot on Mars, those archae could locally survive and they would constitute the first terran colony on Mars, and they would terraform Mars in good conditions.

Maybe Marsforming Earth or Terraforming Mars has been reciprocal that way as several occasions. Maybe it doesn't matter where Life comes from. Life is life, everywhere the same in essence.
In addition, a couple of probes have landed on Mars now , some might have carried encysted bacterial spores. Very resistant, these spores might survive the trip and the aerobraking.
To completely sterilize a probe like a Viking lander is very difficult in my opinion. Heating at 120 degre C for hours and/or gamma ray/UV  irradiation would do the job, but as soon as you move the probe out of the oven and touch it, even with gloves, basically you can recontaminate it.
I doubt the sterilization process takes place while inside the rocket launcher, so, the probe is certainley microbes free at 99%, but not at 100%. 
From what I know from Deinoccocus Radiodurans for example, this radiation resistant bacteria once on the Mars surface would not thrive like crazy, that I am sure, but it would not die either. I would be even more ironic to think that Deinoccocus's ancestor was actually a martian "bacteria" throwed on Earth billions of years ago and being back home again. I read that russian scientists have proposed this martian origin to explain the crazy metabolism of this bacteria. It was probably a provocative joke as there is no serious evidence for some exotic DNA code in Deinoccocus, but still, the idea is funny.

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#13 2003-02-25 14:23:03

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

If there is life on Mars, we really cannot terraform the place, that's my opinion. No, I'm not a believer in rights for Martian microbes, only that we need to maintain the Martian ecosystem in order to understand more about life in the Universe.
In the final analysis we don't need Mars as a stepping stone to the stars either. We could use the Moon and asteroids instead and go for the "high frontier" solution of totally artificial interplanetary habitats, as originally propagated for by Gerard K. O'Neill... I hope... and think...

http://members.aol.com/oscarcombs/settle.htm

Damn, I almost wish we don't find any life on Mars!
yikes

O'Neill colonies are a waste of resources.  The chances are that Martian life would survive, and possibly flourish after terraformation, not vice versa.  Understanding life has no value if we stay on Earth.

We shouldn't destroy life, but we shouldn't have the timidity to leave any rock alone that has a bacterial cell on it. 

We shouldn't go helter-skelter and destroy the life, but I see no reason why terraformation would destroy the Martian life.  We don't need Mars as a stepping stone to the stars?

Sure, and we don't need America as a stepping stone to space.  Numbers aren't everything.  When humans are established on Mars, we will have a whole new economic and technological driver, with more favorable launch conditions to the asteroid belt and planets beyond.  Mars is the ultimate stepping stone to the stars, artificial habitats are the ultimate cop-out.

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#14 2003-02-25 14:23:45

Gennaro of Scandinavia
InActive
From: Sweden
Registered: 2003-02-14
Posts: 13

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Why's that ? as said Soph, If there is life it's certainely not a florishing tropical jungle. But maybe quantity doesn't matter. In his book "The Martians" KSR mentions martian archaebacteria whose metabolism is so slow that they would look dead in earth standard. But those archae live thousands of years.

Well, only because I happened to write eco system, I didn't mean to initiate associations to rainforests and whales. No, you are right, my opinion was that quantity wouldn't matter, at least not in principle. If Martian life, even in the form of lowly microbes (with or without millenial metabolism), were indeed indigenous, they would be as closely knit to the conditions of the planet as life on Earth. To study it properly, one could assume this ought best to be done with its surrounding intact.

Also, we need to prove that's it's really a martian life. Even if earth gravity is superior to Mars, I guess that some big meteor impact could deliver a terran archae containing rock to Mars. If lucky enough to find a relatively warm spot on Mars, those archae could locally survive and they would constitute the first terran colony on Mars, and they would terraform Mars in good conditions.

Which is another reason to study these eventual archeae without Earthly interference, because how else would we ever know?
Origin (at least since the last round of meteor exchange) is an important issue, maybe the most fundamental question - is there one life in the Universe or is life in each case unique to an original biosphere? You know, related to the entire panspermia pandoogle.

To completely sterilize a probe like a Viking lander is very difficult in my opinion. Heating at 120 degre C for hours and/or gamma ray/UV  irradiation would do the job, but as soon as you move the probe out of the oven and touch it, even with gloves, basically you can recontaminate it.

