I don't think it makes sense as an attempt to colonize. Not financially, also when the time comes I don't think it will be permitted under international law. But a similar mission to Mars orbit to explore the surface via telerobotics could be both permitted, and valuable.
First, there is no economic benefit to Earth for such a project, so why should the general public support it financially?
The money in private sector would soon run out when you need billions of dollars a year to keep it going.
With the idea of a reality show - can't see that working and especially not continuing to be of interest enough to pay for it year on year for decades into the future. They think it will be of more interest to humans world wide than the Olympics, so that they'll want to pay as much and more for it than they do for televising the Olympics year on year, into the foreseeable future. I can't see it being as of much interest as that to most people I know for more than a few days, if that.
However, exploration of Mars to find out what is there - that I think could potentially be worth doing financially and in terms of time and effort - depending what is there. If there is life on Mars - that's perhaps the one thing that could really excite people here on Earth and encourage governments and countries and private organizations alike.
However, you had better not send humans to the surface at this stage, to keep it free from Earth life - that's also a requirement under international law - and nobody has explained how a Mars colony could keep Mars pristine - more on that below.
It could however make a lot of sense to go to Mars to explore it - from orbit, using telerobotics.
That would be expensive also - however less so than a surface mission - but that could be worthwhile depending on what we find out about Mars.
Colonizing the vacuum of space though (and the Mars atmosphere also countas as a vacuum, it would be a decent vacuum in an Earth lab), for its own sake, I can't see that being worthwhile or cost effective in near future, nor Mars surface. Not as a place to live if that's your reason for going there - has to be some other reason for it.
What could make Mars a really worthwhile objective would be if we discover life on Mars.
Then, what would totally turn things around would be if we find out that there is life there and it is fundamentally different from Earth. If we find extra-terrestrial lifeforms on Mars - however microscopic.
It could just be an extra-terrestrial microbe based on a different type of XNA instead of DNA - or even one based on DNA but with a fundamentally different biochemistry - earlier form of life, or split off before development of modern cell machinery.
Tthat would so totally revolutionize life sciences and of such potential benefit to humanity, as to make multi-billion dollar projects to Mars worth every cent spent on them.
There is a decent chance of that happening also. Many don't realize that.
We've been exploring Mars for decades - why haven't we found life yet? Well the only experiments sent to Mars with capability to detect life were the Viking ones in 1970s. And of those experiments - only one of the ones on that spaceship was capable of detecting life in the heart of the Atacama desert. The two Viking landers were also sent to the region of Mars probably least likely to have life (as we now know) and the only experiment on those landers with enough sensitivity to detect it (as we now know again, not at the time) was confused by unusual chemistry on Mars.
We now know that present day life on Mars is probably going to be harder to detect than the lifeforms in the Atacama desert.
None of our rovers, Curiosity included, could detect life in the Atacama desert. ExoMars could, due to launch in 2018, so it's the first chance since Viking to find present day life on Mars - but it is targeting past not present life. For various reasons, the present day locations for life on Mars are harder to target and to sterilize your spaceship for.
So, unless we strike lucky and find life early on - we won't know the answer to whether there is present day life on Mars or what it is by 2020 and probably not by 2030.
If very lucky we may discover past life - which would be a good sign that there probably is present day life. But for various reasons, mainly cosmic radiation, and differing theories about best places to look for it - past life is also hard to detect.
So - that I see as the main reason that could motivate us to send humans to Mars. The humans would not land on the planet because that would contaminate the very thing they are there to study. Instead they would study it from orbit via telerobotics.
I don't see a mission to Mars surface any time soon because it would not pass the Planetary Protection requriements. There are three places in the solar system top of the list which scientists in international workshops all agree should be kept free of Earth microbes until we understand them better.
Those are
Since neither Mars One or SpaceX have explained publicly how they plan to keep Mars free of microbes, is impossible to comment on their plans specifically.
But I don't see how it is possible to avoid contaminating Mars in event of a hard landing, and probability of that is far too high to be acceptable for planetary protection, never mind what their other plans are, so I don't see how COSPAR could pass their plans whatever they are.
Not unless we move to a "stage 2" of planetary protection and decide that we don't need to protect Mars any more.
But, we haven't even started on the biological exploration so whether that happens or not, won't be any time soon. At least some decades to go yet - mainly because there's been no effort at all to explore Mars biologically yet. ExoMars first attempt since Viking in 2018, and is just the very start of an exploration, that might well take 40 years or more. If we had kept going after Viking we might have done a reasonably thorough biological exploration by now, but we didn't.
