Planetary protection issues Earth > Mars and Mars > Earth

[yoram]

It's all a theoretical question anyways. In the end the policy for this will be decided by US laws. While US legislation can be fairly dysfunctional, the probability that a majority of Senators or Representatives would be willing to put "I stopped Mars exploration" on their resumes is virtually nil.

[su27k]

It's all a theoretical question anyways. In the end the policy for this will be decided by US laws. While US legislation can be fairly dysfunctional, the probability that a majority of Senators or Representatives would be willing to put "I stopped Mars exploration" on their resumes is virtually nil.

Yeah, I'm sure that's what nuclear engineers thought when they were facing the anti-nuclear movement....

No matter where you lean in terms of political spectrum, I think we can all agree that a small vocal extremist group can have disproportionate (and often unscientific) influence on national policy if they're not countered. I believe there're even scientific evidence for this phenomena.

This is a representative democracy, if you don't fight for the policy you wanted, it effectively means you're ceding to your opponent. And the situation is more dire than many thought, because a democrat congresswoman and the head of house space subcommittee is already trying to write part of this manifesto into NASA Authorization Act.

[M.E.T.]

I can imagine a future where we discover the ruins of an extinct civilisation on a distant planet and upon finding a digital record of their history, learn that in their final days debates raged between space expansionists and “ethical anti colonisation” activists. While this debate dragged on an asteroid slammed into their planet, ending the technological civilisation and closing the short window during which they could become a space faring species.

The man who breaks our species free of this gravity well and makes us a multi-planetary species will be the hero of the quintillions of humans that might one day inhabit the galaxy. In fact, they might well owe their very existence to him.

So Zubrin is right. These planetary protection radicals are an existential threat to the vast majority of as yet unborn humans. They must be defeated at all costs.

[DigitalMan]

Here's a thought. If they succeed, they could only stop the U.S. and possibly the E.U if a similar movement were to begin there.

It is extremely unlikely there is a scenario where China would abandon their plans to send Taikonauts to the Moon and Mars. So, a situation that could be "bad" in protectionist eyes, (i.e., the U.S., whom they could influence, sends humans to Mars) could be "worse" if China sends humans to Mars (whom they cannot influence).

From what I can see, a protectionist view that fails to find avenues for human exploration, comes down to the question of whether you want to have a voice or not. Trying to shut down folks who are probably already looking to handle exploration with great care and would work with you to examine all the issues is not looking like a good move to me.

[RotoSequence]

Here's a thought. If they succeed, they could only stop the U.S. and possibly the E.U if a similar movement were to begin there.

It is extremely unlikely there is a scenario where China would abandon their plans to send Taikonauts to the Moon and Mars. So, a situation that could be "bad" in protectionist eyes, (i.e., the U.S., whom they could influence, sends humans to Mars) could be "worse" if China sends humans to Mars (whom they cannot influence).

From what I can see, a protectionist view that fails to find avenues for human exploration, comes down to the question of whether you want to have a voice or not. Trying to shut down folks who are probably already looking to handle exploration with great care and would work with you to examine all the issues is not looking like a good move to me.

China has much to gain by encouraging this sort of myopic agitprop.

[DigitalMan]

Here's a thought. If they succeed, they could only stop the U.S. and possibly the E.U if a similar movement were to begin there.

It is extremely unlikely there is a scenario where China would abandon their plans to send Taikonauts to the Moon and Mars. So, a situation that could be "bad" in protectionist eyes, (i.e., the U.S., whom they could influence, sends humans to Mars) could be "worse" if China sends humans to Mars (whom they cannot influence).

From what I can see, a protectionist view that fails to find avenues for human exploration, comes down to the question of whether you want to have a voice or not. Trying to shut down folks who are probably already looking to handle exploration with great care and would work with you to examine all the issues is not looking like a good move to me.

China has much to gain by encouraging this sort of myopic agitprop.

Why don't you go into some detail then. I'm encouraging people to talk to each other, find ways to make it work.

[M.E.T.]

Here's a thought. If they succeed, they could only stop the U.S. and possibly the E.U if a similar movement were to begin there.