I am at least superficially aware of this troublesome issue. Which brings to mind the early Russian landers. Those were obviously not very keenly sterilized, if it occured to them at all. Maybe there's life on Mars right now? Somewhere in its late twenties.
big_smile

Maybe if we find microbial life on Europa and Ganymede and around every star we visit in a distant future, or if the subject of Martian life is not so intricate that we need exploring it for very long though, we could arrive at a point where it's safe to say: to hell with it! Let's push the Martians aside or maybe even give them a chance to thrive in a Terran environment, that is, if they are so inclined!
The sooner the better if you ask me.
smile

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#15 2003-02-25 15:21:02

Gennaro of Scandinavia
InActive
From: Sweden
Registered: 2003-02-14
Posts: 13

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

We don't need Mars as a stepping stone to the stars?

Sure, and we don't need America as a stepping stone to space.  Numbers aren't everything.  When humans are established on Mars, we will have a whole new economic and technological driver, with more favorable launch conditions to the asteroid belt and planets beyond.  Mars is the ultimate stepping stone to the stars, artificial habitats are the ultimate cop-out.

Yeah, I'm for Mars for exactly those very reasons. Who wants to live in a tube anyway?
cool

I just thought that at least there'd be an alternative if Mars wasn't viable, and considering "when it's steam boat time, you steam", I don't see why you couldn't do both scenarios, at least to some extent?
Wouldn't a transport system of scale economics from Earth to the rest of the Solar System or indeed from Mars to the asteroid field and beyond, require shipyards, starbases, intergravity transit infrastructure, i.o.w habitats principally built from space material and thus moonbases etc?
The power and energy requirements for acceleration to fractions of light speed for interstellar travel, is greater than what the entire world currently consume in a whole year. Don't the magnitudes suggest things like tapping the inexhaustible power of the Sun, that is building what is basically solar power satellites, just like the high frontier crowd say?

The world needs the accumulated American research and scientific discoveries as a stepping stone to Mars, I don't see why it needs the United States per se (sorry!). If contrary to expectation, America would not lead this enterprise though, any power that did, would automatically be highly indebted to the legacy which NASA and superior US research has contributed to the world since 1945. A bit like there wouldn't have been a space program to start with without von Braun and his gang of hijacked German rocket scientists, but on a much greater scale.

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#16 2003-03-01 20:06:42

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

I just thought that at least there'd be an alternative if Mars wasn't viable, and considering "when it's steam boat time, you steam", I don't see why you couldn't do both scenarios, at least to some extent?
Wouldn't a transport system of scale economics from Earth to the rest of the Solar System or indeed from Mars to the asteroid field and beyond, require shipyards, starbases, intergravity transit infrastructure, i.o.w habitats principally built from space material and thus moonbases etc?
The power and energy requirements for acceleration to fractions of light speed for interstellar travel, is greater than what the entire world currently consume in a whole year. Don't the magnitudes suggest things like tapping the inexhaustible power of the Sun, that is building what is basically solar power satellites, just like the high frontier crowd say?

I guess you could build shipyards at LaGrange points, but I don't see why you would want habitats, besides for the workers.  You could use materials from the asteroid belt to build your ships and facilities.  And yes, for power, you could use solar power, and probably by that time, it will be converted to electricity far more efficiently. 

The world needs the accumulated American research and scientific discoveries as a stepping stone to Mars, I don't see why it needs the United States per se (sorry!).

Because the U.S. remains the primary source of engineering, university education, and progress in the world.  Russia's space heyday has passed, and Europe is many steps behind, for the most part.  China is coming into their own, but they really can't do much without replicating other programs (not just in the space industry, in everything from software to jet airplanes). 

So America remains the driving force in space, at least until the private industry takes over.

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#17 2003-03-02 10:01:20

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Soph, I'm shocked!
   "Russia's space heyday has passed."?  Their inherited U.S.S.R. Soyuz programme is all that's keeping the U.S.A.'s manned space effort viable. The compromise design of the Space Shuttle system has made it a dead-end, while the inspired Soyuz modularity has enabled it to adapt with minimal financing. The Russians will continue to make great contributions to manned space...eventually I'm convinced, becoming valued partners in an International Mars Expedition.
   "...America [meaning the U.S.A. of course] remains the driving force in space, ..."? Surely you jest. Aside from the above, China having adopted the best features of Soyuz (why reinvent the wheel?) I expect to support a sustained manned Moon-colonization programme soon after they put a man in orbit. The U.S.A. blew it when they could have done that, and blew it again when they let politicians "design" the Space Shuttle hardware. Now they're blowing it again, frittering away funds on a ridiculous space weapon system instead of utilizing up-and-coming engineering graduates on manned space. That's what happened to me and my betters, by the way, during the 1950s...if it hadn't been for that stubborn bunch in the inspired von Braun team...well you figure it out.

