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Moon NASA Space

Moon Landing Could Have Infected the Earth With Lunar Germs, Say Astronauts (independent.co.uk) 180

Posted by BeauHD from the space-bugs dept.
PolygamousRanchKid quotes a report from The Independent: A mistake made during the Apollo 11 moon landing could have brought lunar germs to the Earth, astronauts have revealed. When the three astronauts flew to the Moon and back, exactly 50 years ago this month, NASA worked hard to ensure that no bugs were brought back from the lunar surface. All three of the Apollo 11 crew were put into special clothes, scrubbed down and taken to a quarantine facility where they lived until scientists could be sure the Earth would not be contaminated. But interviews from a new documentary -- filmed by PBS and revealed by Space.com -- show that the plan to keep Earth could easily have failed, and that space bugs could have got into the Earth's atmosphere despite Nasa's best efforts. The astronauts noted that Nasa did not think there would be anything alive on the Moon that could be brought back down to the Earth. But the precautions were taken in case there were. "Look at it this way," astronaut Michael Collins said. "Suppose there were germs on the moon. There are germs on the moon, we come back, the command module is full of lunar germs. The command module lands in the Pacific Ocean, and what do they do? Open the hatch. You got to open the hatch! All the damn germs come out!"
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Moon Landing Could Have Infected the Earth With Lunar Germs, Say Astronauts More

Moon Landing Could Have Infected the Earth With Lunar Germs, Say Astronauts

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  • Possible anyway by asteroid impacts (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    They can kick out moon material into our atmosphere, and not everything will necessarily burn out on reentry.

  • stop at the ISS on the way (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @04:16AM (#58894774)

    To resolve this, they should have stopped at the ISS on their way back, open the hatch, do an EVA, spray everything with anti-bacterial stuff, and continue their way to Earth, for example...

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I bet you're fun at parties.

      • Not yet. If NASA mismanages the eventual de-orbit of the ISS like it did 40 years ago with Skylab, the ISS will become a bright, burning thing in the sky. Something that the kangaroos are not looking forward to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cito ( 1725214 )

      I'm just very happy that NASA decided against bringing back one of the 6 foot tall lunar tardigrades.

  • Silicoids (Score:5, Funny)

    by Laxator2 ( 973549 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @04:26AM (#58894792)

    The lack of water and atmosphere notwithstanding, the thriving little stone eaters of the Moon seem to have indeed been brought back to Earth and have taken over here. That explains the increase in the number of Lunatics who believe on life on the Moon. They may be in for a surprise, cos' the Moon is a harsh mistress.

  • Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dargaud ( 518470 ) <slashdot2@nOSpaM.gdargaud.net> on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @04:33AM (#58894802) Homepage
    From an evolutionary viewpoint, there's not much risk. If indeed there are germs on the moon, they will be adapted to those very harsh conditions. Put them on Earth and in those very different conditions they'll be no match for competing organisms who are fully adapted.

    And anyway rocks fall from space all the time (from dust to large asteroids) with no meaningful contamination.

    • From an evolutionary viewpoint, there's not much risk. If indeed there are germs on the moon, they will be adapted to those very harsh conditions. Put them on Earth and in those very different conditions they'll be no match for competing organisms who are fully adapted.

      And anyway rocks fall from space all the time (from dust to large asteroids) with no meaningful contamination.

      [several citations needed]

    • Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @05:10AM (#58894882) Homepage Journal

      It was mostly just politicians being paranoid I think. From what I read few people who knew anything about biology thought there was any risk, so the efforts to reduce that risk were more for show.

      They probably put more effort into not contaminating the Moon with Earth bacteria, although that didn't really work either.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        They probably put more effort into not contaminating the Moon with Earth bacteria, although that didn't really work either.
         
        You're kidding, right?
         
        There are literally bags of "human waste" that were dumped on the moon.

      • Neither is an issue. The moon's lack of atmosphere means that solar exposure will kill unprotected bacteria on the surface. It's doubtful whether anything at all could live there, at least, anything carbon-based.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          At the time they were not sure of that though, and there were somewhat outlandish possibilities like subterranean life. That's why they tried to sterilize the Surveyor probes and to some extend the landers. Rubbish and waste were discarded on the surface, in bags that were supposed to stop them contaminating the surface.

          • The reality is that they have not and likely can not ever demonstrate that the exchange of bacteria didn't happen or won't happen.

