Author Topic: Value of Biologically Pristine Mars for Science and Humanity  (Read 24079 times)

Offline Warren Platts

And yes, I fully admit that causing extinctions of any kind is an intrinsic moral wrong...

The eradication of smallpox was an intrinsic moral wrong?

I just don't know how Warren manages to brush his teeth in the morning. Millions are dying ;)

Actually, last I checked, there are still smallpox cultures kept in select labs around the world.
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline Warren Platts

The more likely scenario is that there is life, but it is microbial life confined to briny aquifers below the surface. If these organisms are able to exist in Mars's perchlorate-infested, poisonous ecosystem, then they are going to be very hardy creatures and unlikely to be displaced by microbes brought in accidently from Earth. After all, it's likely that there has been occasional transfers of life between the two planets in the past.

I answer that in the article actually. Think about Australia. There has been a lot of exchange of life, after all not so long ago geologically speaking all our continents were part of one big super continent (200 million years ago as Pangea).

The life there is ideally adapted to its environment, as far as it goes, but for some reason placental animals never developed there. So the introduced life from Europe, although the Australian conditions were new to them, were able to thrive there and e.g. the Tasmanian wolf driven extinct, and many habitats and species under threat.

The Australian analogy doesn't hold. Australia is a paradise compared to Mars. A better analogy would be Antarctica. Has the endolithic algae been displaced by algae brought by humans? Nope. Similarly, we should not expect Mars microorganisms to be displaced.

I didn't know there was a treaty prohibiting human landings on Mars, though. That's funny!  ;D
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline robertinventor

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The Australian analogy doesn't hold. Australia is a paradise compared to Mars. A better analogy would be Antarctica. Has the endolithic algae been displaced by algae brought by humans? Nope. Similarly, we should not expect Mars microorganisms to be displaced.

Sorry, the analogy is that Australia is for higher animals like rabbits, as Mars is for micro-organisms.

Yes of course, it is easy for micro-organisms to spread around the world, except of course for the ones that are adapted to particular hosts, so diseases and parasites that can only live on a particular host are of course localized.

But other micro-organisms are found everywhere. You don't have one group of micro-organisms in Australia, another in Antarctica, and another in Europe etc as you do with the higher animals.

That's why tourists to Antarctica don't contaminate it just by landing on it. They are required to clean their boots though :).

It is really hard though for microorganisms to spread from Earth to Mars. Most can only do that if carried on a spaceship. So you may well have one group of micro-organisms here on Earth and another group on Mars that has evolved independently for billions of years. Some may be as different as the placental animals are different from marsupials, even if there is a common ancestor to them all. And some may be based on completely different life chemistry. At this stage we don't know.

Hope this helps clarify.



« Last Edit: 05/16/2013 03:44 pm by robertinventor »

Offline Warren Platts

The Australian analogy doesn't hold. Australia is a paradise compared to Mars. A better analogy would be Antarctica. Has the endolithic algae been displaced by algae brought by humans? Nope. Similarly, we should not expect Mars microorganisms to be displaced.

Sorry, the analogy is that Australia is for higher animals like rabbits, as Mars is for micro-organisms.

Yes of course, it is easy for micro-organisms to spread around the world, ...

But other micro-organisms are found everywhere. You don't have one group of micro-organisms in Australia, another in Antarctica, ...

This is simply not true: there are microorganisms endemic to Antarctica that are not found elsewhere. Yet humans have been crawling all over the continent for a century now. Yet Antarctic microorganisms haven't been driven to extinction due to introductions of exotic microorganisms. 
« Last Edit: 05/16/2013 06:17 pm by Warren Platts »
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline robertinventor

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Oh you are right, didn't know that. Yes there are groups of micro-organism endemic to Antarctica.

But at the same time, there is concern about the impact of human carried micro-organisms on those endemic micro-organisms too. So the parallel is closer than I realised.

Here is a report suggesting that areas of Antarctica should be identified that have not yet been touched by humans and that they are kept pristine.

http://www.scar.org:8000/treaty/atcmxxxvi/ATCM36_wp039_e.pdf

BTW I've never engaged in a discussion forum where there is quite so much throwing about of personal remarks about the motivations of the posters and personal allegations about ones moral integrity as here :).