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#18 2003-03-02 11:52:34

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

They are not designing anything new.  They don't have the resources to do so.  Sure, the Soyuz is nice, but it doesn't take into account the advances in technology.  The same fundamental design can be used, but it can be improved.  A Model-T had four wheels, and the same basic design as, say, a BMW, but I defy you to tell me that a BMW is no more advanced than a Model-T.

The Shuttle was a very successful vehicle, and without it, the ISS wouldn't exist.  In fact, the Russians tried to copy it, with Buran, and succeeded, but it just shows you who had taken the lead, by the '80s.

Now they're blowing it again, frittering away funds on a ridiculous space weapon system instead of utilizing up-and-coming engineering graduates on manned space. That's what happened to me and my betters, by the way, during the 1950s...if it hadn't been for that stubborn bunch in the inspired von Braun team...well you figure it out.

Funds that wouldn't go to the space program anyway.  The graduates could choose what work to do, we have a free society.  If they wanted to work on, say, NEP drives, they could.  Our government doesn't choose people's jobs entirely for them, people do.

China lacks innovation.  As I said, they take bits and pieces from everyone else.  The only agencies which continue to develop new technologies on a sustained basis are NASA and the ESA, and there's no competition there.

Just because a launch vehicle is still used doesn't mean the agency is in its heyday.  NASA is not in its glory days, either, but it is still, at this point, the most successful agency out there.

How much did we have to cover for the Russians in building the ISS?  They are a huge factor in the cost overruns we sustained on the program, because they defaulted on contracts.

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#19 2003-03-02 12:52:38

dicktice
Member
From: Nova Scotia, Canada
Registered: 2002-11-01
Posts: 1,764

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Soph: I really shouldn't encourage your antagonism...but the ISS has turned out to be what amounts to a 2nd generation Mir. Take a long look at the Russian Space Agency web site before you explode with indignation. NASA could have gone one better, but as usual Congress got in the way. Much to discuss along these lines, current and vital, to make use of a generation (20 years) of past experience and mistakes by everyone who's done it!

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#20 2003-06-30 10:58:38

dickbill
Member
Registered: 2002-09-28
Posts: 749

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

So what if there is life ?
First of all, the goal of the rover and future exploratory robots  is not to destroy the martian life, but to study it. This might bring some minor contamination from terran hard living organisms, but these contaminants will never grow and spread, most likely they will stay dormant in the harsh martian conditions. So the issue is not relevant now, martian life, if it exists, is safe of past present and future robots.
In the distant future however, human presence and of course terraforming could destroy this putative (very putative) martian life. But the issue is not really different from the endangered species on earth. Human presence on earth destroy some ecosystems and has side effects on the local species. It's not a premeditate strategy to eliminate these species, it's the natural selection.
At least, actions are taken to save these endangered species on earth. Preserving sperms in the cold is very efficient. Early embryonic blastocystes can also be frozen and reimplanted. So for example, if all tigers dissapeared from earth, we could reimplant the embryos in relative species (Lion, leopard etc) to generate some few Tigers. Some of them being female which could be quickly inseminated with the frozen tiger sperm.
DNA cloning is also a new possibility but it is unnecessary  complicate for the purpose to save animal species.

If there is life on Mars, and if humankind intends to terraform Mars, I suggest something different. Rather to freeze the martian life, which is not very nice because after all, If we never intend to allow it to live by itself, is that very different than keeping the bug dead in a formaline container ?, I suggest to volontarly integrate the martian coding genome in terran  organism such as bacterial host.
OK risky, I know, but it will be a nice way to keep the martians alive and moving rather than in a kind of frozen perpetual coma. It could be even possible to integrate some martian genomic information inside the human cells, either the nucleus or the mitochondria. As the mitochondria did themselves by parasiting our cellular ancestors, before they became symbiots.
I think the mitochondria are kind of happy to live in our cells, they find shelter there. Maybe future martian colonists would be happy to integrate their new martian hosts rather than to fight them. They might benefit from this new symbiosis and that would make these martians more martian, that could also trigger some new genetic shuffling and evolution in the human specie.

As a side note, even if DNA is not the favorite martian genetic information support, what matters ultimately is the information carried. No doubt that this information could be translated (more or less exactly as for any information) in terran DNA code and integrated at least partly in terran organisms.

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#21 2003-07-25 17:03:48

space_psibrain
Member
Registered: 2002-02-15
Posts: 83

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Sure, and we don't need America as a stepping stone to space.  Numbers aren't everything.  When humans are established on Mars, we will have a whole new economic and technological driver, with more favorable launch conditions to the asteroid belt and planets beyond.  Mars is the ultimate stepping stone to the stars, artificial habitats are the ultimate cop-out.

I completely disagree with this. As a person who has been involved in space settlement design, I have to say that artificial habitats are NOT the ultimate copout. I will admit that there are advantages to a planetary settlement, and indeed, would be in support of one, but I feel that it is important to have a settlement in Mars Orbit as well, thus giving us a more efficient "Port of Entry" to Mars, as well as a gateway to the Asteroid Belt, where there are innumerable resources to be tapped. True, there would be a considerable initial investment, but I believe that the payout could me much more substantial in the end.

Which brings me to the point of space-based businesses. Some satellite components can be built and installed in space less expensively than if they were designed, analyzed, and tested to withstand the rigors of launch. Relatively fragile components (e.g., antennas, lenses, sensors, and solar panels) are particularly amenable to in-space manufacture. There would also be other ventures more suitable to a space society, like deep-space exploration for instance. Eventually, with the outgrowth in space technology and investment, commerce in space will mature to the point that a "Singapore-in-orbit" would be valuable for providing cargo transfer and financial services to space-based businesses. I do not believe it would be beneficial for people to cut themselves off from the high-frontier because of being planet-bound.

Also, in terraforming, we will most likely need space-based infrastructure, and it would be more advantageous to have settlements from where such infrastructure could be locally constructed. Granted that one could possibly produce this infrastructure on Mars and launch it, but then one would still have to deal with launch costs.

I do not think the answer lies only in O'Neill settlements or planetary settlements, but in a combination of the two. Each has advantages and each has disadvantages, but do not discount the value that both have.

It could be even possible to integrate some martian genomic information inside the human cells, either the nucleus or the mitochondria. As the mitochondria did themselves by parasiting our cellular ancestors, before they became symbiotes.
I think the mitochondria are kind of happy to live in our cells, they find shelter there. Maybe future martian colonists would be happy to integrate their new martian hosts rather than to fight them. They might benefit from this new symbiosis and that would make these martians more martian, that could also trigger some new genetic shuffling and evolution in the human specie.

To this, I give my agreement. If you have life-forms that have existed on mars for who-knows how long, and have survived the harsh conditions, then it would indeed be beneficial to do this. Intergrating the DNA of Martian Bacteria with earth lichens, plants, and bacteria could be unknowably useful in the process of terraforming.


"What you don't realize about peace, is that is cannot be achieved by yielding to an enemy. Rather, peace is something that must be fought for, and if it is necessary for a war to be fought to preserve the peace, then I would more than willingly give my life for the cause of peace."

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#22 2003-09-25 12:19:46

~Eternal~
Member
Registered: 2003-09-25
Posts: 211

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Any life there would die almost instantainously if we melted the poles.
I think we should search the permafrost for life and if we don't find any within the time it takes to build a "dome".
Then terraform away, if we begin terraforming and find life well then maybe they're searching for a suitable world?


The MiniTruth passed its first act #001, comname: PATRIOT ACT on  October 26, 2001.

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#23 2003-09-28 04:29:46

alokmohan
Member
From: india
Registered: 2003-09-14
Posts: 169

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Life in mars must be extremophiles and we need not worry.We cant kill them also because extremophiles are immortal.

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#24 2003-09-28 07:03:33

sethmckiness
Banned
From: Iowa
Registered: 2002-09-20
Posts: 230

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Life in mars must be extremophiles and we need not worry.We cant kill them also because extremophiles are immortal.

I have to argue against that point.

Organisms that live in a harsh climate are usually very poor competitors.  They usually use some much energy in staying alive that reproduction is slow.  They also usually do not respond well to a change in climactic conditions.  They are very specialized organism sometimes with advanced symbiotic relationships.  My sister is doing her PhD on symbiotic reletionships between organisms on the deep sea trench.  I would argue two points.

1.) We can only prove that life exists.  We will never be able to truely prove it does not.

2.) Once we find life, the ethical issues of terraformation will come into question.  This will make for some serious issues...  I would lend myself more to the terraformation camp, but it depends on the complexity of life that is discovered.


We are only limited by our Will and our Imagination.

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#25 2003-09-29 03:38:30

alokmohan
Member
From: india
Registered: 2003-09-14
Posts: 169

Re: What if there's life? - Should we terraform?

Terraformation depends on type of life we get,I agree.

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