To what extent would discovery of basic life on Mars impact SpaceX's near and long term plans for the planet?

To begin. I am 100% in favor of rapidly expanding humanity to other planets. I don't care about the risks of contamination, or possibility of pathogens existing off-world. These risks can be mitigated.

On the topic of DNA however, if we found life on Mars, there is a very real possibility that it is related to life on Earth. It's pretty much a split in the path when it comes to life in the Universe. If life is rare in the Universe, it's unlikely that it formed in two worlds of the same system separately, so it would be almost a guarantee that it was DNA based, and either spread to Mars from Earth, or the opposite. If we found non DNA based life on Mars, that would almost guarantee that life is almost everywhere out there, billions of worlds with billions of life forms.

As for a Martian plague, it wouldn't have to be DNA based. All it would need would be the ability to turn human cells into some form of energy for replication. There are plenty of non DNA based reactions that could destroy human cells and turn them into other compounds that may be more happily consumed. It wouldn't need to be malevolent, or intelligent, if it could survive in the environment of the human body, and consume human cells for reproduction, that would be enough.

The likelihood of even finding life is almost non existent on Mars, we might find fossils but that's a big maybe. If there actually is life, it would almost certainly be adapted to living underground, in a soil that is much different than a human body. I think the risks of societal collapse on Earth is a much more realistic threat.

/r/SpaceXLounge Thread Parent