Bill Nye the Science Guy explains why water on Mars matters: "It would change human history"

[yuiyoshida]

[zebonaut]

1. We need to be there now; scooping up a wet soil sample

And eyeballing it for microbes. DNA based? XNA? PNA?

[tclambert]

2. But Rush Limbaugh says it's part of the leftist agenda.

I guess he figures alien life would always vote for Democrats or something.

Edited to add: And, of course, Donald Trump would want to build a space wall to keep aliens from Mars from sneaking into America.

[Peace Patriot]

3. "It would change everything." ???

I agree that the discovery of life on Mars would be THE most important discovery in human history, with the possible exception of the discovery of fire, long, long, long ago.

And I completely support fully funding NASA and all of its explorations of our solar system, our galaxy and the Universe, as well as its vitally and immediately important local Earth projects. This is what government SHOULD BE DOING--expanding human knowledge, inspiring people, educating people, providing meaningful public interest jobs, and creating goals that are not war and not greed but are worthy of the best that is in us.

What I am hesitating over are, a) Nye's citation of the British East India Company and other big, greedy, top-down, monopolistic and militaristic entities that ravaged native peoples and 'foreign' cultures and massively stole natural resources, as examples of what will happen again, this time in space, once the government (our taxes) pave the way; and b) there are quite a few human beings who haven't yet gotten to the Earth circling the Sun (rather than the other way around) and overwhelming archeological evidence for evolution; what will life on Mars mean to them, especially if they are poor?

As to the former, Nye is plastering our predatory capitalistic model on the future. Yes, life on Mars may unleash the predators among us, as did the "discovery" of the New World. We should note, too, that the English colonization of America was preceded by a very deliberate criminalization of the poor in England itself--the "enclosure" movement among rich and greedy landowners--followed by the "impressment" laws and other enslavements of those millions of people who had been turned into unemployed, landless 'vagrants.' We should not greet the dawn of a new era of predatory capitalism in outer space with anything but dismay and opposition. Nye makes it sound great. It will not be, if that's what happens.

This IS one reason to fully fund NASA, to stave off the billionaires who are trying to appropriate properties in the solar system. We, and the rest of the world, also need to deal with sovereignty claims, including our own. The last thing we want to see is the exportation of resource wars from our troubled world society to the solar system.

As to the meaning of life on Mars (or on other likely places, such as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn) to the poor and/or to the poorly educated, we have a lot--and I mean A LOT--of work to do here to remake our system so that we have markets--a necessity of human life, and of progress, in my opinion (that is, well-regulated markets) --AND social and economic justice, but I have never felt--never in my long leftist life--that NASA's relatively modest budget (even relatively small budget, considering what they accomplish) should be pitted against the requirements of a just society. They are not in opposition to each other. They are complimentary. It is the military budget, corporate and billionaire tax scofflaws and our extremely corrupt political system (including the corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines) that are the blockades to a just and progressive society.

Let the billionaires do their part in the space program, so long as it is in the public interest, but we should strongly resist the "privatization" of space. Rich people have played a major role in astronomy--for instance, the funding of telescopes--since the beginning of the 20th century. I'm not against philanthropy. I am against seeing new "East India Companies" treating Mars and other solar system sites the way they treated the Americas, India and other places, while enriching themselves and shitting on their own people and others.

[PJMcK]

4. Regarding you two hesitations

You've written a thoughtful and intelligent post, Peace Patriot. Let me respond to your two concerns.

First, Bill Nye's use of the British East India Company as an analogy is probably just as apocalyptic as you've interpreted it. In our recent history, NASA has been the driving force behind the design, training and engineering of the US space program. They oversaw the development of the rocket programs that make spacefaring possible. Their government-funded mission was always presented with a utopian perspective: "We came in peace for all mankind." In reality, however, the moon landing was part of the Cold War and a demonstration of the United States' military superiority over the Soviet Union's. It was the use of science for political advantage.

Today, most of the rockets launched in the United States are paid for by private industries for satellites and experiments. In other words, private corporations have taken over large parts of the finances of the space program because it's to their financial advantage. Throughout human history, the opening of a new frontier has allowed the exploitation of that territory for commercial and political gain. There are, unfortunately, no indications that this aspect of human nature is changing. When extra-terrestrial resources are found and made available for transportation and use, it's expected that corporations will take advantage of them. In fiction, this is the underlying theme of the motion picture "Alien" where the lives of the crew were dispensable and secondary to the corporation's gains. In real life, we see this kind of corporate exploitation every day in our businesses here on Earth.

Second, your rhetorical question about how lower-educated people might react to the (inevitable) discovery of life beyond Earth has several facets. There will always be deniers and those who will exploit them. As you point out, large segments of the world's population believe in an earth-centric system. An astounding number of Americans believe in a young earth, in spite of the overwhelming fossil evidence to the contrary. The human influences of our planet's climate changes are denied and ridiculed. Ignorance, whether accidental or through design, is often taken advantage of by political and religious leaders. My point is that without the evidence of life beyond Earth, these people haven't learned the facts of their world. When such evidence is found, such ignorance will still be around and used by nefarious forces for their own ends.

In the abstract, I've often thought that the event that would change everything would be when the extra terrestrials arrive on Earth and their existence cannot be denied. Whether it would be peaceful and mutually beneficial (as in "Star Trek&quot or violent and existential (as in "Independence Day&quot , such first contact would destroy the idea that Earth's life is "special" and could be the catalyst that saves Humanity from itself.