Re: Really? Harmful contamination? Really?
"Once we've looked at them and analysed them"... Assuming that Martian microbes exist, that should keep us occupied for a very long time; we haven't analysed most of the types of microbe down here yet.
Two possibilities concerning life on Mars: it has the same basis as life on Earth (DNA, amino acids...) or it has a completely different basis. In the first case, we could find that some Martian microbes out-compete Earth microbes and bringing them back with exploited minerals is a really bad idea (someone should write a book about that, and call it, "War of the Worlds"). In the second case, it suggests that life can arise very easily, the Universe is teeming with alien civilisations, and we should trend carefully, or we could be crushed for stealing their resources.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
