Should we spread life?

I cringe every time people panic about possible contamination of Mars. Why is this bad?

What if we find out Mars is a sterile environment? Would we pout and ignore the barren wasteland?

We work hard to bring life to deserts, we plant trees where there are no trees, all over Earth we spread life and seem to infect everything with it. We touch otherwise pristine objects, covering it in bacteria and viruses. We spread life everywhere sometimes intentionally, sometimes on accident.

Why on another planet is this a bad thing? On our planet we've been fortunate to have perfect conditions for life to not only develop, but become staggeringly complex. I think we owe it to the universe to spread the gift of life to everything around us. We've become intelligent enough that we are beginning to scratch the surface of creating new life so why not engineer a couple of slime molds that would thrive on Mars? Why don't we create some nematodes that burrow deep into the moon? Why not create some bouyant life forms that can float through the gas giants?

What if we are alone in the universe? This shouldn't be depressing, it should be something exciting. We would have the opportunity to become the progenitors of all life everywhere. We might find planets that do have life but nothing intelligent... why not enlighten the planet?

If the universe is barren, I believe it is our duty to spread life throughout the cosmos.

Life Will Find a Way

I drew this in my Basic Design class today during the lecture about how different macs are from windows. I already knew the differences so I loaded up photoshop and played with my tablet.

Someday I hope we really do clone some extinct animal. Scientists are getting closer and closer to being able to easily* clone a mammoth. However now the biggest hurdle seems to be coming up with a good enough reason to clone them. Besides studying them, there doesn't really seem to be a point.

In my nanowrimo novel, the colony on Mars has become a haven for genetic experiments that aren't allowed on Earth. The people of Mars needed a hardy animal that could survive in the harsh cold environment of Mars, be domesticated, and provide a lot of meat. They decided to bring back the Woolly Mammoth [with a few tweaks so it was better suited for the environment], and soon mammoth meat became the staple of Martian cuisine.

I think reviving Mammoths would be beneficial to the entire world. They could survive in harsh cold environments where little else grows [like Northern Canada, Alaska, or Russia] and would provide a lot of meat. They could stimulate the economy in those cold regions, provide food for the starving people of the Earth, and provide a great deal of wool. I'm sure they could probably be milked too.

Hell, we ate them into extinction too. They must taste pretty good.

*as easy as cloning an animal anyway.