Nasa Mars Press conference

[Ray McCarthy]

http://xkcd.com/1583/

 

[J Riff]

AND so it begins...
Water Bears on Mars..... there is no water without WaterBears and others... and they get big and bigger again....and, of course... water on the surface means a lot more water underground.
Amazing. Sixty years been waiting for this. Sixty, not fifty. Well, maybe 55ish.... but we shall see how the lifeforms are dealt with...
Alternate/mainstream media crash ahead!
Wahoo.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

An interesting consequence of the findings is that space agencies will now have some extra thinking to do about where they send future landers and rovers.

Current internationally agreed rules state that missions should be wary of going to places on Mars where there is likely to be liquid water.

A UK space agency expert on Mars landing sites, Dr Peter Grindrod, told BBC News: "Planetary protection states that we can't go anywhere there is liquid water because we can't sterilise our spacecraft well enough to guarantee we won't contaminate these locations. So if an RSL is found within the landing zone of a probe, then you can't land there."

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34379284

 

[J Riff]

Right. NO Earth germs, please!

 

[Vertigo]

Interesting @Ray McCarthy, I hadn't realised we had imposed a restriction like that. Seems to be a bit of a dilemma. Places where there's water are going to be the places we all want to go and we're not allowed there. I can see the reasoning but they're going to have to find a solution.

In fairness we aren't talking an awful lot of liquid water and its probably only present on occasion; we are talking about a 'trickle' only and a highly salty trickle at that. Any life coming from this is going to be no more than microbial. But even just that would be an astounding discovery. If we find any life in more than one location in the solar system then that ramps up the chances of multiple genesis enormously.

 

[J Riff]

It's the door open a crack, should have happened in the 70s. Nevermind. Wonderful. Great. Say no more. Good old NASA, they are terrific front men, keep a straight face, and make some very nice spaceships.

 

[BAYLOR]

If there's water , might be life of some sort ?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

NASA better at publicity than ESA, CNES and Arianespace, all of which are very competent. I'd not like to say who has best launchers or makes clever probes or best use of budget.

Note the failed Beagle was purely a UK craft.

Roscosmos don't have a good track record, but ironic they have the only passenger capsule for ISS currently.

 

[BAYLOR]

NASA better at publicity than ESA, CNES and Arianespace, all of which are very competent. I'd not like to say who has best launchers or makes clever probes or best use of budget.

Note the failed Beagle was purely a UK craft.

Roscosmos don't have a good track record, but ironic they have the only passenger capsule for ISS currently.

They need to send a probe and get a sample.

 

[BAYLOR]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34379284

If we can't get close to the water how are we supposed analyze it?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

If there's water , might be life of some sort ?

That's why we can't visit it, in case our "bugs" would wipe it out. We certainly have stuff that could survive.

I didn't know about the international protocol last June when I wrote original draft of "The Apprentice's Talent", when the Aliens are asked by Earth if their starship is supposed to set up colonies:
"Oh no," explained the Alien, "no-one colonises anywhere, because anywhere suitable already has its own life. The ship itself is a colony, not a transport."

 

[Ray McCarthy]

how are we supposed analyze it?

Presumably by staring at it hard from a safe distance (safe for any life already there).

It seems we HAVE changed as a species since the days of infecting North American and South American indigenous people with European diseases. We now worry about microbes.

Anything alive "eats". Some sort of excretion is typical. Lots of stuff "breathes", but not everything. So by remote spectrographic analysis over time you can deduce what might be living in the water, if anything.

 

[BAYLOR]

That's why we can't visit it, in case our "bugs" would wipe it out. We certainly have stuff that could survive.

I didn't know about the international protocol last June when I wrote original draft of "The Apprentice's Talent", when the Aliens are asked by Earth if their starship is supposed to set up colonies:
"Oh no," explained the Alien, "no-one colonises anywhere, because anywhere suitable already has its own life. The ship itself is a colony, not a transport."

They need to either modify or scrap that protocol altogether , That will prevent exploration , discovery and colonization.

 

[BAYLOR]

Presumably by staring at it hard from a safe distance (safe for any life already there).

It seems we HAVE changed as a species since the days of infecting North American and South American indigenous people with European diseases. We now worry about microbes.

Confining ourselves to the Earth is an even bigger mistake.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

If life on earth had origins on mars

That's extremely unlikely. The likelihood is that life develops (somehow, evolution theory says nothing about origins*) separately.

They need to either modify scrap that protocol altogether

Perhaps modify when we are sure we can sterilize our probes and waldos/robotic explorers. Anything less is scientifically, morally and ethically irresponsible.

[Making life be seeded on Earth via Meteor from Mars or a Comet solves nothing, simply moves the "origin of life" problem somewhere else, so Occam's Razor would have us say that if there are good conditions for life, that's the place it somehow starts. We know ZERO about life anywhere other than Earth as we didn't find any yet, we don't know what is suitable on a Galactic scale. We only know about here, were every niche seems to have "life" tuned to utilise what's available to support it. Here is totally crazy packed, with life under Antarctic, tops of mountains, salt marsh, deep volcanic vents in ocean, boiling water. No wonder we are not confident on total sterilisation (the craft are more sterile than best operating theatre)]

 

[BAYLOR]

That's extremely unlikely. The likelihood is that life develops (somehow, evolution theory says nothing about origins) separately.


Perhaps modify when we are sure we can sterilize our probes and waldos/robotic explorers. Anything less is scientifically, morally and ethically irresponsible.

Because it might kill off the Microbes ?

If there were higher vertebrae or true sentient Life on Mars that I would say don't go there.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

it might kill off the Microbes

We can't find out much if our bugs eat them.
We don't know what they might be in 200,000 years
We can't assume only higher vertebrates are the only important life.
What if a distributed bacteria is really one thing (like some plants here covering acres) and intelligent? Probably not. But we know nothing. We can't be contaminating an alien ecosystem with our microbes.

 

[BAYLOR]

We can't find out much if our bugs eat them.
We don't know what they might be in 200,000 years
We can't assume only higher vertebrates are the only important life.
What if a distributed bacteria is really one thing (like some plants here covering acres) and intelligent? Probably not. But we know nothing. We can't be contaminating an alien ecosystem with our microbes.

Okay, fair enough.

I think an episode of The Man From Atlantis and Star Trek dealt with a similar concept.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Confining ourselves to the Earth is an even bigger mistake.

Unless we build Generation Ships (vaguely feasible) or discover Jump Drive/Wormhole generation/Stargates/Warp drive or some FTL loop hole, we are stuck in the Solar system. So far none of it seems economically habitable. Even travel to Mars, or a possibly more inviting Jovian moon would be problematic with radiation en route and any base would need Earth supplied for perhaps 100s of years. It would be purely scientific and better done with rovers etc.

C.S. Lewis mused in 1940s that perhaps we are already in quarantine.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

dealt with a similar concept

Plenty of classic short SF examines the issues and the hazards both for us and "them".
- A woman scorned (is the entire world a "goddess"?). I think maybe 1 or 2 crew "join" and the rest leave.
- The story where all their stuff fails, starting with small gadgets
- Granger space pilot story series and his mysterious symbiote (the wind)
- The world that seems to consist of a single species of grass like plant
- The one were they leave trash on Mars and next visit ...
Many many more. The TV shows get the ideas from books.