I am acting in good faith, describing things as best I can, explaining my POV, and I have no hidden agenda, the reason for these posts is just because I care about these things.


Offline gospacex

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BTW I've never engaged in a discussion forum where there is quite so much throwing about of personal remarks about the motivations of the posters and personal allegations about ones moral integrity as here :)

Hard to believe. Internet is a quite nasty place, this forum is one of the better ones.

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I am acting in good faith, describing things as best I can, explaining my POV, and I have no hidden agenda, the reason for these posts is just because I care about these things.

I don't see anyone accusing you of hidden agenda.

You indeed explained your POV, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

The thing is, POV is just a POV. There are many people with different POVs, and they can't be all compatible.

Some people say "we should just stay on Earth, any other place is way too inhospitable".

Others think that space colonization is a must.

Then there are fanatics of robotic exploration, of scientific exploration just for the sake of it, they really just enjoy the process itself, not it's applications for the advancement of human race.

And myriad of others. You know, some people still think that most important task is to gas all Jews.

A bizarre thing is that it's very hard to convince most of these people, even rational ones, to change their POV even by a tiny bit. They seem to be not listening.

Offline robertinventor

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I'll pass on that. Probably usually I just would take one look at the forum and decide it is not for me, or retreat after a few remarks, that's probably why I haven't encountered this sort of thing for ages, not for like a decade or more, was a member of a forum in the 1990s that was like this for a while, worse in a way.

I think people who post to forums like this get used to a particular way of expressing things. When they do things like accuse others of being an eco-extremist, or of fear mongering, or of deliberately misleading them, they don't really mean those words in the way that they would be understood in normal conversation. I don't think anyone here seriously believes that I am deliberately frightening the rest of you or deliberately misleading you, or that I am any kind of a terrorist. Just like a thing you throw out like a swear word that gets used so much it becomes meaningless.

Anyway for what it's worth seems the best thing is just to ignore such things and continue as if they weren't said. just continue with a normal conversation. It is a bit like what you do when you talk to people who swear on every second word, they don't expect you to swear back if that is not your style, and you just talk normally as you do in your own style of speaking and it works well enough..

I've done that before in forums like this, and it works pretty well. I have of course encountered it before but maybe lucky or something, not quite as much as here, not for about ten years or more.

I agree that it seems to be quite friendly here really, and that it is not intended as intimidating and unfriendly, not really, though it could be taken that way by someone not used to this.



« Last Edit: 05/16/2013 06:15 pm by robertinventor »

Offline robertinventor

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Just wanted to say, the situation is different for forward and for backward contamination.

For forward contamination then it is pretty clear that on current knowledge of Mars, if there are habitats for life there as seems quite likely, then the risk is high of those getting contaminated if you introduce loads of Earth micro-organisms to Mars.

So there you are talking about reasonably high probability events, when you bring humans into the equation. I'd be surprised if any up to date scientist researching on contamination issues, especially biologist, were to say that a human visit to Mars will not contaminate the planet, or even assign a low probability to contamination.

For backwards contamination, then you are talking about low probability events. It is reasonable yes to argue that we sometimes encounter habitats on Earth with micro-organisms that have been isolated for a long period of time. I recently read about some water discovered that was believed to be isolated for billions of years.

That is indeed an argument for saying it might not be a probable event. But then no-one thinks it is probable anyway. Not in the backward direction, mainly because Earth is so much more evolved than Mars, it seems, and teaming with life.

The thing is though, Mars is a big unknown and we really have no idea what is there at a biological level at all. In that situation our experience on Earth may be of limited value. And the consequences if we get it wrong are high indeed.

The things I said about equivalent of placental animal on micro-organism level on Mars - that wasn't meant to say that it is likely, even probable, just a possibility.

That way, the backward contamination direction, it is a very high impact event, about the highest imaginable for humans, and very low probability, everyone would agree it is almost certain that nothing will happen. But that is not the same as being sure it won't happen beyond any reasonable doubt.

Those who worry about backward contamination want to be sure beyond any reasonable doubt. To be reassured in that way we need to have some idea about whether there is life on Mars now and what form it takes, at minimum need to have had a reasonable amount of exploration using e.g. scanning electron microscopes etc. on Mars. But that is digressing a bit from this topic of keeping Mars itself pristine, we can discuss it separately.

