Sci-fi scenario: We find evidence of microbial life from billions of years ago, when Mars was briefly a warm, wet place. Decades hence, a researcher realizes that Mars still has microbial life, but that it has evolved as its environment has, so it's as arid and rarefied as its present atmosphere, wispy and almost not there. Sadly, she realizes that human activity has already doomed it to extinction.
Alternative dystopian scenario: we eventually find evidence of (sometimes extinct) life on all planets and moons that had encountered specific chemical conditions for a long enough period of time. We realize en masse (more than we realize now) that life isn't a unique snowflake, but simply a geological process, not that far removed from rocks and volcanoes. The realization causes a broad spiritual/existential crisis and irreversibly changes human culture, mostly for the worse.
And what's wrong with that?
Martian life vs colonization is nothing more than an anecdote once we find signs of it it's nice and all but no one is going to go out of their way to preserve it long term if it means that colonization will be affected.
Eventually there will be life on mars whether it evolved "naturally" there or evolved just as "naturally" some where else and was brought there doesn't matter if it's a rocket or a comet on the cosmological scale both of those processes are just as "natural".
Heck if we find a planet inhabited by self replicating robots they would pretty much automatically count as life, the fact that they aren't made out of some arrangement of self arranging molecules doesn't make it any less "natural" in the grand cosmic scheme.
Well if it was good science fiction she would discover that the microbial life on mars made it to earth after a meteor impact and by virtue of acting as a virus, infecting pregnant apes who gave birth to what would be recognized as humans. And that human activity on Mars doomed it to extinction, and human activity on Earth doomed humans to extinction, and so we not only killed off ourselves, we kill of our chance to evolve again on earth.
Similar idea, but the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury touched on this heavily. Although it was humans and humanoid martians instead of microbial life.
This is a quite likely scenario since collective human activity has so far spelled doom to most species other than humans and our parasites, commensals and domesticated species.
If we are serious about researching or preserving alien life in our solar system, we would have to be very cautious with what we do. But most likely, economic forces will start to dominate our actions in space, as they have always done on Earth.
Or in Thing Explainer-speak, "little rock fingers that stick out."
Its interesting that it was Spirit that detected this- big new discoveries are still coming up after driving the same robot around on the planet for years! Humanity has just barely scratched the surface (as it were) of understanding Mars.
[+] [-] nsajko|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tentonbricks|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] No1|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] stcredzero|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jarmitage|10 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_trilogy
[+] [-] dogma1138|10 years ago|reply
Eventually there will be life on mars whether it evolved "naturally" there or evolved just as "naturally" some where else and was brought there doesn't matter if it's a rocket or a comet on the cosmological scale both of those processes are just as "natural".
Heck if we find a planet inhabited by self replicating robots they would pretty much automatically count as life, the fact that they aren't made out of some arrangement of self arranging molecules doesn't make it any less "natural" in the grand cosmic scheme.
[+] [-] semi-extrinsic|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|10 years ago|reply
Of course that would be a real downer of a story.
[+] [-] fein|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Santosh83|10 years ago|reply
If we are serious about researching or preserving alien life in our solar system, we would have to be very cautious with what we do. But most likely, economic forces will start to dominate our actions in space, as they have always done on Earth.
[+] [-] maxander|10 years ago|reply
Or in Thing Explainer-speak, "little rock fingers that stick out."
Its interesting that it was Spirit that detected this- big new discoveries are still coming up after driving the same robot around on the planet for years! Humanity has just barely scratched the surface (as it were) of understanding Mars.
[+] [-] wahsd|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bencollier49|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhou2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmcooley|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jldugger|10 years ago|reply