It has been thought that we infested each planet on which we dropped a probe with tardigrades, especially the earlier missions. Inadvertently infecting the Solar System is one argument against space exploration...humans are just too dumb and clumsy at this point.
The danger is if there is already some life that we're not aware of, then our tardrigades screw up their environment, eventually killing them. We don't want our tiny bacteria killing their tiny bacteria.
Considering recent events, I'm not so sure if there is intelligent life on Earth. We are ripe for being colonized by what would be the Starfleet of a different star system, even if they have a Prime Directive.
To the extent that we accidentally contaminate the moon -- with life, radioactive material, etc -- we screw up some of our ability to study the origins of life, the solar system, etc. And we don't materially seed the universe with more life in the process.
But then again, astronauts have been there, and the practices that were used were not (could not be) completely sterile. Still, this is probably a bit worse.
There 200+ moons in our solar system alone and an uncountable number outside it. Each second we delay space travel, millions of moons are consumed by black holes or obliterated by asteroid collisions.
If humanity became space-fairing earlier, perhaps we could save some of them. We're probably committing more alien genocide by delaying space travel than we ever would through contamination.
Ensuring that our spacecraft are 100% sterile costs significant money and time.
Maybe there are some things we can do that provide high ROI, but my inclination is that building bases and having humans basically live on the moon is going to require giving up its sterility.
Sure... AGAIN, the horse is already somewhat out of the barn on the Moon in particular (human spaceflight already went there, I think), but this tardigrade thing, in retrospect, was extremely stupid.
On our planet, I’m very much in favour of hurrying to ensure our planet remains a lot more habitable than Mars. And I’m hard pressed to believe that keeping our planet habitable is more difficult than making Mars habitable, so escaping to Mars doesn’t seem to be a solution to the finality of things.
And therefore our species leaving the planet really implies leaving our solar system. And I’m hard pressed to see that possibility defined by a couple of centuries. So we better make our planet work for a very long time.
Mars being really habitable isn't too likely for a long time. But an industrial economy in space, with space power generation and providing additional resources and headroom for mankind on Earth, is attainable in 60-100 years. And mankind being fully self-sufficient out there off the planet may be possible in 200 years.
Because one could end up with invasive life brought from Earth, just like it happened with cats brought to isolated islands that had endemic species of birds with no predators.
The counter argument is that if the life we inadvertently leave throughout the solar system thrives, that's an interesting result too. This only really becomes a problem if there was other life to begin with.
Facing the choice of whether to explore space, consider the worst case scenario. If we explore space, we could potentially destroy the evidence of non-Earth life that we are trying to find. The worst-case scenario from a anthropocentric point of view is that we don't get evidence of non-Earth life. If we do not explore space, we guarantee that worst case scenario. And, ultimately, we doom all Earth-life to extinction in a billion or so years; an extinction we may be able to prevent.
This is a simplified analysis. On balance, I don't think there is any consistent moral basis for objecting to space travel that is based on not accidentally destroying non-Earth life. Did you have a specific objection in mind?
Saying, "It is immoral to risk destroying non-Earth life," would not be enough. One argument is a sort of recursive argument that humans are the best hope for Earth life in the long term, they are also the best hope for solar system life in general. All solar system life is equally doomed—albeit at potentially longer timescales than Earth life.
What makes you say this? The potential to contaminate other planets with life from Earth has been a concern ever since we started planning to put something on a different planet or the moon. This originally got its start in 1958 with the draft of a Planetary Protection Policy [1]. This was prior to the first landing of anything on a body in outer space with Luna 2 in 1959 [2]. This was by the USSR and granted there is not great documentation for anything they actually did, the USSR said they took precautions to prevent biological contamination.
For NASA they have been using the planetary protection guidelines since the first lunar lander which was the Ranger mission [3]. Every NASA mission that goes to another planet is required to undergo sterilization using the "Dry Heat Microbial Reduction"
The Moon is not a protected environment under Planetary Protection guidelines. Also the rules apply to much larger payloads. Don’t forget the Apollo astronauts left nearly 100 bags of excrement on the Moon.
Until we explore and colonize space, we are one random asteroid away from human extinction. The odds in any given year or small, but it's nevertheless an unacceptable risk.
We should do everything we can to spread our eggs into other baskets.
The asteroid that caused the KT extinction burned every exposed life form, including all the land plants. The atmosphere became incandescent. Anything that survived the inferno would have then had to deal with the clouds of ash blocking out the sun for years.
It’s possible some small groups of humans could survive that, if they were survivalist types with bunkers and years of food, but it would be dicey.
