If we find a structure on Mars

[Ryujin]

If countries were not cooperating, I suspect that there would be a race element to it. China would love the prestige, I'll bet.

Or maybe private companies would be involved....

I don't know that I'd trust those synthetics to give us the straight dope.

 

[Janx]

As Umbran says, the initial probe wouldn't go in the cave, due to solar recharge needs, etc. It would take exterior shots, get close, etc while the "next" probe is prepped.

Odds are good, the current "next" probe that is under construction right now wouldn't be useful to cave exploration either, as it was designed for some more reasonable surface charter. So we're looking at the next, next probe being a rush to stop what you're planning and get us a new probe ready in 5, make that 3 years.

this new probe, when it's finally ready would be modular/team worky. One probe (perhaps repurpose the original probe that found the cave) would be parked outside the cave and act as a relay from mars to earth and to the spelunker probe.

The spelunker probe, now only needing to communicate with something within 100' is what goes into the cave to do the actual exploring.

We might even send a cabled recharger probe in, with one part parked outside (docked next to the relay probe), and it unrolls a power cord as it enters the cave. This might get us into the structure say, 10-20 feet or so

The recharger probe is where our spelunker returns and docks (wireless charging?) frequently. It also might help with relaying video/data and remote control commands. Let's assume that without line of sight, radio distance from probes is limited (akin to wifi, say 30' or so). So just getting the recharger probe into the door gets us 20' in, and the spelunker can now move about another 30'.

That's 50' better than the original probe that could never enter can do.

Obviously, exploring the cave/structure goes much much faster with a human in a suit. The problem is getting a human in a suit on-site to do the job.

 

[Umbran]

Actually, I wonder what the probabilities would be for a structure on Mars to be a remnant of a past Earth based civilization vs. the probability that it was a Mars based civilization, vs the probability that it was from another star.

I don't find it credible that we'd find the first evidence of a past Earth civilization on *Mars*. A civilization advanced enough to cross interplanetary distances (so, major energy use, resource development sufficient to build spaceships, and so on) would have left evidence on Earth we would have found by now.

The risk increases dramatically to the second and then again to the third case.

The risk of what?

Contagion? No, the risk *reduces* as the biology becomes more alien. The greatest contagion risk comes from things that are similar to what we already have (so it can take advantage of our biology easily), but to which our current immune systems are not responsive. Truly alien contagion would need to *just happen* to want an environment like our bodies, and *just happen* to be based on the same mechanisms as our systems, and so on. You are at more risk from a variant E. coli than from Marspox.

It would seem that the chance of advanced technology is high in all three cases: The third case is a given.

The third case (alien visitation) does require the use of advanced technology for the site to be there, but does not imply that anything that we can actually study is present at the site. In sci-fi, The Ancients always seem to build technology that will work for millions or billions of years, but in reality? Entropy eats everything.

Prior Earth civilization? Amazingly unlikely, as noted before - it would have needed to use many resources, but left no sign of that resource use, or anything else. If they didn't leave sign here, they didn't leave it there, either.

Mars Civilization? Mars probably hasn't had persistent surface water for a billion years. What artificial structure would last that long? Or, if they managed to become subterranean, why did they build this one thing on the surface... in a cave, and *nowhere* on the surface? This doesn't make much sense.

 

[Umbran]

this new probe, when it's finally ready would be modular/team worky. One probe (perhaps repurpose the original probe that found the cave) would be parked outside the cave and act as a relay from mars to earth and to the spelunker probe.

The spelunker probe, now only needing to communicate with something within 100' is what goes into the cave to do the actual exploring.

We might even send a cabled recharger probe in, with one part parked outside (docked next to the relay probe), and it unrolls a power cord as it enters the cave. This might get us into the structure say, 10-20 feet or so

The recharger probe is where our spelunker returns and docks (wireless charging?) frequently.

Nah, you can make a tether a lot longer than 10 or 20 feet. Or you just pay for the weight, and give the spelunker an atomic battery. And if you have a long tether, you don't have to worry about radio line of sight relaying data out of the cave, as you can send data back up the same wire.

Obviously, exploring the cave/structure goes much much faster with a human in a suit. The problem is getting a human in a suit on-site to do the job.

And doing that is a lot harder than coming up with, say a kilometer-long tether.

