# Terraforming Mars!



## Turanil (Mar 22, 2005)

> What is most interesting about Mars is that it is possible to terraform it with today's technologies and a modest budget. It is the only planet we know of where this is possible. We'll tell you more about terraforming our sister planet a little further on this site.



Well, this *website* is probably a little optimistic. 

Nonetheless, less than 400 years ago a member of Cromwell's government was planning a manned mission to space with a "boat equipped with swan wings, and that would take off using cannons to propel it into the sky". So, it took 4 centuries to see a weird idea absolutely impossible to work in its time, to become a reality in the 20th century when man landed on the moon. I personally believe that it will also take 4 centuries from now for having Mars fully terraformed and inhabited (Well, if mankind doesn't disappear or goes back to stone age before that). 

Well, I want to believe that it will happen. I think it would be the greatest achievement of the human race ever (until they discover faster than light travel and are able to terraform Venus). Now, this prospect is the only one that would make me welcome reincarnation back onto this planet...


----------



## tarchon (Mar 22, 2005)

I suppose we might have to after we veneriform Earth.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 22, 2005)

What exactly is veneriforming?


----------



## Turanil (Mar 22, 2005)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> What exactly is veneriforming?



I guess it is polluting the atmosphere so much, that it eventually runs a devastating greenhouse effect and kills all life on Earth. Greenhouse effect is when there is too much CO2 in the atmosphere so it keeps the heat in the atmosphere thus slowly but steadily increasing its temperature. On Venus, the extremely thick CO2 atmosphere is so hot, that it could melt lead (if I remember well), in addition of being highly corrosive.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: Please, leave discussion about "veneriforming" Earth away, as I just noticed that it would quickly border on the forbidden political subjects...


----------



## BiggusGeekus (Mar 22, 2005)

What we really need is a dirt sample.  Several, actually.  But lifting off of a planet is really hard. 

I've always been mystifyed why we sterilize our space robots.  There's no life on Mars.  Maybe some single celled organisms, but nothing to get excited about compared to terraforming.  I think we should just try to replicate the Martian environment as best as we can on Earth and see what will grow.  Next time we dump a probe up there we can play Johnny Appleseed so that by the time we have the technology to do it for real we'll already have some plant life.  I agree that terraforming Mars is a thought for 2405, not 2005, but why not start now?


----------



## Cyberzombie (Mar 22, 2005)

Terraforming Mars, while not *easy*, is certainly within our grasp.  Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" series, while sometimes a hard slog to go through, has some fascinating ideas on the subject.  Many of the more advanced ideas are not possible now.  However, many of them *are* possible now, and you have to start somewhere.


----------



## Krieg (Mar 22, 2005)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> I've always been mystifyed why we sterilize our space robots.




Because unlike WoTW we don't want earth microbes to kill off any potential martians.


----------



## tarchon (Mar 22, 2005)

Krieg said:
			
		

> Because unlike WoTW we don't want earth microbes to kill off any potential martians.



More than that, we don't want to go around seeding microbial life either. It would be kind of embarrasing to find "life on Mars" only to discover that it was E. coli that stuck to one of the Viking probes. 

Yeah, "veneriform" is either an adjective "venus-shaped" or the verb "to make like Venus." Also "martiform" for the same with Mars. It's largely a nonce word, but I've seen it around before.


----------



## BiggusGeekus (Mar 23, 2005)

tarchon said:
			
		

> More than that, we don't want to go around seeding microbial life either. It would be kind of embarrasing to find "life on Mars" only to discover that it was E. coli that stuck to one of the Viking probes.




But once the topic of Terraforming has been put forth, why not?

This _is_ going to happen.  Maybe by a private organization, but it is inevitable.  Why not just DO it and put the issue to rest?


----------



## Mark (Mar 23, 2005)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> But once the topic of Terraforming has been put forth, why not?
> 
> This _is_ going to happen.  Maybe by a private organization, but it is inevitable.  Why not just DO it and put the issue to rest?




Yes.  Do it.  Do it now.  We need a fall back position in case our rock is hit by another really big rock and everyone on our rock dies.