Thanks, I didn't even make that connection. Beresheet (pronounced like "buh-ray-SHEET" if memory serves) is also the original Hebrew name for the first book of the bible (titled "Genesis" in English)
Fortunately per the article the tardigrades are sealed in epoxy and dehydrated, so any concerns about inadvertently disrupting some theoretical microbial ecosystem on the moon is probably not founded (not that I believe there is other life on the moon anyway)
Perhaps, but personally I'd prefer any potential life seeding events to be controlled so we are reasonably confident we aren't wiping out a potentially unexplored domain of living things. If we're interested in expanding the frontiers of life I'd love for it to be a scientific pursuit rather than brought about by human error.
However if we're talking cosmically, the chaotic crash landing does seem to be more in line with the more natural unpredictable way of the universe. So who am I to judge?
Can't prove there is no life on the moon, but all indications are there is none. Need to stop worrying about it, just like we don't worry about the Abdominal Snowman.
Besides, as the astronauts were unable to prevent getting moondust all over themselves and the spacecraft, it's highly unlikely they didn't spread biologic material all around, and it's all long dead now.
I do agree, I certainly don't think there's any life on or near the surface of the moon given our current understanding of it's composition. Seems incapable of fostering even the hardiest extremophiles, so the chance of astronauts leaving behind biological material, or dehydrated tardigrades trapped in epoxy doesn't concern me too much.
But having said that, I do like to hope we will discover much, much more about our nearest neighbours and who knows? Maybe life is much more versatile than we know it to be now. I never want to see that pursuit muddied or compromised by negligence on our part.
It would also be highly unlikely that native life on some moon would be out-competed by extremely maladapted terrestrial life. It'd be like a dog trying to outswim a shark.
I don't agree, nor do I think human beings have a great track record of such predictions (see introduced wildlife around the world). I wouldn't feel confident predicting how an extremophile like the tardigrade would fare (nor any theoretical microbes that they might eat for lunch) if given the opportunity to exist in some "stable island" ecosystem near or under the surface of the moon.
I thought about that, but they're already 99% adapted to the new ecosystem. Also, if a hippo is introduced to the arctic tundra, it will promptly die, not outcompete reindeer.
Devil's advocate: If a small icy meteor struck the moon at the right spot it could potentially "uncage" these wee bears, as well as provide the necessary moisture for them to reanimate.
Thousands of tardigrades settled on the Moon, after stowing away on a space mission. They mutated due to solar radiation and reproduced. Now they roam in herds on the Moon, eating all the cheese, and plotting their glorious return to Earth.
The Truth:
There were no living tardigrades likely to be onboard. At best there were some dehydrated tardigrades in the tun state, embedded in epoxy resin, inside a disc containing an archive of humanity (See: www.archimission.org).
The total quantity would have been microscopic in size and the mass would have been far less than 1 gram.
At the time this occurred there were no regulations governing the delivery of such a low mass of non-living organic material to the Moon, which was not a protected location. No planetary protection guidelines were violated due to the extremely low mass and non-living nature of the alleged tardigrades. As there is no liquid water on the Moon, there is no way to rehydrate tardigrades on the Moon, nor could they reproduce on the Moon if there was liquid water there.
The Deeper Truth
The tardigrades were announced in the month of April. The tardigrades might have been a myth constructed as a media "beacon" to mark the location and time of a shipwreck on the Moon for future historians.
The truth for me is simpler ... this article, unlike most of the other news I've seen the last two weeks made me smile when I imaged them being freed by the crash. Re-hydration may not be so simple but thanks to the FOTON-M3 mission we do know that live tardigrades can also survive in space. Thriving and reproducing are pretty unlikely though.
I stopped reading the article at: “Despite the impact, scientists believe that if anything survived the crash intact, it may well have been the tardigrades. The microscopic creatures were sandwiched between micron-thin sheets of nickel and suspended in epoxy, a resin-like preservative that acts like a jelly — potentially enough to cushion their landing” as I realized that I’d been duped by their very affirmative headline
Nobody is advocating the position outlined over your "fiction" heading, your "truth" section talks about only about likelihood and details like the total mass of the contaminants are irrelevant figures. As for the "deeper truth" section, why would historians need to be informed of this if they had access to 2020 news stories already? And how would a false (or, worse, true) claim about committing such an act bolster the credibility of other information related to the crash?
You of course are coming at this from the point of view of a Human that probably believes that we (Humans) are the only recognisable, and allegedly intelligent life-form in the part of the galaxy that we can just about reach. Who's to say that the Tardigrades haven't been planning a rendezvous with their lunar contacts and took advantage of the free ride? Once Mankind start mining minerals on the Moon (as they allegedly intend to), they may meet with some unexpected visitors!
Even if dormant tardigrades were delivered to the lunar surface, they wouldn't be viable after a short time. Between being frozen to less than -200F at night, to roasted at 200F during the day, and irradiated with all kinds of hard cosmic radiation, any DNA present would be destroyed fairly quickly.
It's surprising to me that tardigrades can survive even a brief exposure to space.
