Conceivably, but I think we need the big picture to know why we are doing it. One reason might be to "Mars form" Mars to turn back the clock to the earlier period when it had giant floods for instance.
See what happens if you get a new really huge flood on Mars like the ones we have evidence of. Plus somewhat thicker atmosphere. Do you get Martian life spreading over the planet when that happens?
There's a possibility of finding present day microbial life, and maybe deep down life forms there - so would be fascinating to see what happens if Mars gets briefly far more habitable. Would they flourish and cover the surface? Would the microbes form microbial mats and stromatolites and larger structures? Even giant lichens or some such?
Where briefly here, might mean for several thousand years - so a huge time on the human timescale, though a brief moment in the geological record - and something that happened frequently in the first few hundred million years of our solar system - but rarely since then.
The good thing about steering comets into Mars to do that is - that it is just imitating something that happens - though increasingly rarely - from time to time anyway geologically - just makes it happen more often.
Whether we should do that I don't know. But - is far better than bashing ahead and trying to turn it into a copy of Earth, which is I think impossible - and this "Mars forming" might be a good thing to do. But need great thought and care.
Or - even more ambitious - try to create a global northern ocean, thicken the atmosphere and try to turn it back to the first few hundred million years and see what happens (taking care to keep Earth life away - and of course - you would first remove all our existing rovers and erase all biological trace of our presence there).
You may know from my other answers, that I am not a fan of ideas of sending humans to the surface of Mars or terraforming Mars - because I think it is so tremendously interesting and valuable to us in its current pristine state.
Especially - I think there is a good chance we will find present day Martian life with fundamentally different biochemistry and biology - if so - would, I think, be a tragedy to confuse that by introducing Earth microbes to the planet at this stage before we even know what is there and what we are doing to the planet.
See what happens if you get a new really huge flood on Mars like the ones we have evidence of. Plus somewhat thicker atmosphere. Do you get Martian life spreading over the planet when that happens?
There's a possibility of finding present day microbial life, and maybe deep down life forms there - so would be fascinating to see what happens if Mars gets briefly far more habitable. Would they flourish and cover the surface? Would the microbes form microbial mats and stromatolites and larger structures? Even giant lichens or some such?
Where briefly here, might mean for several thousand years - so a huge time on the human timescale, though a brief moment in the geological record - and something that happened frequently in the first few hundred million years of our solar system - but rarely since then.
The good thing about steering comets into Mars to do that is - that it is just imitating something that happens - though increasingly rarely - from time to time anyway geologically - just makes it happen more often.
Whether we should do that I don't know. But - is far better than bashing ahead and trying to turn it into a copy of Earth, which is I think impossible - and this "Mars forming" might be a good thing to do. But need great thought and care.
Or - even more ambitious - try to create a global northern ocean, thicken the atmosphere and try to turn it back to the first few hundred million years and see what happens (taking care to keep Earth life away - and of course - you would first remove all our existing rovers and erase all biological trace of our presence there).
You may know from my other answers, that I am not a fan of ideas of sending humans to the surface of Mars or terraforming Mars - because I think it is so tremendously interesting and valuable to us in its current pristine state.
Especially - I think there is a good chance we will find present day Martian life with fundamentally different biochemistry and biology - if so - would, I think, be a tragedy to confuse that by introducing Earth microbes to the planet at this stage before we even know what is there and what we are doing to the planet.
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
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