Discussion: What should we do if we discover life in space?

[Ol’ Musky Boi]

There's often a lot of talk about where we may find life in our solar system, from Mars to the moons of the gas giants there's certainly no shortage of candidates. But there's often less discussion about what we should do if we find life. Not only would such a discovery have a massive impact on society, but the implications for space exploration are huge. What restrictions should we put, if any, on the study of the native life? Should we leave the planet alone if it is already inhabited or do we have a right to take samples of life for study and return to Earth? How do we ensure that future exploration des not contaminate habitable worlds? Or is preservation ultimately impossible to maintain? To what extent would this discovery change societal views? Would we see a greater move towards co-operation in light of the fact we are not alone, or would the discovery change very little at all?

Of course we will never know the answers to all these questions until it actually happens. But it's an interesting thought experiment, and an important one at that - if life does exist in the solar system we will certainly have found it by the end of the century, so this scenario isn't so distant.

[Superfluous J]

Anything less than animals, I say we study it with aplomb.

Animals to intelligent life, we respect their habitats (which will suck as they will be among the few places suited to life we'll find) but study as well.

Intelligent life, we try our best to not wipe out or be wiped out by in the almost assured conflict.

[Green Baron]

What should aliens do if they discover us ?

The only thing that would not bear the risk of contamination, destruction, immune reaction, whatever is: leave it in peace.

I know that will not happen.

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

In a sense, this is asking two fairly different questions (mostly the first one though- the second one is almost completely ruled out by now in the solar system, at least)

 

As for the kind of life we'd be most likely to find on Europa and in the solar system, celebrate collectively as a species for a day or so and, of course, study the heck out of it for science. I mean, for so long scientists have only had one data point one how life develops- it would be absolutely impossible to keep completely away from them,we're too dang curious. Try not to destroy their habitats and be very, very, VERY careful with sanitizing research vessels- like, we'd probably need new technology for that level of sanitizing. Definitely don't do sample returns either, the risk is too great. If the biology is determined to be too different to cause harm to humans, sure, maybe bring one or two back, but still- be cautious. If we're not talking about simple bacteria and stuff (although chances are we are talking about that), treat it with the same ethics we treat any lab animals on Earth.

 

And, in the INCREDIBLY unlikely circumstance that we encounter INTELLIGENT life elsewhere in the solar system (I... I don't know where exactly...), hoo boy is that a tricky question. I somewhat firmly believe that when (or if, but only because we might all die first), we discover intelligent life, we should try to make contact. From that point, though.... well, consider your options closely. I would think this encounter would be something observed in another star system, though, from a distance,l and not an immediate concern.

Edited April 4, 2019 by ThatGuyWithALongUsername

[Nuke]

nuke it.

[kerbiloid]

1. We should wash the hands with soap to keep this life outside.
2. We should mix it with our microbes to see who wins. Bets are accepted.
3. We should try to infect the humans, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, hens, pigs, fishes, and cows to see if it's safe to contact with it.

Spoiler

4. Then let Bayer do its work.

 

[YNM]

8 hours ago, Ol’ Musky Boi said:

What restrictions should we put, if any, on the study of the native life?

I have a feeling that, given our past negligence, by the time we discover them, it'll always be too late.

 

And always remember : No Americapox.

Edited April 5, 2019 by YNM

[MaverickSawyer]

If it's non-sentient, I agree that we'll study it in great detail.

 

If it's sentient... Honestly? I'd sit on that intel HARD. People would be up in arms over the news. Until I'm certain that the public won't violently overreact to the news, I'd keep it to a small team. Because let's face it: America would either fear an attack from them and attack preemptively, or would start a fight with them over planetary resources... or just because they could.

[kerbiloid]

If they are sapient, then first of all we should figure out their metabolism, what do they drink.

Spoiler

And can we drink it together.

 

[Green Baron]

Example: Prehistoric caves in southern France had to be closed to the public, and some even for the scientists now. Important parts have been 3D reconstructed instead. The caves were locked away from the open for 10,000-40,000 years. When people entered, immediately fungi and bacteria started to grow and destroy the surfaces so that the extremely sensitive methods for analyses, especially dating and isotopic composition, partly do not work any more. Also the until then preserved colour pigments that lasted ten thousands of years where partly destroyed in just a few decades.

So, that is what an intrusion does and no filter can prevent this.