            All they can show, all they have shown, all they have tried to show, is that whatever exchanges are likely to happen would involve bacteria that are already present on Earth and so there is no reasonable danger from them.

            If you send a rocket into orbit and back, it brings back bacteria that it picked up in orbit. The Earth spews bacteria outwards, not only in rocks that are eject

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              Apollo 12 collected part of one of the Surveyor landers. One of the tests they did was to see how much contamination it had, although because of the way it was handled they are not sure if it was contaminated before it was launched or after it was picked up.

        • Neither is an issue. The moon's lack of atmosphere means that solar exposure will kill unprotected bacteria on the surface. It's doubtful whether anything at all could live there, at least, anything carbon-based.

          That's wrong in almost as many ways as the number of words it used.

          There are various bacteria that do not die in space, they merely enter a dormant state that isn't easily damaged.

          You're not going to wave your hands and cause the arguments in support of panspermia to just evaporate. A lot of work has been done in this area. It is very obvious that life could be exchanged easily between the Earth and the Moon, between Earth and Mars. The controversial stuff involves longer time periods in space, as in longer

        • The moon's lack of atmosphere means that solar exposure will kill unprotected bacteria on the surface.
          They don't do it on our space crafts ... why would they on the moon?
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
          You easily find more links.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        It was mostly just politicians being paranoid I think.

        We don't know everything about life and space. Being 99.999% right about moon germs means there's a 0.001% chance of wiping out humanity.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Livius ( 318358 )

        It was mostly just politicians being paranoid I think.

        Undoubtedly there was a lot of that but it would have made for good PR to say they considered all the risks, even improbably ones, and took appropriate measures. A lot of the general public is not good with very low probabilities or even statistics in general.

        • And donâ(TM)t forget the novel âoeThe Andromeda Strain,â which dealt with a fictional disease brought back by a satellite. It came out in 1969, and could not have inspired NASAâ(TM)s caution, but it did fuel fears about the possibility of âoegerms from space.â NASAâ(TM)s view was, âoeBetter safe than sorry.â I think it was a wise choice.

    • In a sense, Earth could be regarded as harsh as well for organisms living on the moon. The biggest problem is the oxygen, which is highly aggressive and kills most live that is not adapted to it. Didn't the bacteria that released the oxygen into the atmosphere essentially kill themselves in the process as the oxygen levels got too high?

      • Carbon based life needs to breathe in either co2 or o2, so far as we know. There's neither on the moon. But if you can imagine a life form that breathes helium and thrives on solar radiation, maybe there could be something there.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )

          Just a couple of points:

          One, the helium on the moon is in the rocks, and extractable through mining not breathing.

          One point five, the moon does not have any atmosphere to breathe anyways.

          And two, there is no rationale in a creature that breathes helium because helium is too nonreactive, and the energies it requires to get it to react with something as might be required for a biological process like breathing would probably be detrimental to the life of any creature that tried to breathe it.

          • Point two is most important, because maybe you'd have some kind of life form in the rocks.

            • The point of point two is that the energy needed to make biological use of helium would exceed the use you got from the helium.

              Bacteria already can live in rocks and "eat" only non-organic materials. If they had some huge energy source for doing weird chemistry, they would not benefit from processing helium with it. Nor does helium even offer a convenience would to create a reaction and get rid of energy.

        • Anaerobic life does need to breathe. There is lots of it on Earth.

          • Anaerobic life does need to breathe. There is lots of it on Earth.
            They have to breath. They just don't breath oxygen.

            • Ok I googled it and the definition of respiration / breathing is much wider than I thought, covering anything that uses electron acceptors.
              Some organisms use fermentation though, which does not count as respiration.
              Oh, and certainly a lot of lifeforms don't need CO2 or O2, as the guy before posted.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          Nope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          Also, there isn't anything we know of that uses CO2 as an input to respiration.

      • No, the aerobic bacteria which released the oxygen are the ones that mostly survived. The anaerobic bacteria on the other hand were mostly killed off.

    • From the look of it, they were not concerned with general contamination of the earth, but were focused on something infecting humans. Which is perhaps only a small bit more likely.

    • And anyway rocks fall from space all the time (from dust to large asteroids) with no meaningful contamination.

      Yet [wikipedia.org].

