RE: starship-design: Re: Bugs again

["L. Parker" <lparker@cacaphony.net>]

Timothy,

> But aren't we more hostile to these bacteria, as they are to us? Afterall,
> they are strange to us, and we are strange to them. Except we have a
> numerical advantage: our body has many many more cells to attack.
> I've asked a similar question before. Who's likely to be attacked most
> badly, the small critter in our big alien body, or we?

You raise a very interesting point, but perhaps not one you intended to
raise.

When we land upon an alien planet with a breathable atmosphere and we exhale
our very first breath, we have perhaps doomed thousands of that planets
species to ultimate extinction. Who knows how predatory OUR bacteria and
viruses will be to THEM?

What right do we have to casually doom billions of creatures to death by the
mere act of breathing?

No, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of staying in space.

Lee