It is extremely unlikely there is a scenario where China would abandon their plans to send Taikonauts to the Moon and Mars. So, a situation that could be "bad" in protectionist eyes, (i.e., the U.S., whom they could influence, sends humans to Mars) could be "worse" if China sends humans to Mars (whom they cannot influence).

From what I can see, a protectionist view that fails to find avenues for human exploration, comes down to the question of whether you want to have a voice or not. Trying to shut down folks who are probably already looking to handle exploration with great care and would work with you to examine all the issues is not looking like a good move to me.

China has much to gain by encouraging this sort of myopic agitprop.

Why don't you go into some detail then. I'm encouraging people to talk to each other, find ways to make it work.

China has every incentive to disingenuously support these “planetary protection” movements, thus delaying the current US led colonisation efforts and buying them time to catch up to US space dominance. Then they will have a more dominant hand to play once the inevitable scramble for resources is eventually unleashed.

[DigitalMan]

Here's a thought. If they succeed, they could only stop the U.S. and possibly the E.U if a similar movement were to begin there.

It is extremely unlikely there is a scenario where China would abandon their plans to send Taikonauts to the Moon and Mars. So, a situation that could be "bad" in protectionist eyes, (i.e., the U.S., whom they could influence, sends humans to Mars) could be "worse" if China sends humans to Mars (whom they cannot influence).

From what I can see, a protectionist view that fails to find avenues for human exploration, comes down to the question of whether you want to have a voice or not. Trying to shut down folks who are probably already looking to handle exploration with great care and would work with you to examine all the issues is not looking like a good move to me.

China has much to gain by encouraging this sort of myopic agitprop.

Why don't you go into some detail then. I'm encouraging people to talk to each other, find ways to make it work.

China has every incentive to disingenuously support these “planetary protection” movements, thus delaying the current US led colonisation efforts and buying them time to catch up to US space dominance. Then they will have a more dominant hand to play once the inevitable scramble for resources is eventually unleashed.

That makes a lot of sense to me, and I would hope folks wouldn't fall for manipulation of that sort. I would argue that if there is bacteriological life on Mars, for instance, that human discovery of that life could go a long way towards protecting it from potential extinction. So, there could be paths to have the opposite effect of what protection movements currently fear.

Resistance to utilization of resources available in the solar system is something worth sorting out. One of the arguments against space exploration is that there are problems to solve on this planet first. There may not be urgency right this moment to use resources from space to benefit life on Earth, but it seems like something you don't want to start on a Friday, intending to start mining them on a Monday if some emergency were to come up.

Once you get past various arguments for/against there is always the possibility some may discover that exploring and expanding out into space BEO could be the most exciting thing to happen to life on Earth. I used to love to climb mountains, but even so, there are plenty of people that see no value in it.

[Frogstar_Robot]

I think it is inevitable that the Space Expansionists will have their way. Human civilization is built on colonization, exploitation and competition for resources. We don't really care what species we extinguish on the way. Humans are causing a mass extinction event right now Holecene extinction.

Humans like to think we are clever, but ultimately we do the same thing as yeast : turn resources into biomass and waste. We use our "cleverness" to further the basic biological imperative: create more humans. And we are very good at that.

Of course, we dress it up with ideas about religion or politics, and justify our actions by saying "we are the good guys, and we have to beat the bad guys". The vast majority of humans live in a delusional anthropocentric bubble, naturally any attempt to puncture the illusion provokes hostility.

So carry on humans, colonize the galaxy, fill it with more humans. Everything else be damned. Yeast would do the same.

[M.E.T.]

I think it is inevitable that the Space Expansionists will have their way. Human civilization is built on colonization, exploitation and competition for resources. We don't really care what species we extinguish on the way. Humans are causing a mass extinction event right now Holecene extinction.

Humans like to think we are clever, but ultimately we do the same thing as yeast : turn resources into biomass and waste. We use our "cleverness" to further the basic biological imperative: create more humans. And we are very good at that.

Of course, we dress it up with ideas about religion or politics, and justify our actions by saying "we are the good guys, and we have to beat the bad guys". The vast majority of humans live in a delusional anthropocentric bubble, naturally any attempt to puncture the illusion provokes hostility.

So carry on humans, colonize the galaxy, fill it with more humans. Everything else be damned. Yeast would do the same.