Biological exploration of desert places like the Atacama desert is far more tricky than geological exploration because most lifeforms are cryptic - can't be seen easily - and also in small populations so hard to detect even when you find them, and identical seeming geological deposits could some of them have life, and others not, depending on microhabitats, tiny details of availability of moisture, salts, etc. etc.
Also on Mars - we also have this to some extent in Earth deserts - then identical habitats could some of them be colonized and some not - simply by chance - whether life has reached them yet. Might take it millions of years to find a new habitat if it is a lifeform with a particularly slow metabolism and growth rate and not creating many new spores. And the habitats could be few and widely spread - e.g. there are only a handful of places in the equatorial regions where the warm seasonal flows have been detected.
E.g some microbes in the McMurdo dry valleys have individual lifetimes of a thousand years or more. So you have to keep that in mind also as a possibility for Mars - just depends what directions life took there.
As for going into space to find a way to escape from problems on Earth - there is no conceivable near future disaster that makes that a practical thing to do.
There are no imminent natural disasters that could make Earth as inhospitable as Mars, even remotely. Impossible to terraform it in less than several centuries, most would say thousands of years, and in case of the Earth - it took our planet millions, indeed billions of years to terraform - and if placed in Mars orbit would go into a snowball phase. To say we know how to terraform Mars at current stage of understanding is absurd. We have a few ideas that might or might not work, with many things to go wrong. And it is only in sci. fi. that terraforming Mars takes less than about a thousand years or so, most likely several millennia for oxygen atmosphere, Chris McKay estimates 100,000 years for oxygen atmosphere - and that's pretty optimistic assuming a mega-engineering project, expensive, hard work, kept going for all that time, and probably also needing to be maintained also to prevent it unterraforming.
Clearly - best place for potential colonists to rebuild civilization is on Earth. Later on if we can build really big habitats in space, large enough to be low maintenance and have tropical climate inside, build houses normally inside like Stanford Torus or O'Neil Cylinder - or similar idea maybe easier - Tensegrity Cloud Nine spheres floating in Venus atmosphere - that could be worth doing long term and might indeed provide a second home for humanity. But Mars - can't see that, not in less than a few millennia and even that optimistic.
So - why trash a planet which may host at least microbial ETs - with Earth life for this imagined goal - which only the enthusiasts think will work?
After the worst disaster imaginable, then still you'd have some survivors on Earth, e.g. in submarines, and when they come back to the surface are in the very best place in the solar system to rebuild civilization. But we should be working to defend Earth and reverse problems we caused here and to make sure such disasters don't happen!
I'm not the only one saying it's not practical. Just check out the other answers here - and discussions on reddit and other such places. Doesn't seem that many people have got convinced that these projects are going to save humanity!
So, that's what I think, since you asked for our opinions. And not had any good answers to these points, just sometimes people say that I shouldn't care about such things and that Mars colonization should not be stopped by such considerations - which is no answer at all of course, if you do think such things are important.
I think a Mars orbital mission would be far more interesting. Not there to stay either - the volunteers could get back after some years. And they could do in site resource utilization - but also could explore the surface of Mars - far more useful and interesting and engaging way than in spacesuits.
If you aren't interested in Mars except as a place to live - then I think you are in the wrong place because it won't be a good place to live, everything hugely expensive if you ship it from Earth like millions of dollars for the simplest and most essential things - and habitats immensely expensive to build also with tons per square meter pressure outwards from the atmosphere and buildings and machines likely to have a limited lifespan of decades, sometimes just a few years, in those harsh conditions (orbital space stations only last a few decades before they have to be replaced) - and stuck in a habitat with a few cubic meters of atmosphere surrounded by millions of square miles of vacuum.
And dull dim skies and everything a dull reddish grayish brown, tiny windows, same view for the rest of your life, very limited mobility outside of your hab and keep the mobility down - always aware you could get cancer - with no possibility of treatment on Earth - if you are out in the open too long - anything goes wrong with your spacesuit and you can't get out of your hab at all - need machinery to create oxygen to breath and to keep your habitat from freezing to Antarctic temperatures at night - possibility of medical issues from low gravity - constant sound of machines around you - never to breath fresh air again or to see a blue sky or clouds, or trees or a field or the sea or a river for real.
You wouldn't set up home in such a place on Earth, if it existed - which it doesn't, nowhere here is as hard to live in as that. You wouldn't keep a prisioner in such conditions on Earth either. So why attempt it on Mars?
