Should We Go Ashore?

[ZapBrannigan]

If we somehow built a real starship and explored other solar systems, and eventually found an Earthlike planet, should a landing party go ashore?

Kirk and company beamed down everywhere. Voyager actually had Neelix looking on every planet for exotic plants to spice up his cooking. Very casual.

But when it was time to ditch the Galileo spacecraft, NASA plunged it into the Jovian atmosphere to avoid even the slight chance that it might hit a moon, and then the slighter chance that microbes from Earth could take hold there and contaminate it.

So if we ever have people on a ship orbiting a real exo-planet with a whole new biosphere we've never seen before, what should we do? Would we ever go ashore?

 

[sojourner]

After years of study and preparation, yes. we'd eventually set foot on the planet. the length of time would be determined by how long it takes to assess the risk of contamination for us or the planet.

 

[HIjol]

We would do our level best to be informed as to any life of any kind, prepare to decontaminate before setting foot, and do our best not to leave anything of any size behind when we left. But, like sojourner said, after all the time and resource and planning and preparation, we would set foot.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

But does all this time and study more or less invalidate the Star Trek premise, that we could visit life-sustaining planets out there, have adventures, and vastly expand our reach in the galaxy?

The science-ethics question of going WNMHGB and injecting ourselves into wholly alien biospheres could be a major bummer.

 

[BillJ]

But does all this time and study more or less invalidate the Star Trek premise...

Since Star Trek is entertainment, I'm not too worried about the real world invalidating its premise.

 

[Timo]

You only have to do the time and study, oh, a dozen times. After learning this way that it's always totally harmless down there, the time and study bit could be dropped.

And that is the premise of Star Trek: that our heroes plunge into space like their great(-great-great-in the case of Spock)-grandfathers did, there being nothing new over the sun.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Warped9]

Well, if one believes in panspermia then isn't life on Earth a result of contamination from Martian microbes landing here?

 

[Forbin]

I'll tell you one thing that any space explorer with half a damn brain should know not to do in an unknown alien biome: let your frickin beagle off-leash to pee.

 

[HIjol]

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'll tell you one thing that any space explorer with half a damn brain should know not to do in an unknown alien biome: let your frickin beagle off-leash to pee.

I've a feeling more than beagles have unzipped and peed on alien worlds.

 

[BillJ]

I'll tell you one thing that any space explorer with half a damn brain should know not to do in an unknown alien biome: let your frickin beagle off-leash to pee.

I've a feeling more than beagles have unzipped and peed on alien worlds.

This. I doubt Kirk and Company beamed back up every time they had to drain the lizard.

 

[BeatleJWOL]

Depends (no, not the adult diaper brand). Maybe they didn't have to beam all the way back up themselves...

...what if that's why there are no bathrooms on the Enterprise?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I'll tell you one thing that any space explorer with half a damn brain should know not to do in an unknown alien biome: let your frickin beagle off-leash to pee.

I've a feeling more than beagles have unzipped and peed on alien worlds.

This. I doubt Kirk and Company beamed back up every time they had to drain the lizard.

Kirk's never been a follower of the "keep it in your pants" rule.

 

[BillJ]

Depends (no, not the adult diaper brand). Maybe they didn't have to beam all the way back up themselves...

...what if that's why there are no bathrooms on the Enterprise?

http://www.amazon.com/Travel-John-6...UTF8&qid=1448816122&sr=8-2&keywords=Urine+Bag

 

[Drone]

If we somehow built a real starship and explored other solar systems, and eventually found an Earthlike planet, should a landing party go ashore?

Kirk and company beamed down everywhere. Voyager actually had Neelix looking on every planet for exotic plants to spice up his cooking. Very casual.

But when it was time to ditch the Galileo spacecraft, NASA plunged it into the Jovian atmosphere to avoid even the slight chance that it might hit a moon, and then the slighter chance that microbes from Earth could take hold there and contaminate it.

So if we ever have people on a ship orbiting a real exo-planet with a whole new biosphere we've never seen before, what should we do? Would we ever go ashore?

To fully expand our base of knowledge in the greatest detail, which I would assume would be the point of said missions, it would be extremely unlikely, if not foolish not to do so, assuming the employment of the various safeguards mentioned above.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Of course the process of safely landing on a foreign planet would be more complicated and time consuming on TV. Just like in the real world there's a backlog of years at the DNA lab and on TV it takes an hour or two.

 

[Metryq]

"The Naked Time" was one episode to address decontamination procedure. Some of the TREK novels have used the idea that the transporter has pattern filters to remove contaminants on return to the ship.

In real life, there is the Outer Space Treaty, which probably amounts to staying away from anyplace with water:

"conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter"

 

[bbailey861]

What's the point of even going if you're not going to set foot on it - if an earth like planet is found? Definitely explore, but only after extensive testing is done. If/when we ever have the capability to build a starship and send her out exploring, I would suspect we will have come up with the appropriate testing measures to ensure what we find would be safe enough to set foot on.

 

[Scotchy]

Have Tony Shalhoub taste the air first.

 

[Tim Thomason]

We've had probes and satellites and rovers and whatnot land on four planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter), two moons (our Moon and Titan, and an unsuccessful attempt at Phobos), two asteroids (Eros and Itokawa), and two comets (Tempel 1 and Churyumov–Gerasimenko). Galileo wasn't properly sterilized, but most of these others were. I imagine we'll send some probe down and (attempt to) do things right as we've done before.

In Star Trek, it's speculated that the transporter does most of the decontamination. In Enterprise, they showed us the painstakingly scientific process that goes into decontamination protocols following every mission.

The first people to set foot on an Earth-like planet will be wearing sterilized EV suits, or maybe TAS-style life-support belts by then.