To quote Robert Zubrin, your argument above can rightly be characterised as anti-human.

[dondar]

Seriously? Right of not only existing microbial life but future microbial life is not here to prevent colonization? How do you ensure the right of microbial life and keep Mars environment unchanged if you want to do colonization? I'd like to know.

I agree with Zubrin here, this is absolutely an attempt to prevent humanity from leaving Earth all together and must be treated as such. Hopefully the decadal survey will crush this paper like a bug, I'll certainly be paying more attention to the survey meeting from now on, this is an existential threat not only to Mars colonization efforts but to humanity as a whole.

They would take its existence into consideration, and ideally, try not to disrupt it as much as possible. That's really all they are talking about. They don't want the home of a microbal ecosystem to be strip-mined without its being studied first, and they argue that it's unethical to allow economic concerns to run rampant over scientific concerns. That's the entire point of the white paper.

Zubrin is wrong, because his mindset is wrong. The argument that this dialogue is an "existential threat to Mars colonization" is wrong. Nobody is saying we should not establish colonies. Literally nowhere do they say we should not leave Earth. It is a strawman argument.

this is misleading statement. Zubrin is from 90s generation and had witnessed how  "nobody" killed planetary efforts and how misleading "nowhere they said" rhetoric had killed killed human space exploration altogether.

There is one important part "humanitarians" will never understand.
Everything we use see and understand is the result of continuous and, I really want to put an emphasize at, not interrupted efforts. Nothing comes from nowhere and "zero sum" which is the basic axiom in all this BS is the fact only in the retards' minds.
(History knows plenty of interrupted and consequently forgotten developments.)

Spaceships over 50 years will be much better and reach "voyager" only if we start and continue non stop from now.

[su27k]

Here's a thought. If they succeed, they could only stop the U.S. and possibly the E.U if a similar movement were to begin there.

It is extremely unlikely there is a scenario where China would abandon their plans to send Taikonauts to the Moon and Mars. So, a situation that could be "bad" in protectionist eyes, (i.e., the U.S., whom they could influence, sends humans to Mars) could be "worse" if China sends humans to Mars (whom they cannot influence).

From what I can see, a protectionist view that fails to find avenues for human exploration, comes down to the question of whether you want to have a voice or not. Trying to shut down folks who are probably already looking to handle exploration with great care and would work with you to examine all the issues is not looking like a good move to me.

I doubt China is a consideration to these people, they'll just ignore it just like how they're ignoring China's human right violations while focusing on much much smaller issues in the west, or how they decimated western nuclear industry but allowing China and Russia to build reactors all over the world, or how they act as if Elon run over school children when Starlink TOS proposed Martian independence but turns a blind eye when the head of Chinese lunar program claims "the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island" (both islands are claimed by China as their territory).

I can say much more but that will probably draw the ire of mods, so I'll stop here...

[whitelancer64]

Since nobody seems to be actually reading this paper, here's some quotes:

We must actively work to prevent capitalist extraction on other worlds, respect and preserve their environmental systems, and acknowledge the sovereignty and interconnectivity of all life. The urgency of finding a second home on Mars in the shadow of looming environmental catastrophe on Earth is not only a questionable endeavor 2 but scientifically impossible with present technology, 3 and is often used as a justification for human exploration and to suggest that these ethical questions may be antiquated in the face of that reality.

So yeah, your space habitat? Not going to happen because it needs "capitalist extraction on other worlds", which will be prevented. And "Nobody is saying we should not establish colonies"? What does the sentence "The urgency of finding a second home on Mars in the shadow of looming environmental catastrophe on Earth is not only a questionable endeavor 2 but scientifically impossible with present technology" looks like to you?

Preventing unrestrained capitalistic extraction of resources does not mean that there can be no extraction of resources. You are deliberately misconstruing what is said in the white paper.

Similarly, they did not say we should not establish any colonies, only that in their opinion it's not possible with current technology.