You need a pretty good motivation to opt for a life like that for the rest of your life.
Just journey out needs dedication - a few weeks say in the ISS would be fun for many. But to spend six months in less space than an airplane - and then rest of your life that's your only living space also - you need to be really interested in what you are doing, or a major couch potato to do that.
But if you are really interested in the planet and want to explore it - then you can do that far better from orbit with telerobotics, and enhanced vision. And everything also streamed back to Earth in HD for everyone here to see everything as it happens as they explore Mars.
I think they should pre-filter their candidates to find people who are interested in Mars itself as a destination in its own right - and modern Mars,not a fictional Barsoom - not just that they would colonize anywhere you send them to so long as you get them off the Earth.
Can be for any reason - doesn't have to be scientific. Can be musical, poetic etc. Perhaps they have done this already.
You have to have a keen interest in Mars for it to make any sense to go there rather than closer to home like the Moon. Also a long term interest - not just wanting to be able to email your friends that you were one of the first people to land on Mars.
If you are - then easier to explore it via telerobotics than on the surface.
So, if really interested in Mars for its own sake, I think you'd go for a telerobotic mission.
I don't know if their mission statement would permit a telerobotic mission to Mars orbit with telerobotic boots on the surface. If so - then they might have a chance.
But for surface mission, don't see that they, or anyone else, will be permitted to do that any time soon, or that many will want to either once this looks into really thoroughly, with many eyes looking at the problems, extensive debate, and the possible consequences of contaminating Mars with Earth life become clear to all.
The outer space treaty is clear on this - any country is responsible for the actions of its citizens in space - and to prevent "harmful contamination" (the words of the treaty) of the solar system. That's been interpreted as including - contamination by Earth life - as the main matter of concern.
Other countries have the right to ask for details of any actions likely to impact on their own investigations in outer space also.
Especially if we find extraterrestrial life on Mars. Need to spend a while searching for it - and if we find it - then I think at that stage many would agree that we have to treat Mars with great care and not just dump Earth microbes on the planet to contaminate it. So we shouldn't try to jump the gun and pollute the planet before we get this opportunity to find ET microbes there.
At any rate that's what I think - original version of this question asked for opinions.I see it's edited now - but not sure that you can give any kind of objective answer - as there are so many unknowns.
To me - as also for many exobiologists - this is what matters most for Mars - the huge potential for finding ET microbes on Mars, and to make sure, if there is ET life there as many think possible - that we don't do anything to delay that discovery of our first confirmed ET life (even microbial) or make it impossible or harder to understand how it works when discovered.
Anywhere else, except Mars, Europa and Encladus would be less of an issue. But it so happens that they have chosen one of the top candidates for search for life in our solar system as their destination for a colonization attempt. And any contamination by reproducing life is irreversible - a change in the planet for all future time.
That's the problem and potential show stopper for these ideas.
It should be right at the top of the list of things you talk about when you discuss human missions to Mars, given its importance as one of the top most interesting places in our solar system for search for genuinely extraterrestrial lifeforms.
Can find out more at Robert Walker's blog
NO ECONOMIC BENEFIT OR OTHER BENEFIT FOR EARTH RIGHT NOW FOR A SURFACE COLONY
First, there is no economic benefit to Earth for such a project, so why should the general public support it financially?
The money in private sector would soon run out when you need billions of dollars a year to keep it going.
With the idea of a reality show - can't see that working and especially not continuing to be of interest enough to pay for it year on year for decades into the future. They think it will be of more interest to humans world wide than the Olympics, so that they'll want to pay as much and more for it than they do for televising the Olympics year on year, into the foreseeable future. I can't see it being as of much interest as that to most people I know for more than a few days, if that.
However, exploration of Mars to find out what is there - that I think could potentially be worth doing financially and in terms of time and effort - depending what is there. If there is life on Mars - that's perhaps the one thing that could really excite people here on Earth and encourage governments and countries and private organizations alike.
However, you had better not send humans to the surface at this stage, to keep it free from Earth life - that's also a requirement under international law - and nobody has explained how a Mars colony could keep Mars pristine - more on that below.
It could however make a lot of sense to go to Mars to explore it - from orbit, using telerobotics.
That would be expensive also - however less so than a surface mission - but that could be worthwhile depending on what we find out about Mars.