Spilling a few tardigrades on the Moon isn't a big deal, because there is almost certainly no life there.
But imagine if, in the year 2120, we discover thriving colonies of live bacteria 40 meters below the surface of Mars. Life on another world! It would change everything! But suppose upon further inspection the bacteria turn out to be a species from Earth, stowed away stuck to the treads of the Perseverance rover [1].
Was there life on Mars before we put it there? Was there a unique kind of Martian life, with DNA completely different from ours, that has been forever eaten away by our accidental contamination? We would never know.
For this reason, NASA and the Soviets agreed in 1967 to pursue a policy of Planetary Protection [2] ensuring that no probe or lander contaminates another planet.
Finding life on another planet, even just single celled organisms, would help with the study of biogenesis, which is one of the greatest mysteries of biology.
Some exotic life form, which did not originate on earth would most likely have interesting features we have never seen before. Scientists could study them and gain insights about alternatives to the biology of earth creatures. Who knows this research may lead to new drugs or procedures we can use to better our lives?
Philosophically, I think this is impossible. Even if there were discovered an omniscient, omnipotent being, there would still be question of whether it were supernatural or merely preternatural; the question of its divinity would still be subject to personal belief
I'd probably think about it occasionally and smile.
It would change our science fiction.
Children would learn about it in school from a very young age, or at home in books even younger. They'd grow up knowing Earth life isn't the only life.
Religions would slowly adapt to be more palatable to children who grew up this way, or lose favor among the next generation.
Among others mentioned in this thread is: who knows? It's an unknown unknown
Maybe nothing. Maybe nanotechnology. Maybe information storage. Maybe photosynthesis. Maybe physics, math. It would almost certainly radically transform biology. One thing is certain: it wouldn't likely have zero effect on human understanding
Because in this hypothetical scenario the bacteria we brought into the planet outcompeted them. It happened often enough on earth with invasive species, so it isn't unthinkable (even if improbable)
Planetary protection is one of the worst ideas ever drempt up and likely to significantly harm progress in the future. God forbid we actually find life on Mars, it would likely cause a century long (or more) delay on any colonization efforts of Mars as scientists-in-name-only try to prevent contamination of Mars by humans landing there.
This comment meme is a cancer, in the Dawkinsian sense.
Lumps of rock are not “more healthy” than “lumps of rock with life on”, nor are they “more happy”. And if you want to claim they are capable of experience and that you understand what they are thinking, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
The idea that Humans are a disease is a much discredited one (notably popularized in The Matrix where the villain used it to describe humanity). First off planets are not alive, they are bodies of rock and metal and liquids. They cannot be infected and our presence has little impact on Earth itself. Our presence has only affected other life. And as the Moon and Mars are lifeless, there's nothing to damage.
We see no other life, we have spaceships, and it’s not guaranteed that we will have spaceships indefinitely.
Our priority, our responsibility to the non-space-faring life forms of Earth is to spread them, as much as possible, to as many places as possible. Drop them into Venus, Mars, Europa, onto every passing comet, and as soon as it becomes feasible, into a one way trip to the nearest exoplanets.
It’s bad enough that the universe appears to have no other life in it, we are the only known agents with any chance of changing that, it’s way more important for the next 14 billion years that we try, than that we protect our ability to identify some hypothetical Martian protein chains or amoebae.
Why would the people in charge of that spacecraft have decided to include such a cargo? It seems to go against all the principles of good science and conservation.
In the distant future giant lunar tardigrades in the tun state fall back to earth and seed the desert wastelands, eventually evolving into giant sand worms.
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadThey are animals, vastly larger than bacteria that require a diet of plants and even smaller animals to survive.
Edit: plants not planets.
Starfleet colonized quite a few planets without existing intelligent life.
But then again, astronauts have been there, and the practices that were used were not (could not be) completely sterile. Still, this is probably a bit worse.
If humanity became space-fairing earlier, perhaps we could save some of them. We're probably committing more alien genocide by delaying space travel than we ever would through contamination.
Maybe there are some things we can do that provide high ROI, but my inclination is that building bases and having humans basically live on the moon is going to require giving up its sterility.
In the context of space and time in the universe delaying things by a century or two is like delaying something in our life by a blink of an eye.
And therefore our species leaving the planet really implies leaving our solar system. And I’m hard pressed to see that possibility defined by a couple of centuries. So we better make our planet work for a very long time.
(it's a stretch, of course.)
Saying, "It is immoral to risk destroying non-Earth life," would not be enough. One argument is a sort of recursive argument that humans are the best hope for Earth life in the long term, they are also the best hope for solar system life in general. All solar system life is equally doomed—albeit at potentially longer timescales than Earth life.
