Mars Exploration Must Consider Contamination 333
letxa2000 writes: "CNN is reporting that the National Research Council has submitted a report to NASA that recommends certain precautions be taken if NASA is to send astronauts to Mars to guarantee that they don't bring back Mars-based bacteria and contaminate earth; including possibly banning the return vehicle from entering the Earth's atmosphere. What is the likelihood of bacterial life on Mars infecting the earth if we ever get around to visiting Mars in person?"
It doesn't hurt to take precautions (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It doesn't hurt to take precautions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It doesn't hurt to take precautions (Score:2)
Re:It doesn't hurt to take precautions (Score:2)
Re:Must be crazy (Score:2)
Re:bullfrogs in france (Score:2)
Re:It doesn't hurt to take precautions (Score:3, Insightful)
Overly paranoid, but good (Score:1, Troll)
But, if we take this much care in interplanetary travel, why not spend at least this much effort on intercontinental travel. Influenza accounts for thousands or more deaths across the globe each year, and by isolating the vectors it uses to spread across continents the various strains can be isolated and cause the flu shots to be much more effective.
I guess this is another upside to NASA- the public benefits from newly discovered technology some years down the line.
Re:Overly paranoid, but good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Overly paranoid, but good (Score:2)
This has to be low risk, doesn't it? (Score:1, Funny)
the scientists at NASA
give spacemen Lysol
Infecting Mars (Score:5, Interesting)
re: Infecting Mars (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
The assumption here is that Terrestrial and Martian organisms are fundermentally the same. They could look similar but use different biochemistry (including different chirality).
No way would the smallpox analogy hold. Since the smallpox vuirus had a long time to evolve methods of avoiding getting squashed by mammalian immune systems.
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Why is it that tree-huggers think life on earth to be so very precious as long as it stays inside our atmosphere? The global ecosystem has adapted itself to foreign asteroids impacting it, so a few new species of microbes probably won't hurt it at all. Plus, on the disease side of things, these Martian microbes will not be drug resistant, once we study them and figure out what drug to use.
Infesting the Martian ecosystem with terrestrial life has about as bad a cost-benefit ratio as trashing the Lunar ecosystem with terrestrial industry. It'll happen anyway, and there's just not enough of it to worry about.
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Pathogenic bacteria is unlikely to evolve on a nutrient bare place such as Mars. This is because higher forms of life, such as multicellulars, probably never evolved on mars.
More than likely, if Mars still has life, it would be of the archaebacteria extemophile types that would be suited to Mar's exteme environment. These would not be pathogenic. Usualy, only Monera type bacteria are pathogenic.
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Not necessarily. Maybe conditions on Earth favoured the development of multicellular life, and they didn't on Mars. Why aren't there small reptiles in Antarctica?
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
there are organismn on earth that survive the temperature changes you describe... they live by the vents on the bottom of the ocean.
as for evolution, what can a bacteria thrive to EVOLVE to? they are already the top of their food chain, no need. lizards evolved because their was land, and good things on the land. mars is a very bland planet. bacteria is about as good as it gets. any more complex lifeforms could not survive.
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:4, Insightful)
You cannot compare. Since Martian bacteria would face different evolutionary preassures. On Mars surviving extremes to temperature is more important than on Earth. On Earth surviving in an oxygen rich environment is important, as is competition with all sorts of other organisms. (Including many which have sophisticated methods of killing bacteria.)
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Re:Infecting Mars (Score:2)
Economic Viability of Mars Colonization (Score:2, Informative)
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]
man! you people (Score:1)
Re:man! you people (Score:2)
And the other way around? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And the other way around? (Score:1)
...
Re:And the other way around? (Score:2)
Depends on what you consider more worth saving - what's at best some form of alien microbial life, or 6 (7?) billion of your fellow human beings.
Re:And the other way around? (Score:2)
On second thought...
Good question (Score:2)
Things you'd probably do would include sterilizing drilling equipment (if there's life on Mars, it could well be in subsurface acquifers, and Terran bacteria *might* conceivably survive in one) and heat any waste that's been kept in an atmosphere to kill any bugs that might be on it.
Been there, done that. (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the trip from mars to earth. It's been made too, hasn't it? You know, all those rocks from Mars that you can find in Antartica? There are various theories about how live might survive such a jouney. Has anyone proved it yet?
