Mars Exploration Must Consider Contamination

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?"

Economic Viability of Mars Colonization

[EricBoyd]

Man, coincidince! I just finished reading this excellent essay on The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization [aleph.se], which convinced me that Mars missions are not actually wastes of money. They say these things come in threes, I wonder what the next one will be?

Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]

Sound familiar?

[jokrswild]

Sounds alot like the scare about bringing back "moon bacteria" back when we first landed there. Now it seems funny to us, to think that bacteria would have been on the moon. But, you never know, i guess.

Re:Dumb question

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone knows specifics about how close you'd have to get and how long you'd have to stay there

Well that's pretty stupid. The Sun's radiation is a mix of many things. Why not pick and choose the kind of radiation you want by generating it artificially? And it would obviously cost MUCH less than the extra fuel and food for your little detour.

and what (if any) effect that'd have on craft and crew, please reply.

Crew? Did you say "crew"? OMG, the crew will die before the bacteria!

Re:Dumb question..Dumb Solution

[Tazzy531]

Sorry..but that is a rather dumb solution.

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).

Re:Compatibility Issues

[SpinyNorman]

A chimp can't catch a cold from me.

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...