JRStripe wrote:SkyTruck wrote:Can Mars support a freeking mico-organism? Who gives a shit!
If it could, what the hell could we do about it... Keeping in mind, we are f&@;^*#, Broke!
Signed,
A maxed out taxpayer!
Our whole existence is based on thinking we're freaks of nature; that we are one of a kind living in this impossibly narrow band were conditions are just right and so delicately balanced that it couldn't
possibly exist anywhere else. If Mars is proven to be able to support life it changes the probability that we are not alone. If they actually found a micro-organism... oh man! A discovery like that would be on the order of finding out the earth isn't flat. Imagine finding alien life right next door. It would change everything! Literally. It would turn the worlds of science, philosophy, and religion upside down. How cool would that be?
With trillions of galaxies in the observable universe, each with trillions of stars, and physicists' latest theories that our "universe" is just one in an infinite, multidimensional "multiverse," chances we're alone are unimaginably small, even if life were a rare commodity that could only exist in a narrow set of conditions. It's not. Right here on earth, life has already been shown to exist in a huge range of conditions, including boiling hot gas vents at the bottom of the ocean where temperatures and pressures exceed those of a hospital autoclave. During the Apollo missions, they found live microbes on the Surveyor unmanned space probe that hitched a ride from Earth and survived just fine in an airless, high radiation environment with temperatures that can vary 400 degrees from day to night. As for microbes on Mars, we've already "discovered" 'em. The early Viking lander carried out rudimentary experiments to find evidence of microbial life. It did. NASA later said the experiment was flawed. Once more, they've recently admitted, "Well, maybe it wasn't flawed." Later, in the 1980, scientists found what some claim was fossilized microbes in a Martian meteorite. Again, that one is still disputed but plenty of "serious" scientists have come down on the side of Martian life. But who care about microbes. Wanna see something interesting, do a google image search on "trees on Mars." Yea, NASA goes to great pains to tell you why the trees you are looking at aren't trees at all bot an optical illusion. You decide.
Life isn't hard to create. All I have to do is forget to clean out my coffee pot before a three day trip. I little boiled (sterile) water, a bit of organic material (old coffee grounds), come home three days later and presto - Life (yuck)!
Best,
O-2
