Should Earth begin seeding other planets?

Recently there have been debates whether Earth had been seeded by an ancient extraterrestrial species or whether mankind had an intervention 100,000 years ago in order to rapidly advance our species from common Hominidae to the Homo sapien that continue to live and develope today.

I would like to pose a similar question only on the opposite end. Should our species seed other planets within our reach? There have been lists complied of the most habitable stars.

Even at the current maturity of our species we have the capability of pursuing such an idea. We've reached a point in time that we are able to clone many species which makes seeding other planets even easier being that we have yet to overcome such mass restrictions in order to travel at the speed of light.

Also, should we find a more primitive species of life, should mankind intervein to advance the civilization in their development?

Pros and cons anyone?

[edit on 12-6-2007 by tyranny22]

The problem is we can't do that right now, I mean, with the public cientific knowledge, not referring to the one occult inside the spheres of power (i.e. the industrial-military complex).

But the way, I think we're heading to a new (perpetual) medieval age since we're exhausting all natural resources like oil and there's not concrete and/or massive plans to migrate into alternative energy sources.

I'm all for spreading our filth as far as we can. Why not? Send off a million little rockets in all directions with frozen bacteria inside, with sensors that will look for planets that have a reasonable temperature and the potential for liquid water. Crash them all over the place. If we happen to land on one where the people get infected by our bacteria and we kill them all, that's their tough luck, I guess. Why should we care about what happens to a bunch of creepy aliens?

Originally posted by SuicideVirus
I'm all for spreading our filth as far as we can. Why not? Send off a million little rockets in all directions with frozen bacteria inside, with sensors that will look for planets that have a reasonable temperature and the potential for liquid water. Crash them all over the place. If we happen to land on one where the people get infected by our bacteria and we kill them all, that's their tough luck, I guess. Why should we care about what happens to a bunch of creepy aliens?

that's funny. I enjoy the humor.

I was talking more in the effect of colonizing new planets with humans, rather than actually "sparking" life by means of microbial inception. Otherwise it'd take hundreds of millions of years for intelligent life to evolve.

Good point, nontheless. Bacterial infection is still a risk that we would take (and give) when entering new worlds. But, the benefit could overshadow the risk. We might happen upon new species of flora or fauna that could possibly have medical benefit to human beings.

Originally posted by tyranny22
Also, should we find a more primitive species of life, should mankind intervene to advance the civilization in their development?


[edit on 12-6-2007 by tyranny22]

Sure why not. All the extraterrestrial/alien races have done such a great
job here on earth in advancing our civilization. Except that we are bound and determined to kill each other off with either technology or neglect.

How could any alien species turn an offer like that down?

Originally posted by whaaa
Sure why not. All the extraterrestrial/alien races have done such a great
job here on earth in advancing our civilization. Except that we are bound and determined to kill each other off with either technology or neglect.

How could any alien species turn an offer like that down?

how do you mean "in advancing our civilization"?

I'm not disagreeing with you, I was just wondering how you think they've helped us. In my opinion, I think we've been helped along many times.

One such theory is that extraterrestrials advanced our building technology with the Great Pyramids. The only reasoning behind this is the detailed documention of the Egyptian civialization with in the pyramids. Nearly all details of their lives are inscribed upon the Pyramid walls. All except for the people and means that built the pyramids. Why would they not make a notation of their greatest achievement?

Originally posted by tyranny22
I was talking more in the effect of colonizing new planets with humans, rather than actually "sparking" life by means of microbial inception. Otherwise it'd take hundreds of millions of years for intelligent life to evolve.

Never happen. People just aren't built for space travel in or on anything but the planet Earth. We'll never realistically learn to generate enough power to go anywhere near the speed of light, and without that, even going to one of the closest nearby stars will take lifetimes. So that will entail building huge multi-generational ships big enough to protect us against all the nasty radiation, at which point, we might as well just stay on Earth. Unfortunately, space is so large and hostile that we'll be lucky if we establish small colonies on the nearest planets.

It's all moot anyway, since humanity in its current form will be gone within 1,000 years or so, replaced either by genetically modified humans or intelligent machines.

Originally posted by SuicideVirus

Originally posted by tyranny22
I was talking more in the effect of colonizing new planets with humans, rather than actually "sparking" life by means of microbial inception. Otherwise it'd take hundreds of millions of years for intelligent life to evolve.

Never happen. People just aren't built for space travel in or on anything but the planet Earth. We'll never realistically learn to generate enough power to go anywhere near the speed of light, and without that, even going to one of the closest nearby stars will take lifetimes. So that will entail building huge multi-generational ships big enough to protect us against all the nasty radiation, at which point, we might as well just stay on Earth. Unfortunately, space is so large and hostile that we'll be lucky if we establish small colonies on the nearest planets.

It's all moot anyway, since humanity in its current form will be gone within 1,000 years or so, replaced either by genetically modified humans or intelligent machines.

I don't see the reasoning behind your conclusion of staying on Earth. As you say. in 1,000 year when we've been genetically enhanced and upgraded humankind with cybenetic implants why would be not want to reach beyond our solar system?