Me too for the person who correctly noted that it's more important to protect human life from potential harm than it is to protect bacteria on Mars from harm. Live competes, that's the story of microbes. Tough luck to them and anti-biotics for those in you and me.
Lessons (Score:5, Funny)
I think great care should be taken.
If I learned anything from the feature film Mission to Mars, it's that I should not have gone to see that movie. That, plus we have to be careful when we go to Mars. Yeah.
My apologies to real films.
Re:Lessons (Score:2)
I don't see how there could be anything to worry.. (Score:2, Funny)
that had scientists from NASA cursing "Dammit!"
"If we send astronauts there,"
"We'd better take care,"
"And from orbit, this bug, we should ban it."
What about. . . (Score:2)
"While the threat to Earth's ecosystem from the release of Martian biological agents is very low, the risk of harmful effects is not zero and cannot be ignored,"
Wouldn't the atomosphere burn off anything that would be on the outside of the ship? And isn't the ship air-tight?
So couldn't we just put the shuttle and crew into some kind of clean space hanger building and just quarantine/clean them?
With minimum risk I think this would be an acceptable alternative, as opposed to impeeding the progress of a mars mission.
Re:What about. . . (Score:2)
Re:What about. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, I'm willing to bet Earth & Mars have already cross-contaminated each other, though at what point in time, I have no idea. Both planets have been hit hard enough to throw up ejecta which could have escaped the atmosphere and made it to the sister planet. Things change, of course, so the notion that we swapped bacteria with Mars a couple billion years ago is no reason not to wipe our feet before coming inside.
How can we avoid it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course the spacesuits would have to be decontaminated.
I know ... why not have the astronauts strip in space, then float over to the awaiting spacecraft ...
Seriously though ... can we prevent it? My bet would be that we can't be 100% guarenteed that we'd get all the bacteria/critters.
Re:How can we avoid it? (Score:2)
Note that we get every year ~ 5-10 (small) astroids that make it until earth surface, and this goes since ever. Now how likely is that _they_ contain extraterrestrial bacteria, especially compared to mars?
I think we should cover earth with huge mega lasers and fire everything that comes near to us, *just* *in* *case*. It could be that suddundly on one of this astrioids some super-mega bacteria hosts that is specialzed to kill every life in whatever form. Not that this wasn't the case for million of years up until now. Earth has never been a quarantined sphere.
Oh yes as we've frozen astroids on north ond south pole, what dangers lure in those? Now due to global earth warming the ice caps melts, can we risk these super bacteria to come from there? I say we should drop a cascade of atomic bombs on both poles, to destroy potential extraterrestrial life, *just* *to* *be* *safe*.
Dumb question (Score:1)
This may sound like a dumb one, but couldn't they plot a return trajectory that gets close enough to the Sun to irradiate or burn stuff off before re-entering Earth orbit? Maybe they would have to slingshot Venus or even Mercury, but I want to think solar radiation is the best guarantee that anything brought back from Mars is sterilized before coming home.
If anyone knows specifics about how close you'd have to get and how long you'd have to stay there and what (if any) effect that'd have on craft and crew, please reply. It seems simple, which is why I think there must be more to it than that.
Re:Dumb question..Dumb Solution (Score:4, Informative)
Remember that the distance between planets and the sun is exceptionally large. It's not like you say you go to the local pizza store on your way home from school. Whenever they try to get something close to Mars, there is a rather small window in which the planets are aligned correctly (mind you, not in a straight line, but in an orbital curve) That is the shortest distance between earth and mars. Now, what you are saying is to burn fuel so that it gets close to the sun, then turn around and burn more fuel to get away from the gravitational pull of the sun back to earth. Meanwhile doing this so that the orbit from mars, around the sun, back to earth is lined up. (Remember that nike's commercial? Over the garage, through the window, nothing but net!)
In addition, you mention a crew. The farthest that manned space missions have gone is to the moon and back. We barely have the resources nor the technology to get to Mars, nonetheless the sun. Anything that can kill bacteria will kill humans first. So exposing the entire ship to the gamma radiations of the sun is near suicide. Secondly, you would need a huge amount of life support system to keep the humans alive for the duration of the entire trip (earth to mars, mars to sun, sun to earth)
Now the thing here is this. You have the right idea. All in all, solar radiation can sterilize just about any bacteria that we know of. Just having a probe fly through the emptiness of space will sterilize the exterior. The part that they are concerned with is the cargo (ie, Martian rocks and stuff).
