Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars

• Mars
• Future Of Space
• Glenn Reynolds
• Alien Life

Life on Mars! H.G. Wells got a good story out of the idea, and while the Martian life of Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and (more recently) Robert A. Heinlein and S.M. Stirling is exciting, it is also fictional. Still, many people hope that we’ll find some sort of life on Mars for real, and that would be exciting, too—even though theselife forms probably wouldn’t look much like Burroughs’s "Princess of Mars," Dejah Thoris.

But I hope we don’t find any life there at all. I hope that Mars is as dead as a doornail. Even deader, since most doornails, in fact, harbor bacterial life. Dead as the moon, then.

Why am I such a spoilsport? Because life on Mars would make life on Earth a lot more complicated. First, imagine that there’s no life on Mars. That means we can go there, as we did on lunar missions, with no serious worries about bringing back deadly germs. (We initially quarantined Apollo astronauts upon their return to Earth. But by Apollo 15 NASA had concluded that the moon was as lifeless as, well, the moon.) No concerns about bringing deadly bacteria home, and none about contaminating the moon with earthly bacteria that might mess up its biospheric ecology.

If Mars is equally lifeless, that will make exploring—and later settling—the planet much easier. We can go there and return without this particular worry, and we can introduce Earth life without concerns that we’ll damage indigenous creatures. Astronauts won’t have to be quarantined, and the environmental impact statement, or its interplanetary equivalent, will be easier to determine. On the other hand, if there is life on Mars, things get a lot tougher.

Worries about bringing Mars life to Earth are real. Life that’s well-adapted to the Martian environment probably wouldn’t be well-adapted to Earth, or coexist well with its inhabitants. That means that the Andromeda Strain scenario, in which Martian bugs infect and kill people, is very unlikely. But very unlikely isn’t the same as impossible, and given the stakes, astronauts—or even robotically recovered soil samples—returning from Mars would have to be very carefully handled indeed to ensure that Earth didn’t become contaminated.

Preventing contamination in the other direction is basically impossible, at least if humans travel to Mars. Human beings are germ condominiums—there are more bacteria living in your body than there are human cells, making you outnumbered in your own skin—and even if we’re careful to bag and seal wastes, etc., a substantial degree of contamination is inevitable. It’s unlikely that earthly bacteria could flourish on Mars, but again, we’re not certain. While the consequences might not be as bad as the worst-case possibility of bringing Mars life to Earth, if earthly bacteria displaced Martian bacteria, it could greatly complicate scientific research. (Is that E. coli native to Mars, or just proof that some earthling had poor personal hygiene?) And if the earthly bacteria turn out to do well on Mars, they might lead to the extinction of indigenous species before we could even study them.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty complicates things too. It requires signatories, which include the United States, to conduct explorations of celestial bodies “so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter.” So preventing contamination of Mars—and the so-called back contamination of Earth by Martian germs—is not just a good idea, it’s the law. In response to these requirements, NASA, the European Space Agency and other space agencies do their best to sterilize spacecraft bound for other planets and are already planning rigorous protection for samples returned to Earth.

Of course, the discovery of life on Mars would be a stunning scientific advance, solving once and for all the question of whether life is unique to our planet. But the price we would pay for that discovery might well be the loss of an entire new world for humanity. Mars is Earth’s closest twin in the solar system, a planet that many scientists think could be modified to become a suitable second home for humankind.

Aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin has suggested that by thickening the Martian atmosphere and then introducing appropriate species, we could “terraform” the Martian environment into something more hospitable. Given the growing threats to human life here on Earth, I’d just as soon we had somewhere else to go, so that all of our eggs weren’t in one fragile basket. Sure, the failure to find life on Mars would be a disappointment. But it would make it much more likely that the planet will brim with life—human life—some day in the future.

PM contributing editor, Instapundit blogger and University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds is the author (with Robert P. Merges) of Outer Space: Problems of Law and Policy.

45. new launch window!?
This is only tangentially related...we won't know either way if we don't explore! With the postponement of the MSL rover we have a vacant launch window-why can't we send a spelunking robot into the lava caves of Mars? Maybe Reynolds is right-maybe NASA really DOESN'T want to know.

44. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
I thought he was going to opine about religious/political matters. What an interesting, if scary direction he took. I agree that it would certainly doom America's chances for manned missions/colonization. He doesn't mention the russian phobos lander that will crash/land on earh - certainly bringing lots of contamination from phobos to here. I don't think they have protesters in Russia,China,India waving signs "Bacteria are people too!" Now I've got another reason to hope for no life on Mars - I don't think there is any there.