I agree with you in the aspect of never being able to come close to reaching the speed of light, and that space is a very inhospitable place. But also, very vast. Once past the radiation problem, I see very little in the way of harm, other than black holes or random projectiles. Surely if mankind could get past the Van Allan belt 40 years ago, we should have no problem dealing with radiation today.

And as far as humans being "replaced" by intelligent machines ... that's just another reason to start seeding other planets now. At least then humans could have a fighting chance at survival by establishing our species in another sector of the galaxy, thus not allowing elimination of mankind.

In my opinion this is one of the major reasons for seeding planets. To prevent exstinction.

I feel that its a great deed to spread life across the universe. I can guess that the more advanced alien lifeforms are doing just that at the moment. But I also feel that we are not ready to do that yet.

We are a very very nascent civilization (if you permit me to use that word ), and we have awoken from a deep sleep just about 150 years ago. Thats hardly two generations. We have primitive means of travel and could not even establish a colony in a glass jar on moon, the nearest rock ! The race to the moon was more like a competition of who has a bigger d*** and US did the equivalent of a dog pissing on new territory by securing its flag there. That was all some heat of the moment, a warlike trance. No wonder no one in the world could do it afterwards, its not worth investing such huge resources.

Once we are ready to go and colonize other planets, we should keep in mind some things -

- we need to first terraform it to make it suitable for living, which means it may take 1000s of years or unimaginable amounts of energy to do so. Living in a glass dome is not exactly spreading life.
- we must leave out the planet which have even tiniest form of life on it, its not ethical to wipe them out and grow on their land. The diversity of life is the greatest asset of nature.
- we must somehow genetically modify ourselves to adapt to the conditions on the planet, which is a faster way than terraforming the entire planet. This will create sub species of humans with unforeseen results.
- we must develop means to keep in constant touch with the inhabitants lest they forget their roots. (which should not be a big problem, but still)
- on planets where it is not practical to live, we should spread other forms of life like bacteria or plants
- we can construct artificial planets too

Of course we need not wait to get this advanced and start at a small scale, possibly after 50 or so years. Mars is a very good place to start and we are taking baby steps already.

Originally posted by rocksolidbrain
Mars is a very good place to start and we are taking baby steps already.

I read somewhere long ago that Venus would be the ideal candidate for terraforming. Release algea into the upper atmosphere, which feeds off the carbon dioxide, releases oxygen, cools the planet, reproduces, something like that. Sounds plausible.

yuefo,

I found an informative page on wiki about terraforming venus
en.wikipedia.org...

This idea was proposed by Carl Sagan. It can improve the conditions there, but there are more issues, if you read above.
I read that Mars is getting warmer, that should solve at least one problem automatically.

Originally posted by rocksolidbrain
I feel that its a great deed to spread life across the universe. I can guess that the more advanced alien lifeforms are doing just that at the moment. But I also feel that we are not ready to do that yet.

- we must leave out the planet which have even tiniest form of life on it, its not ethical to wipe them out and grow on their land. The diversity of life is the greatest asset of nature.

Honestly, I don't believe we should be seeding other planets. I really wish we were at the point in our exsistance, but I don't think we'll reach the level of maturity for another 500 years. Too many differences on this planet to spread our civilizations to others.

As you said, I don't think it's too early to start the process. If anything, maybe it'd give the world something else to think about rather than if "my religion is right and your's is wrong" and "I want that land and I'm taking it."

Also, I think other planet's intelligent life should not be bothered in the least, unless it's a humanitarian (could we call it that dealing with another species?) intervention that would prevent a major cataclsym.

[edit on 12-6-2007 by tyranny22]

My opinion is that humans just arent ready for a task like that. We are still very young and have such a long way to go before we can achieve something as great as spreading our species to other planets. We cant even get along with each other on our own planet. I do however feel that humans have the ability to advance our terraforming technology. We may have already tried to seed Mars, or Venus or Europa with vegetation. Titan shows some promise but who really knows? It is a fact though that our resources will be gone very soon so this may become a project down the road. The first step is to build a space craft capable of space flight in that manner. The shuttle is nothing more than a orbital craft with reentry capability. Which i might add is falling apart these days.

Originally posted by SuicideVirus

Never happen. People just aren't built for space travel in or on anything but the planet Earth.
We'll never realistically learn to generate enough power to go anywhere near the speed of light, and without that, even going to one of the closest nearby stars will take lifetimes.

It's all moot anyway, since humanity in its current form will be gone within 1,000 years or so, replaced either by genetically modified humans or intelligent machines.

Ok I guess the people in space today, arnt really in space today.
Two words for ya................... Wright Brothers.................. shoot two more....... Christopher Columbus......... Hell why not some more Humans have achieved great things my friend so to say we will never achieve travel at the speed of light is a bit short sited dont you think? The earth was flat once right...... Planes would never fly right....... Space travel at all was a myth...... We will figure it out some day if we dont destroy ourselves first.
Ok Terminator glass half empty...... sounds to me like your one of those dooms day sayers....... in the words of oddball......Have a little faith baby...... take care

[edit on 12-6-2007 by geemony]

I'm all in for spreading my seed! Sure, why not! Who's next in line? Hahaha!