*Do not go gentle into that good night* - Dylan Thomas

_Do not go gentle into that good night, 
Old age should burn and rave at close of day; 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, 
Because their words had forked no lightning they 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright 
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, 
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight 
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

And you, my father, there on the sad height, 
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray. 
Do not go gentle into that good night. 
Rage, rage against the dying of the light_


----------



## Umbran (Mar 23, 2005)

BiggusGeekus said:
			
		

> This _is_ going to happen.  Maybe by a private organization, but it is inevitable.  Why not just DO it and put the issue to rest?




Because, scientifically speaking, you risk killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Think for a minute - if you find life on Mars, life that is native to Mars, it will be the first extraterrestrial life found.  For all we know, it might be the _only_ such life we'd ever get to examine.  The possible gains from studying it are unimanginable (whereas a new place for humans to live is thoroughly imaginable).  You don't go eradicating something unique until you've sucked every tiny little bit of information you can out of it.

Patience.  Terraforming a world is a multi-century (possibly millennial) project.  We can wait a few decades or a century to make sure there's nothing more to be learned from the planet.


----------



## Mark (Mar 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Because, scientifically speaking, you risk killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.




Your timidity is suspect.  What are you hiding from us on Mars?


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Think for a minute - if you find life on Mars, life that is native to Mars, it will be the first extraterrestrial life found.



The possibility of finding alien life within our own Solar System mot likely lies on the moon of Io, rather than mars, I believe.


----------



## Krieg (Mar 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Patience.  Terraforming a world is a multi-century (possibly millennial) project.  We can wait a few decades or a century to make sure there's nothing more to be learned from the planet.




Exactly.

At this point we are still a long way off from seriously talking about terraforming the planet. 

Regardless of what we find on Mars, when we do get to the point where terraforming becomes a realistic possibility....just imagine the uproar it will cause among the environmentalists around the world. 

Needless to say, they will not be happy.


----------



## Umbran (Mar 23, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> Your timidity is suspect.  What are you hiding from us on Mars?




A better question might be - what am I _not_ hiding from you on Mars.  The stuff on Mars is, effectively, a year and a half round-trip away.  I don't have easy access to it.  But if I'm hiding it there, I have _some_ access, right?  What does that imply?  




			
				Fruthaka said:
			
		

> The possibility of finding alien life within our own Solar System mot likely lies on the moon of Io, rather than mars, I believe.




Io is trendy.  Trendy doesn't make it a better candidate.  

We have good reason to believe that Mars may at one time have had similar conditions to what we had.  Io's conditions have always been completely different.  We have good reason to believe that Earth and Mars have traded rocks, and that implies the possibility of cross-contamination in one or both directions. 

And, honestly, Mars is closer and easier to work with.  We're more likely to find it on Mars simply because we can give Mars more attention.


----------



## Abstraction (Mar 23, 2005)

How about the two-birds-with-one-stone solution? Let's ship our pollution to mars!


----------



## Krieg (Mar 23, 2005)

Abstraction said:
			
		

> How about the two-birds-with-one-stone solution? Let's ship our pollution to mars!




Cost prohibitive. It is just too expensive to lift stuff out of Earth's gravity well at this point.


----------



## Desdichado (Mar 23, 2005)

Io?  Are you sure you don't mean Europa?  Io seems a far-fetched candidate for life.


----------



## Mark (Mar 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> A better question might be -




Even if there was a debate, I would not let the likes of you shape it!  The highway to Mars will be littered with the corpses of you and your cowardly kind.  Onward!  Onward, I say!


----------



## Abstraction (Mar 23, 2005)

There is actually very little reason to believe that Earth microbes would be harmful to life on Mars, or any other planet. Microbes are highly specialized little buggers that evolve with their target hosts. A few microbes can infect more than one species, but there aren't any that infect, say, all mammals. It would be astronomical odds if Earth microbes harmed aliens. The real reason for disinfection is so that Earth microbes aren't mistaken as alien by probes. There could be an issue where an organism from Earth finds itself in an environment that it can thrive in and outcompetes local organisms, but that would take something more complex than a microbe. An algae at least, I think.