I don't want to say that will inevitably happen to emerging life elsewhere (anyway i only expect, of at all, microbes), but this is what we must be prepared for on contact. The leading space agencies are perfectly aware of that, yet they can't fully exclude to introduce microbes on their machines.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Green Baron

[Scotius]

That will probably depend on nature of found life. If it will be microscopic organisms, after initial sensation passes nobody but scientists will care. If this life will be of cute and cuddly kind, i'd expect it to become new king of internet memes and inspiration for a deluge of tacky toys and cartoons. If it turns out to be toothy, aggressive and hungry... Hollywood and game companies will have field day flooding the market with action flicks and survival horrors.

That's about it as far as general public will be involved

Father Universe... when did i become so cynical?

[Xd the great]

Apart from space needs who will rush to buy the next ticket to visit these aliens, everyone panicks.

And America has 10000 new "church" claiming that they will protect humans from aliens which are actually Government terminators.

[James Kerman]

My personal opinion is that I think (or hope) we will find traces of microbial life in our solar system.

The last decade has seen an explosion of research into bio mimicry. Finding primitive life forms (possibly now extinct) that evolved on other worlds will most certainly lead to innovation in that field of science.

Edit: A find like this may also have profound implications for medicine, genetic manipulation of crops, fuel producing algae and many other applications.

[Green Baron]

I hope so too, of course.

We can't be careful enough not to introduce our own stuff, as bacteria on the hull of the ISS and possibly on the Curiosity rover have already shown. That'll mess up most the high resolution analyses and methods we have, leaving us with guessing again. And that may be just because of carelessness.

https://www.nature.com/news/microbial-stowaways-to-mars-identified-1.15249

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by Green Baron

[p1t1o]

So....many....joke....opportunities....

***

If its intelligent life, it'd be best if we stayed the heck away for several centuries, we are not ready.

***

Though there is one school of thought that suggests, without irony, anger, or xenophobia, that we should immediately exterminate any intelligent life that we find. I think the rationale is something along the lines of a logical framework based on a certain set of assumptions that suggests that a sparsely distributed galactic society is an incredibly dangerous place to live, kill or be killed. Even though a species seems outwardly peaceful, will this last for 10,000 years? 100,000? For a long-lived civilisation, culling even benign, peaceful aliens might be a prudent choice. And the insideous cycle - knowing this, the peace loving aliens must learn that to remain peace loving, they must exterminate visitors (thus justifying the warlike aliens approach and perpetuating the cycle)

 

Also, my "stay the heck away" approach, is somewhat influenced by this idea.

Edited April 5, 2019 by p1t1o

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

If they are sapient, then first of all we should figure out their metabolism, what do they drink.

  Hide contents

And can we drink it together.

 

I don't know about that one. The aliens in Alien Nation got drunk on spoiled milk.

10 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Even though a species seems outwardly peaceful, will this last for 10,000 years? 100,000? For a long-lived civilisation, culling even benign, peaceful aliens might be a prudent choice.

Even though a person seems outwardly peaceful, will this last for years? A lifetime? For a long-lived person, culling even benign, peaceful neighbors might be a prudent choice.

[kerbiloid]

7 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

The aliens in Alien Nation got drunk on spoiled milk.

Pure win!

18 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Even though a species seems outwardly peaceful, will this last for 10,000 years?

10k years later they will have nothing new to post in blogs, no jokes to be joked, and be absolutely tired of instant messengers.

And their chat bots will be so intellectual, that nobody can tell them something interesting.
So, unlikely they will be very interested in the communication.

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, 5thHorseman said:

Even though a person seems outwardly peaceful, will this last for years? A lifetime? For a long-lived person, culling even benign, peaceful neighbors might be a prudent choice.

I didnt say it was the right strategy, only that it is one

 

Although, it is a false equivalency, civilisations are not people.

What if you walked into a room of outwardly peaceful people, but they all have spears and if you die your whole species dies. And you have a glock.

A silly, imperfect analogy, but it looks different now doesnt it?

 

There is an opposite strategy which is in the same vein which says that we must stop looking for intelligent life, must stop broadcasting our presence, in case the - or according to some, because its likely that - aliens subscribe to the first, more aggresive strategy. 

 

 

These strategies also speak to the Fermi paradox - everyone is either hiding or destroyed.

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by p1t1o

[Starstruck69]

Very good question and one we may have to answer soon enough.

The powers that be (no names cited) will either exploit it, destroy it, or be destroyed by it. 

Shouldn't be like that but history tells me that one or all of the above is the likely outcome.

 

 

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

Although, it is a false equivalency, civilisations are not people.

Hmmm, they are not ? In my eyes they are, even if they are built by individuals that have a dozen eyes and 8 limbs, or just sit around like orange trees.

Quote

What if you walked into a room of outwardly peaceful people, but they all have spears and if you die your whole species dies. And you have a glock.

Sorry, but what's a glock ?