Colonizing the vacuum of space though (and the Mars atmosphere also countas as a vacuum, it would be a decent vacuum in an Earth lab), for its own sake, I can't see that being worthwhile or cost effective in near future, nor Mars surface. Not as a place to live if that's your reason for going there - has to be some other reason for it.
DISCOVER OF EXTRA TERRESTRIAL LIFE, EVEN MICROBES, ON MARS - AS PERHAPS THE BIGGEST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN TO MAKE HUMAN VISITS TO MARS ORBIT WORTH DOING
What could make Mars a really worthwhile objective would be if we discover life on Mars.
Then, what would totally turn things around would be if we find out that there is life there and it is fundamentally different from Earth. If we find extra-terrestrial lifeforms on Mars - however microscopic.
It could just be an extra-terrestrial microbe based on a different type of XNA instead of DNA - or even one based on DNA but with a fundamentally different biochemistry - earlier form of life, or split off before development of modern cell machinery.
Tthat would so totally revolutionize life sciences and of such potential benefit to humanity, as to make multi-billion dollar projects to Mars worth every cent spent on them.
REASONABLE CHANCE OF THAT ALSO
There is a decent chance of that happening also. Many don't realize that.
We've been exploring Mars for decades - why haven't we found life yet? Well the only experiments sent to Mars with capability to detect life were the Viking ones in 1970s. And of those experiments - only one of the ones on that spaceship was capable of detecting life in the heart of the Atacama desert. The two Viking landers were also sent to the region of Mars probably least likely to have life (as we now know) and the only experiment on those landers with enough sensitivity to detect it (as we now know again, not at the time) was confused by unusual chemistry on Mars.
We now know that present day life on Mars is probably going to be harder to detect than the lifeforms in the Atacama desert.
None of our rovers, Curiosity included, could detect life in the Atacama desert. ExoMars could, due to launch in 2018, so it's the first chance since Viking to find present day life on Mars - but it is targeting past not present life. For various reasons, the present day locations for life on Mars are harder to target and to sterilize your spaceship for.
So, unless we strike lucky and find life early on - we won't know the answer to whether there is present day life on Mars or what it is by 2020 and probably not by 2030.
If very lucky we may discover past life - which would be a good sign that there probably is present day life. But for various reasons, mainly cosmic radiation, and differing theories about best places to look for it - past life is also hard to detect.
So - that I see as the main reason that could motivate us to send humans to Mars. The humans would not land on the planet because that would contaminate the very thing they are there to study. Instead they would study it from orbit via telerobotics.
MARS ONE OF THREE PLACES IN SOLAR SYSTEM WE ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO KEEP CLEAR OF EARTH LIFE UNTIL WE HAVE A CHANCE TO FIND OUT WHAT IS THERE
I don't see a mission to Mars surface any time soon because it would not pass the Planetary Protection requriements. There are three places in the solar system top of the list which scientists in international workshops all agree should be kept free of Earth microbes until we understand them better.
Those are
- Mars
- Europa
- Encladus
NO EXPLANATION YET OF HOW MARS COULD BE EXPLORED IN AN ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE WAY WITH BOOTS ON THE SURFACE
Since neither Mars One or SpaceX have explained publicly how they plan to keep Mars free of microbes, is impossible to comment on their plans specifically.
But I don't see how it is possible to avoid contaminating Mars in event of a hard landing, and probability of that is far too high to be acceptable for planetary protection, never mind what their other plans are, so I don't see how COSPAR could pass their plans whatever they are.
Not unless we move to a "stage 2" of planetary protection and decide that we don't need to protect Mars any more.
HAVEN'T STARTED ON BIOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF MARS YET
But, we haven't even started on the biological exploration so whether that happens or not, won't be any time soon. At least some decades to go yet - mainly because there's been no effort at all to explore Mars biologically yet. ExoMars first attempt since Viking in 2018, and is just the very start of an exploration, that might well take 40 years or more. If we had kept going after Viking we might have done a reasonably thorough biological exploration by now, but we didn't.
Biological exploration of desert places like the Atacama desert is far more tricky than geological exploration because most lifeforms are cryptic - can't be seen easily - and also in small populations so hard to detect even when you find them, and identical seeming geological deposits could some of them have life, and others not, depending on microhabitats, tiny details of availability of moisture, salts, etc. etc.
Also on Mars - we also have this to some extent in Earth deserts - then identical habitats could some of them be colonized and some not - simply by chance - whether life has reached them yet. Might take it millions of years to find a new habitat if it is a lifeform with a particularly slow metabolism and growth rate and not creating many new spores. And the habitats could be few and widely spread - e.g. there are only a handful of places in the equatorial regions where the warm seasonal flows have been detected.