----------



## Ferox4 (Mar 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> You don't go eradicating something unique until you've sucked every tiny little bit of information you can out of it.




Funny - isn't that exactly what we continue to do to out own planet......


----------



## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Think for a minute - if you find life on Mars, life that is native to Mars, it will be the first extraterrestrial life found.  For all we know, it might be the _only_ such life we'd ever get to examine.  The possible gains from studying it are unimanginable (whereas a new place for humans to live is thoroughly imaginable).




You're right. I can't imagine any possible gains from studying it. 

IF life is found on Mars (and I am sure it will be) then I don't imagine it will be very exciting or alien in any way. 

I expect it will be very much like the life we've seen on Earth. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, DNA and RNA-- the usual.


Wulf


----------



## tarchon (Mar 23, 2005)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> You're right. I can't imagine any possible gains from studying it.
> 
> IF life is found on Mars (and I am sure it will be) then I don't imagine it will be very exciting or alien in any way.
> 
> I expect it will be very much like the life we've seen on Earth. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, DNA and RNA-- the usual.




That in itself would be a stunning discovery. If it did have DNA - and I think the likelihood that a truly independently evolved form of life would have DNA is stunningly remote, despite the BS in sci-fi novels - the next step would be to sequence it and see how similar it is to terrestrial sequences. Even the most divergent terrestrial organisms share a large fraction of their genes, so having something that didn't share a common origin would say volumes about the contingency of biochemistry as we know it. Some evidence suggests that primitive terrestrial life originally was RNA-based and possibly that doublet codes preceded the familiar triplet code. Would Martian life be like that? Would it use something else? It could answer questions like "How significant is lateral gene transfer?" Are all terrestrial organisms genetically similar because they have a common ancestor, or did multiple lineages share genes over time? One dish of Martian bacteria could be worth a couple hundred journal articles.


----------



## Umbran (Mar 23, 2005)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> IF life is found on Mars (and I am sure it will be) then I don't imagine it will be very exciting or alien in any way.




Unless you're expecting that what life we find there is life we brought there ourselves, then this is highly unlikely.  The chances of alien life being particularly similar to our own is comparable to the chances that a monkey with a typewriter would bang out a copy of "Heroes of High Favor: Halflings".



> I expect it will be very much like the life we've seen on Earth. Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, DNA and RNA-- the usual.




Well, the elemental components will be the same, sure.  But the chemical ones?  Not likely.  Heck, life on Earth didn't always use DNA for information coding.  Life on Earth didn't even always have data coding at all.  Why should alien life also use the same mechanisms?

Even if alien life did use some of the same chemical units, how they'd use them would be different.  We're talking different metabolic methods, different organelles performing cellular functions in different ways (that's assuming there's an analog to cellular structure).   Whole new ways to do the all the things that we do.  Of course there'd be lots to learn.  ANd learning how someone else does a thing is often the best way to understand your own methods.


----------



## Kemrain (Mar 23, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Io?  Are you sure you don't mean Europa?  Io seems a far-fetched candidate for life.



Beat me to it, Joshua.  Io seems a poor candidate for life _as we know it_. Europa is a decent candidate, as far as I understand. Hydrothermal vents on earth have lots of life, I've heard theories about earth life origionating down there, and we have evidence thatthere may be hydrothermal vents on Europa, too. Chemosynthesis, instead of photosynthesis.  Cool ideas.

- Kemrain the Chemosynthetic.


----------



## Abstraction (Mar 23, 2005)

I think Wulf might be referring to the scientific theory that planets in our solar system, and quite possibly different solar systems, are not as separate as we might think. Over the last few million years, material from mars and earth have migrated to each other due to asteroid impacts. It may well be that most life in the universe originated from the same seeds, so to speak. Unless I'm remembering wrong, isn't it quite common to find amino acids in extraterrestrial rock? I remember something about how scientists couldn't explain that extraterrestrial amino acids, if having a basically random chemical origin, are all "left" wound like the amino acids in creatures on Earth. Chemically-created acids should have an equal chance of winding left or right.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 23, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Io?  Are you sure you don't mean Europa?  Io seems a far-fetched candidate for life.



Hmm, not sure then. I thought Io was the ice moon that had water underneath its icy surface.


