From: slb@slced1.nswses.navy.mil (Shari L Brooks)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Is NASA really planning to Terraform Mars?
Summary: Venus would be better.
Keywords: Gaia, evolution,terraforming, Native life
Date: 10 Sep 92 01:26:09 GMT
Organization: Naval Satellite Operations Center, Point Mugu, CA, USA

In article <+7qn_q-.tomk@netcom.com> tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:

[Mr Kunich posts his idea for terraforming Mars, which is basically to send
a bunch of algae over and let Nature or, rather, *Gaia*, take her course]

>It is a simple, possibly even elementary, matter to find
>various bacteria, algae, fungi, lichen etc. that can exist
>in the harsh environment of Mars. Or, for that matter, the
>upper reaches of the Venusian atmosphere. These life-forms
>are small, light and quite capable of being transported in
>rather massive quantities to these planets by presently
>possessed technology. Should there not be appropriate life
>forms, our present knowledge of biotechnology should lead
>us to be able to develop some in fairly short order.

>I suggest that we send a space vessel bearing our life
>substitutes to Mars and Venus. The cost is relatively
>miniscule. Thereon we can sprinkle the makings of man
>himself.

I don't think we should necessarily send over anything that we have
bioengineered or altered or ensorcelled or whatever.  But I have
always thought, there are plenty of bacteria & single-celled algae
capable of putting up with the Venusian extremes.  I don't know
about the Gaia thing but certainly, with little or no native competitors,
evolution and survival of the fittest will take over.

Life is all-pervasive, and will grasp at any opportunity to fill its
environment to the maximum possible extent.  Look at how extreme the
measures are we must take to completely sterilize anything.

>Oh, maybe the results won't look like our ideas of life. If
>Gaia lives on Venus I am sure that she is a Venusian Gaia.
>We would find her, perhaps, a little hot blooded for our
>tastes. The Martian Gaia might be more to our liking but
>then again who is to say? So too for the Titan Gaia.

[...]

>Of course it would be unethical to interfere with any life
>there may be already there. So considerable exploration
>would be necessary to give a moral basis for such a
>project. 

I am not sure that it would be wise or even interesting to seed every
planetary body we happen across.  There are other uses - both scientific
and commercial - for Mars.  Since no one has really concluded that Mars
*lacks* life now, it would be folly to seed it before that determination
has been finalized.  Even if only to prevent David Knapp from going
ballistic  :)   but seriously.  Once the opportunity to determine if native
life existed on Mars or Titan disappears, it cannot be regained.  ...I don't 
think morals have anything to do with it...

>A couple of comments have come my way in regards to the
>Gaia principle. Maybe I ought to make myself lucid.

That always helps on the net ;) but we all get seized by incoherence sometimes!

[Mr Kunich goes on about his views on the Gaia principle at some length]

>Others can trace the beginnings of life on this planet,
>step by step, through eons of time. Showing how each
>evolution follows the previous and theorizing about the
>ecological changes that presented themselves to produce
>these changes. Cause and effect, cause and effect.

perhaps in 2 billion years when Earth is a burned out husk some weird
Venusian creatures will debate on whether life originated in a sulfuric
acid soup or whether it was seeded by the 3rd planet from the sun

>No, as I say, I find the principle of Gaia attractive. I
>find that it is a theory that can be tested. I have
>suggested a test of that theory that can be run for a
>miniscule fraction of what terraforming projects of other
>types would cost. Something that requires very little in
>the way of new technology. And something that could result
>in the bringing of life to other lifeless worlds in this
>universe.

I am not sure that you are testing Gaia so much as you are testing Darwin.

--
  Shari L Brooks                   |   slb%suned1.nswses.navy.mil@nosc.mil
  NAVSOC code NSOC323D             |   shari@caspar.nosc.mil
  NAWS Pt Mugu, CA 93042-5013      |   
--> All statements/opinions above are mine and mine only, not the US Navy's.
Newsgroups: sci.space