What We Could Lose by Trying to Make Mars Habitable

Abstract

The recent push to develop Mars terraforming technologies, increasingly driven by unaccountable private wealth, risks the irreversible destruction of planetary records we have barely begun to read. In this sense, terraforming Mars would be akin to the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. Echoing Carl Sagan's words about the library, in this piece we argue that we should not let such an extensive loss of information happen again. As terraforming Mars would melt and destroy the icy record on Mars, we suggest closing an important gap in the COSPAR planetary protection framework, by expanding regulations on preventing biological contamination to preventing large-scale atmospheric modification and destruction of cryospheric and geologic records.