If/when i die i die, the species will be fine with that, it is several times a second. I will not kill others. And i frequently was together in a room with people with spears, bows, bolas, atlatls and all kind of pelaeolithic weaponry and we had a huge fun. The headache the next morning was not the result of intraspecies violence :-)

Quote

A silly, imperfect analogy, but it looks different now doesnt it?

Well, not to me :-). And i daresay that, despite of Hollywood or whatever cultural background comes to mind, most people and probably most aliens are pretty peaceful, because that's a model for long term evolutionary success and that is how civilizations are built in the first place. Violence destroys them ...

 

 

Edit: but my posts above where not about violence, just about the "observer effects" that may damage or change what we want to investigate, self replicating chemistry, microbes, lifeforms, etc .... Other civs are, well, far away :-)

 

Edited April 5, 2019 by Green Baron

[tater]

IMO it depends on where it is, and how useful the planet is to us.

I'm not a fan of Mars colonization, largely for lack of data (how humans deal with 0.38g forever, raising kids, etc), but if we assume that Mars could be colonized, and make the further assumption it could be even partially terraformed, I don't care if there are some bacteria on Mars, they had their chance, sucks to be them. Realistically, we're not going to find anything much more complicated than that. Intelligence is another matter. I care about preserving that, but only to a point (given the move into Fermi Paradox issues). Ie: us or them? Sucks to be them.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, p1t1o said:

So....many....joke....opportunities....

***

If its intelligent life, it'd be best if we stayed the heck away for several centuries, we are not ready.

***

Though there is one school of thought that suggests, without irony, anger, or xenophobia, that we should immediately exterminate any intelligent life that we find. I think the rationale is something along the lines of a logical framework based on a certain set of assumptions that suggests that a sparsely distributed galactic society is an incredibly dangerous place to live, kill or be killed. Even though a species seems outwardly peaceful, will this last for 10,000 years? 100,000? For a long-lived civilisation, culling even benign, peaceful aliens might be a prudent choice. And the insideous cycle - knowing this, the peace loving aliens must learn that to remain peace loving, they must exterminate visitors (thus justifying the warlike aliens approach and perpetuating the cycle)

 

Also, my "stay the heck away" approach, is somewhat influenced by this idea.

This theory has a hard fail, add 2-500 years we will get an solar system civilization. 
Yes I criticize  Musk's mars plan as an self sufficient colony but that is in an 50 year perspective not 500. 

You can kill an planet with something large at relativistic speed. It does not work against an dyson swarm, you have to invade. Yes you might if K2 level but that made you very visible. 
Now you are in the interesting setting of killed 90% of the population and 10% of the industrial capacity. 
So yes other side arm up and industrialize to arm pretty hard and has both the motive and capability, you know this then the star dims. 

An worse option is to hit an colony, or just an probe finding an world you have killed. 
Being an genocidal maniac has some downsides. 
Regimes like this tend to have an limited life span. 

[p1t1o]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

Hmmm, they are not ? In my eyes they are, even if they are built by individuals that have a dozen eyes and 8 limbs, or just sit around like orange trees

They're made of people, but they dont act or respond like people, nor have the same morals/ethics, nor - if you can stomach the concept of a "value" to these things - do they have the same value as a person.

A civilisation is to a person, what a person is to a cell. Maybe? Im flying by the seat of my pants here!

 

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

Sorry, but what's a glock ?

  A fairly generic pistol.

 

3 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

add 2-500 years we will get an solar system civilization. 

We will? IMO that is a YUGE extrapolation, we dont have a single datapoint other than a curve of past progress, curves can only be extrapolated so far.

 

(Im coming off as a bit of a warmonger here, I swear I dont have an alien bloodlust!  )

(Joke'll be on you guys when it turns out the galaxy is all xenomorphs)

Edited April 5, 2019 by p1t1o

[WestAir]

An interesting trend with humans is that we, perhaps due to our territorial nature, oppose interacting with the environment the further away that environment is. Spider web in your attic? Nuke it. Spider web on Mars? Colonize around it. Spider web on a planet around Alpha Centauri? Make it a capitol punishment to go anywhere near it.

It's a curious behavior, one that I'm totally too inept to fully understand.

[Cassel]

Abort it before it develops to a level where killing will cause moral dilemmas.

12 minutes ago, WestAir said:

An interesting trend with humans is that we, perhaps due to our territorial nature, oppose interacting with the environment the further away that environment is. Spider web in your attic? Nuke it. Spider web on Mars? Colonize around it. Spider web on a planet around Alpha Centauri? Make it a capitol punishment to go anywhere near it.

It's a curious behavior, one that I'm totally too inept to fully understand.

What?

Edited April 5, 2019 by Cassel