I am in process of getting together an article on contamination issues for Mars sample return for wikipedia. It just pulls together and paraphrases or summarizes some of the things that have been published on this, including publication on the legal aspects of it, break down of the risks of the proposed mission, and so on.

Ican post it for comment if anyone is interested in a separate thread

Offline gospacex

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When they do things like accuse others of being an eco-extremist

I am sure eco-extremists don't think that they are extreme :) What's wrong with this nice idea of living in caves in peace and harmony with nature? ;)

I admit that I was wrong here: you indeed have a bit extreme views, but so far they weren't about ecology - they were about science. You think that gaining knowledge about past life on Mars trumps just about anything else, that losing some bits of it is a gigantic loss. You are scientist-extremist :)

Offline gospacex

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Mars life surviving, let alone thriving, on Earth is about as likely as Earth life surviving on Venus.

High pressure. Searing heat. Aggressive and unusual atmosphere. Good luck...

Offline Warren Platts

For forward contamination then it is pretty clear that on current knowledge of Mars, if there are habitats for life there as seems quite likely, then the risk is high of those getting contaminated if you introduce loads of Earth micro-organisms to Mars.

So there you are talking about reasonably high probability events, when you bring humans into the equation.

HOW?!? 

If there are any Mars organisms, most likely they are in deep, underground aquifers. Meanwhile, humans will be occupying the surface in self-contained, sealed habitats. Instituting some sort of decontamination procedure, like spraying down your spacesuit before you step outside would be easily doable. And if a bit of E. coli managed to get outside anyhow, it wouldn't last long in due to the UV radiation and perchlorates.


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For backwards contamination, then you are talking about low probability events. ...

And the consequences if we get it wrong are high indeed.

...

everyone would agree it is almost certain that nothing will happen. But that is not the same as being sure it won't happen beyond any reasonable doubt.

Those who worry about backward contamination want to be sure beyond any reasonable doubt.

Where were you when a lot of people were worried that the LHC was going to make a black hole that was going to swallow the planet? Did you complain then? If not, what's the difference?

Also, "being almost certain" is being sure "beyond a reasonable doubt". Ever sat in on judge reading instructions to a jury? "Beyond a reasonable doubt" does not mean that there cannot be any doubt, just that such doubts aren't reasonable. Your doubts regarding the danger of back contamination are not reasonable IMHO.

In general, there about 4 standards of certainty:

1. a preponderance of the evidence (A is 1% more likely than B)

2. beyond a reasonable doubt (in practice, studies of American juries shows this works out to about 70% odds of being right)

3. reasonable certainty (e.g., truth of the principle of conservation of matter & energy)

4. absolute certainty (e.g., mathematical proof)

You're arguing that reasonable certainty ought to be applied. I actually agree, but I think we already have that level of certainty.

This is not to say that reasonable precautions shouldn't be undertaken in any case: e.g., the original LHC managers were highly irresponsible IMO when they tried to run it at full power the first time: and they paid for it with their jobs when they destroyed their machine. After they were fired, the 2nd team went for a go-slow approach, attempting to replicate earlier work first, then understanding what they're making as they gradually increased the power. Guess what? Nothing bad happened.

Similarly, I'm not recommending that we culture a bunch of Martian bacteria, load it up in tanker airplanes and spread it all over the Earth's atmosphere in order to see what happens. We simply take the ordinary steps we would take when encountering potentially dangerous microorganisms anywhere: e.g., decontaminating astronauts after they leave Mars, (they'll have a several month quarantine period on the ride back in any case), try it out on rats on Mars first to see what happens, etc.

IOW, I'll grant that the risk is non-zero; that is, we can't be absolutely certain that an Andromeda Strain scenario wouldn't unfold--but then again, we can't be absolutely certain about anything in the real world. Thus the risk of anything bad happening is minute; more importantly, it is a risk that can be managed--after all, there are several labs the world over that already deal with the most dangerous microorganisms imaginable.