    • From an evolutionary viewpoint, there's not much risk. If indeed there are germs on the moon, they will be adapted to those very harsh conditions. Put them on Earth and in those very different conditions they'll be no match for competing organisms who are fully adapted.

      By that logic, why do invasive species exist? After all, those species wouldn't be adapted to thrive in environments other than the ones in which they originated, so they should be no match for the native species. And yet, for some reason, when I say "invasive species", every single one of us knows exactly what I mean by that phrase and can likely rattle off a few with which they are familiar (e.g. Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades, European rabbits in Australia and NZ, etc.). And we know as well fr

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fazig ( 2909523 )
        Invasive species on Earth still all have evolved under very similar circumstances, with the same fundamental building blocks at hand.
        For example all life on earth is both carbon and water based. Nitrogen and phosphorus are also quite important parts of DNA or RNA.
        All of the plants metabolise carbon dioxide and water with the help of solar energy into complex sugars. All of the animals metabolise oxygen with glucose, which they respectively breath from their atmosphere or filter out of the water and consume

        • There is "lots" of water on the moon already, no need to speculate on "if" it could form.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by fazig ( 2909523 )
            Good, now we only also need carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus to make the most basic life form as we know it possible.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              Those are all present on the moon as well.

              What it's missing is a good solvent for it all to stew together.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by fazig ( 2909523 )
                If you want to understand my line of reasoning now I could argue that: theoretically there can be liquid water on the moon that acts as a solvent. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/g... [nasa.gov]

                Just kidding. That would be nitpicking and not change the point that you were making. Of course I agree with you there, that it is not a 'good solvent'. At least not if you compare it with the abundance and persistence of liquid water on Earth.
                Similarly those other elements are found only in trace amounts in solid surfaces. A
  • We cannot allow more people on the moon possibly armed with Sagnac interferometers. That will disprove last 100 years of relativity, and the Copernican principle.

  • Odds (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @04:43AM (#58894824)
    Did they also mount guns on the ship in case of hostile aliens? Because that sounds a lot more likely than something on the moon that was both alive there and able to live on Earth or in humans.

  • Astronaut equals pilot (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ebonum ( 830686 )

    It does not mean expert in biological science. For some reason people seem to think that once someone has been to space, they become an instant authority on huge range of scientific topics. If a Nobel Prize winner in biology (Physiology or Medicine ) talked about possible contamination, I would take note.

    Please stop posting every crack-pot theory as valid because "an astronaut said it." If he was talking about Apollo 11's flight control systems or the fuel pump safety systems, I would completely believe h

    • It doesn't take an expert to notice basic, gaping big holes in procedures or systems. This particular one was pretty basic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      The public (and the press) cannot recognize competence. They assign a fussy "importance" scale to people and then apply that as (completely worthless) "validity" scale to what these people say. Actual proven or documented specialist knowledge does not play a role in this broken process.

      The inverse is also true: You have somebody with proven competence say something people do not like and people without any background in the relevant field will happily say that the proven expert is wrong and obviously incomp

  • Well there is the proof! (Score:3)

    by tinkerton ( 199273 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @05:12AM (#58894890)

    It's clearly starting to affect their brains.

  • wat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tambo ( 310170 ) on Tuesday July 09, 2019 @06:55AM (#58895098)

    The reason that terrestrial germs are dangerous to humans is that they've spent millions of years evolving to attack animal immune systems. HIV is extremely well-targeted to avoid the human immune system, for instance. And what germs lose by being "designed" stochastically and through the brute-force process of evolution, they make up for in vast numbers of replications and mutations to find new ways to attack us.

    Lunar germs have not had that experience. They are not well-adapted for terrestrial immune systems. Our immune systems would identify and expel them pretty easily.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But the opposite is also true. Our immune systems work because we spent millions of years evolving to attack germs on earth. What makes you think they have a chance against foreign organisms what we are not equip to deal with? Not saying there is a good chance but I don't think this logic holds.

      • What makes you think they have a chance against foreign organisms what we are not equip to deal with?

        Because the other way around doesn't make sense.

        Forget the immune system. Just think of the human environment. Acidic stomach, body temperature, salt and water content. If bacteria didn't evolve for that environment, it can't thrive in it.

        Now think viruses. They have to attach themselves to our DNA to make our cells do the replication work. How specialized is that? Even going across very similar Earth species takes evolution on the part of virus strains. You can't catch the same flu virus your dog can.

