Colonizing Mars: Should Humanity Prioritize Colonizing Mars or Fixing Earth?

[cheerfulgreek]

Originally Posted by Phrozen Sands

I think we should use Mars exploration cash to fix earth. I don’t think it’s ethical to tear up this planet, only to bounce and tear up another planet.

It’d never happen because humans aren’t really ethical? 🫤

Originally Posted by Phrozen Sands

Lol! CG has completely lost faith in humanity. Crazy thing is we landed in one area, and already determined no life. How do we know there isn’t bacteria that’s up there waiting for us? We get sick from bacteria here on earth all the time. If there’s bacteria on Mars, we won’t know how to get rid of it.

Well, as of now there is no confirmed evidence of life on Mars, past or present. So, without life, there can be no pathogens. Most pathogens on Earth are highly adapted to infecting specific hosts. I mean, even if microbial life existed on Mars, it probably wouldn’t be biologically compatible with Earth based life to cause disease. And that’s because diseases evolve in ecosystems with hosts, where microbes adapt to exploit living organisms. Mars doesn’t really have an ecosystem like we do. I mean, it’s not as complex as ours, which means there hasn’t been an environment to drive the evolution of infectious agents. Know what I mean?