Public-Private Partnerships as a Colonial Structure

So yeah, no public-private partnership either because it's a colonial, we need to be anti-colonial so let's give cost-plus contracts to Boeing and LM, that's the way to go. Of course anybody with any knowledge about current state of space industry would realize by removing PPP this effectively kills any attempt at doing anything meaningful beyond LEO

Also I find it curious that this stands is exactly what Kendra Horn - the head of democrat controlled house space subcommittee - takes, coincidence? I think not.

Moral Consideration of Extraterrestrial Microbial Life: There must be further discussion of what moral consideration microbial life on other worlds should have, beyond their scientific significance,as others have considered previously. 29 Considerations of “intelligence” or “non-intelligence” should not be used as the framework for this discussion. Not only do biological distinctions of intelligence have a racist history, they do not hold scientific merit.

So we can't call microbes non-intelligent because it's racist, and if we treat microbes as intelligent then the treatment they receive can't just be "try not to disrupt it as much as possible", surely we'll have to treat them as equals, after all they're "intelligent" aliens, no?

You are misconstruing what is said, once again. The paper is saying that deciding whether or not life is "intelligent" as a criteria for whether or not it should be preserved is not a firm practice, as is evident from our past history, all we would need do is not consider the natives "intelligent" and then kill them off and exploit resources without restraint.

Obligations to Potential Future Life: Even if there is no extant microbial life on Mars or beyond, we must consider the impacts of our actions on geologic timescales. A human presence on an astrobiologically significant world could disrupt evolutionary processes already in place.

So basically we can't do anything in space, that asteroid you're trying to mine? Who knows what life form could evolve on it in 10 billion years. How do you prove to various government agencies and committees that there won't be life evolving on this asteroid until the end of the universe? Good luck with that, you think any investor is going to fund your mining expedition knowing you need to prove this?

Once again, no, that is not the conclusion. You are deliberately misrepresenting what is being said.

Preservation of Environments on Non-Habitable Worlds: Current plans for the Moon place in-situ resource utilization as a fundamental component of a long-term presence. Current policy does not adequately address questions relevant to preservation beyond sites of scientific value, and ignores questions of whether certain environments should be preserved for historical or environmental reasons, or even their intrinsic value. Aesthetics should also be considered.

"scientific concerns" you were saying? Nope, it goes way way beyond that, this is the ultimate NIMBY, again good luck getting anything done when you need to consider intrinsic aesthetics values of planetary bodies.

In addition, the Moon and other planetary bodies are sacred to some cultures. Is it possible for those beliefs to be respected if we engage in resource utilization on those worlds? Lunar exploration must be prepared to adjust its practices and plans if the answer is no

So yeah, that mining site on the Moon, you can't do it if some tribe says it's sacred ground for them.

Yet again, that's not what they are saying. Taking the beliefs of others into consideration does not mean that you cannot do anything. It means getting the people who hold those beliefs involved right away in the design process, working with them rather than against them.

[whitelancer64]

Since practical colonization is still along way off, it's all a bit theoretical. But imagine we find a world that seems poised for life - it's similar to an early Earth, but has no signs of life at the microbe level. But we do detect areas with unusually high concentrations of organic compounds (perhaps in places analogous to hydrothermal vents). It may be in the process of creating life - which might take thousands or millions of years. Studying how life arises is one of the huge scientific questions. Would we reserve this new world to scientific research, or turn it over to colonists, or for exploitation by mining companies?

In a more immediate timeframe, it would be interesting to see what happens if strong evidence for life is detected on Mars, or even evidence of past life. At the very least, we would want to carefully study the impact of introducing human activities into a potentially viable, independent ecosystem. It would be a shame, to put it mildly, to discover a second site of life outside the Earth, and then find we destroyed it with a careless human presence.

If the Earth was in imminent threat of destruction, the balance might be different. Assuming we take care of the planet, it should be good for a few million years yet. We really don't need to rush to colonize other planets (or moons).

Of course, planetary protection wouldn't apply to space based habitats, so expansion into space can still take place. We just need to be careful how we do it.

This is a stupid argument, you can argue the same for places on Earth. If we remove humans from Australia or New Zealand, there may be new life forms arise from there too (in fact they already have some unique life forms), why don't we do that?

Because we give human interests a far higher value than lower life forms, this is encoded in our laws and customs, this should be no different when it comes to other planets. We introduce human activities into potentially viable, independent ecosystem all the time here on Earth, nobody bats an eye about it.