It is a crock anyway (Score:1, Offtopic)
Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors
Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "mars" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "mars" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "mars" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!
Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "mars" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the mars", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "mars" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.
Credit where credit is due? (Score:2)
Limerick (Score:2, Funny)
Like the cold, meningitis, diptheria
So we'll permit them to land
But only in sand
In some remote place like Liberia
Bah (Score:1)
worry about bringing anything back to contaminate
us or them. And even if they DO manage to have
a successful mission NASA's track history
with things deal with Mars just screams ecological
disaster on some level or another.
Yay, we're doomed.
Introducing an organism could be bad. (Score:1, Troll)
Re:Introducing an organism could be bad. (Score:2)
--
Damn the Emperor!
Sound familiar? (Score:3, Informative)
My guess (Score:2)
What might end up being rather interesting is if the contamination poses absolutely no risk to humans but is still too suspect to introduce into Earth's environment, then perhaps the stranded astronauts would live quite a long time, with the constant risk of possible additions to their ranks. Some astronauts might forgo the Depo Provera or Norpland and simply decide to risk it or may not take any birth control medications and find themselves caught up in the heat of the moment. And there is always the chance of birth control failing. (even though Depo Provera has a lower failure rate than ANYTHING - even surgical sterilization of either partner)
So, in a while, you might get a growing colony on Mars of humans that are developed differently (due to the gravity), with radically different life experiences and are also unable to interact directly with humans from Earth.
Quite an interesting concept.
Re:My guess (Score:2)
And really, really inbred.
--
Benjamin Coates
Galactic Bacterial Domination (Score:2, Interesting)
Hmm... meteorites from Mars bring bacterial life to Earth -> astronauts form Earth bring bacterial life to Mars -> astronauts return to Earth with fresh bacteria from Mars... ad nauseam. These little guys have been around a lot longer than us and have more than proved their mettle. Perhaps one of the most impressive aspects about life on the small scale(bacteria, virus etc...) is this incredible ability to move between vastly differing environments and be successful in those new environments. Something humans and other higher order animals don't do so well.
Refusing the spacecraft to reenter Earth's atmosphere might work for quarantining hardware, but where do we put the astronauts who return with low level infections? Will we even be able to detect such an infection?
Isn't it the opposite? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't it the opposite? (Score:2)
I think you're mixing up 2 stories here. Anything NASA or the USSR has sent to Mars wouldn't be anywhere close to fossilized by now - give it another few hundred thousand years (rough guess, my geology is years out of date now
The possibility of Earth/Mars cross-contamination has been brought up many times, and has almost certainly happened, but the current thinking is it happens from meteorite strike ejecta - and we certainly haven't had anything hit the Earth any time recently that would be large enough to actually fling pieces of the planet towards Mars.
What about the strike that killed the dinosaurs? (Score:2)
Why the concern? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, I have to admit, this sounds an awful lot like, "this code should work".
Then... _DON'T_ _SEND_ _PEOPLE_. (Score:2, Insightful)
The most ironic thing is that if a person is sent to Mars, they will almost innevitably be called a 'Hero'.
Why? Because they were able to see more than any electrical equipment? No - machines would be able to see with much greater clarity without disturbing the environment they are examining. Because they can perform actions that no machine can? No - a machine that was allowed the weight of a human being, and the environmental protection of a human being, then given the budget of a human being would be able to do thousands of times the unique experiments a human would have time to do on the first trip - and it wouldn't need to come back either.
Now admittedly, this is more of a rant - but humans do not have any special reason to take the great pains needed to go into space to explore. Machines can, and do explore much better. Once a plan is made to make an environment outside of earth livable, and a sound plan is made, then it would be beneficial to have humans live in that environment. We do NOT need a human on Mars, nor do we need to spend the overwhelming resources needed to put a human on Mars.
I know, I know - it's not science that drives this, and now mostly, the only way to get the budget is to send a senator or other large source of money where they want to go, and fit science in after the ego. But if we have to go this route, couldn't we just go ahead and put McDonalds and AOL ads on permanant banners on Mars instead of having to send a human? Maybe make little human robots, controlled in a sort of a battletech way by senators and rich people on earth instead.
I'd much rather hear the press worry about the viral influence of children looking through their new high-powered telescope looking for the Pringle's ad on Phobos than the paranoia that would come from a human being sent to mars, and all that involves.