----------



## Staffan (Mar 23, 2005)

No, Io is the one with all the volcanos.


----------



## Kemrain (Mar 23, 2005)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> Hmm, not sure then. I thought Io was the ice moon that had water underneath its icy surface.





			
				Staffan said:
			
		

> No, Io is the one with all the volcanos.



Dambit.. Too slow.. Yes, Io is, I believe, the most volcanicly active object in the solar system.

- Kemrain the, um, Vulcan? Ionian? Ion? Ionite?


----------



## Turanil (Mar 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Heck, life on Earth didn't always use DNA for information coding.  Life on Earth didn't even always have data coding at all.



Hey! It's the first time I heard about this! Until now I have been always convinced that DNA had been the basis of life since the beginning. Do you have a link of a website where I could learn more about this? Thanks.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 24, 2005)

Staffan said:
			
		

> No, Io is the one with all the volcanos.



Whoops!


----------



## Umbran (Mar 24, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Hey! It's the first time I heard about this! Until now I have been always convinced that DNA had been the basis of life since the beginning. Do you have a link of a website where I could learn more about this? Thanks.




Not right on hand.  But I'll spend a little time tomorrow digging to find you some.

It makes sense, though - no system as compicated as DNA coding would leap fully formed from the forehead of the primordial soup.  




			
				Abstraction said:
			
		

> I think Wulf might be referring to the scientific theory that planets in our solar system, and quite possibly different solar systems, are not as separate as we might think.




Perhaps.  And I've heard the theory.  However, that still doesn't say that there won't be anything interesting to study.  Because while the chemical precursors may be common, there's nothing dictating exactly how they're used.

Heck, even if we stipulate that Earth and Mars shared a eukaryotic cell or two, that still leaves _huge_ space for differentiation.  Go look back at what kinds of life were around before the first known mass extinction.  Some of that stuff was _weird_, like no body structures still existant.


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 24, 2005)

Like the age of the supersnails. Freaky creature they were!


----------



## Mark (Mar 24, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Some of that stuff was _weird_, like no body structures still existant.




That excuse might get you a day home from work, Mister Noodle Dance, but it won't get you out of service to your planet when we fire up our nuclear-steam hybrid engines and power off to plant the world flag on the Martian landscape!


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 24, 2005)

We will fire back with our Stellar Converter ffrom our Doom Star that has been orbiting your planet, instantly scattering martian life and your pathetic rock all over the solar system!    Hmmm, Maybe I have been playing a little too much Master Of Orion II lately.


----------



## tarchon (Mar 24, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Hey! It's the first time I heard about this! Until now I have been always convinced that DNA had been the basis of life since the beginning. Do you have a link of a website where I could learn more about this? Thanks.




Nucleic acids and proteins have a very chicken-and-egg relationship, but there are a lot of possibilities as to how they originally got together.


----------



## Arbiter of Wyrms (Mar 24, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> On Venus, the extremely thick CO2 atmosphere is so hot, that it could melt lead (if I remember well), in addition of being highly corrosive.




Those here familiar with Planescape know that the planes, both inner and outer, particularly the lower planes, have some frightfully inhospitable locales, but I don't think I've read any game supplement that details any place that rivals Venus.  And with good reason:  it's broken for game use.  900 degrees fahrenheit on the night side, and high-pressure super-corrosive gas on a wind-blasted, mountainous terrain without visibilty beyound the character's own space on the battlemat.  

Who needs monsters when the environment is this bad, and moreover, who wants to fight anything that calls a place like that home?


----------



## Turanil (Mar 24, 2005)

Arbiter of Wyrms said:
			
		

> [Venus] it's broken for game use.  900 degrees fahrenheit on the night side, and high-pressure super-corrosive gas on a wind-blasted, mountainous terrain without visibilty beyound the character's own space on the battlemat.



One may wonder why they named this planet after the Roman goddess of Love... Maybe because Venus was a "femme fatale"?    


(i.e.: "femme fatale" being French words meaning "lethal woman")


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 24, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> One may wonder why they named this planet after the Roman goddess of Love... Maybe because Venus was a "femme fatale"?
> 
> 
> (i.e.: "femme fatale" being French words meaning "lethal woman")



That actually makes sense!