And one can very much argue human civilization on Earth is in imminent threat of destruction, I mean isn't this the argument behind climate change mitigation? You can't have it both ways (arguing there's no danger so we don't need to colonize, at the same time saying climate change is an existential threat). Besides, a Mars colony will take a long time to establish itself, we needed to start right now because if we wait until there is an imminent threat it would be way too late.

And a space habitat doesn't get you out of this, since it needs resources, where do you get the material to build your space habitat? It has to come from planets or asteroids, then you're back to where you started, you need to change the environment on planets or asteroids (i.e. mining) in order to build your space habitat.

Fundamentally, anything we do will change the environment, either on Earth or on other bodies in the solar system. The only way to preserve the environment is to do nothing, which is why Zubrin is correct when he says the goal of this paper is prevent us from leaving Earth all together.

All arguments are stupid when you Reductio ad Absurdem them. Nobody is saying we should not go to the Moon or Mars, just that we need to keep the consequences of our actions in mind. "Nobody bats an eye about it" Actually, invasive species being introduced is a HUGE problem, along with many other issues, so yes, people are concerned about things like that here on Earth.

The problem with what you're saying is that nobody is saying "don't colonize, don't change Mars' environment, etc." Yes, climate change here on Earth is a threat. We do need to work on that. We should also be aware that going to Mars (etc.) will alter the ecosystems on the places we go to also. We will introduce climate change on Mars when we start going there. We need to be mindful that those changes don't also destroy the places we went to, to avoid doing similar catastrophic damage as was done to Earth.

Literally nowhere in the white paper does it say people should not leave the Earth at all. That's not at all the point or purpose of it.

[DreamyPickle]

Preventing unrestrained capitalistic extraction of resources does not mean that there can be no extraction of resources. You are deliberately misconstruing what is said in the white paper.

No, you're the one deliberately obscuring the intent of the paper. These people are enemies of space exploration and want to completely restrict it the same way nuclear power was restricted into a practical impossibility.

If you don't see this you're either complicit or delusional.

[whitelancer64]

I think it is inevitable that the Space Expansionists will have their way. Human civilization is built on colonization, exploitation and competition for resources. We don't really care what species we extinguish on the way. Humans are causing a mass extinction event right now Holecene extinction.

Humans like to think we are clever, but ultimately we do the same thing as yeast : turn resources into biomass and waste. We use our "cleverness" to further the basic biological imperative: create more humans. And we are very good at that.

Of course, we dress it up with ideas about religion or politics, and justify our actions by saying "we are the good guys, and we have to beat the bad guys". The vast majority of humans live in a delusional anthropocentric bubble, naturally any attempt to puncture the illusion provokes hostility.

So carry on humans, colonize the galaxy, fill it with more humans. Everything else be damned. Yeast would do the same.

To quote Robert Zubrin, your argument above can rightly be characterised as anti-human.

It's literally not. He did not say we should not go into space, to Mars and eventually, the stars. You are missing the point.

[whitelancer64]

Seriously? Right of not only existing microbial life but future microbial life is not here to prevent colonization? How do you ensure the right of microbial life and keep Mars environment unchanged if you want to do colonization? I'd like to know.

I agree with Zubrin here, this is absolutely an attempt to prevent humanity from leaving Earth all together and must be treated as such. Hopefully the decadal survey will crush this paper like a bug, I'll certainly be paying more attention to the survey meeting from now on, this is an existential threat not only to Mars colonization efforts but to humanity as a whole.

They would take its existence into consideration, and ideally, try not to disrupt it as much as possible. That's really all they are talking about. They don't want the home of a microbal ecosystem to be strip-mined without its being studied first, and they argue that it's unethical to allow economic concerns to run rampant over scientific concerns. That's the entire point of the white paper.

Zubrin is wrong, because his mindset is wrong. The argument that this dialogue is an "existential threat to Mars colonization" is wrong. Nobody is saying we should not establish colonies. Literally nowhere do they say we should not leave Earth. It is a strawman argument.

this is misleading statement. Zubrin is from 90s generation and had witnessed how  "nobody" killed planetary efforts and how misleading "nowhere they said" rhetoric had killed killed human space exploration altogether.