The risk of back contamination certainly shouldn't be held up as justification for a moratorium on crewed Mars exploration! That's pure Chicken Little baloney! To put it politely: the argument that there should be a moratorium because of the risk of back contamination is simply unreasonable.
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline robertinventor

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if there are any Mars organisms, most likely they are in deep, underground aquifers. Meanwhile, humans will be occupying the surface in self-contained, sealed habitats. Instituting some sort of decontamination procedure, like spraying down your spacesuit before you step outside would be easily doable. And if a bit of E. coli managed to get outside anyhow, it wouldn't last long in due to the UV radiation and perchlorates.

That is what everyone thought about five years ago. Not any more though.

The thing is that dormant states of micro-organisms have been shown capable of surviving for MONTHS on Mars surface in full sunlight. And that is just a couple of species chosen because they are likely contaminants of a spaceship and previously known to have extremophile capabilities.

There are 10,000 species that live on a human in many different genera

So that is one new thing, the surprising length of time that micro-organisms can survive in dormant states on the Mars surface. Everyone used to think just a short time like minutes. But for months. And it might well be years, it is just that the experiment only ran for months on the ISS before they brought it back for analysis on Earth.

Then there are all the possible locations on or near the surface where life might survive. Near the equator less likely but even there there is the fairly recent surprising discovery of probable sub surface ice deposits in equatorial regions - which may be geologically ancient and gradually sublime and recondense on their way up to the surface and could provide habitats for life even near the equator.

And - there is a surprising diversity of micro-organisms on a human being. The human biome project is attempting to catalogue them all.

" Many of these organisms have not been successfully cultured, identified, or otherwise characterized. Organisms expected to be found in the human microbiome, however, may generally be categorized as bacteria (the majority), members of domain Archaea, yeasts, and single-celled eukaryotes as well as various helminth parasites and viruses, the latter including viruses that infect the cellular microbiome organisms (e.g., bacteriophages, the viruses of bacteria)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Microbiome_Project

It is a big project. Same as with the clean room analyses. Most of the micro-organisms in the human microbiome simply aren't known or described yet.

So you don't know what you are bringing to Mars. You know that some of the organisms can survive for months in dormant state on the surface. You don't know for sure but suspect that there are habitats on or near the surface that they can colonize.

I think it would be hard for someone to argue convincingly that humans can visit the Mars surface in a biologically reversible way today, as they used to a few years back. Because those spores are going to be spread in the wind and at least spread over many kilometers around the landing site, and won't be sterilized and many will still be viable months or years later. You can't reverse something like that.

And a human mission to the surface also needs to be safe from contaminating the planet in the case of a hard landing leading to death of the crew. That makes it even harder to argue for its safety from contamination point of view.

So, send humans to the surface and you contaminate it in a biologically irreversible way. I think that is pretty much certain, maybe a few would try to argue the other way but I think the opposite case would be hard to maintain using the most recent evidence from Mars and the most recent published research.

Offline robertinventor

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The backwards contamination issue is off topic here I think. So given the (rather sensible actually) policy of keeping threads on topic, I will post it as a new discussion thread. There is a lot that can be said on that topic!

Offline robertinventor

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When they do things like accuse others of being an eco-extremist

I am sure eco-extremists don't think that they are extreme :) What's wrong with this nice idea of living in caves in peace and harmony with nature? ;)

I admit that I was wrong here: you indeed have a bit extreme views, but so far they weren't about ecology - they were about science. You think that gaining knowledge about past life on Mars trumps just about anything else, that losing some bits of it is a gigantic loss. You are scientist-extremist :)

Okay thanks for the apology. That's okay I don't mind being called a scientist-extremist meaning someone who puts a high value on scientific knowledge and understanding :).

Offline mrmandias

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Looks like few appreciate the extraordinary value and uniqueness of a colonized Mars.

Throwing away political correctness, I'd classify people who want to ban Mars colonization as eco-nazis.

Hear, hear.

The universe has an endless supply of 'biologically pristine' material.

Offline Warren Platts

if there are any Mars organisms, most likely they are in deep, underground aquifers. Meanwhile, humans will be occupying the surface in self-contained, sealed habitats. Instituting some sort of decontamination procedure, like spraying down your spacesuit before you step outside would be easily doable. And if a bit of E. coli managed to get outside anyhow, it wouldn't last long in due to the UV radiation and perchlorates.

That is what everyone thought about five years ago. Not any more though.

The thing is that dormant states of micro-organisms have been shown capable of surviving for MONTHS on Mars surface in full sunlight.

Who says this? You're long on unnamed sources and very short on links. If you're going to be writing articles for Wikipedia, you're supposed to cite legitimate sources.

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Near the equator less likely but even there there is the fairly recent surprising discovery of probable sub surface ice deposits in equatorial regions - which may be geologically ancient and gradually sublime and recondense on their way up to the surface and could provide habitats for life even near the equator.

[citation needed]

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I think it would be hard for someone to argue convincingly that humans can visit the Mars surface in a biologically reversible way today, as they used to a few years back. Because those spores are going to be spread in the wind and at least spread over many kilometers around the landing site, and won't be sterilized and many will still be viable months or years later. You can't reverse something like that.

Months or years <> billions of years. Also, dormant spores <> active, reproducing life.

Like I said, the horses have already left the barn. You're trying to prevent something that's already happened...

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most recent evidence from Mars and the most recent published research.

You haven't cited any. Your argument so far is mere appeal to authority--and you won't even say who the authority is! I am quite sure you are misunderstanding something.
"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."--Leonardo Da Vinci

Offline Lar

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I am in process of getting together an article on contamination issues for Mars sample return for wikipedia. It just pulls together and paraphrases or summarizes some of the things that have been published on this, including publication on the legal aspects of it, break down of the risks of the proposed mission, and so on.

Ican post it for comment if anyone is interested in a separate thread


Post a link to it when you've got it in rough shape... heck, even if it's just a subpage of your user space and not yet in article space. I'll take a look.



Looks like few appreciate the extraordinary value and uniqueness of a colonized Mars.

Throwing away political correctness, I'd classify people who want to ban Mars colonization as eco-nazis.

I don't think we need to be invoking Godwin's Law. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law ) ... although I was tempted
« Last Edit: 05/16/2013 09:41 pm by Lar »
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline Jim

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As I said in my initial post, you are an eco-extremist. You are going to buzz here repeating your POV ad nauseum, impervious to any arguments to the contrary.

Pot meet kettle

Offline robertinventor

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> The thing is that dormant states of micro-organisms have been shown capable of surviving for MONTHS on Mars surface in full sunlight.

Who says this? You're long on unnamed sources and very short on links. If you're going to be writing articles for Wikipedia, you're supposed to cite legitimate sources.

-I've got sources for all those things. Just that in discussion like this you post links for most things, but tend not to post for every single thing you say. But yes reasonable to ask for them and you might find them interesting.

This is one of the references on longevity of micro-organisms exposed to the Mars environment

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2011.0737?journalCode=ast

There have been quite a few papers on it now, and several experiments.

You can find lots of references for the many different locations on Mars where it is now thought that liquid water may be possible here, including those sub surface equatorial ice sheets here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_on_Mars#Possibility_of_Mars_having_enough_water_to_support_life

For the longevity the thing is that especially in thin films a high proportion were still viable under months and the researchers themselves in one of the papers I read said that in their opinion it meant that they were viable for years just that they hadn't done a long enough experiment to prove it and they planned a follow up experiment.

The difference between an unmanned mission and a manned mission is that with the rovers there is at least a chance, many think a reasonable chance, that the contamination is still just on the spacecraft or immediate vicinity. You are not talking about trillions of micro-organisms there, just thousands most likely.

Also human missions would bring micro-organisms that could never make the transition on the exterior of a spaceship combined with the cleaning in the clean rooms etc.

It is like the difference between dumping one animal, and an entire zoo + biological garden on Mars.
« Last Edit: 05/16/2013 10:17 pm by robertinventor »

Offline robertinventor

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Post a link to it when you've got it in rough shape... heck, even if it's just a subpage of your user space and not yet in article space. I'll take a look.

Great, will do. Actually it is in my sandbox at present. I'm a bit caught up with other stuff actually, so especially as this is such an active forum and I might get like a dozen replies in a few hours after I post, and would be nice to just have a look at it first, and got work to do too, so maybe tomorrow evening?

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