        • "You can't catch the same flu virus your dog can." Survey says..yes you can actually. Ever heard of H1N1? https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/arti... [cdc.gov]

          • That's a really great case of "the exception that proves the rule," except here it isn't even an exception to the argument, merely to the words that were presented in support of the argument.

            It is because the virus is evolved narrowly for infecting mammals that it can then evolve to cross species. Just like the immune system learns to kill new invaders, invaders learn to infect new hosts. But slowly, over long time scales. An exo-virus would not have long time scales to work with.

            A human virus gets lots of

            • I wasn't suggesting that OMG mooninite viruses were a threat. We are quite similar to pigs and monkeys though so anything that is bad for them is going to be bad news for us and the flu virus is probably the least troublesome one of the bunch.

    • Next you're going to suggest that Will Smith's hacking the alien computers from a Mac laptop in Independence Day was "logically impossible" when we SAW IT HAPPEN, man.

    • All life on Eart is based on the same kind of DNA molecules, mostly the same amino acids and many similar molecules. A different base chemistry easily results in compounds that are poisonous to us. It certainly won't be digestible.
      If this life can somehow digest our organic material, then we are fucked.
  • My aunt was an alien germ.

  • "The command module lands in the Pacific Ocean, and what do they do? Open the hatch. You got to open the hatch! All the damn germs come out!"

    Much like the ocean got seeded the first time?

  • It is my understanding that ants were found in the lunar receiving lab. If they could get in they could get out. Lucky nothing came back...

  • Moon microbes and viruses wouldn't have the same evolutionary pressure that terresial microbes would have. While we likely wouldn't have immunity against a Moon virus, it also isn't likely adapted to hide from our immune system. Microbes powered by high frequency spectrum and radioactivity tend to grow very slowly (all cases I'm aware of). Our native microbres would overwhelm them once they were here on Earth. Amoeba would surround and consume them and bacteriaphages might even be effective if the lunar bac

  • See I knew that the Moon Bugs were responsible for Global Warming. -- therealdonaldtrump

  • "Christ, you've seen too many movies!" - Rollie Tyler, F/X

  • With only 1 craft in space in service... there's essentially no way of avoiding this with certainty.
    The best bet would be to have a separate dirty craft used for all moon work and a way of moving people to the clean craft for traveling back to earth with a method implemented of assuring that no contaminants or materials come with the people.

    Perhaps by having a method of ejecting a disposable skin from the first craft before making a temporary connection between the two crafts separated by an airlock that

  • ... how many bugs we might already have been infected with over millions of years? Carried over by all the rubble knocked loose by lunar meteorites and carried over to the earth.

  • The likelihood that extraterrestrial germs will cause a plague on Earth should be very low. They are evolved for entirely different conditions and they are unlikely to fare well in an oxygen-rich atmosphere with creatures having different chemistry; the common cold should have them utterly beat.

  • It will be a stronger issue for Marsnauts. They should probably be quarantined on an Earth-orbiting space station for a few months.

  • The article implies that despite the precautions to quarantine the astronauts, that there was no formality to the sterility procedures for the entire return-to-Earth phase of the mission. In surgery and modern hospital practices, in pharmacy manufacturing, and other industries, sterility is a way of life, so the protocols to avoid germ transfer are second nature. It is easy to recognize that indeed, the sterility aspects of that mission had lapses. But ...

    There is also a big "so what" to this as well. Th

  • ...due to daily high-power sterilization from the sun's radiation. How can they so forgetful of important facts like that?

  • I suspect it was more for NASA to monitor the Astronauts health without outside influences.
    Can't do that if they're out and about giving Lunches, Speeches and Tours.

  • What kind of lunar germs could the Apollo 11 astronauts have picked up on a soundstage?

  • Don't get me wrong. Collins is a hero. Very brave and smart man.
    However he's not a scientist in this field. Really smart people that were worked on those problems and how to not contaminate earth.

    Man has to know his limitations. Collins exceeded his.

  • I was very interested in the space program. The original protocol was to have the capsule airlifted, unopened, to the air craft carrier Hornet. A plastic tunnel would be sealed to the capsule, leading to the Mobile Quarantine Facility that they would travel in to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at Houston. But that was changed to them wearing special suits, that they donned in the capsule, and walking from the helicopter that brought them to the Hornet along a marked path. One of the astronauts actually step
  • Does this mean Apollo 18 was a documentary and not a movie?

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