There is one important part "humanitarians" will never understand.
Everything we use see and understand is the result of continuous and, I really want to put an emphasize at, not interrupted efforts. Nothing comes from nowhere and "zero sum" which is the basic axiom in all this BS is the fact only in the retards' minds.
(History knows plenty of interrupted and consequently forgotten developments.)

Spaceships over 50 years will be much better and reach "voyager" only if we start and continue non stop from now.

There is no need to stop development to have this conversation. We can walk, talk, and chew gum all at the same time. If you think that the white paper means "halt all planning and development," then you have not bothered to understand it.

[whitelancer64]

Seriously? Right of not only existing microbial life but future microbial life is not here to prevent colonization? How do you ensure the right of microbial life and keep Mars environment unchanged if you want to do colonization? I'd like to know.

I agree with Zubrin here, this is absolutely an attempt to prevent humanity from leaving Earth all together and must be treated as such. Hopefully the decadal survey will crush this paper like a bug, I'll certainly be paying more attention to the survey meeting from now on, this is an existential threat not only to Mars colonization efforts but to humanity as a whole.

They would take its existence into consideration, and ideally, try not to disrupt it as much as possible. That's really all they are talking about. They don't want the home of a microbal ecosystem to be strip-mined without its being studied first, and they argue that it's unethical to allow economic concerns to run rampant over scientific concerns. That's the entire point of the white paper.

Zubrin is wrong, because his mindset is wrong. The argument that this dialogue is an "existential threat to Mars colonization" is wrong. Nobody is saying we should not establish colonies. Literally nowhere do they say we should not leave Earth. It is a strawman argument.

No, that is not at all what the paper is talking about, did you even read it? It goes well beyond scientific rationale for preserving microbes:

Moral Consideration of Extraterrestrial Microbial Life: There must be further discussion of what moral consideration microbial life on other worlds should have, beyond their scientific significance, as others have considered previously.

I mean just read the damn thing before you say we're wrong.

I did read it, that's why I understand what it says.

As long as you continue to misconstrue what it says, you are still wrong.

Of course there are moral and ethical concerns in addition to just scientific concerns. The problem is that you, and others, want to disregard those considerations. These are things that need to be talked about and taken into account.

[whitelancer64]

Preventing unrestrained capitalistic extraction of resources does not mean that there can be no extraction of resources. You are deliberately misconstruing what is said in the white paper.

No, you're the one deliberately obscuring the intent of the paper. These people are enemies of space exploration and want to completely restrict it the same way nuclear power was restricted into a practical impossibility.

If you don't see this you're either complicit or delusional.

Considering them "enemies" is WRONG. They are not enemies of space exploration at all, they are not saying we should not go to Mars (etc.), they are saying that it should be done with ethical considerations in mind. There is nothing at all wrong with that idea.

If you don't see that you are either complicit or delusional.

[su27k]

Since nobody seems to be actually reading this paper, here's some quotes:

We must actively work to prevent capitalist extraction on other worlds, respect and preserve their environmental systems, and acknowledge the sovereignty and interconnectivity of all life. The urgency of finding a second home on Mars in the shadow of looming environmental catastrophe on Earth is not only a questionable endeavor 2 but scientifically impossible with present technology, 3 and is often used as a justification for human exploration and to suggest that these ethical questions may be antiquated in the face of that reality.

So yeah, your space habitat? Not going to happen because it needs "capitalist extraction on other worlds", which will be prevented. And "Nobody is saying we should not establish colonies"? What does the sentence "The urgency of finding a second home on Mars in the shadow of looming environmental catastrophe on Earth is not only a questionable endeavor 2 but scientifically impossible with present technology" looks like to you?

Preventing unrestrained capitalistic extraction of resources does not mean that there can be no extraction of resources. You are deliberately misconstruing what is said in the white paper.

They did NOT say "unrestrained capitalistic extraction of resources", they said "capitalist extraction on other worlds", "unrestrained" is a qualifier you added yourself, the paper did not use this qualifier which means they're making a universal claim that applies to all resource extractions.

