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Space

Panel Recommends Mars Samples Be Quarantined 146

Posted by timothy from the so-mars-doesn't-attack dept.
selectspec writes: "The NYTimes is reporting that a panel of scientists has recommended that NASA treat samples returned from Mars from future missions be quarantined as if they contained deadly viruses until proven otherwise. ABC news also has the scoop, as does space.com. Of course many scientists agree this is pure politics given that over a ton of Martian material enters our atmosphere every year, spit up from meteor impacts on Mars. In the unlikely event that life currently existed on Mars in the past million or so years, such debris would have likely transported microbial organizisms here. Many forms of microbial life would be able to survive such a journey."
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Panel Recommends Mars Samples Be Quarantined More

Panel Recommends Mars Samples Be Quarantined

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  • Heat. vacuum (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is clear that while some, rare, forms of life can survive atmospheric reentry, impact and the vacuum of space, there is a far larger set of organisms which cannot survive these events. It is only wise to treat samples from Mars as though they contain elements of said larger set rather than assume that the only life forms on Mars are those that would have already ended up on Earth. I mean, really, if we blast you into space on a meteor, do you think *you* would survive the trip to Mars? No? OK.

  • Why would we quarantine them ? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Since when is competition bad ?

    Until now, the human species has more often than not smashed every other form of harmful life, but we're kind of running out of competition.

    New viruses, new challenges, let's fight!

  • Deadly bacteria usually can't co-exist, so the residents of Washington D.C. have an automatic advantage.
  • How can Martian solid materials leave the planet and arrive to Earth?
    __
  • I think you`ve been watching too many movies like the alien(s) series and that new comedy one. There may be life on mars, but the chances its anything more than single-cell microbes are EXTREMELY small, especially since we already have some basic analises that didnt find any sign of life. If there is life that is radically different from life on earth, then what are the chances that it would be able to infect a bio-organism. (a good analgy is computer viruses, if the life is radically different than on earth, then it would probably be just as compatible with our life as computer viruses are)
  • TSE's are relevant to the argument for the quarentine of rocks from mars because they cannot be disposed of through traditional means of disinfection. They resist heat, chemical antiseptics, and often continue to function after long dormant periods.

    Sure, it might resist boiling or iodine, but are you really trying to tell me that TSE's can resist a few minutes in a high-temperature incinerator?



    Go you big red fire engine!
  • First I would note you that there is a big difference between our common and relatively correct understanding of what a scientist should be and what is transpers from our /. commentator. I also do my bit of Science, truly not in the US, and I know how some science is made. It is made exactly the way you consider as wrong. Yes, scientists give a theory as given and go up making policy recommendations. Because some dodos in the Parliaments, US Congress included, cannot distinguish kilos from pounds and planets from apples. So it is better to talk about flying saucers and "humanoid faces", so one gets something from the very meager budget on Science.

    Recently I got the hand on documents about how people tried to fight back some parliament members, in a very well known developped country, from cutting a science project. Sincerly I was horrorized by the citations. Scientists trying to become idiots, burocrats trying to become intelligent...

    On what concerns mars dust. It it flies out and falls on Earth. But the cause is not impacts. The major cause are the dynamics of Mars sandstorms. They are huge, gigantic and some of that dust does manage to reach escape velocity. However some still question its impact on Earth, specially when considering the Solar wind and some other stuff.

    Btw soon there should be one such storm... Usually they happen when Earth is quite near to Mars.

  • Mars Soap Opera (Score:3)

    by Ektanoor ( 9949 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @05:28AM (#188959) Journal
    ...
    Episode 324 - Is Mars alive? YES!
    ...
    Episode 456 - Mars IS DEATH!
    ...
    Episode 789 - Maybe Mars HAD life...
    ..
    Episode 1034 - No there are no chances for life in Mars...
    ...
    Episode 1345 - There could be life in Mars...
    ...
    Episode 2345 - Aliens! Saucers! BigMacs in Mars!
    ...
    Episode 3456 - Mars was/is and will be death
    ...
    Episode 4569 - Remake of episode 789...


    This IS Mars. People this is not a joke. That how Mars has been seen for the last 400 years, since people started to seriously speculate about life in other planets. And nothing in the last scientific achievements has given a determined and final evidence that Mars is either dead or alive. Personally I tend mostly to the fact that this planet is still damn alive, even after all those shake-ups one may detect on its geology.There is evidence that certain formations could have been "build" by ancient organisms. One of them is exactly the ill-famous "Face" and the new fresh pictures even add some support to it. Besides there is a weird system of "black strikes/spots/marks" all over Mars, which strongly suggest that some organisms may still be playing a major role in Mars.

    Some of you may counter with the fact that Viking didn't show any signs of organics. People, I specially studied some memories of persons who worked at that project and I have enough evidence of two facts:

    the author of one of the biologic tests counsciously undermined the project, and tried to destroy some work made by some other people. He also tried in 1967 to revoke the demand for spacecraft sterilization;

    the ill-famous Gas spectrometer experiment is questionable because the instrument was not only flawed in design but also the produced results cannot fit even the most pessimistic calculations.Besides the story of its development shows tons of questions

    Besides of this. I cannot find, till now, the wholly promised results on Carbon presence from the rocks tested under Sojourner's mission. Till now, the promise "results will be published after calibration" still hang in the remains of the old Pathfinder's site. It passed nearly 4 years since then. I tried to search sites, science sites, news sites, NASA sites and till now Carbon is missing on Pathfinder's mission. Anyway it is still a result. As "to silence means to cooperate..."
  • ...or have they forgotten that one cannot prove a negative?

  • This is actually not in dispute at all. Prions are just chunks of protein.

    Thanks, I was not aware of that.

    Steve M

  • If there is life on mars, it's not going to be too unlike these existing organisms.

    How do you know this?

    We have one sample of life to study. DNA based life on earth. We may have a second type, prionic, but despite (name escapes me) getting a nobel prize for it, it is still somewhat disputed that prions are alive.

    All we really know about is "life as we know it". We don't know what other types of life are possible.

    So while it is likely that any martian life will be similar to earth based life: carbon based, some type of DNA like molecular system, similar in size, it is by no means certain.

    One of the most important reasons for finding life on Mars or anywhere else is that it would give us a second sample to study. Generalizing from one example is somewhat difficult.

    Steve M

  • A computer virus is a bad analogy.

    If we could be sure that any martian life was based on a different substrate than earth based life, i.e. silicon, then your analogy would hold. But while we don't know what forms life can take, (which is one of the reasons we want to discover life elsewhere so we have more than one example to study) it is quite likely that it will be similar to earth based life: carbon based, DNA like genetic code, needs water, etc.

    So while the biochemistry of any martian life won't be exactly the same as ours, it could very well be similar enough to cause problems.

    Steve M

  • For as far back as we've been able to travel with significant speed between dissimilar ecosystems ...

    The problem isn't with dissimilar ecosystems. The problem is that the ecosystem that the invader finds itself in is very similar to the old one, without the checks on its proliferation the old habit contained.

    Take for example infectious diseases. The new ecosystem the disease found itself in was almost exactly the same as the old one, H. sapiens, without any immune system defenses. That's why we don't see plant diseases infecting humans. The habitat is too dissimilar.

    The problem is that we don't really know if the environment on earth will be different enough to prevent any martian life from thriving. In all likelihood it is, but as was pointed out before in this thread, do you want to take that risk? I don't.

    Steve M

  • Are you under the impression that when the sample is returned it will be a first come first serve to get the samples?

    Or is this just a rather lame troll?

    NASA will control who gets what regardless of the quarentine decision.

    Steve M

  • I mean no one is planning on sterilizing the Earth-ships before they heard to mars.

    NASA sterilizes all of its planetary probes as a matter of course.

    Steve M

  • Microbes don't have to be virulent to make you sick. Or kill you.

    They may just eat you.

    Steve M

  • Perhaps not.

    They admit the sterilization procedures are not perfect.

    And I know nothing about the sterilization or lack thereof for Russian probes.

    Steve M

  • Unless life on earth originated from matrian microbes.

    domc
  • anyone that knows anything about microbiology knows that the dangerous bugs (Ebola,anthrax) are short lived creatures that have to hop from host to host to survive because they consume or destroy the host. they cannot live outside a host, or viable environment for more than a few days. now, we grab a nice rock, put it in a safe box and cart it safely to the earth, you will help that bug get here while it wouldn't make it here through the trial-of-fire re-entry.

    Sorry, any professional that says it's hype or political talk is pretty much a moron, and has just announced to the world that fact.

    Any professional knows that dealing with unknowns means you treat it as if it wants to kill you, and will if you give it a chance.
  • Wasn't the dirty secret about Andromeda that it was actually orginally developed on earth?

    There's a scene at the end of the movie after the virus has broken out where they're looking at computer projections of the virus' spread. The computer has a lot of detailed info about Andromeda's propegation and one scientist gets rather upset and says something like "You knew all along..." and the lead guy says something like "Yes, but it was for national defense" or something.
  • Not to protect us, b/c theres little likelihood of dangerous life (or any life, really) on mars, but rather to preserve the samples from contamination by us. This way if biologicals are found on the samples, we're that much more positive they're actually Martian...

    -k
  • Are we not being a bit big on ourselves as humans to think that even if there were something deadly in the substance that we had the ability to quarantine it?

    stupid broken .sig file thingy
  • I have to agree with this. There are many more (at least here on Earth) microorganisms that would NOT survive the trip. Entering the atmosphere attached to a rock is like going through our standard practices for sterilization.
    If it is good enough to kill earth bacteria it would probably kill martian bacteria too.
  • [snip]
    Of course many scientists agree this is pure politics given that over a ton of Martian material enters our atmosphere every year, spit up from meteor impacts on Mars. [snip]

    To state that someone is a "scientist" implies that the person referenced practices science, or to be more precise applies the scientific method.

    To state a disputed theory as a "given", and then to base policy recommendations on it, is not science - it's either politics or religion.

    And further, in the unlikely event that it turns out to be true that Martian material is being blasted out of the Martian gravitational well, and being recaptured by Terrestrial gravity, the method of entry into Earth's biosphere is fundamentally different than any that does not involve pulverization and irradiation on a fairly titanic scale.

    Quarantine may be unnecessary, but it's certainly warranted. Science requires skepticism; and that often means disbelieving people who say "Oh, why bother with all those uneeded precautions, everything will be fine!". Let's leave objectively baseless faith in providence to the priests.

    --Charlie
  • Inquiring minds want to know.
    --Charlie
  • A disease in itself is not life, but wat causes it is. The cause usually being a bacteria, virus or fungus, and these are diffienetly forms of life.

    There isn't much we can do about biological components that manage to survive an asteroid impact. This should not be a reason for not taking precautions when knowingly bringing back samples from another planet.

  • Just in case (Score:3)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:47AM (#188978) Homepage Journal
    It is better to have a quarantine set up and find out the rocks were harmless as expected, rather than find that they did contain something and have no quarantine in place.

    Rocks that pass through the atmosphere, enter at high temperatures, so any life that might have survived the space flight would unlikely survive the re-entry. On the other hand a probe visiting Mars would not put its rock samples through such conditions, so life would have a better chance of surviving.

    Anyhow, if the rocks are in quarantine, then you can ensure that they aren't contaminated by Earth based micro-organisms and thus screwing up any lifeform-tests.
  • These "scientists" are not afraid of alien microbes from Mars. Quite the opposite, really.

    You see, after enjoying sixty years of bug-eyed monsters in science fiction, people want there to be danger on and from Mars. It's what makes it interesting. It's the only reason Joe Sixpack even cares that there is a red ball of dust in the sky.

    These ivory tower academics understand this, so they issue calls for prudence and caution, fulfilling our expectations of the calm and careful scientist. But what they really want is credibility for the idea that Mars is some kind of dangerous alien menace. It is a brilliant but devious propoganda technique.

    You see, by demonishing haste in Mars research, they whet the public's appetite for it even more. Like Pavlovian dogs, we salivate for more pretty pictures, more cute toy cars, more saved at the last minute drama. The thought that life exists on this barren planet, and better, dangerous life, is like a candle flame to the moths of our imagination.

    But in reality, these "scientists" are actually COMMUNISTS, hell-bent on taking your hard earned money and devoting it to more Godless "research". They know there is no life on Mars, because otherwise it would be mentioned in the Bible. What they really want is to get at those dead Mars rocks, to support the lie that the Solar System is billions of years old. Life means nothing to their cold, emotionless hearts. It is only a convient cover to trick you into submitting to their evil schemes.

    --
    Bush's assertion: there ought to be limits to freedom
  • However, you should realize that there a *millions* of species of bacteria and viruses on earth - the viruses that affect us are a very small minority.

    Of course, if you fill out one of

    then it's ok to enter the continental U.S.

    However, Hawaii is a different story [delta.com]

  • Mac macmac MACMAC! Mac macmacacacmakmac! (Score:3)

    by mav[LAG] ( 31387 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:53AM (#188981)
    Translation:

    "They quarantined our samples Mr Ambassador! Should we dispense with the biological warfare route and try a full scale invasion instead? We could always pretend to come in peace..."

  • Good point. I remember reading about research into wether or not some of the plagues we get hit with are viruses/bugs that thaw out of glaciers after millions of years. I'm still putting money on e. coli though.

  • Competition (Score:4)

    by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:42AM (#188983)
    All of the life on earth has evolved into its own particular niche, specializing in exploiting a specific set of environment parameters. For 4 billion years, whatever is left alive today has managed to fight off any sort of competition to at east a near standstill. There's a chance that Martian bugs, growing in a completely alien environment, may be able to survive here unaided, there's a chance that they may find all the extra atmosphere, sunlight, water and heat wonderful and grow out of control, but I'm betting they're barely going to avoid being lunch for E. Coli even under sterile lab conditions.
  • ... in the truer senses of the word? Sure, maybe we've had Martian life raining down on us for æons, but we've obviously adapted to that if it's a threat. There's no comparing that with the sudden introduction of what might survive the relatively cushy journey on a probe. And it's not like we're dealing with a huge amount of distributed stuff (eg U, Pu, anthrax) that's going to be hidesouly expensive and nearly impossible to track and contain... especially compared to the expense and difficulty of obtaining it in the first place. Why the hell not show a little politic caution and assume it's lethal until proven otherwise???
  • There are plenty of bugs which are 'hot' in one host, and endemic to other hosts. Ebola is thought to incubate in other primates, where is doesn't produce the drastic symptoms, and only causes outbreaks in humans when it switches hosts.
  • We manage quite well right now in P4 labs studying known dangerous organisms. If there is life on mars, it's not going to be too unlike these existing organisms.
  • Because the assumpions in a P4 lab are basically universal. That the organism cannot pentrate through the materials making the enclosure and that life will not survive the decontamination process. It doesn't matter if it's a silicon based life, or anything else, as long as it can't open doors...

