Is Planetary Contamination Prevention Enough for Space Colonization?

[Alltimegreat1]

Some people here will certainly already be familiar with SOLIS (The Panspermia Society) http://www.panspermia-society.com/. From what I can gather, the guy running it wants to plant seeds and microbes on planets hundreds of light years away so that life will exist in space once the Earth is swallowed by the Sun in a few billion years. Sounds great, but isn't this biting off a bit more than we can chew?

Why not start locally with a project that is currently feasible? How about landing and releasing large vats full of (Antarctican) bacteria, microbes, algae etc. on the Moon, Mars, Mars' moons, and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn for starters and see how things evolve from there?

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Let people do what they want, as long as they pay for it themselves.

 

[sandy stone]

Then again, you potentially could be a) introducing invasive species to an alien biosphere, to its detriment, or b) alerting an unfriendly civilization that life exists on Earth, or even antagonizing them. Pretty far-fetched, but extremely undesirable.

 

[Alltimegreat1]

Those are certainly valid points. However, we send satellites to and land rovers on other planets anyway. Unloading bacteria there would not increase the likelihood of aliens discovering our existence.

 

[Rubidium_71]

I've always thought it was a good idea. Fire off some of the tougher extremophiles and see what they can do on another world. Especially if we find a subsurface ocean with friendly chemistry but no complex life - seeding an ocean with existing marine life forms could be a very interesting experiment and a good approach to long term human survival. Outposts set deep in the ice could live off of the ocean below, in theory.

 

[collinsmark]

However, we send satellites to and land rovers on other planets anyway.

We spend significant effort to protect against such things as planetary contamination.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection