Populating space

Study and learn. That's fine.

How incredibly meddlesome is that? How "natural" would be the outcome of us genetically (if DNA was even the molecule the alien microbes used) engineering alien microbes???

Are we talking microbes or already sentient life? What moral argument can you make for saving the microbes?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Do you think we'll be around in a few billion years to appreciate the results? I'd like to think so, but I can't see making plans based upon that assumption.

Put it this way. Say we land on mars and find some kind of alien devise that would terraform the planet a la Total Recall. Would you do it? Say there's some microbial life still extant on mars, but all that remains of the once great Martian civilization is this machine that will terraform the planet. You're the man on the spot. You can provide a second earth to colonize and basically double humanities chance of survival, or you can allow the microbes to continue to exist undisturbed.

What do you do?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Personally I wouldn't care less for a few microbes. Isolate, preserve and learn - of course, but to deny a whole planet for the humanity for a few microorganisms is stupid.
Consider what chance of development and survival will humanity have given another world.
It's not wise or safe to keep all your egs on one planet.

 

One planet has been enough for all organisms except man for billions of years. If it were possible for man to spread to other parts of the universe I would do everything I could to stop it happening. Unless we can purge our parasitic tendencies from our 'nature' we should be staying right where we are.

 

In time the Sun will become a red giant and boil away all the oceans. Happy staying.
And the original idea of this thread was not about humans, but about spreading life to worlds which have none, or at least hasn't been detected.

 

Biosphere 2 project addresses the issue of self sustained isolated environment with life supporting systems.

http://www.b2science.org/

 

Thankfully I won't be around when (and if) the sun dies. Presumably no-one else will be either, at that point. If the proposed worlds do not currently support life then there must be valid reasons why not. Wouldn't we be better spending our time finding solutions to the real threat to life on earth today so that do not need to proliferate life elsewhere. Some 'thinking outside the box' might be needed.

The thread has already evolved. Posters including yourself are already talking about using these world for the development and survival of humans!

 

Sun is a star, it's not alive, therefore it can't die. In 4 billion years it will become a red giant, burn Earth to ash, then become a white dwarf.

Indeed. That's why life must be spread to other worlds.

Reason or chance, but there is no reason why we should not and many reasons why we should.

False dilemma. One does not exclude the other.

 

If there are no other habitable worlds that can sustain human life then why should we try to even venture out where there isn't anything good that awaits us, at least that we yet know about? Exploration can go on with robotic craft that could one day find another world to live on but this is what we have so we should be taking damn good care of it. We treat this world as if no one else is going to be here in the future by polluting it and using its resources up at an alarming rate. Instead of spending so much energy trying to get away from this world why not try and treat it with respect and help heal it? Our future citizens will look back as to what we did during our time at the helm of starship Earth and only they will determine, if they are not extinct by then, what we were doing to help them survive into the future.

 

I was speaking metaphorically.

Why must it?

Name a few?

Yes, it does! Given that we currently have no hope in hell of populating other planets and this is the one we currently have and we are killing it (metaphorically speaking).

 

You don't need to go anywhere to seed life, a robotic craft can do it as well.

For all we know we are the only living beings in this universe. It would be a shame if life died with this planet.

Experience of life, understanding of the universe, slowing down entropy, giving a chance for something other to evolve.

Sure, we have a few environmental problems, but I think you are overrating them.

 

For all we know there may have been life before and may well be after.

Other lifeforms might well appear without our help or interference.

Laughs uncontrollably.

 

btw we are NOT the only living beings in the universe - look around you. We are however very egocentric.

 

Not as egocentric as you think, by we I meant all the life on this planet.

And they might not. Better be sure.

 

There's no way we could tranfer all life so how do you choose between the different life forms and anyway who chooses?

Sure of what? Anyway how could we be 'sure'. Life as we know it has taken millions of years to evolve. In the early days any number of things could put an end to it at any stage.

 

The one that has the best chances - mushroom, bacteria or a plant or animal.

Sure that it can sustain itself and populate.

 

Just take the pretty ones and the tasty ones, leave the rest behind.

But do/ would they have a "right" to exist any more than we have a "right" to expand?
Nature does what it can, not what it "must" or "should".

 

Populate a world with mushrooms? Now I see where you are going.....

 

I will wave at you from my biosphere on "Oh sh**"!

If nature does what it must why do we need to do anything at all?