  • Seems quite sensible to me (Score:4)

    by gorilla ( 36491 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:37AM (#188988)
    The Apollo moon samples were also quarantined [kidport.com] and the chances of finding living material on the moon was very remote. Mars is much more likely to contain living material, and therefore even more caution should be taken. Apart from anything else, we want to make sure that earthly life doesn't infect the mars rock before it's been established that there aren't any martian lifeforms there.
  • This is reaching a little too deep into the loony bag - but do you really want to run the risk of exterminating life on earth due to eagerness to study some rocks? Just my 0.02, canadian of course

  • Microbes reaching Earth (Score:4)

    by Skynet ( 37427 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:43AM (#188990) Homepage
    Of course many scientists agree this is pure politics given that over a ton of Martian material enters our atmosphere every year, spit up from meteor impacts on Mars.

    Yes but does it come here under controlled conditions? I don't think so. Coming over here on a probe will be a lot different than getting pummelled into space, floating over towards earth and then entering the atmosphere and getting torched on it's way down.

    A quarantine is warranted.
  • Sorry for the goof-up it should have been http://channel.nytimes.com/2001/05/30/science/30MA RS.html
  • ... Gelatin is processed cow lard. ...

    No, not cow lard. Gelatin is made from processed collagen: namely hooves, bones, connective tissues, etc, that are boiled and/or treated with mild acids.
    --

  • I can't say for sure but I would think that most forms of life would be burnt up upon entering our atmosphere (meteor showers). Maybe at the very least the intense heat would kill off most of the microscopic forms of life and the rest would die because of the environmental differences between our planets or something. That makes sense to me anyhow. I'm all for quarentining the Martian goods. An even better means of quarentining us might be to analyze the Martian goods on a space station, quarentined there as well. Then we can go through a long isolation phase with the people that had to work with it to make sure they don't bring any little friends home with them. That way no Martian stuff touches Earth's soil until we are certain it's safe. That's my $.02 in wheat pennies.

    --

  • It seems quite unlikely that any Martian micro-organisms exist or could harm us.

    But how are we going to know what stuff Mars *does* contain unless we keep earth dust, bacteria, and airborne spores out of our samples? Shouldn't we be doing this anyway?

  • I agree with NASA (Score:5)

    by Kenneth ( 43287 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:55AM (#188996) Homepage
    Many forms of microbial life would be able to survive such a journey.

    Many forms wouldn't.

    Although you are correct that it is unlikely in the extreme that anything has survived on mars, however it is always better to play it safe when there is nothing real to be gained by taking a stupid risk no matter how small.

    It hurts no one to so a complete analysis of these materials in quarintine before allowing them out.

    Finally it is logical to assume that Martian microscopic organisms (if there are any) would be only slightly more hearty than their Earth counterparts. This means that even though some could survive being violently blasted off the surface of the planet, then survive in space for years or even centuries, then survive the massive heat of atmospheric entry, most couldn't.

    Since we are now going to bring them back with better control, over the transport envrionment, it is possible for something that could not have otherwise reached Earth to survive.

    Granted the chances are minescule, but why take even a small risk of setting off a plague when that can be avoided by such a simple precaution.
  • Someone with absolutely no grounding in bacteriology or virology makes the totally bogus statement, "anyone that knows anything about microbiology knows that the dangerous bugs (Ebola,anthrax) are short lived creatures that have to hop from host to host to survive because they consume or destroy the host. they cannot live
    outside a host, or viable environment for more than a few days."

    This is NOT a good generalization. SOME bacteria (particularly anaerobes which can encapsulate) and viruses have a VERY long shelf life -- measureable in YEARS (live microrganisms have been recovered from grain stored SEVERAL THOUSAND YEARS ago).

    Real Life[tm] example: canine parvovirus, which is the #1 killer of young puppies, and about 80% lethal to unvaccincated dogs of any age: this virus typically survives in the environment (ie. without a host) for at least 6 months, and is readily carried on clothing or shoes in sufficient concentration to cause infection.

    It's only dumb luck that there's nothing *common* that has a long shelf life and is also lethal to humans.

  • The moon rocks are still in heavy confinement. Everything that went to the moon and came back was either still sealed up or was disinfected with some nasty chemicals. I've got a patch from Apollo 16 that went to the moon. It is made of a very light plastic and went in a metal can. It was sealed for the entire trip and when it got back, it was acid washed before the patches were given out. The only other things that came back were the command module and space suits, the air/dust that got tracked inside and a bit of equipment like cameras. Everything else was left on the moon or in the lunar module.