 

[Deset Gled]

I actually don't think the first discovery of a structure would be treated as a very big deal. It would be impossible for any truly "ancient" architecture to be differentiable from natural rock formations. Take a look at some of these completely natural occurring formations on earth:

Fingal's Cave

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingal's_Cave

Giant's Causeway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant's_Causeway

Eaglehawk Neck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellated_pavement

If anything resembling an ancient structure was actually discovered on Mars, the only reasonable first assumption would be that it was actually some weird natural occurrence. It might spark a few conspiracy theories and tabloid/internet insanity, but it certainly would not be universally recognized as alien at first sight.

But a sufficiently interesting discovery might warrant a follow-up exploration. This would probably start my having the lander that made the discovery alter it's plans and focus more on the region around the structure. If enough interesting data was found, the next follow-up would be another lander specifically designed to study the region where the phenomena was discovered. Only after highly specific tests came back with interesting results would a structure-specific mission be considered.

Edit:
To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke: At a first glance, any sufficiently ancient architecture is indistinguishable from naturally occurring land formations.

 

[Janx]

Nah, you can make a tether a lot longer than 10 or 20 feet. Or you just pay for the weight, and give the spelunker an atomic battery. And if you have a long tether, you don't have to worry about radio line of sight relaying data out of the cave, as you can send data back up the same wire.



And doing that is a lot harder than coming up with, say a kilometer-long tether.

You get the idea though. I didn't want to get too generous on how bulky this tether might be, etc. The gist is, there's a way to get power and data into the cave, such that a spelunker probe can then do its crawling.

To Desert's point, how about we assume the structure is more super obviously artificial. Maybe it's a black monolith.

 

[Umbran]

Edit:
To paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke: At a first glance, any sufficiently ancient architecture is indistinguishable from naturally occurring land formations.

I'm discussing from the standpoint given in the OP - really, it is a structure. We can *tell* it is a structure. There is no question. Accept that as a given, and move forward.

 

[tomBitonti]

Contagion? No, the risk *reduces* as the biology becomes more alien. The greatest contagion risk comes from things that are similar to what we already have (so it can take advantage of our biology easily), but to which our current immune systems are not responsive. Truly alien contagion would need to *just happen* to want an environment like our bodies, and *just happen* to be based on the same mechanisms as our systems, and so on. You are at more risk from a variant E. coli than from Marspox.

Do we have any data for this? And risk isn't just of a super pathogen. A small efficiency advantage might be all that is necessary. Marspox and earth biota might completely ignore each other, but because of a smallish advantage, the Mars organism could still eventually displace Earth organisms.

Thx!
TomB

 

[Janx]

Do we have any data for this? And risk isn't just of a super pathogen. A small efficiency advantage might be all that is necessary. Marspox and earth biota might completely ignore each other, but because of a smallish advantage, the Mars organism could still eventually displace Earth organisms.

Thx!
TomB

I think Umbran's got several factors he's considering here:
a) right now it is easier to send probes to mars (and diseases) than it is to get probes (and diseases) back from mars. Unlike the moon, we have no Mars rocks delivered to us by the space program.

b) germs,etc generally require a compatible environment. For instance, an old stat I heard was that HIV could not exist outside a host body for more than 24 hours, due to its need for temperature, etc that a host provides (thus toilet seat transfers were pretty slim). On that principal, any virus that is happily doing its thing on Mars likely "requires" an environment like mars. Getting slurped into a space ship and it's horribly warm and moist environment would likely be toxic to its biology.

c) umbran is married to a medical type person who knows way more about this crap than I do, and this has probably been the subject of many breakfast debates...

now it's possible a particular bug is adaptable enough to go from environmental extremes, but the probability of that is low, based on the examples of biology on earth. It is really difficult to design something durable for multiple environments, let alone the odds of one evolving that way.

 

[Umbran]

Do we have any data for this?

In effect, yes. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Earthly microorganisms *can't* live in your body, or act as a human disease. Only those that are very specifically set up to do so can manage the trick.

Note that we already have microorganisms that live in what to us are extreme conditions. And, being adapted to those conditions, they die when they leave them. Consider that the surface of Mars is an extreme condition, that has very little in common with your warm, wet innards.

And risk isn't just of a super pathogen. A small efficiency advantage might be all that is necessary.

"Small efficiency advantage" does not qualify you as "contagion". What you're talking about is an invasive species, not contagion. But, I posit to you that a species that survives in a searing cold, dry, nigh vacuum is unlikely to somehow out-perform the natives when brought into a warm, wet, oxygen rich atmosphere. The oxygen concentration alone is apt to be a poison to it, much as it is for our own anaerobic bacteria.