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Check out von neumann automatons. The idea is that once you started colonizing, you'd cover the entire galaxy in ~a million years, aka very quickly on a galactic timescale. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft
A galaxy is very tiny on the scale of the universe.
I know, it may sound absolutely irresponsible, but have the scientists considered practical benefits of sending in some bacterial life from Earth to let it try to colonize the remote destinations ahead of sending in humans for the same purpose? Supposedly, micro-life has better chance to adapt to new environments, as long as the basic resource is available. In case of Mars, humans lack the basic resources - water and…
We would never find out if life developed outside of earth.
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More irresponsible than letting the human race exhaust and suffocate itself on this planet? At some point we need to realise colonizing another planet is going to be necessary, and it is going to cause lots of damage.
we'll have exhausted this planet a thousand years before we'd have the technology to make Mars habitable. It just isn't going to happen for numerous reasons. The biggest are the lower gravity and the very weak magnetosphere.
I know, it may sound absolutely irresponsible, but have the scientists considered practical benefits of sending in some bacterial life from Earth to let it try to colonize the remote destinations ahead of sending in humans for the same purpose? Supposedly, micro-life has better chance to adapt to new environments, as long as the basic resource is available. In case of Mars, humans lack the basic resources - water and…
We would never find out if life developed outside of earth.
There are even theories that life on Earth was seeding from life from other solar systems, but that is much more unlikely and an in solar system transfer.
Check out scholar.google.com and search for "exchange of bacteria between mars and earth" or other similar phrases.
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I've been curious about this recently actually. What are the downsides of "seeding" a plant with life to study how it evolves?
The fear I read is that we might be accidentally eradicating any life we don't yet know about, if we introduce life from earth.
I don't understand the excitement for finding life on Mars. I personally really, really hope we do not find life on Mars. If we find even the most basic microbial life, NASA is going to shut down all future exploration in the interest of Martian planetary protection. China and Russia probably won't, but the US will cripple itself (again) out of caution. On a more existential level, finding life elsewhere in the solar…
I know, it may sound absolutely irresponsible, but have the scientists considered practical benefits of sending in some bacterial life from Earth to let it try to colonize the remote destinations ahead of sending in humans for the same purpose? Supposedly, micro-life has better chance to adapt to new environments, as long as the basic resource is available. In case of Mars, humans lack the basic resources - water and…
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But why would we want to continue life? Whenever I read something like that I feel life a sociopath but I don't really understand it. I'd care about the wellbeing of the people, not the continuation of the human species or, as here, of life itself.
I mean, I think it's kind of a natural reaction to "well if humanity disappears altogether, what was the point?", so we feel an urge to perpetuate humanity, in order to imbue our own existence with some sort of meaning.
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The only obvious examples of either are the ones humans put there — the probes, the rovers, the Apollo Lunar Modules and associated material.
so you mean we've figured out how to build large structures outside planet earth without the public knowing?
So, like everyone else on this thread is asking you: what are you even talking about?