Link Between Water On Mars and Lake Vostok?

[RestoreGore]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20061206/sc_space/changingmarsgullieshintatrecentflowingwater

If we do truly find water springing from an aquifer on Mars, it is almost certain that crews will be sent there to drill for it. The question then arises: Would it be moral for us to do so? Such water could support ancient microbes that would be disturbed by our drilling. Is it then moral for us to go to another planet to poke and prod it? And also what could be released by such drilling? This is a very similar situation as the controversy surrounding Lake Vostok in the Antarctic which I wrote about on my water is life blog. Scientists believe that there could be a link between the organisms found at Lake Vostok and those on one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, and now perhaps even Mars. However, there is a debate about whether or not we should disturb the lake below the ice where microbes that survive without light or heat exist. It is a moral, ethical and environmental question. I think this is absolutely fascinating. Is there a link between the Earth and other planets to support the export of life to Earth, and do we have the right to disturb it?

See my entries here:

http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-lies-beneath-lake-vostok-part-one.html

http://water-is-life.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-lies-beneath-lake-vostok-part-two.html

[aquart]

1. Life disturbs life.

And if not life, other natural processes. These microbes themselves developed in response to a disturbance, a change that made change necessary.

An organism that cannot adapt to a disturbance, a change, will not survive.

All those who are alive today come from survivors.

[RestoreGore]

2. Probing the ice would not be a natural disturbance

Which is why the project is still on hold. There are moral questions regarding it. Why go out of our way to disturb a living organism that has lived in peace for over 400,000 years? Can we then apply your statement to that of occupying countries in war as well? Are those invaded simply to accept that?

[rman]

4. Humans are natural,

so what we do is natural. Which doesn't mean that all we do is good - but still it's natural.
I think it's a bit of stretch to say about a microbe that it has been "living in peace".
I'd be stupid for us to disturb Mars up to the point where we can't study it as an example of another planet, one that possibly harbors extra terrestrial life - but we're "disturbing microbes that have been living in peace" simply by walking on the surface of our own planet.

[htuttle]

3. That brings up a remarkable ethical question

Is there such a thing as a "biospherical imperative"? As individual life forms, we are expected (by our biology) to do what is necessary to survive, including killing and eating other life forms, be they plants or animals. It's how the planet works (and moves energy around).

Does life in the universe in general work the same way? The behavior of life forms on earth seem to be self-similar to a certain degree all up and down the size-scale, from amoeba to multicellular organisms like ourselves. If multicellular life forms devour each other to survive, can we expect multi-life-form biospheres to behave the same way toward each other?

Do we, as members and constituents of a greater biosphere, have an ethical imperative to do what is necessary to ensure the survival of our own biosphere, to the detriment of other biospheres if necessary?

With any luck, we won't really have to worry about that question for some time -- unless some predator biosphere spots us and comes to visit...Hawking (for all his paranoia about hostile alien visits) may be right about one thing -- if it's a 'jungle' down here, it might just be a 'jungle' out there, too (of course, not ALL animals in the jungle eat each other...but some do).

Whoa. Time for another beer...