43. Why Mars Life is bad news
Intelligent life is uncommon, or we'd have detected radio from other planets by now or seen other evidence of advanced civilizations. It is uncommon either because life is uncommon, or because it is hard for intelligence to evolve, or because intelligent species don't last long. Discovering life on Mars rules out the first of these explanations, and the second explanation seems unlikely given independent evolution of smarter animals in many lineages on earth (though we know of only one case where the smartness reached our own level). This would make the third explanation more likely -- bad news.

42. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
I don't agree with what you are saying about life on mars making life on Earth more complicated because if it was then it would already be happening and plus I don't hope there's no life on Mars I hope that there is.

41. Life!!
Why would it matter if we discover life on mars or not? Why would it stop us to look further out in the cosmos. Just because we find something or discover life does not mean we need to stop there. Plus who said the world was mad for just humans? Furthermore are we so certain we know what a human is or is it just a word that has evolved. I suggest people gather more history and ideas about what they comment.Provincialism is what it is. If we were to be on another planet then we would age differently. we would adapt to the envoronment. Earth might have been the first planet to have life and perhaps because we are still expanding away from the sun perhaps our next planet to habitat will be venus.. but thats and idea and doubt it. wait for a year or so and you will see new technology emerge. It already exists its just being presented at a timely manner.

40. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
I don't know. Glenn seems to be saying that he'd rather go to a planet that is so relentlessly hostile to life that even micro-organisms can't survive there on their own. It doesn't seem all that much more comforting.

39. Rare Earth - #34
The Rare Earth point was that if life is found on a planet as seemingly inhospital as Mars seems to be, then life can hardly be rare. That is, a dead Mars does not provide strong evidence for Rare Earth, but any sign of life would be very strong evidence AGAINST rare Earth.

38. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
What about the Mars life was transplanted to Earth by asteroid impact scenario? If that were to turn out to be true, as in the meteor piece found in Antarctica and holding those strange microscopic possible Martian bacteria. Then what? Would we be at risk of contaminating our “home world”?

37. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
If there were life on Mars, then the Chinese or Russians would be the first ones there. International treaties are enforced only against western democracies.

36. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Website: shineinnovations.com
Well we may already have found life on Mars but we are so obsessed with proving extraordinary claims that we don’t believe it. The bad thing is if we find proof of microscopic life on Mars from robotic missions we won’t know if we introduced it or it is truly Martian unless we send humans there to see for themselves… Here is one of several animations I made and posted on YouTube from the Phoenix microscopic imager that shows a worm like object/ nematode moving in the microscopic imager – this is from 9 raw RGB filter images that create three false color images… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjjZh98wcVk CNN America Morning showed my animation…

35. The Best Answer Is...
The best answer would be for Mars to have had life in the past, but to be extinct now. This would give us the great discovery that life is common and so we are most likely not alone in the universe, but would still give us a nice sterile planet to colonize.

34. "Rare Earth"?
The "Rare Earth" hypothesis is neither supported nor disproven if Mars is found to be a dead world. Mars is too cold, too small, and too irradiated to plausibly support life formation. Find us a world out there that "should" have produced life - Earth sized, at the right distance from its primary star, and with water and a strong radiation belt - and check its pulse before arguing the case.

33. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
And why exactly should we be concerned about making germs go extinct on Mars ? If some germs, or even higher non-sentienent lifeforms, have to perish in order to give homo sapiens a second home then this what has to happen.

32. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Nice article. I'd never thought of it that way before.

31. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
"I find it hard to imagine that a human body that evolved for 1G could adapt to a low-gravity environment for an extended length of time. Am I wrong?" As far as we know, you are wrong in the short and near long term. There are several negative effects in weightless conditions, over the long haul, loss of calcium in the bones being one. But overall, humans can survive in weightless conditions. It is unknown if human fetus' can be carried to term in weightless conditions. That is a big question. But Mar's gravity is about 40% of Earth's. At our present understanding, it should be no problem for human colonization. The lack of air (Sorry very thin CO2 is not that breathable) and radiation are bigger issues. As far as we know

30. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Life on Mars would be more than a pain, it would essentially be an end to manned missions to Mars. And therefore, a potential end to space travel beyond the Earth's orbit. It would be too expensive and too legally risky to go there. That would affect space travel goals and hence resources devoted to conquering the various problems long term space flight present. You devote less resourses, at best it takes longer to achieve the needed technologies. At worst, we are stuck on this one rock. So I gotta agree with Glenn on this. No life on Mars means advances in space technologies and eventual human colonies. Life on Mars means everything comes to a halt. We may develope lunar colonies, but I doubt there will be much will to do so. What is the point? We would be stuck here, and the moon is a lifeless rock requiring more in expenditures than it would generate.