----------



## Umbran (Mar 24, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> That excuse might get you a day home from work, Mister Noodle Dance, but it won't get you out of service to your planet when we fire up our nuclear-steam hybrid engines and power off to plant the world flag on the Martian landscape!




Of course not.  You're going to need someone along who actually _thinks_ along to save your butts from the Stellar Converter and all the other dangers that you Kaptain Kirks can't be bothered to use your brains about beforehand 

And who needs a nuclear-steam hybrid?  You wanna get there fast, use an Orion ship.  Take a habitation module, slap some really big shock absorbers on it, and put it on a massive steel plate.  Toss a series of nuclear bombs out the back, and ride that shockwave to Martian shores like a surfer on the Great Cosmic Wave!


----------



## Desdichado (Mar 24, 2005)

tarchon said:
			
		

> Nucleic acids and proteins have a very chicken-and-egg relationship, but there are a lot of possibilities as to how they originally got together.



As to the question of whether or not DNA and life are hand in hand, that's demonstrably not true; viruses and other extremely simple life forms use RNA, not DNA.  Although RNA is still pretty complex as well.

As a somewhat aside, I just read an article today about plants in genetics labs of the genus _Arabidopsis_ that are apparently "repairing" genetic flaws based an a "backup copy" in the RNA, which is a completely unprecedented and unexpected discovery.  Among other things, if it turns out that it can be applied widely across all terestrial life systems, it would make the processes of evolution as currently stipulated by evolutionary theory much more unlikely.

Which brings us back to the ever-popular extra-terrestrial bioengineering theory of life.


----------



## Turanil (Mar 24, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Among other things, if it turns out that it can be applied widely across all terestrial life systems, it would make the processes of evolution as currently stipulated by evolutionary theory much more unlikely.
> 
> Which brings us back to the ever-popular extra-terrestrial bioengineering theory of life.



If evolutionary theory is a nonsense and that terrestrial life-forms are the by-product of bio-engineering. Well, there must be at least one precursor (of those who bioengineer other life forms in the universe) who had nobody to bioengineer them but evolution in the first place. Unless an advanced specie of the future traeled back in time to bioengineer themselves of course.


----------



## Desdichado (Mar 24, 2005)

It doesn't say that evolutionary theory is nonsense, it merely says that this new evidence -- if it can be applied outside of the extremely narrow conditions under which is occured -- it does go a ways towards removing one of the basic building blocks of evolutionary theory as it's currently defined.  If mutations aren't necessarily passed on because "backup copies" of non-mutated genetic code can still manifest, then it makes evolution _as currently defined_ more unlikely.

In other words, even if a lot of conditional effects do pan out, then there's still an avenue for evolution to work as currently defined by the theory, it's just more unlikely.  Also, the theory can be modified to accept this new data; it doesn't have to be completely scrapped.

Let's not make this article say more than it actually is saying!  Besides, my interpretation of it was largely a joke; I think the Erich von Danniken theories are fun from an X-files/Dark•Matter perspective, but I don't take them very seriously.


----------



## tarchon (Mar 24, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> As a somewhat aside, I just read an article today about plants in genetics labs of the genus _Arabidopsis_ that are apparently "repairing" genetic flaws based an a "backup copy" in the RNA, which is a completely unprecedented and unexpected discovery.  Among other things, if it turns out that it can be applied widely across all terestrial life systems, it would make the processes of evolution as currently stipulated by evolutionary theory much more unlikely.



I think the novelty is more in the mechanism - DNA repair is a pretty well known phenomenon. It just means that the mutation rate is slower than it could be, not that it doesn't happen, since the repair mechanisms sometimes fail to detect or repair damage.


----------



## Krieg (Mar 24, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> .../snip/... plants in genetics labs of the genus _Arabidopsis_.../snip/...)




Sheesh Joshua you could have just said plants from the mustard family.


----------



## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 24, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Unless you're expecting that what life we find there is life we brought there ourselves, then this is highly unlikely.