Any other "better than sending a human" ideas?
:^)
Ryan Fenton
sending people is more expencive but (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Then... _DON'T_ _SEND_ _PEOPLE_. (Score:2)
The people that are doing the work to allow humans the possibility of leaving earth in any realistic scenario are the researchers. When it is legitimately unsafe and risky to send humans on a mission because the ammount we do not know - the solution, I believe, is not to send humans, but to experiment and find out what we do need to know. Yes, we could build multiple redundant systems that can last long enough for a small mission on mars, put together all the fuel and plans for a mars mission, and possibly succeed at this point - or instead, we could afford hundreds, if not thousands of carefully planned missions and experiments with non-human exploration.
For the cost of sending a team of people to Mars, we could learn how to build a self-repairing artificial man to let anyone explore mars for years. It just doesn't make sense why there has to be a human there, when there's humans behind the controls, the experiments, and the minds learning the reliable methods to explore the universe.
If you want the experience of humans in space, use the space stations - but experience is not just humans using their feet and their hands. Experience is sensing - and learning to sense in new ways can be much more important than forcing the things that enable your own senses into everything else. If the idea is to terraform mars or whatever, it's not going to happen with humans walking the planet for centuries - it's going to be machines and experimental forms of life.
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Re:Then... _DON'T_ _SEND_ _PEOPLE_. (Score:2)
Autonomous robots are still really dumb - go and watch Robocup if you don't believe me - despite 40+ years of research, and little prospect of that changing dramatically no matter how much money you throw at it. Simply moving around on Mars at walking pace is stretching things.
If you control it from Earth, you've got anything from a 10 to a 40 minute time lag.
A human in a small research lab can carry out a far wider range of examinations than any robotic research lab could do.
Robotic research can get you lots of cool stuff, but it's no substitute for being there.
Re:Then... _DON'T_ _SEND_ _PEOPLE_. (Score:2)
I don't agree with that. The value of being in space isn't so that we can sense what is there-- that's a worthy goal, and there's no reason to stop trying to discover more about the universe--but about expanding the physical domain of humanity.
Why should we be satisfied with "just" earth and it's orbit, even if we can see everything there is to see from there by proxy? Everywhere on this planet, if it is possible to travel somewhere, people go there, and if it is possible to live there, we live there, and if sustainable private life can be had there, there's that too. The fact that these voyages, outposts and cities have been dangerous hasn't stopped people before, why stop now?
--
Benjamin Coates
hmm (Score:2)
I don't know, but I know a sure-fire way to find out!!!
Lets not forget the Indians (Score:2)
If there is even a remotely possiblity of any kind of bacteria/virual form of life existing on mars, we must be extremely careful. The bacteria/virus could potentially be so radically different than any strand here on earth, it could potentially wipe out entire species..
Then again, if not it'll make a good movie, I suggest casting Bruce Willis to lead a team of doctors to mars to attempt to find a "counter-virus."
Re:Lets not forget the Indians (Score:2)
"---
Will it have Willis hitting golf balls at passing cosmonauts?
Big difference (Score:2)
Yes, some precautions are justified, but I'm not losing too much sleep over the risk.
Compatibility Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
But let's be serious. I enjoyed "The Andromeda Strain" as much as the next guy, but I don't think this is very realistic. A chimp can't catch a cold from me. I can only play host to a limited number of bacteria that a lizard is susceptible to. And they want me to believe that there may be some man-killer bacteria on Mars? Even if you're one of these nutters who thinks that big headed grey dudes seeded our solar system with their DNA, why would you think a flesh-eating bacterium would evolve on a planted WITH NO FLESHY BEINGS?
I think we're all just a bit too eager to see Data dork Yar.
-Peter
Err (Score:2)
I mean, when it comes to spending 100B on a Mars mission, why not throw in 20 bucks for a few cans of Lysol?
Re:Compatibility Issues (Score:2)
But you can die of a disease contracted from a Parrot...
Re:Compatibility Issues (Score:2)
Pretty deadly Polly.
Re:Compatibility Issues (Score:3, Informative)
I wouldn't be so sure about that.
The reason each years batch of new flus all originate in Asia is because of humans, pigs and ducks living in close proximity. Apparently viruses can be passed between these species...
Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Sinclair Lewis goes into this topic in the biology classic 'Life of the Cell' Or a cell, I can't remember.
