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this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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I care about preserving life on Earth. I think we can make it on Earth, and If we can't make it on Earth I'm somewhat disinclined to pollute the stars with this stuff.
Is it polluting the stars if there is literally no other life out there?
It may be way way rarer to get the exact right mix of chemical cocktails + environment to create anything remotely resembling life. The literal entire rest of the universe may just be interesting abstract science experiment worlds. If that's the case, why do you care about "polluting" it with life? Without life to take interest in them, they're just abstract systems that will operate until the heat death of the universe when they won't.
All other earthlike planets (and I'm presuming we're only really intending to go to those) are planets that perhaps will support life in a billion or a trillion years. But that is exactly the kind of experiment that won't happen if we start sending our own lifeforms at them.
Be able to support life, or actually spontaneously create and support life?
Because right now, from everything we know about Mars, there seems to be extremely little chance of life ever being able to evolve before the Sun's aging makes it uninhabitable by anything.
How will we know if there is indigenous life on Mars if we contaminate Mars. Indeed, we might have done this already.
I think you missed the part about extinction level events. The kinda thing a single planet is prone to.