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The main principle here is that we should advance by increases of knowledge until we have know enough to make informed decisions. And for as long as we have fundamental gaps in our understanding,with significant unanswered questions about whether this course of action could cause problems for us and our children and future civilizations on Earth, we just shouldn't introduce Earth life to Mars irreversibly, or indeed, to anywhere else in our solar system.
Colonization advocates will often argue that since we don't know that we will cause problems on Mars, we might as well just go ahead and see what happens, and "learn on the job" what impact we will have on Mars. But for me that's not nearly good enough reasoning to back up an action that risks potentially irreversibly introducing Earth life to Mars. This section comes out of attempts to make this clearer, and to explain why I think it is so important that we don't proceed here out of ignorance, but make sure we have a reasonably clear understanding of our situation first.
It's similar to the Precautionary principle guideline in International Law
"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.
"In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.
"The process of applying the Precautionary Principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action."
My suggestion for a new principle here is based on the idea of a "super positive outcome" - a potential but not certain outcome which could have transformative effects on us, our children and all future generations and civilizations. In this case discovering some alternative form of life or early life on Mars could revolutionize biology, could potentially benefit medicine, agriculture, and indeed anything that we do that uses products of life, also nanotechnology. It could potentially, in the best case scenario be a hugely positive transformative discovery.
The precautionary principle can't be applied here, if we start an irreversible process that makes some unique or early form of life extinct on Mars .There is no risk of harm to human health and the environment, at least not on Earth. But there's a risk of destroying a potential future benefit of immense value. The consequences would be so positive if it exists, and it would be so tragic if we found that there was something unique like that on Mars right up to the first human landing or crash on Mars, and that we made it extinct. And as with the precautionary principle, there may be no way we can establish the cause and effect relationships thoroughly before it happens. We don't even know what the possible effects are until we find out whether Mars has habitats and whether those habitats contain life.
I suggest we should have similar guidelines for super positive outcomes like this - things of potentially overwhelming positive value that we could discover:
"When an activity impacts on a potential super positive outcome, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.
"In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.
"The process of applying the Precautionary Principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action."
So I'm not saying we should never land there. But that if we do, then as with the precautionary principle, it has to be on the basis of knowing clearly the consequences of our actions, with public debate and open and informed democratic discussion of whether we should do it.
But to have informed public discussion, first we have to know what is there. For that we need to explore and discover first, before making any irreversible decisions such as whether to introduce Earth life to a planet.
For more about this see my "Super Positive" Outcomes For Search For Life In Hidden Extra Terrestrial Oceans Of Europa And Enceladus
For discussion of how we could explore Mars first, in detail, see my section How many years are needed to do a biological survey of Mars? (above)
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