  • Just as mars asteroids have hit earth, the same applies for the debris from (massive) impacts that Earth has had in it's history. One would think that any organisms that were living here then would have been transported to mars, also, or am I missing something?

    Good to see (any) public interest in mars missions tho!

  • d00d don't you know it's channel.* now...duh
  • Planes can still be hijacked by using older-tech tools which today's scanners don't detect.

    Current species are similar. They have defences against current versions of organisms, but may have dropped defences against older forms because the defences weren't being used. This happens in artificial co-evolution experiments as well... if an older organism is introduced to a more evolved and stable environment, the balance can be destroyed and sometimes a species won't be able to defend against its enemy's predecessors.

    Certainly organisms becomre more robust over millions or billions of years of evolution, but it's still useful for NASA to keep it in the back of their minds.
    --

  • Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look.
    Actually, it is BOTH alive AND dead.
  • Of course, meteors get pretty hot in the atmosphere, but who's to say they're sterilized? Bacteria can encase themselves in spores, and survive extreme temperatures. Is the meteor evenly baked through, meaning no organisms on the inside?

    Of course, there might be organisms that we bring back, which didn't go through the re-entry, so of course, we should quarantine.

  • This is good news, since it implies that:

    NASA PLANS ON RETURNING SAMPLES FROM MARS SOMETIME SOON

    Of course, I'll believe it when I see it (we can't even seem to hit the planet now, much less hit it and come back)

  • <Music album="The%20War%20Of%20The%20Worlds">
    The chances of anything coming from Mars

    Are a million to one, he said.

    The chances of anything coming from Mars

    Are a million to one

    And still

    They come
    </Music>
  • ... given that over a ton of Martian material enters our atmosphere every year, spit up from meteor impacts on Mars.
    Do you have a source for this?

    This seems rather unlikely. Mars has 3/8ths the gravity of Earth -- a lot less, but it would still take a *massive* amount of energy to launch something from it's surface to escape velocity. It also has a thin atmosphere, requiring even more energy and making it unlikely that anything small (like dust) could make it out of the atmosphere.

    This atmosphere also will greatly reduce the number of meteors that make it to Mars's surface in the first place. Yes, it's thin, but it's much better than nothing.

    It would take a MASSIVE meteor (we're talking `Deep Impact' or `Armageddon' type meteor) to hit Mars to be able to send anything from the surface into space. Let's hope this doesn't happen too often -- because if it did, similar meteors would be hitting the Earth too.

    Also, Mars is rather far away. The odds of any particle escaping from Mars making it all the way to Earth are *incredibly* small.

    The only Martian material that would be likely to escape Mars in any quantity would be the atmosphere itself. Of course, atmospheric gasses wouldn't burn up in our atmosphere -- they'd just float around with all the other atmospheric gasses. Any bacteria/virii in them would do similarly (assuming it survived space in the first place.)

  • Re:Seems quite sensible to me (Score:4)

    by Jace of Fuse! ( 72042 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:49AM (#189007) Homepage
    MICROBE 1: HAHAHAH! WE HAVE THE HUMANS FOOLED!
    MICROBE 2: Howz dat, boss?
    MICROBE 1: They've locked our brotheren INSIDE this sealed container, but WE'VE been clinging to the OUTSIDE the whole time! BWAHAHAHAHAHAH! The EARTH shall be OURS!
    MICROBE 2: Good thinkin' boss! All Their Base are...
    (WHACK!)
    MICROBE 1: Syud'up!

    "Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
  • Yes, earth crud has made it to mars at some point. Whether life made it there is more speculative but certainly not beyond reason. However, life would have not likely been transfered once Mars lost its atmosphere 2 billion years ago. The atmosphere slows down the debris making it possible for passengers to survive impact. During Mar's wet phase when it looked much like Earth, it is very possible that our biospheres were interconnected in this way. Here's the http://www.spaceref.com/redirect.ref?url=www.scien ce-frontiers.com/sf099/sf099g10.htm&id=2926 [spaceref.com] the full story.
  • Don't we have a space station for just this purpose? Have the return capsule dock with a specially designed laboratory, that has a sterilizer, and a system for inserting experiments/devices, and no human EVER has to be exposed to contaminants, you get the benefits of using space to sterilize your instruments, and you can keep your containment vessel clean of earth based contaminants.

    And if some evil martian growth starts growing, you can simply detach the module, and eject it into the sun.

    Closed environments are good things, sometimes.

  • Sure Martian material does impact the Earth every day, but even if microbes survived the journey through space, they might not survive entry into Earth's atmosphere. Martian rocks could very well contain organisims that could only be brought through by a re-entry craft. Better safe than dead.
  • If we're speculating that Martian life might have been transported here in the past, what's to say that the reverse hasn't also transpired? Given the amount of material that has been shuttled between the two, I'd almost be surprised if at least some Earth-borne microbial life *hadn't* made the trip to Mars at some point. Not to say that there couldn't be native Martian cellular life as well, but if Earth-borne life had made it to Mars and propagated at some point in the past, then a sample-return mission might actually be carrying organisms that could thrive pretty darn well on Earth - given that they, or their ancestors, already had in the past. And a billion years or so on that desolate rock could only have made them tougher...

