Before we colonize space, we may want to colonize our own oceans first

We dream of putting humans on Mars, mining the moon, and looking for life on one of Jupiter's moons. But we forget sometimes that there are whole worlds left to explore here on Earth.And we rarelystop to considerthe fact that those worlds may well be easier to live in than exotic locales far beyond our own planet.Catharine Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer, whose job is to make sure we don't accidentally infect other planets withEarth-germs, hasgiven this question some thought.When Scientific American asked her if she thinks we'll colonize space, she didn't just say we've already colonized it with robots and may well have done so with bacteria too. She also pointed outthat humans looking to become permanent citizens of the moon may not want to hold their breath."But if the idea is to construct a self-sustaining environment where humans can persist indefinitely with only modest help from Earth ... then I'd say this is very far in the future, if it's possible at all," she said. She went on to make a thought-provoking comparison: "We haven't bothered to colonize areas underwater on Earth yet. It's far more challenging to colonize a place where there's hardly any atmosphere at all."Just as there are a handful of lucky humans who have lived in space, there are a few who have lived underwater. Perhaps the most famous is oceanographer Sylvia Earle, who has spent more than 7,000 hours underwater."It was glorious being able to breathe underwater," Earle said during a public panel earlier this year. Being underwater still requires support, but at least it doesn't take a rocket to get you there."The blue part of the planet is accessible to pretty much everyone."Conley and Earleboth highlight the technical difficulties of being born, living, and dying off our planet.Earle calledMars "Earth without nature." Conley points out that we'd need to figure out how to build ecosystems from scratch strong enough ecosystems that they keep going even when something goes wrong.But whether or not we ever colonize either space or the ocean, exploring one will help us explore the other.We know Mars used to have an ocean, one large enough to spawn giant tsunamis we can still see traces oftoday. And the only permanent underseas lab in the world is used by NASA because they can actually test spacewalk techniques in a fairly realistic environment.SEE ALSO:What it's like inside the only permanent undersea research lab in the worldSEE ALSO:To protect potential alien life, NASA will destroy its $1 billion Jupiter spacecraft on purposeJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: What it's like to eat dinner at a restaurant beneath the sea
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