If we found microscopic life forms in the water though, would we create a settlement or not? It would be so easy to contaminate stuff with a settlement there. I could see people pushing for it becoming a reservation, only to be studied from very far away using hyper-sterilized robots. At least for a while until we are sure we've exhaustively cataloged everything.
Finding life would be huge, we're not going to just go settle on top of it willy-nilly.
Which is what scares me. Yes it s cool to protect the local microbes but damn arent we also an important local life form of the solar system that would leap one level in evolution by just living on two planets ?
Should we lose that for the sake of microbs, as long as we can preserve them for study?
To an extent, it depends on what we find. What kind of biology does it have? How many species are we talking about? Can we throw it in a bio-bank somewhere and move on? Will it outcompete any Earth life we try to seed? Could it be dangerous if it colonized the Earth?
Earth should be as unsuitable for them as mars is for us, except in the case of non alive organisms like viruses or prions. But to have viruses you need higher forms of life supporting them, those based in cells
If we found some alive in Mars and we could found it quickly if we found a cannon with water, we should call them in a distinct way. I will propose marteviruses:
Marte-herpesvirus, Marte-adenovirus, Marte-coronavirus, etc.
Another way could be putting before a M- prefix but would be less convenient to read
Finding life would be huge, we're not going to just go settle on top of it willy-nilly.