Mars will have a lot of wicker furniture

Re:Mars will have a lot of wicker furniture by xwdv on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @01:38PM (#34973045)

I don’t think humans will ever populate mars so why don’t we just shoot a seed of bacteria and simple organisms into the surface and give something time to develop millions of years down the line?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mars will have a lot of wicker furniture by advisedwang on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @01:43PM (#34973132)

Getting from simple organisms to a habitable biosphere took like a billion years on earth. So if that would even works the results would likely be 1-2 billion years from now. For comparison, the Homo genus (let alone sapiens) is only 2 million years old!

In other words, that would take longer than humanity can conceivably plan for.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mars will have a lot of wicker furniture by kldavis4 on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @01:49PM (#34973201)

Not to mention that if there is some kind of as yet undiscovered microbial life on Mars, doing this would risk never finding out about it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mars will have a lot of wicker furniture by xwdv on Tuesday February 28, 2023 @05:30PM (#34975852)

Ok fine but if humanity is ever on the brink of extinction and this question is no longer important then we should have something ready to shoot a seed and ensure at least some form of life will expand beyond Earth. Maybe we could shoot out to several planets. I’m sure this is the premise of some sci-fi story.

[ Parent | on HN ]