I suppose I have a more gnostic approach. Life exists by purpose-- I have no reason to expect that purpose to differ from Earth to Mars any more than I would expect it to differ from Earth to Tau Ceti or anywhere else in the universe.



> The chances of alien life being particularly similar to our own is comparable to the chances that a monkey with a typewriter would bang out a copy of "Heroes of High Favor: Halflings".




See, you should have picked one that _I_ wrote, you'd have had a wittier angle.

At any rate, I would say the chances of "alien life" being particularly similar to ours are astronomically better than the chance that "life" would arise spontaneously in two different places in two totally different forms. That is to say, I would bet on more similarities than differences.


Wulf


----------



## Mark (Mar 24, 2005)

Krieg said:
			
		

> Sheesh Joshua you could have just said plants from the mustard family.




That wouldn't have _cut_ it... 






Spoiler



Yes, I know about the spelling/near-homonym, thank you VERY much...


----------



## Pbartender (Mar 25, 2005)

*Terraformed Mars...*




(Click for a larger image.)


----------



## Turjan (Mar 25, 2005)

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> It doesn't say that evolutionary theory is nonsense, it merely says that this new evidence -- if it can be applied outside of the extremely narrow conditions under which is occured -- it does go a ways towards removing one of the basic building blocks of evolutionary theory as it's currently defined.  If mutations aren't necessarily passed on because "backup copies" of non-mutated genetic code can still manifest, then it makes evolution _as currently defined_ more unlikely.



Actually, this finding about RNA corroborates the current evolutionary theories. Many people who deny the validity of the evolutionary theory point out that it's statistically extremly unlikely that a dual system of information storage in one molecule (DNA) and function in a second molecule (protein) develops spontaneously. This notion is correct . The solution is, indeed, that RNA is the original biomolecule. RNA combines both functions, information storage and catalytic function. Originally, proteins served only structural purposes in mixed molecules with RNA (see ribosome). With evolution going in both directions, protein and DNA, with RNA as origin, the statistics gets much friendlier . And in this regard, RNA as a backup copy makes perfect sense .


----------



## Angel Tarragon (Mar 25, 2005)

Where did you get that pic Pbartender?


----------



## Umbran (Mar 25, 2005)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> I suppose I have a more gnostic approach. Life exists by purpose--




Ah.  I take it the other way.  Purpose is a construct of life.  

Even is life does exist through purpose, there's a large number of ways to fulfill any given purpose.  Why would every place use one system.  

I'd even think that purpose driven life would _require_ that differences arise - local conditions vary.  To fulfill the same purpose under different conditions, you'd need different systems.



> See, you should have picked one that _I_ wrote, you'd have had a wittier angle.




I used the one I'm most familiar with, because it is sitting on my shelf.



> At any rate, I would say the chances of "alien life" being particularly similar to ours are astronomically better than the chance that "life" would arise spontaneously in two different places in two totally different forms. That is to say, I would bet on more similarities than differences.




Go look back at the Precambrian Era.  There have already on this planet been life forms radically different to our own.  If we've already had things that weren't particularly similar here, why should we expect them to be similar elsewhere?


----------



## Pbartender (Mar 25, 2005)

Frukathka said:
			
		

> Where did you get that pic Pbartender?




I made it, using one real-color photographic map of Mars, one grey-scale elevation map of Mars, and Photo Shop.

The map is actually "upside down"...  South is to the top, and North is to the bottom.  Rotating the image 180° reorients it to a more familiar view.


----------



## rgard (Mar 25, 2005)

And despite the 'Employees must wash their hands' sign in the NASA restrooms...



			
				tarchon said:
			
		

> More than that, we don't want to go around seeding microbial life either. It would be kind of embarrasing to find "life on Mars" only to discover that it was E. coli that stuck to one of the Viking probes.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> QUOTE]


----------



## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 25, 2005)

I don't purport to know to what purpose evolution has taken the path it has, but I do believe that the path it's taken is the best possible path for whatever purpose that may be.



			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> Go look back at the Precambrian Era.  There have already on this planet been life forms radically different to our own.  If we've already had things that weren't particularly similar here, why should we expect them to be similar elsewhere?




