Viros on Mars

[Paul's Here 0]

Apparently, Man is now a threat to Mars as he prepares to visit the angry red planet.

Scientists preparing for the exploration of Mars are planning history's first car drive through the fabled Northwest Passage, a trip they said on Friday will provide data on global warming and man's potential impact on other planets.

The trip using a modified armored Humvee vehicle will provide comprehensive data about the thickness of winter ice in the waterway through Canada's high Arctic, said Pascal Lee, chairman of Mars Institute and leader of the expedition.

The scientists also hope to learn more about what happens to the microbes left behind by humans as they explore remote areas, amid concerns from some scientists about the detrimental impact of such journeys in space.

"It's not just about protecting men from Mars. It's also about protecting Mars from men," Lee said in an interview.

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Environmental scientists warn that global warming has been melting summer ice in the Northwest Passage, and channel was opened though it briefly in 2007 and 2008, the first time that had happened in modern memory.

Scientists now estimate the ice thickness using satellites, so the land journey will improve the information they have and provide a base of data against which future changes can be judged, Lee said

The melting has destroyed much of the older ice that would have been too jagged to travel over even a decade ago, but if it continues for another decade it may not be thick enough to travel on at all.

"We're taking advantage of a window of opportunity," Lee said.

[Paul's Here 0]

Sorry, here's the link to the article: Scientists plan to drive the Northwest Passage

[RayK 0]

It seems Pascal Lee did not take "advantage" of his reasoning faculty while coming to his supposed conclusions, what an idiot.

[Paul's Here 0]

It seems Pascal Lee did not take "advantage" of his reasoning faculty while coming to his supposed conclusions, what an idiot.

Just in case you thought the above was a crazy reference, check out serious this story I found.

Should Mars be treated like a wildlife preserve?

Life has not yet been found on Mars, and no one is sure whether it will be. But some researchers say it is not too early to consider the possibility that humans could do irreversible damage to indigenous Martian life.

A group of international experts will meet as early as this September to discuss whether it is time to revise policies that protect Mars from contamination.

At issue is the ethics of exploring the Red Planet - in particular whether hitchhiking Earth microbes could harm Martian habitats.

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But dormant microbes might survive for tens of thousands of years on the interior of the crafts. And in the case of the Mars Polar Lander, which crashed into the planet's south pole in 1999, its interior surfaces may have come in direct contact with soil rich in water ice, which could potentially provide a habitable environment for the hitchhikers.

"The option of not contaminating Mars is an option that's no longer available to humanity," says Christopher McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, who wrote a commentary about the need to protect any Martian life in the current issue of the journal Science. "Mars already has earthlings. We know that for a fact."

He warns that Earth life could be reawakened if weather conditions on the planet change. This could happen as a result of periodic swings in the planet's tilt, or if humans purposely alter the Martian environment, which, ironically, they might do to make conditions cosier for any Martian life they might discover. Microbes on subsurface drills in search of liquid water could also contaminate potential Martian habitats.

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A 1967 United Nations treaty generally requires countries avoid "harmful contamination" of celestial bodies.

The specific rules that govern Mars exploration are set by a Paris-based group called the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR), which advises the UN and provides guidelines followed by NASA and other space agencies.

COSPAR's current policy sets limits on how many microbes can be present on spacecraft bound for Mars. To accommodate these rules, for example, the robotic arm on NASA's Phoenix probe was sterilised and kept in a protective wrapping until landing.

But McKay says COSPAR's policy needs to be changed, since it was crafted to protect the integrity of scientific investigations and not potential Martian life.

This might involve changing the policy to require future exploration to be "biologically reversible", ensuring that any contamination can be undone. This could be accomplished by returning to the sites of previous lander missions and recovering or destroying the spacecraft components, while also exposing any potentially contaminated dirt to the sterilising effects of the Sun's UV radiation.

It might also mean preventing humans from establishing bases in darkened caves, since sunlight would not be able to kill any terrestrial microbes loosed there.

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But Conley agrees that the ethics of Mars exploration should be discussed. "We're not sure that life is present on Mars, but we do know we have dramatically screwed things up by transferring life around on Earth," Conley says.

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COSPAR has already noted that future missions to Jupiter's moon Europa would run the risk of coming into contact with any life there. A lander could one day make its way though the moon's icy shell to contaminate any life in what is thought to be a subsurface ocean of liquid water, says John Rummel, who heads up COSPAR's planetary protection panel.

Momentum for the ethical discussion began building even before 2006, when a US National Research Council committee recommended that COSPAR convene the workshop in light of the accelerating pace of Mars exploration.

Oh My God! We might have more viros evolve on Mars in another 100,000 years. Let's clean up the planet while we have a chance!!!!

Clearly we need a Cosmological Court of Justice established, perhaps in The Hague, to deal with potential genocide of Martian and Europan bacteria by earthlings. George Bush should be the first one tried for crimes against Martianity for insisting we go to Mars.

[PhilO 0]

Just in case you thought the above was a crazy reference, check out serious this story I found.

Those with the will and ability to colonize Mars won't give a damn about that self-destructive anti-humanity nonsense. By the time it matters, America and any other country committing national suicide with the assistance of the viros will have been so degraded in nature that it couldn't stop them even if it wanted to.