29. Fermi Paradox? Rare Earth? The Great Killer?
One reason to hope for no life on Mars might be that it would support the Rare Earth hypothesis. That is, verrrrrry low probability of life appearing is a better answer for the human race to the Fermi Paradox than most of the others. The others include some Great Killer (Saberhagen or Von Neuman, to name two example hypotheses). Another way to look at it might be that the rarer life is, the even rarer intelligent life is. If intelligent life is nearly unique, then FTL may be possible, given the silence of space that caused Fermi to pose his question, that became the Fermi Paradox.

28. Is There Life on Mars?
Right now we know there is one planet in the universe upon which life has arisen. This tells us precisely nothing about how likely it is that life exists on other planets. Discovering life on Mars (in our cosmic back yard) would make it overwhelmingly likely that the universe is teeming with alien species. The problem is, if any significant number of them have advanced to a technologically sophisticated level, will they all be benign?

27. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
It's unlikely that there's life on Mars because, as noted by previous posters, Mars has virtually no geomagnetic field, hence no "Van Allen Belts", hence cosmic radiation rains down on the planet at near full intensity, sterilizing it. Carbom-based life could not have evolved there. Yes, I know some terrestrial microbes have been found that have adapted to radiation, however they adapted to radiation LATER in their evolution. They developed immunity after generations of adapation, not from the very beginning of their existance. On Mars life never had a chance to start because it would have been bombarded out of existance from the start. Earth settlers on Mars will have to live and work behind shielding, probably regolith piled up over their settlements. They'll venture out in shielded Mars suits, limiting their exposure to the harsh radiation as much as possible. Over time, thru adaptation and/or genetic engineering their descendents will develop immunity to the radiation. But not from the very start of life on Mars.

26. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
After reading some of these comments, all I can say is, "Wow, what I bunch of @$$#*|%$." First off, Glenn Reynolds isn't a scientist. He's a law professor, but he got this writing position with Popular Mechanics due to his astute observations on things relating to the technical and scientific. Second, Mr. Reynolds hasn't spoken out of turn at all. He hasn't envisioned ficticious technologies that don't exist. All he did was speculate about part of what it would take to make Mars habitable, but he never stated or implied that what he speculated about, thickening the atmosphere, was the sum total of what would be needed to terraform Mars. And third, based on the level of vitriol cast Mr. Reynolds way, I believe it's safe to conclude that a plurality of those who commented negatively cast their derision Mr. Reynolds way mostly due to political reasons. Specifically, Mr. Reynolds is a long time libertarian and political commentator who runs the popular centrist/right-of-center web site: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/ It's a very popular tact among those on the left to totally eviscerate those they disagree, regardless of the topic. I think this is occurring here.

25. What about gravity?
I find it hard to imagine that a human body that evolved for 1G could adapt to a low-gravity environment for an extended length of time. Am I wrong?

24. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
"Earth-chauvinist religions" Ahhahahahaaaa!!! You may have coined a phrase! Brilliant! Enough of your earth-o-centric provintialism!

23. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Comment 5 is the funniest thing I've read in a while. I find it hard to believe there is a search engine around that would miss "Glenn Harlan Reynolds", lawyer, professor, musician, techno-geek, one of the most popular bloggers on the internet, with interests in space, nanotechnology, cooking, photography, film and video production, and politics. Among other things.

22. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
"The Andromeda Strain scenario, in which Martian bugs infect and kill people, is very unlikely." - - - But what about the "Species 2" scenario?

21. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
The discovery of life on mars would lead to environmentalists fighting all space exploration to 'save' the Martian biospehere. A lifeless Mars means we can go there.

20. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Of course, the discovery of life anywhere else at all would be a huge blow to all the Earth-chauvinist religions, and might just put a stop to the underlying philosophy that says that the universe was created for humans.

19. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
The weak magnetic field causes further problems than just the solar radiation that bombards the planets surface. The amount of atmostphere we could artificially add to the planet is irrelevant due to the fact that the solar winds literally tear atmospheric gasses away from the planet. We would need to jumpstart the core, or figure out a way to make a huge electromagnetic field around the planet before we could work on it's atmosphere. Unfortunately that is alot more difficult to accomplish.

18. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
The weak magnetic field causes further problems than just the solar radiation that bombards the planets surface. The amount of atmostphere we could artificially add to the planet is irrelevant due to the fact that the solar winds literally tear atmospheric gasses away from the planet. We would need to jumpstart the core, or figure out a way to make a huge electromagnetic field around the planet before we could work on it's atmosphere. Unfortunately that is alot more difficult to accomplish.

17. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Like someone else already said: Mars has a very weak magnetic field. This means that the solar wind constantly ripps of chunks of its atmosphere. I dont think any terraformers have found even a theoretical solution for this issue yet (as far out as it may be). Life on mars would be among the most important discoveries in the history of mankind. It would also be good to protect it until it is sufficiently studied. But... in the long term, it would not matter to much. After we have studied it, we could just as well destroy it with terraforming (or use genetic engineering to make it do what we need).

16. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Clearly this was not written by anyone with any science background at all. The biggest problem may be sterile soil contaminated with toxic super-oxides. They've also found evidence of percolates in the soil - which is a component of rocket fuel.

15. Humans are curious
Website: http://www.ntopics.com
I don't think it matters if there is life on Mars. Humans will continue to investigate Mars and maybe do damage to earth life as you suggested. thanks from tony

14. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Who cares if we kill whatever life form there is on Mars? It is the same as if it was dead to begin with. True it is a lost opportunity in terms of research but the only real things to worry about are: 1. Life form dangerous to humans that would contaminate Earth and kill all of us, 2. Introduction of harmful bacteria to Mars which would flourish there and get out of hand making human human life impossible there.

13. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Welcome to why so many people work around the clock to bring new knowledge and discoveries to the world... What we can't do now only leaves doors to possibilities in the future.

12. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
one could terraform the planet by introducing various gases like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc (things needed to support life on our planet)--but you would need an atmosphere which would be able to keep the gases from seeping back into space. From there, you could also manufacture fertile soil suitable for the martian climate--plant trees to start the photosynthesis process on the planet, creating oxygen, nitrogen, etc. its a long process, I'm sure we wont see this happen in our lifetimes

11. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Hmm. Let's hope that we don't find something which would settle many questions that have been plaguing Mankind for all of recorded history, because it would be somewhat difficult to manage, logistically. Nevermind the fact those problems need to be addressed at some point anyway, presuming we actually develop sustainable space exploration at some point. This article is vacuous.

10. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Website: digg.com
Why wouldn't I worry about it? Even if life on Mars existed, it wouldn't have the rich diversity and competition of a place like Earth. They would only specialize in surviving on that frozen rock.

9. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Humans don't care about displacing non-human life on earth so why should they care about aliens?

8. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
This is nonsense. Your whole reason for not wanting life on mars is because, well it would be such a pain :( WTF. Who cares how painstakingly difficult it would be. Don't you think that it would be infinitely more amazing if life DID exist. Plus, you say that you are worried that it would it harder to terraform mars. WHAT. Mars has a puny, lame, worthless magnetic field. We cannot "thicken" the atmosphere, it will be subject to immense erosion from the solar wind. Terraforming mars would be a complete waste of time. Mars is too cold. Dry ice snows out of the atmosphere in the winter. Your reasons for not wanting life on mars are childish.

7. RE: solar radiation
wouldn't thickening the atmosphere mean that solar radiation has more to get through before hitting the surface of mars?

6. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Well, what about taking some of the hydrogen from saturn and redepositining that on mars by using hyper dense objects to split off some of the mass and making an artifical commet in order to deliver enough in an economical manner to terraform mars. Another object could be then made and its density enhanced as to knock down some of venus's atmospheric density and reverse its rotation in order to create a shorter day and making it livable. As far as no life on mars. There is probably bacteria there that will explode once earthlike conditions are achieved. I would support irradiation of the surface in order to make sure nothing unexpected develops.

5. Who is this guy?
Do you have any qualifications in the field of science at all? You only think of the consequences, and unlikely consequences at that. We wont be settling on Mars anytime soon so you dont even need to worry about bacterial infection. Do you not realize the implications of finding that there is life on another planet in our solar system? Finding about it is much more important that worrying about possible bacteria in 300 years.

4. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
Well this can turn into the chicken or the egg discussion. Do you need plant life to create the atmosphere or an atmosphere to allow plant life to grow. I agree with #2 that plants would need to be engineered for the current environment and hopefully help create a suitable environment for other life.

3. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars
What's to say that we won't develop something like a Star Wars/Trek shield technology that could block the radiation? If we get to the point where we're terraforming planets, it won't be in our (or even our children's) lifetimes.

2. RE: Magnetic Field
There are other ways of dissipating solar radiation. Perhaps humans will never walk around without special suits or outside of the city bubble, but we may be able to engineer plants that can withstand it.

1. RE: Why I Hope There's No Life on Mars: Resident Astronaut
It was my understanding that Mars has a weak magnetic field, and therefore any solar radiation that hits the planet does so at nearly full force? How then could it then be possible to "..terraform the Martian environment into something more hospitable.."? Breathable atmosphere or not, you would still require some sort of protection to avoid being cooked or irradiated.

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