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Now to look at it from a micro level. Research has shown that when you start dating someone new, you will usually get sick (ie cold, flu, etc) in the first couple of weeks/months. This is due to the fact that when you kiss, you transfer bacteria that the other person is immune to into your system which your body is not immune to. This is the same as introducing a new organism into the ecosystem.
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
P.S. Plant organisms have highly evolved immune systems as well. They fight off infection and disease better than we do, for the most part.
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
And the human immune system has been evolving for (at least) millions of years, just to kill foreign (read: non-host) pathogens. Yet we still get sick.
Also, don't forget HIV, which due to a really weird quirk of genetics, has managed to infect and thrive in us by attacking the very immune system we depend on to survive.
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
As another poster pointed out, bacteria do not mutate to 'kill', they mutate to survive (I have a hard time thinking of bacteria with an agenda), and if that means killing a host orginizsm that supports them, so be it (hey, who ever said bacteria are smart?)
If there is basic life on mars, heck, I'd be a little worried if we did'nt take some precautions to make sure it does'nt get released in the general population.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the beggining of the space program, did'nt NASA decontominate astronauts when they returned from orbit because they thought there might be a chance of bacteria?
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Virulence shows an organism poorly adapted to its host organism. When a disease is highly lethal and highly infectious, it is almost certainly new to the population. Earlier posters remembered that a European disease wiped out whole tribes of Indians after first contact. The disease was smallpox. Smallpox was a serious disease in Europe, but it was endemic. At a time when the "bad smell" theory of disease still had sway, smallpox killed only about 10% of the people it infected in Europe. Smallpox had been in Europe for many hundreds of years by that time.
When smallpox was introduced into a human population that had never been exposed to it (native central Americans), it killed over 90% of the hosts it infected. We evolve too. The 10% who survived to have children probably had children who could survive smallpox. It's not that simple, but in principle that's what happens.
It is NEW infections that are most likely to be devastating.
A highly infectious disease that kills its host rapidly tends to disappear of its own accord. Hosts must be close enough to one another to infect another host before the organism kills the host. If it kills too quickly, the population dies out and there are no more hosts close enough to infect before the host dies.
The odds that a microorganism from anothe biosphere would be infectious to humans is probably very small. But if it were, the chance that it might be devstating in its effect are probably fairly high.
Anyways, my point is your statement "Earth's bacteria and plagues have been evolving for billions of years just to kill Earth organisms," is fundamentally wrong. Earth's bacteria have been evolving to survive longer and reproduce more. Disease that kill their hosts and do it quickly are NOT successful at this. Diseases that spread easily but merely inconvenience their hosts are enormously successful (the common cold springs to mind). So I do not think your reason is a sound one for being unconcerned about mars germs. There probably are many reasons to be unconcerned, but the notion that "they haven't learned how to kill us" isn't one of them.
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Except those who have mastered the ability to produce spores.
For example anthrax.
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Actually they evolved to survive attempts by the host to kill them. Actually killing it's host dosn't really do the invading orgainsm much good. Hence you end up with many diseases which do not kill the host.
How about a T-Rex from Uranus? (Score:2)
If something like a T-Rex were imported here from another planet, it would just as surely be top doggie here as it was back home.
Why?
Because it's fucking huge and has giant spiky teeth.
Case closed.
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Re:Read Life of the Cell (Score:2)
Assuming that bacterium has a biochemistry compatable with terrestial organisms. One single chiral carbon difference could mean it starving to death.
This can be plently deadly, especially if your immune system doesn't even notice the bacteria in question because it is totally unlike anything it's designed to deal with.
If it is so different that a mammalian immune system can't recongise it as something alien. Then that increase the possibility that it won't be able to do much with any of the sugars, amino acids, fatty acids, etc that it would find in a terrestial organism.
Makes me wonder what we left on the moon (Score:3, Interesting)
manned exploration of mars is premature (Score:4, Insightful)
Once we know one way or another what kind of life exists on mars, then we can start thinking about sending humans. But that will invariably and irrevocably change mars.
Infection risk? Hardly (Score:2)
It's the same on earth, take a lion from the steppe and put him on the south pole and look how well he survives there. Then take a pinguin from south pole and put him into the steppe where the lion was, how many days would you give this poor fellow?