  • Protects the samples as well... (Score:5)

    by upstateguy ( 90019 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:55AM (#189012)
    One of the things the samples brought back may help determine is *if* life ever existed on Mars.

    It makes sense to quarantine the samples to prevent them from getting contaminated by *us* and confusing any results.

  • I remember reading years ago that NASA's policy on such things was that any samples brought back from other planets were to be treated as Level 4 Biohazard [cdc.gov] anyway. i.e. glove boxes and biohazard suits.

    This is the same standard as pathogens such as Ebola and other haemorragic fevers are kept at.
  • While I agree that we should take the safer route and quarantine the samples, it is extraordinarily unlikely that, even should life (have) exist(ed) on Mars...how would a Martian virus have any idea what to do with our DNA? It would have evolved to affect Martian cells, not Human. If Martians even had cells remotely resembling ours. Which they probably wouldn't.

    Unless, Of course, we really came from Mars and this virus is what caused us to flee the planet and start over here on this hot and humid dirtball called Earth.

    We could just play yodelling country music at them til they pop, anyway.

  • A quarantine is pointless. As we all know [imdb.com], the DNA code for earthly life actually originated on mars and was transplanted here by benevolent big headed Cydonians. Any life that comes back from there would be us.

    Oh, you're one of those fringe wackos who disagree? Well, I dare you to refute this proof [terminator...geddon.com]! The big-heads are in it with the Freemasons, not to mention God [mt.net].

    p.s. Call this overrated if you must, but if you mod me offtopic or troll I'll put a cap in your ass.
  • Many forms of microbial life would be able to survive such a journey."

    Where does this come from?

    I'll tell you. There was a rock found in Antarctica that had microscopic traces within it that look similar to those known to be left by Earthly viruses (like a microscopic fossillized footprint.) The rock was from what is believed to be an asteroid that was a part of Mars something like 10,000,000 years ago.

    While very cool, there is no evidence that any viruses actually survived the journey, much less reentry, and it is fairly well argued that the virus footprints are probably earthly in origin. The rock has been here a long time.

    There has been speculation that viruses could survive in space (I think notably by Jerry Pournelle) but I'm not aware of even short term tests by NASA or any other space agency. I've heard anecdotes about moonwalk equipment and sattelites, but nothing substatiated.

  • Dare I ask what constitutes a "complete analysis"? If we postulate totally unknown life forms in the rock samples, then we can't say for certain that any particular series of analyses and sterilizations can prove that there is no life in the rock.

    Having a specific set of procedures and goals to guard against a potential problem while evidence is gathered is one thing, and NASA seems like it will produce and follow these at first. Applying precautions indefinitely, in the absence of any evidence that the precautions are actually (as opposed to "could possibly be") necessary, and after evidence has been gathered that shows that they are not, is another. NASA's been doing the latter, promising only the former, far too many times.

  • I heard this story on NPR yesterday. There is another reason why they want a quarentine around the rocks, to keep earth bacteria out of the samples. If something from the earth gets in and contaminated the samples it may be very hard to tell what came from earth, and what's from Mars.
    =\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\= \=\=\=\
  • The adromeda virus wasn't from another planet, It was scooped out of the upper atmospere by a satalite. When the satalite returned to earth the container holding the sample broke and contaminated a town, and wiped out a jet. I don't think the book says anything about Mars, or other planets.
    =\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\ =\=\=\=\=\

  • The [An]dromeda virus wasn't from another planet, It was scooped out of the upper atmospere by a satalite.[sp]

    The Andromeda Strain (from what I recall from the book) was a self-reproducing, mutating protein that did everything from dissolve synthetic rubber to kill a small town full of people (save a few whose blood pH levels were out of wack from the norm.) I personally don't recall anything about there being a sample container, but it's been a while since I read it. I remember the scientist crew finding a rock in the Scoop 6 panels that had the smidges of deadly things on it. Oh, and I also remember the lady with the epilepsy. But you are correct in the statment that there was nothing about Mars at all.

    Just my $0.02 (pro-rated for your ease)

  • Hey; bloody good point! Someone mod this up please.
  • Also, it might be worth bearing in mind that anyone who comes into contact with such material should be properly quarantined, to guard against the possibility of aliens bursting from their chest and going on a rampage that only Sigourney Weaver can prevent : )
  • >Just as mars asteroids have hit earth, the same
    > applies for the debris from (massive) impacts
    > that Earth has had in it's history.

    Oh dear, I can see it now. We spend 50 billion dollars mounting a robotic sample return mission, and guess which rock out of all the ones lying on Mars do you think our robot will pick up and bring back...