E.g some microbes in the McMurdo dry valleys have individual lifetimes of a thousand years or more. So you have to keep that in mind also as a possibility for Mars - just depends what directions life took there.
NO ESCAPE FROM PROBLEMS IN SPACE
As for going into space to find a way to escape from problems on Earth - there is no conceivable near future disaster that makes that a practical thing to do.
There are no imminent natural disasters that could make Earth as inhospitable as Mars, even remotely. Impossible to terraform it in less than several centuries, most would say thousands of years, and in case of the Earth - it took our planet millions, indeed billions of years to terraform - and if placed in Mars orbit would go into a snowball phase. To say we know how to terraform Mars at current stage of understanding is absurd. We have a few ideas that might or might not work, with many things to go wrong. And it is only in sci. fi. that terraforming Mars takes less than about a thousand years or so, most likely several millennia for oxygen atmosphere, Chris McKay estimates 100,000 years for oxygen atmosphere - and that's pretty optimistic assuming a mega-engineering project, expensive, hard work, kept going for all that time, and probably also needing to be maintained also to prevent it unterraforming.
Clearly - best place for potential colonists to rebuild civilization is on Earth. Later on if we can build really big habitats in space, large enough to be low maintenance and have tropical climate inside, build houses normally inside like Stanford Torus or O'Neil Cylinder - or similar idea maybe easier - Tensegrity Cloud Nine spheres floating in Venus atmosphere - that could be worth doing long term and might indeed provide a second home for humanity. But Mars - can't see that, not in less than a few millennia and even that optimistic.
So - why trash a planet which may host at least microbial ETs - with Earth life for this imagined goal - which only the enthusiasts think will work?
After the worst disaster imaginable, then still you'd have some survivors on Earth, e.g. in submarines, and when they come back to the surface are in the very best place in the solar system to rebuild civilization. But we should be working to defend Earth and reverse problems we caused here and to make sure such disasters don't happen!
I'm not the only one saying it's not practical. Just check out the other answers here - and discussions on reddit and other such places. Doesn't seem that many people have got convinced that these projects are going to save humanity!
So, that's what I think, since you asked for our opinions. And not had any good answers to these points, just sometimes people say that I shouldn't care about such things and that Mars colonization should not be stopped by such considerations - which is no answer at all of course, if you do think such things are important.
IF MARS ONE TARGETED MARS ORBIT THEIR PLANS WOULD BE MORE INTERESTING AND LIKELY TO SUCCEED
I think a Mars orbital mission would be far more interesting. Not there to stay either - the volunteers could get back after some years. And they could do in site resource utilization - but also could explore the surface of Mars - far more useful and interesting and engaging way than in spacesuits.
HUGELY EXPENSIVE AND HARSH PLACE TO LIVE
If you aren't interested in Mars except as a place to live - then I think you are in the wrong place because it won't be a good place to live, everything hugely expensive if you ship it from Earth like millions of dollars for the simplest and most essential things - and habitats immensely expensive to build also with tons per square meter pressure outwards from the atmosphere and buildings and machines likely to have a limited lifespan of decades, sometimes just a few years, in those harsh conditions (orbital space stations only last a few decades before they have to be replaced) - and stuck in a habitat with a few cubic meters of atmosphere surrounded by millions of square miles of vacuum.
And dull dim skies and everything a dull reddish grayish brown, tiny windows, same view for the rest of your life, very limited mobility outside of your hab and keep the mobility down - always aware you could get cancer - with no possibility of treatment on Earth - if you are out in the open too long - anything goes wrong with your spacesuit and you can't get out of your hab at all - need machinery to create oxygen to breath and to keep your habitat from freezing to Antarctic temperatures at night - possibility of medical issues from low gravity - constant sound of machines around you - never to breath fresh air again or to see a blue sky or clouds, or trees or a field or the sea or a river for real.
You wouldn't set up home in such a place on Earth, if it existed - which it doesn't, nowhere here is as hard to live in as that. You wouldn't keep a prisioner in such conditions on Earth either. So why attempt it on Mars?
You need a pretty good motivation to opt for a life like that for the rest of your life.
NEED DEDICATION AND MOTIVATION
Just journey out needs dedication - a few weeks say in the ISS would be fun for many. But to spend six months in less space than an airplane - and then rest of your life that's your only living space also - you need to be really interested in what you are doing, or a major couch potato to do that.