Send out our bugs, our germs, our plant seeds, anything that can touch down on foreign soil. I'm not sure why it matters if we 'contaminate' Mars, who cares? It's not like we haven't already had bit of our rocks reaching Mars and vice-versa.

If we start sending life to Mars now, we might even see some of it develop to help the terraforming. Set up the big atmosphere processors and set to bake - damn, too many movies.

Sterile is a dirty word. Spread the life, spread the love.

Seeding other planets? Terraforming and bioforming other worlds for human colonization is a neat idea. I have always been in favor for such thing to happen.....One of the few questions that arise though is do we posess the technology to actually send a crew safely through the radiation belt that blankets the Earth....I've seen some things lately that have made me question whether or not we actually made it to the moon in the 60's & 70's....believe me, I am one who really wants to believe it true.....but conflicting shadow's, light where there shouldn't be....wind russling the flag, and no blast crator......If the government felt the need to fake the lunar landing, and lie to the public......how plausible is it that they could make it to the moon now, let alone other planets.

Well, we still have to fight it out on this planet to decide which one of our civilizations to spread. Once we've figured out who will control the earth, then we can worry about spreading out. Who speaks for Earth?

Originally posted by geemony

Originally posted by SuicideVirus

Never happen. People just aren't built for space travel in or on anything but the planet Earth.
We'll never realistically learn to generate enough power to go anywhere near the speed of light, and without that, even going to one of the closest nearby stars will take lifetimes.

It's all moot anyway, since humanity in its current form will be gone within 1,000 years or so, replaced either by genetically modified humans or intelligent machines.

Ok I guess the people in space today, arnt really in space today.
Two words for ya................... Wright Brothers.................. shoot two more....... Christopher Columbus......... Hell why not some more Humans have achieved great things my friend so to say we will never achieve travel at the speed of light is a bit short sited dont you think? The earth was flat once right...... Planes would never fly right....... Space travel at all was a myth...... We will figure it out some day if we dont destroy ourselves first.
Ok Terminator glass half empty...... sounds to me like your one of those dooms day sayers....... in the words of oddball......Have a little faith baby...... take care

You're just not considering that the Columbus and the Wright Brothers went from one place on Earth to another place on Earth. Space, deep space in particular, is a whole different story. Our current space activities still stay nice and close to Earth and its magnetic field. We haven't even traveled a million miles from Earth. Our chances of getting to Mars alive (and still fertile) are very slim.

By the time we develop the technology to travel easily and relatively safely between planets and possibly to other planetary systems, we simply won't exist as human beings anymore. Maybe our sentient machines will fly around the galaxy like Star Trek, but not us. We just can't pass the physical.

And it's not a matter of doomsaying. It's merely an extrapolation of current trends. Our machines will rapidly get smarter and in the not too distant future, probably around 350 years from now, develop something that will be so indistinguishable from consciousness that you couldn't call it anything else. They'll displace us. Not that we'll be anything much like we are now, anyway. Our genetics will be so modified that half of humanity will have wings, probably. Or whatever. The end of humanity is nigh, but because of normal development and adaptation, not any great catastrophe. So rather than "doom," it's really kind of a success story.

Either way, though, human beings aren't going to export themselves anywhere.



[edit on 12-6-2007 by SuicideVirus]

I hope we never gain the technology to send anything to other worlds. Humanity is a disgusting species with extremely few redeeming features. To infest another defenceless planet with our violence, arrogance and stupidity would be a sin against the purity and innocence of the cosmos.

Of pleasure to me is the thought that we will continue to increase the rape of our planet's finite materials to the point that we will not have the resources to get to other worlds if we finally make the discoveries that would have made it possible. When the human race finally sinks into oblivion, the planet will heal itself and maybe evolve another species which is truly intelligent.

The sooner the human race destroys itself, the better. GO GO USA, you are my best hope for world annihalation.

Short answer, yes, yes we should.


Now, that said I think before we go trouncing about on alien planets (after we discover someway
to sneak around the whole no traveling faster than c, such as wormholes or Hyper
Space) I think we should do research on the planet, to make sure nothing there is going to
kill us the second we step foot on it, and vice-versa.


Personally I'm all for colonizing Mars and Terraforming it, which, in my opinion, based on
what I've learned, would take at least 700 years to do completely, maybe 500 at the very least,
however should we find life there I think we also need to preserve it to, so instead of annihilating
all the microbial life there, we should take a good size sample from many different parts of the
planet and put them in an artificial habitat or keeping certain areas of Mars in there normal
condition, sort of like small nature preserves.


I think we need to expand outward and colonize the solar system and expand and explore
the Universe, colonizing and creating life where once there was none, and co-existing with the
other life in the Universe on inhabited/life bearing planets.