Think About Planetary Exploration

[Broomstick]

This week I re-read The Martian and re-watched the movie. It got me to thinking about exploring an alien world so I'm starting a thread to ponder about it where others can give me feedback and join in the fun.

Obviously, the first step is to Observe From Orbit. You can learn a lot from orbit, as the past few decades have shown. Not only can you learn about things like atmosphere and weather (if any), but you can also map the place and scout for suitable landings sites for step two...

Land Probes. We've done this one, too. You get to test actual conditions, actual performance of machinery in actual conditions, and get more detailed information on things like geology. Presumably if there was Life As We Know It we'd get confirmation at this stage. This may or may not involve sample return to a base for more detailed analysis. It will almost certainly involve some form of on-site processing by the probe machinery as we go forward, again, something we have already done on Mars.

Step three: Land people: we've done that once, on the Moon. We seem to have been talking about doing it on Mars for... well, decades. On the Moon we took a lot of rock and dust samples which people have been happily studying for 47 years. Nowadays people question if we should people at all when robots are getting better and better at this. Certainly, people complicate the process what with needing extensive life support and supplies but even these days people have a certain flexibility and adaptability our robots can't (yet) match and which can't be supplied by telepresence due to lightspeed limitations.

Step four: Colonize: optional of course (let's be real, it's all optional) but assuming we want to set up a base we'll need to do more to make the place livable, ideally as self-supporting as reasonably possible.

Now we venture into the science fiction realm: assume a more advanced technology than ours, where setting up a long-term habitat or colony on some place like Mars is a real possibility. Presumably, one of the justifications for all this effort and energy is SCIENCE! Given how thoroughly explored Earth is and how much science we still have going on here I imagine any new planet will provide at least geologists with many lifetimes of work, plus anyone else who can find an excuse to be there. What sort of science do we expect to see on Mars? The Martian had geology, chemistry, and botany in the crew, the latter becoming essential to the survival of the protagonist. Of course, given our tech, if we ever set up a permanent base on Mars we'll need to grow food given the supply-line problems from Earth... and that's a problem alluded to in the book/movie, but even more in real life because we're discovering chemicals in Martian soil that really don't agree with Earthly life. So you'd definitely need a chemist and a biologist/botanist to figure out how to remove such chemicals from Martian soil and add in anything (like soil bacteria) needed to made Earth life grow. Rinse and repeat for any world you're thinking of settling. Either you make the dirt/dust/regolith you find suitable for growing, or you bring dirt with you (oo, shipping costs! Literally astronomical!), or you use methods without soil that will require more tech and human intervention. If there's native life on the planet you have this problem magnified (as seen in Avatar) - are Earth life and the alien life compatible or lethal to each other? If you have to change the alien soil to grow Earth life is that going to poison native life?

If you did land on an alien world with life (so far as we currently know, that would mean a different star system) how does that change initial landings and explorations? At what point do you set up a permanent base? A permanent colony where people will be born, grow up, grow old, and die? How are things different for a lifeless rock or lifeless iceball? Presumably if they get a permanent base it's because of some resource or other importance to justify setting up an entirely closed system to live in.

Feel free to let your minds wander and speculate.

[Elheru Aran]

SCIENCE! is more or less the only real justification at this point. Given the discussion in another thread about exoplanets, it seems to me like it will always be cheaper to expand into local space rather than going further for a very long time. The only thing that would change that is being able to get there and back more quickly.

Money is a possible secondary justification. Colonization... is a very long way away as a third. Even in our not-so-recent history, it's almost always been easier to go somewhere, exploit, and return with the profits than it has been to send people to actually start up a self-regenerating community.

Anyway, yeah, in general the steps you give are more or less accurate. As noted, we've already been through a few of those with the Moon. I would expect any trips to Mars or anywhere else to be largely similar-- observations, probes, brief landings. Extended missions would be another matter, but past a certain distance, they're the *only* possible type of mission, and would therefore require a serious commitment/preparation. Think Interstellar.

Hmmm... let's see... If life was indicated on another world-- any kind of life whatsoever-- expect any missions there, at least initially, to be extremely careful to be insulated from that life. Working in carefully purified and self-contained bubbles, biohazard suits, all that. If intelligent life is present, there would be a *lot* of remote observation with satellites, drones and the like to take a stab at figuring them out and the best procedures for first contact. First contact, as a matter of fact, might be done entirely remotely via a robot carrying video equipment.

[biostem]

f you did land on an alien world with life (so far as we currently know, that would mean a different star system) how does that change initial landings and explorations? At what point do you set up a permanent base? A permanent colony where people will be born, grow up, grow old, and die? How are things different for a lifeless rock or lifeless iceball? Presumably if they get a permanent base it's because of some resource or other importance to justify setting up an entirely closed system to live in.

Frankly, if a planet already has life on it, (sentient or not), we have to decide whether we want to conquer it or leave it alone. If we land on this planet, then we, by definition, contaminate it forever. Even if this planet already has intelligent life on it, (and assuming its less advanced than us), we'd still have an irreparable impact on that planet's path forward. Would we willingly accept their laws? Would we sell goods and services to them? What if they demand restitution for whatever damage our landing caused?

[Broomstick]

Assuming there is life but not intelligent life, when is it justified to contaminate the planet - or is it never justified?

[Esquire]

f you did land on an alien world with life (so far as we currently know, that would mean a different star system) how does that change initial landings and explorations? At what point do you set up a permanent base? A permanent colony where people will be born, grow up, grow old, and die? How are things different for a lifeless rock or lifeless iceball? Presumably if they get a permanent base it's because of some resource or other importance to justify setting up an entirely closed system to live in.

Frankly, if a planet already has life on it, (sentient or not), we have to decide whether we want to conquer it or leave it alone. If we land on this planet, then we, by definition, contaminate it forever. Even if this planet already has intelligent life on it, (and assuming its less advanced than us), we'd still have an irreparable impact on that planet's path forward. Would we willingly accept their laws? Would we sell goods and services to them? What if they demand restitution for whatever damage our landing caused?

Respectively, I'd have to guess 1) yes (because any plausible human landing party will be outnumbered billions to one by the locals), 2) yes (because interplanetary travel will be outrageously expensive and nobody would do it if they didn't think it would pay off somehow), and 3) that we'd try to accommodate their demands (because see 1). Conquest is off the table for myriad logistical reasons, and we're not the Federation - we haven't got a Prime Directive and nobody's going to care about 'contaminating' an alien world when we so obviously don't mind doing it to others of our own species. Imagine the meetings:

"Mr. President, we've found intelligent alien life on Alpha Centauri, but some people are saying we should ignore it instead of contaminating their culture."

"Screw that, I'm going to be the first world leader to negotiate with an alien race!"

Or:

"Mr. CEO, the activists are saying we can't trade with the aliens because it could contaminate their culture."

"Screw that, think of the profits when we broadcast 'Real Housewives of Alpha Centauri!' Think of what we can sell even a single Centauri trinket for in Hollywood!"

[Broomstick]

The thing is, it is more possible we'd be able to communicate over interstellar distances with intelligent aliens than ever visit them. Granted, it would take a looooooong time to have any sort of conversation but we've already demonstrated a willingness to launch probes and wait a decade or two for data to beam back from them, if we pick up a signal from 40 lightyears out (just a random example) we could exchange information. Once we figure out what's being said and establish communication.

(Obviously, the best case would be a signal from Alpha Centauri, but so far no signal)

It would be a way to explore other star systems without actually going there - we exchange our data on our solar system for data on their system.