Sunset view south from the East Rim Overlook (1400 ft.~10/10/00)
Only with a full scientific exploration of Gaian control mechanisms can
we expect to implement self-supporting living habitats in space. If we
are ever to design closed ecosystems that replenish their own vital supplies,
we must study the natural technology of the Earth. Inhabiting other worlds,
making it possible for us to stroll through gardens upon, say, Mars, is
a gigantic project only thinkable from a Gaian perspective. We should know
our roots in the microcosm before we go out on that limb, the supercosm.
But whether people carry the primeval environment of the ancient microcosm
into space or die trying, life does seem tempted in this direction. And
life, so far, has resisted everything but temptation.
Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan Microcosmos
Four Billion Years of Microbial Evolution,University of California
Press, 1986
