Terraform Humans First, Then Mars?

An anonymous reader writes "Related to the future of Mars, NASA released the transcript of an expert panel which debated terraforming the red planet. Planetary scientists including NASA's Planetary Protection Officer, John Rummel, and science fiction writers (Kim Robinson, Arthur C. Clarke, and Greg Bear) chimed in. When asked if Mars should be transformed to a place where humans could walk without life support suits ("naked"), Sir Clarke responded, "Perhaps we should ask the Martians first." Can it be done quickly-- or at all? Is terraforming ethical? If humans colonize, are the colonists on a one-way trip akin to exile?" Read on for a bit more.

"A consensus seemed to be that like waking a sleeping giant, planet building seems possible if oxygen is not a requirement and some microbial life is dormant underground. But the question of making a planet suitable for plants alone seems to span tens of thousands of years. The remaining science fiction notion was terraforming humans, instead of planets, and making us survive on what is now a very alien world."

Comments

ET, is that you?

[rsrsharma]

Is it really a good idea to think about terraforming a planet before we're sure that there isn't any life on it?

Re:ET, is that you?

[miope]

Yeah, and in five hundred years people will be ashamed of the "barbarians pre-space humans who exterminated bacterial diversity on Mars". I'm talking seriously, we should try to avoid repeting errors... in Colon's time, nobody knew that European's diseases could be fatal for indians... and that *was* understandable given the lack of scientific knowledge of the era. Nowadays we know the scientific, historic social, and ethical value of life and diversity, so, we should be more careful with our actions. And remember that this bacteria could give us lot of insight about the beginings of life and evolution in general. P.S. English is not my primary language... I'm doing my best effort ;-)

Re:ET, is that you?

[canadian_right]

I kill thousands of bacteria everytime I wash my hands. If Mars has bacteria, but some in a 'zoo' and terraform away.

Re:ET, is that you?

[Artifakt]

The historical trend is to define "worthy of preservation" more broadly, at least in western culture. Not only have we seen a general repugnance against racism and euginecism develop that would probably surprise the hell out of our bloody minded ancestors, but there have even been words such as speciesist introduced to extend that repugnance to at least the abuse of the higher animals. Of course, these are far from universal.
If you think of it as us taking territory from bacteria, it sounds oh-so-hypersensitive and politically uber-correct to think we should care, but if you think of it as though there must be a minimum value to any whole, complete ecology, even one made up entirely of simple life forms, it makes more sense.
If Mars even has bacteria, and it turns out there is nothing exceptional about them, we will probably terraform the planet eventually. But the first thing we should conclude on finding a bacterium not native to our own world is not that Mars has nothing but bacteria, but that it has an ecoystem, and the only other example of an ecosystem we know is a complex and marvelous thing indeed.

science

[sstory]

I wouldn't ask scifi writers can/should we terraform. I would ask ethicists if we should, and chemists, astrophysicists, etc if we can.

Re:science

[Chuckaluphagus]

While I will agree with you in some part, a number of the most famous science fiction authors have been serious scientists in their own right; Sir Arthur Clarke is a co-inventor of the orbital satellite, and Asimov had multiple degrees in chemistry and biology.

Science fiction authors also think about this sort of matter on a regular basis, and not as a mere idle notion. Combine that with significant knowledge of the subject matter, and it isn't unreasonable for the government to be asking them what their views on terraforming are.

Terraforming humans?

[idontneedanickname]

"The remaining science fiction notion was terraforming humans..."

Terraforming isn't the right word. Terraforming is forming planets to make them more like Earth (Terra). Purposefully altering humans/human physiology does not yet have a word accosiated with it, I think.

Re:Terraforming humans?

[No Such Agency]

"Purposefully altering humans/human physiology does not yet have a word accosiated with it, I think."

I believe the word is "Eugenics".

the toughest bit

[kylemonger]

The toughest bit would be getting Mars to have a magnetic field around it again, to keep the solar wind from peeling away the atmosphere (again) and to keep out most of the ionizing radiation. Without that protective field, all terraforming efforts are a waste of time.

life: spread it around

[jdrogers]

I have thought about this alot. Growing up in an environmentalist family, I tend towards the "leave nothing but footprints" ideals. There have been so many times in history where humans have royally fscked up a new environment by spreading disease or introducing an unchecked species with no natural predators.. But is this different?

Obviously, if there is no life there, its not as if we would be destroying a species or habitat, but how do we prove there is no life there?

We are at a unique point in the grand scheme of things because for the first time in history, we as a species have the capability to spread life beyond the bounds of our world. Life wants to spread. With this new found cpability, is it our duty to help it spread?

Now, terraforming is a bit extreme, but I really struggle with even the basic idea of wether it is ethical to, say, introduce bacteria to other worlds and give life a chance to do what it does in other places.

Re:Before someone else says it....

[An Onerous Coward]

It's becoming increasingly clear that we need someplace to run off to when we screw up the Earth too badly. We've got six billion people on the same ship, and nobody has bothered to install lifeboats.

Also, the sooner we start working on Mars, the sooner we'll start learning how environments actually work, and the sooner we'll gather the expertise needed to avert major catastrophes.

The way I see it, terraforming Mars is an absolutely necessary safety measure, and no amount of money spent on problems "back home" will provide that safety. If we can turn Mars into a self-sustaining world of 20-million people or so, I don't see anything short of alien invasion or Sol going nova that could wipe us out.