For NASA they have been using the planetary protection guidelines since the first lunar lander which was the Ranger mission [3]. Every NASA mission that goes to another planet is required to undergo sterilization using the "Dry Heat Microbial Reduction"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Space_Research#Pl...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_2#Payload
[3] https://sma.nasa.gov/sma-disciplines/planetary-protection#
Edit: Spelling
We should do everything we can to spread our eggs into other baskets.
We're far more adaptable than dinosaurs.
It’s possible some small groups of humans could survive that, if they were survivalist types with bunkers and years of food, but it would be dicey.
I'd say unfortunately.
However if we're talking cosmically, the chaotic crash landing does seem to be more in line with the more natural unpredictable way of the universe. So who am I to judge?
Besides, as the astronauts were unable to prevent getting moondust all over themselves and the spacecraft, it's highly unlikely they didn't spread biologic material all around, and it's all long dead now.
But having said that, I do like to hope we will discover much, much more about our nearest neighbours and who knows? Maybe life is much more versatile than we know it to be now. I never want to see that pursuit muddied or compromised by negligence on our part.
I thought about that, but they're already 99% adapted to the new ecosystem. Also, if a hippo is introduced to the arctic tundra, it will promptly die, not outcompete reindeer.
Thousands of tardigrades settled on the Moon, after stowing away on a space mission. They mutated due to solar radiation and reproduced. Now they roam in herds on the Moon, eating all the cheese, and plotting their glorious return to Earth.
The Truth:
There were no living tardigrades likely to be onboard. At best there were some dehydrated tardigrades in the tun state, embedded in epoxy resin, inside a disc containing an archive of humanity (See: www.archimission.org).
The total quantity would have been microscopic in size and the mass would have been far less than 1 gram.
At the time this occurred there were no regulations governing the delivery of such a low mass of non-living organic material to the Moon, which was not a protected location. No planetary protection guidelines were violated due to the extremely low mass and non-living nature of the alleged tardigrades. As there is no liquid water on the Moon, there is no way to rehydrate tardigrades on the Moon, nor could they reproduce on the Moon if there was liquid water there.
The Deeper Truth
The tardigrades were announced in the month of April. The tardigrades might have been a myth constructed as a media "beacon" to mark the location and time of a shipwreck on the Moon for future historians.
It's surprising to me that tardigrades can survive even a brief exposure to space.
But imagine if, in the year 2120, we discover thriving colonies of live bacteria 40 meters below the surface of Mars. Life on another world! It would change everything! But suppose upon further inspection the bacteria turn out to be a species from Earth, stowed away stuck to the treads of the Perseverance rover [1].
Was there life on Mars before we put it there? Was there a unique kind of Martian life, with DNA completely different from ours, that has been forever eaten away by our accidental contamination? We would never know.
For this reason, NASA and the Soviets agreed in 1967 to pursue a policy of Planetary Protection [2] ensuring that no probe or lander contaminates another planet.
[1] https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press_kits/mars_2020/launch/mi...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
Really? How? What is one aspect of life that would change for anyone not in the space exploration industry?
It would change our science fiction.
Children would learn about it in school from a very young age, or at home in books even younger. They'd grow up knowing Earth life isn't the only life.
Religions would slowly adapt to be more palatable to children who grew up this way, or lose favor among the next generation.
If life originated independently twice in our Solar System it means whole galaxy should be teeming with it.
It doesn't look like it does - so the Great Filter moves from "rise of life" to "rise of complex life", "intelligence", and "technical civilization".
That's very bad news for u,, it dramatically increases the odds that technical civilizations usually destroy themselves soon after they develop.
They die from a high velocity impact with an asteroid. Planet is wiped clean and nothing suggesting life remains.
Maybe nothing. Maybe nanotechnology. Maybe information storage. Maybe photosynthesis. Maybe physics, math. It would almost certainly radically transform biology. One thing is certain: it wouldn't likely have zero effect on human understanding
Considering the fantastically great job we did running our own planet, methinks that's probably a good idea.
Humans are an STD: Spaceship Transmitted Disease.
Lumps of rock are not “more healthy” than “lumps of rock with life on”, nor are they “more happy”. And if you want to claim they are capable of experience and that you understand what they are thinking, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Unfortunately because you replied, now I can’t delete it.
And we're not "running" our planet.
Our priority, our responsibility to the non-space-faring life forms of Earth is to spread them, as much as possible, to as many places as possible. Drop them into Venus, Mars, Europa, onto every passing comet, and as soon as it becomes feasible, into a one way trip to the nearest exoplanets.
It’s bad enough that the universe appears to have no other life in it, we are the only known agents with any chance of changing that, it’s way more important for the next 14 billion years that we try, than that we protect our ability to identify some hypothetical Martian protein chains or amoebae.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/28...
If the physical weakness of an exoskeleton scales with the fourth power of gravity then a 16% decrease in gravity would mean a growth factor of 1.5e3.
Moon tardigrades would grow to be three feet long.
I look forward to publishing my research in full at, ahem, the start of April.