    (And you thought the Imperial to Metric mistake was a scandal.)
    --

  • I believe it is prudent to make accomodation for any form of alien virus that would not survive the trek through space, since presumably, there are more of them.
  • Actually, this [invasivespecies.gov] may be a more accurate picture of what happens when species are introduced to a foreign environment. Now, I'm not saying that what you're predicting couldn't happen. Just that a situation where they thrive and have nothing to control their spread could also happen. And that would be bad.
  • Jello is made of carageenan which is a naturally occuring substance found in seeweed. When I was a kid we made a seeweed tea that turned into jello in school. It wasn't bad actually. Interesting side note; they use carageenan as an additive to some concretes when building structures where the concrete has to be a more consistant density throughout. Most commonly the walls of cooling/reactor towers in nuclear plants.

  • Quick! Somebody download some Slim Whitman MP3's!!!
  • What if there's life on Mars that we don't know about, or even if there isn't life on Mars, wouldn't sending spacecraft from Earth risk contaminating Mars? Not contaminating in such a sense as to cause damage to Mars but isn't it possible we'd find life on Mars that was accidentally brought over on a probe from Earth? Same with some of the other interplanetary missions.

    Just a thought...
  • But then again, if it is an excuse for a buff Sigourney Weaver to run around in a tight t-shirt, I'm for it. Maybe this time Winona Ryder could be a real person and run around in a tight t-shirt too.
  • If anyone is interested in reading the report 'The Quarantine and Certification of Martian Samples', put together by the National Research Council, it is available online [nap.edu] in full.

    ______________

  • The Apollo moon samples were also quarantined and the chances of finding living material on the moon was very remote.

    Actually, that has nothing to do with the possibility of there being life on the moon. The Apollo moon samples were quarantined to prevent them from being exposed to Oxygen and disintegrating.

  • ...it is still somewhat disputed that prions are alive.

    This is actually not in dispute at all. Prions are just chunks of protein. They have some DAMN STRANGE properties, but these are all a result of the shape they are folded into and the ways that they interact with other things in the body.

    (Fact: the prion that is thought to cause mad cow disease can't be destroyed by autoclaving it. CJD is the same way... it has been passed from one patient to another by the tools used for brain surgery, even though they were sterilized in the standard way. Spooky!)

    A virus, at least, has some genetic code in it. But a prion is more like the biological equivalent of one of those little burrs that gets caught in your sock when you are outside. Dead, but still reactive in a way.

    As a biochemist (by training, I'm not working in the field now though) I am DYING of curiosity about Martian life. The latest studies now support the original conclusion that the rock did have evidence of microbes... but I won't be satisfied until we have cultured some martian bugs. What will their biochemistry be like?? Will our current toolbox be worth anything on these guys?

    If they even exist at all, anyway. But my gut feeling is they do. We just have to find them.
  • so THAT's where AIDS came from. and I always thought it came from monkey rapage...
  • I guess quarentining is for the best. Because we all know how much a rock taken off from a neighbouring planet looks like a cruller.

    The waiting game for those things to get back is awfully boring and playing Hungry Hungry Hippos and foosball sure works up an appetite. Don't break a tooth boys! You're the worlds finest so obviously you don't have the dental for it.

  • It's the year 2001... Isn't it about time that inflation was brought to bear on the proverbial cost of one's opinions? Myself, I will start charging $0.18 for my thoughts from now on.

  • ...an Earth environment (with a dense O2 atmosphere...)...

    Wouldn't it be more accurate to call it a dense N2 atmosphere?

  • Of course, since Canada is considering a Mars mission [slashdot.org], they will neatly sidestep the U.S. embargo, as they have done before.

    And without support for the vaunted missile shield, the U.S. won't even be able to shoot down the Martian samples as they come back to Earth!

    P.S. Yes, this is a big fat joke.

    --

  • A better reason to quarantine the samples would be to preserve them from earth-bound contaminants. If you don't seal your Mars dust and a few weeks after it arrives on earth you see stuff growing in it, you think, "Oh, my Mars dust now has Earth mold on it." But if it's in a sealed and quarantined container and grows something, you think, "Aha! So Mars has living things on it!"
  • If people are really worried about living microbes invading earth, wiping out civilization, and general doing nasty things, then why bring them home at all?

    I know this sounds like anti-science, anti-space exploration rhetoric, but their may be a simple solution that appeases more people then just a simple quarantine.

    That solution is the international space station. Sure it's a multibillion-dollar international symbol of yada yada yada, and yes it would be a shame if the station were to become uninhabitable due to a terrible alien plague. Yet that same space station is also isolated from earth and a high tech research laboratory. The same quarantine processes on earth could be exercised in space, but add to that the extra layer of protection and you are a whole lot safer.

    in anticipation of the comment that if the evil (or good) microbes take over the space station killing the crew and some how causing the station to plummet from orbit entering our atmosphere bring death with it. Well I suppose that might be a problem now wouldn't it (in the most absurd possible chance that it even could happen.) Well in this most unlikely event those microbes would have the same inferno ride to earth as their rock bound brethren. If that is enough I'm sure one of the nuclear super powers here on earth will be more then happy to get their guns off and blow the thing to smithereens. SO their you go, an almost fool proof (see building a better fool) quarantine that supports exploration and discovery.
    Geoffrey Cameron Peart
    McMaster Software Engineering
  • I thought the US space program was in the process of undergoing a whole ton of budget cuts thanks to GWBush. I guess that means that actual space missions are getting scrapped in favour of meetings where bureaucrats fantasize about what they'd do if they had actual space missions.

  • Good idea, but for another reason (Score:4)

    by StarTux ( 230379 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:46AM (#189059) Journal
    They absolutly should be totally quarantined due to the fact that our own microbes will contaminate the samples and then make it hard to tell if indeed there was any life on it or not.

    StarTux
  • There's already been a report of bugs found in material from Mars here [bbc.co.uk].

    Scary, huh?

  • Time Factor - Re:Microbes reaching Earth (Score:4)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:59AM (#189068)
    I agree. It's one thing for martian material to be blasted into space where it orbits for millions, perhaps billions of years before it impacts in Antarctica. This is direct from Mars to Washington D.C. without all those bothersome millenia of celestial mechanics in the way.

  • Cooked virii (Score:3)

    by belgar ( 254293 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:53AM (#189070) Homepage

    (snip) given that over a ton of Martian material enters our atmosphere every year, spit up from meteor impacts on Mars. (/snip)

    Riiight, because that "intense heat in reentry" thing wouldn't kill anything...

  • What could it hurt? (Score:4)

    by Choco-man ( 256940 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @04:39AM (#189071)
    while true that some microorganisms could survive an interplanetary trip on their own, not all of them can. why not take the high road and quarantine them? nothing is lost by doing that, and you significantly reduce the potential of disease. sounds like a no brainer to me.

  • Will we ever learn? (Score:3)

    by Shoten ( 260439 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @06:54AM (#189072)
    The kudzu vine and water hyacinth in the U.S.

    Rabbits in Australia.

    The banana slug.

    The gypsy moth.

    Numerous infectious diseases carried by explorers.

    For as far back as we've been able to travel with significant speed between dissimilar ecosystems, we have consistently failed to anticipate the tremendous impact of flora and fauna that often accompany those travels. As often as not, the cause is ignorance of the presence of these "passengers." I agree that politics may be a significant driving factor here, but honestly, looking back, have we learned nothing about just using a little bit of caution? If we feel like taking the martian rocks out for a walk in the sun here on earth, we can always do that later...there's no need to do it straight off the recovery site, and the past seems to be a good argument not to do so until we are absolutely sure what it would mean.

  • Many forms wouldn't.

    True, but think of the cause of mad cow disease [usda.gov]. That's believed to be a transmissible spongiform encephalopath, those types of pathogens are really difficult to destroy, and science does not yet fully understand how they function. They are thought to be proteins that self-replicate under the right conditions.

    TSE's are relevant to the argument for the quarentine of rocks from mars because they cannot be disposed of through traditional means of disinfection. They resist heat, chemical antiseptics, and often continue to function after long dormant periods.

    Just the sort of thing that would still be around after all other forms of life die.

  • Re:Microbes reaching Earth (Score:4)

    by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @05:02AM (#189088) Journal

    The principle of panspermia [spaceref.com] is well understood. Although the surface of an asteroid ejected from Mars would be subjected to blast effects, radiation in space, and heat from re-entry, the interior (and any microbes therein) would be very well protected.

    Also, it's not clear at all that an organism optimized for the Martian environment (with a sparse CO2 atmosphere and little biological competition) would survive, much less thrive, in an Earth environment (with a dense O2 atmosphere and intense competition). Furthermore, viruses are attuned to infect specific kinds of cells; the viruses that have developed on Mars (if any) would likely be unable to infect anything on Earth.

  • Yeah, I don't see mars life as a threat, but with all this caution going on NASA's part the rest of the world should follow the example, you know, protect ourselves from the dangerous things in life. AOL free trial disks, don't throw them away, make sure they're hermetically sealed so as not to hurt anyone. Jello, what is that stuff, seriously? It should be kept away from major cities.

    An while we're at it, the average slashdot reader should be quarantined, we might spread geek, that's how I got it, I was going to be a model before this web site, now I'm all nerdy.

  • I think quantining is a wise decision, just in terms of the benefit when compared to the cost. Say there's a one in a billion chance that there may be something nasty in a Mars rock. That may be way off, so call it one in 5 billion, or ten, or whatever floats your boat.

    Anyway, when you consider the cost of sending a probe to Mars and returning a sample to Earth, the cost of quarantine is a comparative drop in the bucket. It't a bit more hassle and expense, granted, but not much compared to the entire project. Why not be on the safe side? Better to have a quarantine and not need it...

  • aren't there?

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