I guess we could quibble on about what defines "radically different." I guess my point is that as such time as we discover anything that fits our definition of life, it is then by definition so similar as to offer us little new understanding. (A little unfair, I guess...)

We'd have to discover something that radically challenged our definition of life.

So... What have we learned from pre-Cambrian life-- for all intents "alien" life to ours-- that has so greatly enhanced the human condition that (by analogy) it would outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars?


----------



## Turanil (Mar 25, 2005)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> The map is actually "upside down"...  South is to the top, and North is to the bottom.  Rotating the image 180° reorients it to a more familiar view.



Congratulations for that pic! However, I think I notice a little mistake...    I mean, these green areas on the map denote vegetation. Well, plants that will be imported to Mars will have been bio-engineered to be adapted to the place. Now, Mars is far from the Sun and thus doesn't get much heat and light. As such, plants there couldn't afford to repel green light (in being green, the plant doesn't absorb light in the green spectrum, so get less energy). It means they probably will have to be bioengineered as to be black...  :\  Hum, well, lets see how thinkgs are done when terraforming begins anyway.


----------



## tarchon (Mar 25, 2005)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> So... What have we learned from pre-Cambrian life-- for all intents "alien" life to ours-- that has so greatly enhanced the human condition that (by analogy) it would outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars?



Molecular evolution is relevant right now to understanding pathogens like bird flu, Ebola, disease-resistant TB, and HIV, which are all pretty relevant to the human condition. Terraforming Mars I figure would cost quadrillions of dollars, take thousands of years, and in the end probably wouldn't work anything like we planned. It might take 100,000 years just for the crust to stabilize after all the mineralogy started to change.


----------



## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 25, 2005)

tarchon said:
			
		

> Molecular evolution is relevant right now to understanding pathogens like bird flu, Ebola, disease-resistant TB, and HIV, which are all pretty relevant to the human condition.




I'm confused. Is the life on Mars completely different, and thus completely irrelevant to our own microbes, or is it similar enough to offer us some medical insight?



> Terraforming Mars I figure would cost quadrillions of dollars, take thousands of years, and in the end probably wouldn't work anything like we planned.




Oh. Ok. Let's not do it then. 


Wulf


----------



## Pbartender (Mar 26, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Congratulations for that pic! However, I think I notice a little mistake...    I mean, these green areas on the map denote vegetation. Well, plants that will be imported to Mars will have been bio-engineered to be adapted to the place. Now, Mars is far from the Sun and thus doesn't get much heat and light. As such, plants there couldn't afford to repel green light (in being green, the plant doesn't absorb light in the green spectrum, so get less energy). It means they probably will have to be bioengineered as to be black...  :\  Hum, well, lets see how thinkgs are done when terraforming begins anyway.




The only trouble with that thinking is that we currently only know one biochemical that will convert sunlight to energy... Chlorophyll... That chemical by its very nature is green.  Producing a plant will black leaves really wouldn't help, since the effective chemical will still repel the green light, unless you come up with an entirely new type of chlorophyll.

If we start work with the basic 'plants' that we know, such as blue-green algaes and lichens, it seems that it would be easier to bio-engineer the plants to live off of less heat and light (and in rusty soil with a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere), than to chemically engineer a new pigment that does everything chlorophyll does, but more efficiently.


----------



## tarchon (Mar 26, 2005)

Pbartender said:
			
		

> The only trouble with that thinking is that we currently only know one biochemical that will convert sunlight to energy... Chlorophyll... That chemical by its very nature is green.  Producing a plant will black leaves really wouldn't help, since the effective chemical will still repel the green light, unless you come up with an entirely new type of chlorophyll.



Some organisms do already use extra pigments to supplement the chlorophyll, though the chlorophyll is still at the heart of the process. There's been a lot of speculation as to why the fundamental photosynthetic pigment has that peculiar absorption gap - there might have been some advantage to it long ago, or maybe it's just the best thing that came along.


----------



## tarchon (Mar 26, 2005)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> I'm confused. Is the life on Mars completely different, and thus completely irrelevant to our own microbes, or is it similar enough to offer us some medical insight?



