Would you shoot out DNA onto baby planets if you planned to visit it someday?

The question popped into my mind when I read this.

Since we know our scientists are searching for planets which might be capable of supporting life; most of them many light-years away, could the reverse be possible? ie: Some advanced civilization discovered the secrets of creating life, then looked into space and saw a bunch of planets that could in a few million years become habitable, and then shot out vials of DNA or some life-forming-tech toward those planets (one being Earth) so that by the time they could build spacecraft and reach Earth, the Earth (and other planets) would have got populated with life and become habitable? (if this sounds like a nice story idea, please do take and write about it or make a movie. It'll be nice if the credit could be shared with me and the person who asked about the DNA vial :-) ).

So the question is would a civilization find it viable to do that? Perhaps even our civilization. We've obviously populated Mars with micro-organisms from Earth already. Would it be practical for us to shoot out life-forms into other planets and a million years later actually travel there? (Ideas for NASA and ISRO).

EDIT: For those of you mentioning the fact that equipments sent to Mars were sterilized. Well, think about it. Could you really remove each and every one of those bacteria and viruses from every nook and cranny of those highly complex scientific equipments? If the organisms ended up on Mars and died because of the atmosphere, that's another thing, but they also do tend to form cysts to protect themselves.

posted about 8 years ago

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