Okay I think there might even be some bacterias on mars, but they are terrestrial and plug in stasis on our probes and landers, and well we're used and well suited for this kind of. Extraterrestrial are very unlikely, and even if existend far more unlikely to be able to infect a human or any life on our planet.
Re:Infection risk? Hardly (Score:2)
... and take a some bacteria from the steppe, and put it in a pH12 vat of bauxite slurry. Sure, 99% of them die, but the 1% that survive flourish beyond the telling. This technique is used in mining operations in Australia (and, I presume, around the world) as a mechanism of cleaning up the waste products from the refining process.
The simple fact is that bacteria are extremely good at adapting. They can and do adapt to environments where many experts have declared "Nothing can live here".
Personally, I'd rather err on the side of caution. It only takes one of the little buggers to get back here with a knack for eating human flesh and it's adios muchacos. If it never happens, or is later proved to be impossible (i.e., we discover Mars _is_ just a rock) - great. We've wasted a little time and money, but little else. But remember - we only get once chance to bollocks up the planet. If it turns out that something can hitch a ride, I'd rather that there were protocols in place.
Russ %-)
Re:Infection risk? Hardly (Score:2)
I call this inhuman.
Alien life (Score:2)
Most of even Earth's native bacteria are innocuous. This is just being paranoid.
This is a NASA Red Herring (Score:2, Insightful)
So what's the bottom line of this red herring? Easy. NASA is now way too much of a fat, incompetent organization to dream of sending a man to Mars. They can barely get a simple Low Earth Orbit space station going for billions over an already bloated budget. Fearmongering is one (very low) way that they can produce classic FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about the very idea to let them off of the hook for not being able to produce such a mission.
Re:This is a NASA Red Herring (Score:3)
--
Benjamin Coates
How the hell should I know? (Score:4, Insightful)
All right, Mr. Submitter, I'll answer your question: I haven't the foggiest idea. I've learned a little here or there about microorganisms and their possible existence outside of the Earth during my lifetime, and I regard myself as a relatively intelligent person, and tend to have strong opinions about most anything, including stuff I don't know much about. But the awful truth is that I'm not the least bit qualified to speculate on the likelihood of extraterrestrial infections on Earth. That's not an informative answer, I admit, but it's honest, and I daresay a great deal more honest than nearly all of the responses you've received so far.
To be sure, there have been a few replies so far that seem to be thoughtful and well-informed, and perhaps they come from people who really are qualified to answer the question; but like I said, I'm not really qualified to make that evaluation. Almost all of the rest, it seems to me, are comments from people who may be relatively intelligent, may have read a thing or two about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and have all kinds of strong opinions about anything, and now they are speculating with wild abandon. Which is fun, but they will give you almost no reliable answers to your question, and may lead you completely astray.
You probably wouldn't be having this problem if you had posted this question in a forum about "News for Molecular Biologists, Stuff That Matters to Astrophysicists". Why did you expect you expect to get any useful answers here?
suspicion (Score:3, Interesting)
Wasn't there a controversy over a test on Viking?
An Open Source Planet (Score:2)
We can set up our own Anti-DMCA stuff and make Windows illegal there. And Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer and Hillary Rosen and Jack Valenti and Fritz Hollings and anyone else I don't like. ohhhh, what a sweet thought.
And we can write our own drivers which would be far superior because there's less gravity.
And everyone there would have a 19" LCD and get 500 FPS on Doom 4 at 1900x1600 at 64 bit colour with 64x anti aliasing and no latency at all. It would be paradise.
Is this the Question? (Score:2)
42...
Nah, guess not.
Yeah, right (Score:2)
Re:Contamination of Mars (Score:2)
Re:Presumptions? (Score:2)
I dont know about the curing cancer but it will definantly increase your chances of growing wings, or maybe an extra eye or two at the very least..
Who to send to Mars ? (Score:2)
To prevent Earth being "contaminated", the trip to Mars must be a one-way trip.
Then, who to send ?
Here's my suggestion -
1. The candidate must be willing to go for a one-way trip to Mars.
2. The candidate must be smart enough to comprehend the task on hand.
3. The candidate must have a REASON to not coming back to Earth.
4. The candidate must be strong enough to endure the trip to Mars.
So
Why don't NASA start checking on the prisoner list?
The U. S. of A. has a high percentage of its population behind bars, and there shouldn't be any problem in finding someone who fits the criteria above.
Re:Who to send to Mars ? (Score:2)