 |
| Image from Space X, via this Quartz article. |
Really. He is. Right now! See? Read this article.
I know it seems like science fiction--or at least something far down the road, considering how big a mess we've made of Earth itself. And clearly we are not going on a field trip to Mars next year. Even if he is successful (and that's a HUGE if), it's going to take a lot of time. But considering how far he's come with Space X, we should probably take Musk seriously.
Which leads us to Mars. This article invokes the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (which is apparently really cool) to claim that Musk's mission might not be ethical, or even legal. The United Nations has pledged to take measures so that we don't contaminate other planets with microbes. (Since human beings are walking bacteria factories, that makes a lot of sense to me.)
I still think it highly unlikely that Mars contains sentient life, or even animal life. We're not going to arrive and be greeted by Ylla. But we have found evidence of running water on the planet. And we're pretty sure that some Antarctic fungus could survive there. The presence of microbial life on Mars is looking...well, if not likely, then at least more and more possible.
"Don't mess up," you optimists say. "Just don't go around contaminating and killing things on Mars, and we'll be fine." But I'd like to remind you that we have a crummy track record, as colonizers, for keeping native populations alive. Remember those woodcuts from 17th century England? "Come to Jamestown! Fertile earth! Uninhabited land!"
Uninhabited! Sometimes we blunder through the places we explore and destroy people and animals and plants in truly accidental carelessness. And sometimes we are blind to the damage we cause, because this blindness suits our purposes. I'm not so sure we would recognize life on Mars, even if it were staring us in the face--at least, not at first.
So I want to ask you, because this is a question that comes up over and over in science fiction: What obligation do we have to the life of other planets? Is terraforming a "dead" planet okay? (How do we recognize a dead planet?) Is it all right to contaminate or replace microbes? Plants? Animals? People? Why, or why not?
They're just rocks ANN!
ReplyDelete"They said the microbes were probably Terran. Can you believe that? PROBABLY Terran!"
Delete:-D
I need to find that part in Blue Mars where Ann has the dream, and everyone's talking about USING Mars: "Greater output of resources," "greater output of technology," "greater output of kindness." She just keeps saying: "Mars. Mars. Mars." You can argue that it's purposely thick, or that it's a purist position, but I don't think that makes it WRONG. Why do we get to be selfish about the planet? Because human ethics (maybe) excuse it? Seems pretty sketchy.
This is one of those questions that makes my brain hurt. Like, I'm pretty sure for most of my life I'd say "Microbial life doesn't care if we build on it, let's colonize Mars!" But recently I just learned that fish have feelings and if fish can have feelings WHY CAN'T INTERPLANETARY WATER BEARS?!?!?!?
ReplyDeleteI haven't gone vegan yet (WHAT IF CARROTS ARE SCREAMING WHEN I PULL THEM FROM THE GROUND??) so I guess I'm not that concerned with fish and chicken feelings but it IS on my mind.
I think if we thoughtfully populate Mars and it doesn't have beings that can say "please leave" then we should populate. I think that's the line. I think we should respectfully populate because we ruined earth, so everything should be UBER-INVESTIGATED.
Does this make sense? I'm sort of hangry right now.
It does! Especially the hangry part. :)
DeleteWe could go all Madeleine L'Engle and say "all life lives at the expense of other life." And that's TRUE. For the most part, if you're going to eat, you have to decide what you're okay killing. And I'm not so ethical that I'm willing to starve to death.
But given that Mars is an OPTION--that colonization doesn't have to happen--I think the "we have no choice" argument goes out the window. Which means that we're really just making value judgments about which life counts and which doesn't. And since I'm not too keen on being wiped out by some vastly superior alien species, myself, I've got a soft spot for those microbes.