Preventing the spread of an invasive species

In my early Oregon years, I ran into trouble (when have I not?!) for writing an opinion column in which I remarked that as long as humans move around the world, there will always be invasive species.  Further, because there is no way we would ever force people to stay put, well, we can only expect more and more of species appearing in habitats far, far away from their original homes.

Or, as I am often told, where there are humans, there are problems ;)

We left Africa and carried with us new stuff to alien territories.  To a large extent, we humans are invasive species--I bet that's how a woolly mammoth, for instance, would have recorded history if those animals could.

Now, we humans are thinking big.  We want to go to Mars.  Given our track record, we ought to think about a whole bunch of issues.  But then, do the cheerleaders of a Mars invasion--the likes of Elon Muck, er, Musk--ever worry about ethics and morals?

I hope the rest of us, at least, will think about it.  "We need to avoid the mistakes European countries made during the age of colonization."

The ethical issues extend beyond our impact on any little green men.

Then there is the question of “ownership”: does the first country that plants its flag on the surface of another world get to claim ownership? Such claims have been made many times before, and they do not bode any better for the future of space exploration than they have for human history on Earth.

We have had such experiences before.

How about the environmental resource management issues?

Biological life aside, it is possible that Mars has minerals that could have extraordinary properties ideal for future development. We have seen on Earth how mining has had devastating environmental impacts; to think there would be anything less of an impact on the Martian environment is disingenuous.

Maybe we need a variation of the "precautionary principle":

we should begin with the presumption that we need to counter our own invasive impact on another planet that may be completely defenseless—before we embark on a new era of galactic exploration and imperial conquest.

We are a species who can't even get quite a few others to get vaccinated and slow down the spread of a tiny virus.  I have no confidence that we will think through a Martian invasion!