What a great idea!

[operagost]

Inviting science fictions writers to determine the fate of Mars exploration? Brilliant! Now, let's get Tom Clancy and Stephen Coonts to develop an antiterrorism strategy!

It works both ways...

[Takuryu]

Who is to say that the bacteria don't just decide to exterminate us, instead? All it takes is a single one to hitch a ride to Earth and find a host...

Regardless, I vote that we terraform the Sahara Desert first... it would be good practice and actually serves a purpose NOW as well as in the future.

Re:It works both ways...

[Artifakt]

There's plenty of places we can practice. What happens if we pump desalinated seawater into Death Valley USA? How could we establish a timetable for re-shaping Mars when we don't really know much time it would take the Brazilian rain forest to reclaim the land at its current fringes if it started being protected now?
If we're betting we can establish new species on Mars, wouldn't it make sense to first restablish some more Earthly species in ranges we have wiped them from right here? A hundred or so years ago, we failed in attempts to reestablish the Passenger Pigeon to the wild or keep it alive in zoos. We've just now gotten pretty good with the American Buffalo, and results on the Eastern Red Wolf and the Giant Panda are still mixed at best. Looking at the endangered species list, I'd say until things come off of it (in a positive direction only) at least as fast as they go on, we are not ready for Mars.

Prime directive for bacteria

[jmorris42]

> Yeah, and in five hundred years people will be ashamed of the
> "barbarians pre-space humans who exterminated bacterial diversity on
> Mars".

Yea, I suspect you are right. And the heart of the movement will be at Mars University. They will be weak kneed mushy headed students lead by a few ivory tower dwelling pseudo intellectuals. But the most anyone else will say is "oh well, I ain't giving it back to the germs." and get on with their comfortable martian life. Or in other words, nothing new. Just a bunch of useless morons with nothing better to do than bitch and moan about how 'evil' their forefathers were once things have progressed to a point where genetic culls like themselves don't get killed off by the harsh pioneer environment.

IF we find life on Mars I'd probably agree with going VERY slow so as not to screw up something before we understand it fully. But if there isn't life there, it belongs to us to use as we see fit. Same goes for the rest of the Solar System.

Re:Earth's ICBMs at PEAK could kill 10%

[stwrtpj]

Most ICBMs were NOT designed to destory cities (contrary to left wing propoganda) but to hit limited military targets, primarily the other side's ICBM silos

And I'm sure those same missiles were designed not to give off the least little tiny bit of radiation and fallout afterward? That they somehow will not allow prevailing winds to carry the fallout into cities, rivers, and farms? You make these things sound so wonderful and neat and clean. Bullshit. You're purposely ignoring all the secondary effects of a widespread series of groundburst or near-groundburst nuclear explosions. No matter how low yield or how "clean" these things are, in a full scale nuclear war like you're suggesting, you'll have enough going off to send an appreciable amount of fallout into the air. And considering that most of our silos are in the midwest right alongside farmland (what fucking moron conceived that one??), that does not make for a very rosy scenario after the war. Whether or not the secondary effects are intentional is a moot point; the effects are real and are not possible to suppress. You have a fission reaction, you are going to have radioactive materials left over.

The Tomahawk Cruise Missile was designed to deliver a nuclear warhead within 7 feet of its target... That would allow you to hit each silo with ONE missile, instead of TWO

Oh, that makes me feel SO much better.

The end of cold war weapons were finally reaching the goal of winning a nuclear exchange.

That's extremely scary thinking. I sincerely hope this thinking was limited to people like you who are not looking at all the facts and not our government. To think that someone could win -- or would want to win -- a nuclear war is sickening.

Taking out downtown Manhattan would take 8-12 nuclear missiles

This boggles the mind. Where the hell are you getting your facts? Though this does sync with your other false statement that these weapons were not designed to take out cities. Each side has different classes of weapons. While it is true that the bulk of each side's arsenals are counterforce weapons -- i.e. aimed at each others weapons -- each side also has many countervalue weapons -- i.e. aimed at cities. These are indeed specifically designed to level cities, taking industry and economic centers with them, and they are not so inefficiently designed to require "8-12" missiles. These missiles typically have yields in the megaton range, and it takes a far smaller number, either delivered via two or three single-warhead missiles, or one MIRV'ed warhead missile.

not "wiping out the world 10 times over" or whatever propoganda we grew up with.

The exact figure of "10 times over" is subject to debate and is not the point. The main point in this possible hyperbole is that while the pure, physical destructive force of all the world's warheads is not capable of wiping out the entire world in the actual fireballs, shock waves, etc, this does not take into account all the secondary effects, such as radiation, fallout, and possible climatalogical effects of burning materials throwing thousands of tons of soot and other debris into the atmosphere. And yes, I know there is still substantial debate about the "nuclear winter" scenario. But do me a favor and find some other planet to test the theory on, thank you.

We cannot teraform mars. Give it up already!

[mark-t]

Mars has no magnetic field.

Without a magnetic field to help shield it, the solar wind slowly strips away the upper atmosphere, making the atmosphere thinner and thinner and thinner.

So if we try to thicken the atmosphere as part of a teraforming process, it won't do any good... the solar wind just keeps lapping it up and sending it into space, and would eventually bring it right back down to where it is right now.

It's just not worth the effort for something that wouldn't actually last.