But if you are really interested in the planet and want to explore it - then you can do that far better from orbit with telerobotics, and enhanced vision. And everything also streamed back to Earth in HD for everyone here to see everything as it happens as they explore Mars.
CANDIDATES NEED TO BE INTERESTED IN MARS FOR ITS OWN SAKE, NOT JUST AS A WAY OF ESCAPING FROM THEIR LIFE ON EARTH
I think they should pre-filter their candidates to find people who are interested in Mars itself as a destination in its own right - and modern Mars,not a fictional Barsoom - not just that they would colonize anywhere you send them to so long as you get them off the Earth.
Can be for any reason - doesn't have to be scientific. Can be musical, poetic etc. Perhaps they have done this already.
You have to have a keen interest in Mars for it to make any sense to go there rather than closer to home like the Moon. Also a long term interest - not just wanting to be able to email your friends that you were one of the first people to land on Mars.
IF INTERESTED IN MARS FOR ITS OWN SAKE, TELEROBOTICS HELPS YOU TO EXPLORE IT FAR MORE THOROUGHLY IN A MORE IMMERSIVE WAY
If you are - then easier to explore it via telerobotics than on the surface.
- You get to visit all the exciting interesting places on the surface which you could never visit as a human in a spacesuit.
- More immersive experience also with HD enhanced vision, haptic feedback, etc without the clumsiness of spacesuits.
- You can get to go home again
- You won't be the person who irreversibly contaminates Mars with Earth life.
- You have a chance to make a major discovery on Mars of native life unrelated to Earth life - or to be part of the team that makes that discovery
So, if really interested in Mars for its own sake, I think you'd go for a telerobotic mission.
I don't know if their mission statement would permit a telerobotic mission to Mars orbit with telerobotic boots on the surface. If so - then they might have a chance.
SURFACE TEAMS LIKELY NOT PERMITTED BY INTERNATIONAL LAW
But for surface mission, don't see that they, or anyone else, will be permitted to do that any time soon, or that many will want to either once this looks into really thoroughly, with many eyes looking at the problems, extensive debate, and the possible consequences of contaminating Mars with Earth life become clear to all.
The outer space treaty is clear on this - any country is responsible for the actions of its citizens in space - and to prevent "harmful contamination" (the words of the treaty) of the solar system. That's been interpreted as including - contamination by Earth life - as the main matter of concern.
Other countries have the right to ask for details of any actions likely to impact on their own investigations in outer space also.
CHANCE OF EXTRA TERRESTRIAL LIFE ON MARS AS THE MAIN INTEREST IN THE PLANET FOR MANY
Especially if we find extraterrestrial life on Mars. Need to spend a while searching for it - and if we find it - then I think at that stage many would agree that we have to treat Mars with great care and not just dump Earth microbes on the planet to contaminate it. So we shouldn't try to jump the gun and pollute the planet before we get this opportunity to find ET microbes there.
At any rate that's what I think - original version of this question asked for opinions.I see it's edited now - but not sure that you can give any kind of objective answer - as there are so many unknowns.
To me - as also for many exobiologists - this is what matters most for Mars - the huge potential for finding ET microbes on Mars, and to make sure, if there is ET life there as many think possible - that we don't do anything to delay that discovery of our first confirmed ET life (even microbial) or make it impossible or harder to understand how it works when discovered.
ANYWHERE ELSE IN SOLAR SYSTEM EXCEPT MARS, EUROPA AND ENCLADUS WOULD BE LESS OF AN ISSUE
Anywhere else, except Mars, Europa and Encladus would be less of an issue. But it so happens that they have chosen one of the top candidates for search for life in our solar system as their destination for a colonization attempt. And any contamination by reproducing life is irreversible - a change in the planet for all future time.
That's the problem and potential show stopper for these ideas.
TALKING ABOUT THIS ISSUE SHOULD BE TOP PRIORITY AS IT IS, POTENTIALLY, A COMPLETE SHOW STOPPER FOR SURFACE MISSIONS
It should be right at the top of the list of things you talk about when you discuss human missions to Mars, given its importance as one of the top most interesting places in our solar system for search for genuinely extraterrestrial lifeforms.
Can find out more at Robert Walker's blog
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
4.8m answer views110.4k this month
Top Writer2017, 2016, and 2015
Published WriterHuffPost, Slate, and 4 moreHuffPost, Slate, Forbes, Newsweek, Business Insider, and Science 2.0