What non-capitalistic extraction of resources are there? This basically prevents any commercial/private extraction of resources, which as history has shown is what is needed to develop space, since governments (at least western democracies) are not interested in doing this themselves.

Similarly, they did not say we should not establish any colonies, only that in their opinion it's not possible with current technology.

Again, you're intentionally changing the paper to fit your apologetic narrative. They didn't just say "colonization is not possible with current technology", they said it's "a questionable endeavor".

Moral Consideration of Extraterrestrial Microbial Life: There must be further discussion of what moral consideration microbial life on other worlds should have, beyond their scientific significance,as others have considered previously. 29 Considerations of “intelligence” or “non-intelligence” should not be used as the framework for this discussion. Not only do biological distinctions of intelligence have a racist history, they do not hold scientific merit.

So we can't call microbes non-intelligent because it's racist, and if we treat microbes as intelligent then the treatment they receive can't just be "try not to disrupt it as much as possible", surely we'll have to treat them as equals, after all they're "intelligent" aliens, no?

You are misconstruing what is said, once again. The paper is saying that deciding whether or not life is "intelligent" as a criteria for whether or not it should be preserved is not a firm practice, as is evident from our past history, all we would need do is not consider the natives "intelligent" and then kill them off and exploit resources without restraint.

Well the paper is making an irrational and unscientific claim here, so misconstruing what is said is doing them a favor. What they're arguing is that there is no such a thing called "intelligence", this is wholly unscientific, notice the sentence "Not only do biological distinctions of intelligence have a racist history, they do not hold scientific merit." has no supporting reference, where did this idea come from? What is the science behind this claim? Of course they're already throwing science out of the window given they said this whole thing should be considered "beyond their scientific significance".

Yes, historically humanity may have done something like "consider the natives "intelligent" and then kill them off", but unless you're arguing Martian microbial life is equal to native humans, this historical reference has no relevance to the discussion. If you do consider Martian microbial life is equal to native humans, then my original interpretation is correct.

Obligations to Potential Future Life: Even if there is no extant microbial life on Mars or beyond, we must consider the impacts of our actions on geologic timescales. A human presence on an astrobiologically significant world could disrupt evolutionary processes already in place.

So basically we can't do anything in space, that asteroid you're trying to mine? Who knows what life form could evolve on it in 10 billion years. How do you prove to various government agencies and committees that there won't be life evolving on this asteroid until the end of the universe? Good luck with that, you think any investor is going to fund your mining expedition knowing you need to prove this?

Once again, no, that is not the conclusion. You are deliberately misrepresenting what is being said.

Once again, I'm just repeating what the paper is saying. "we must consider" is just another way of saying we should have a government agency/committee deciding this, as the paper later claims "Discussions on the ethics of planetary protection must result in robust, enforceable policy that explicitly works to dismantle colonial structures and provide answers or frameworks to address the ethical questions outlined above", so they intended to use planetary protection policy to enforce their rules, which will be done via government.

"geologic timescales" as explained in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale span hundreds of million to billions or years.

So my interpretation is entirely consistent with what the paper is saying, which part of this interpretation do you disagree?

In addition, the Moon and other planetary bodies are sacred to some cultures. Is it possible for those beliefs to be respected if we engage in resource utilization on those worlds? Lunar exploration must be prepared to adjust its practices and plans if the answer is no

So yeah, that mining site on the Moon, you can't do it if some tribe says it's sacred ground for them.

Yet again, that's not what they are saying. Taking the beliefs of others into consideration does not mean that you cannot do anything. It means getting the people who hold those beliefs involved right away in the design process, working with them rather than against them.

The saga of the Thirty Meter Telescope shows otherwise, in fact the paper used this as an example "For example, construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea has begun despite opposition from many Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians), who note that previous astronomy development atop Mauna Kea has already had substantial adverse effects.", so yes taking the beliefs of others into consideration could very well mean that you cannot do anything.

And why do we need to consider these beliefs? Did we take FlatEarthers' belief into consideration when designing rockets and spacecrafts? Did we take Moon landing deniers' belief into consideration when designing lunar orbiters and landers? Did we take anti-vaxxers' belief into consideration when designing vaccines? Did we take 5G spreading coronavirus believers' belief into consideration when designing 5G devices?