Re: RE: starship-design: Re: Bugs again

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/13/98 5:43:58 PM, lparker@cacaphony.net wrote:

>Timothy,
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>> But aren't we more hostile to these bacteria, as they are to us? Afterall,
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>> they are strange to us, and we are strange to them. Except we have a
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>> numerical advantage: our body has many many more cells to attack.
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>> I've asked a similar question before. Who's likely to be attacked most
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>> badly, the small critter in our big alien body, or we?
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>You raise a very interesting point, but perhaps not one you intended to
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>raise.
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>When we land upon an alien planet with a breathable atmosphere and we exhale
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>our very first breath, we have perhaps doomed thousands of that planets
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>species to ultimate extinction. Who knows how predatory OUR bacteria and
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>viruses will be to THEM?

>From our rotting corpse will spring forth benine earth flora and fauna to reak
our revenge on the leathal biosphere!!

Actually quite true, but of little comfort to the would be exploreres to know
his digetive simbiots are succesfully "TERAforming" a alien world.



>What right do we have to casually doom billions of creatures to death by the
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>mere act of breathing?
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>No, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of staying in space.

One SETI researchers used something like that to prove NO alien EVER set foot
on Earth.  Any such exposure would have released microbes so alien they'ld
obviously not be from arund here (as apposed to our local stuff which all is
very closely related).  The fact no really alien microbes were found in some
odd niche suggested no one made it here.  I wounder why?


>Lee

Kelly