Protecting and Expanding the Richness and Diversity of Life, An Ethic for Astrobiology Research and Space Exploration
The ongoing search for life on other worlds and the prospects of eventual human exploration of the Moon and Mars indicate the need for new ethical guidelines to direct our actions as we search and how we respond if we discover microbial life on other worlds. Here we review how li
Selection note: Curated because this 2011 preprint (draft being sent to journal) from Ames Research Center specifically covers “Protecting and Expanding the Richness and Diversity of Life, An Ethic for Astrobiology Research and Space Exploration”; its abstract describes The ongoing search for life on other worlds and the prospects of eventual human exploration of the Moon and Mars indicate the need for new ethical guidelines to direct our… This materially informs GShips governance and law.
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Stable record
ntrs-20140013435
Topic
governance-law
Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Publisher
Ames Research Center
Authors
Randolph, Richard O.; McKay, Chris P.
Year
2011
Editorial state
metadata curated editorial draft
Reviewer
GShips Project editorial synthesis
Official link checked
2026-07-25
Source-supplied abstract
The ongoing search for life on other worlds and the prospects of eventual human exploration of the Moon and Mars indicate the need for new ethical guidelines to direct our actions as we search and how we respond if we discover microbial life on other worlds. Here we review how life on other worlds presents a novel question in environmental ethics. We propose a principle of protecting and expanding the richness and diversity of life as the basis of an ethic for astrobiology research and space exploration. There are immediate implications for the operational policies governing how we conduct the search for life on Mars and how we plan for human exploration throughout the Solar System.
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NTRS lists open full text, but this pass assessed catalog metadata and abstract rather than independently validating the document. Inclusion is contextual discovery support, not automatic evidence for a GShips claim.
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Prepared by
GShips Project
Editorial status
metadata-curated-editorial-draft
Editorial reviewer
GShips Project editorial synthesis
Last editorial review
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pending
Independent reviewer
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Last content edit
Not recorded separately
Official source or link verified
2026-07-25
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The maintainer intends to explore a commercial venture based on some GShips work. No entity, outside funding, customer, sponsor, or indexed-organization relationship currently exists.