That's what we don't know and won't ever know if we dump a bunch of terrestrial algae on it and hope for the best. The problem with objectively evaluating microbial evolutionary processes on Earth is that we know they get a lot of their genetic material by trading it around, which is even starting to look like the primary mechanism for emergence of new pathogenic organisms. Unfortunately, that tends to muddle the cladistics, so it's not really clear whether all microbes have very similar biochemistries because of common ancestry or because they all end up trading around the most useful genes. Having a really isolated population, or at least one with a very different history could say a lot about what processes really dominate microbial evolution. There's also the persistent "panspermia" question that lingers around the edges of the lateral gene transfer phenomenon, and what may or may not be living on Mars has a very direct bearing on that.


----------



## Wulf Ratbane (Mar 28, 2005)

tarchon said:
			
		

> That's what we don't know and won't ever know if we dump a bunch of terrestrial algae on it and hope for the best. The problem with objectively evaluating blah blah blah on Earth is that we know blah blah blah, which is even starting to look like the blah blah blah of new blah blah blah. Unfortunately, that tends to muddle the blah blah, so it's not really clear whether blah blah blah blah blah. Having a really isolated population, or at least one with a very different history could say a lot about blah. There's also the blah blah blah that blah blah blah blah blah.




I'm convinced. Move over snail darter, it's time to save the Martian microbes.

For humanity!


----------



## Turjan (Mar 28, 2005)

tarchon said:
			
		

> Some organisms do already use extra pigments to supplement the chlorophyll, though the chlorophyll is still at the heart of the process. There's been a lot of speculation as to why the fundamental photosynthetic pigment has that peculiar absorption gap - there might have been some advantage to it long ago, or maybe it's just the best thing that came along.



It's funny that we still don't know that much about it. The abovementioned blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) use phycocyanin, allophycocyanin and phycoerythrin in some extra antennas, and with these pigments they manage to bridge the green gap. It cannot be too effective though, because they generally degrade those extra antennas under stress conditions, where you would think they would need all energy they can get. From an evolutionary point of view, it also does not fit their niche existence. Maybe, the energy transfer properties of those pigments are suboptimal.


----------



## Turanil (Mar 28, 2005)

Turjan said:
			
		

> <...> phycocyanin, allophycocyanin and phycoerythrin <...>



Those three are sylvan elves, aren't they?


----------



## Turjan (Mar 28, 2005)

Turanil said:
			
		

> Those three are sylvan elves, aren't they?



In blue and red .


----------



## Umbran (Mar 28, 2005)

Wulf Ratbane said:
			
		

> I guess we could quibble on about what defines "radically different." I guess my point is that as such time as we discover anything that fits our definition of life, it is then by definition so similar as to offer us little new understanding. (A little unfair, I guess...)




That probably depends on to whom you refer when you speak of "our definition of life".  Where I come from, the definition isn't based upon details of chemistry, but more upon the dynamics and energy flow.




> So... What have we learned from pre-Cambrian life-- for all intents "alien" life to ours-- that has so greatly enhanced the human condition that (by analogy) it would outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars?




Check back to what I wrote - It doesn't need to outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars.  It needs to outweigh the advantages of terraforming Mars right now, before we're done studying it.  And considering how little advantage there is in startign so quickly, I need little weight on my side.  

What did we learn from pre-Cambrian life?  Well, we learned that there is more on heaven and Earth that is imagined in our philosophy.  Pre-Cambrian life helps form a cornerstone of evidence for evolution, upon which much later biology is based. 



> I'm confused. Is the life on Mars completely different, and thus completely irrelevant to our own microbes, or is it similar enough to offer us some medical insight?




They don't have to be much like our own for us to learn things from it that are useful.  Knowledge of a radically different system would give us information on how living systems work _in general_.  That'd help us to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.


----------



## Turjan (Mar 28, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> They don't have to be much like our own for us to learn things from it that are useful.  Knowledge of a radically different system would give us information on how living systems work _in general_.  That'd help us to see the forest for the trees, so to speak.



This is a very important point. Many really great observations/inventions are of the kind that make you think why nobody else thought of this before, because "it's so obvious". The human mind does not like to think outside the box and question putatively well-known things once again.


----------

