Slashdot Mirror
NRC Recommends NASA Galileo Crash
Autonomous Crowhard writes: "An article on SpaceRef relays information that a National Research Council committee is suggesting that NASA crash Galileo at the end of its mission. The reason for this is to avoid potentially contaminating Europa or Io with a crash there. (As I understand it, Galileo didn't undergo the same stringent decontamination procedures that landers normally have to go through.) Two questions: 1) Would humans constitute too much of a risk of contamination, and 2) Wouldn't you like to be able to put "Planetary Protection Officer" on your resume?"
Is the sun a big enough target?
If they sling shot Galileo towards the sun then they could hit there target.
And we would not have to wory about pissing off any aliens except those who only live is the plasma state of matter.
Plus couldn't we learn something by sending a probe to the sun?
I don't recall anything like it being done before.
Who agrees that we should target the sun with our contamination probe?
-----
If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.
Then why did you bother commenting on me? Anyways, i agree with you about that planetary contamination thingy. It's very obvious that polluting Earth isn't one of humankind's most impressive accomplishments, and we've got to do everything in our power to prevent that from happening on other planets. But humans just don't care...money has always been more important then any other argument, and it will be like this for quite some time to come... I was trying to be sarcastic in my reply; taking my 'why not continue'-argument into the absurd. But obviously, it wasn't as funny as i intended it to be...my apologies for that. I'll try to be more serious about these important subjects next time.
I see your point of view, but you will allow me to have a different one.
I think that this is not "news for nerds" any more than any other ecological/environmental news story (about earth). Just because it is the environment of another planet under threat I do not find it more interesting than the ecology and environment of our planet. Just because we take earth for granted does not mean that there countless mysteries here, which are just as (if not more) interesting than Europa.
But as I said, you can have your views and I can have mine. This is what Slashdot and freedom of speech is all about.
Merci.
They'll de-orbit the Galeleio into Jupiter more than likely. They could drop in into the dayside so we can check it's spectra as it enters. We may or may not see the chemical makeup of the upper cloud deck.
Galeleio, Galeleio, Galeleio, Figaro, Magnifico!
No, no, no, No, no, no, No, no, no, absolutely not!
The party's over
What's the frickin' rush? We've got plenty of time to seed Europa once we know what the hell is there!
Cheers,
Brian
Hey, what about the probe Galileu dropped to take a few snapshots? Hasn't NASA finished processing the data yet? If they need some extra FLOPS, why not create a new distributed project?
Yeah, that's it, NASA@Home!!
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
"Where is my flying car? Damn it! I was promised flying cars!"
This has happened already (The probe contaminating something if it's sent out of the solar system)...
Didn't you see the original Star Trek movie?!
V-GER will come, and then the only thing that can save us is a spaceship captain that can't act!
This thing has become so radioactive that here on earth nobody would even want to get close to it. Are you saying that you want to bring 10 tons of highly radioactive stuff to crashland on Earth?
Besides Galileo does not have enough fuel to get back here.
It would be a horrible place to overclock, because most of the heat produced wouldn't be radiated. It would need to have some conductive medium transfer it, and space is a vacuum.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Not necessarily. You are assuning randomness. A monkey forewer pressing "A" on a typewriter will not create anyting interesting.
Yes, dinosaurs had nuclear bombs. You'll find them referred to in their literature as "anti-personnel grenades".
Humor aside, I think that NASA is overreacting. Either Europa has life or it doesn't. If it doesn't, we should hope that it is 'contaminated'. If it does, I would put my money on a planetful of life specially evolved for that planet's conditions over a couple dozen carpet-bagging bacteria from a warm and comfy inner-system world like Earth.
This is a very thoughtless opinion. You're suggesting that we risk wiping out a potentially unique lifeform because if it's not tough enough to beat out our completely alien bacteria, it doesn't deserve to live.
That's very Darwinist of you, but I doubt you would feel the same way if another, more advanced civilization allowed a craft to crash into our planet carrying contaminants that could destroy us.
I should really think up a nifty sig line if I'm going to start posting to Slashdot...
We must respect evil, and we must make evil respect us.
Now we know. Cockroaches fly to the Indian Ocean during winter.
a) It does not have enough fuel to slow down enough. It's orbital velocity is now very fast.
b)It has thrusters, but it does not have enough fuel for the thrusters. You cannot stop something dead in space. Do you know how much fuel would be needed to stop its orbiting the center of the galaxy?
"Mommy, make it put me down! Mommy? Mommy!"
I think it's a shame that so many people are saying "why start now? NASA has been doing this for years". Yes, they have and we all know it, but does that make one more incident of "space pollution" any more right than the past? As I've already stated in a reply earlier, it's not about what WAS done, it's about what IS GOING TO BE done now. Using the arguments I've seen so far, it would be perfectly alright for the continued practices of slavery, non-consental human experimentation, unchecked slaughtering of endangered species, etc. After all, all of that stuff was "done before", so what would be the damage of doing it now? I find that to be a ridiculous argument/statement. It's like saying that people and agencies can't and shouldn't change their ways if they realise that they are wrong.
In this case, NASA wants to do "the right thing" for Europa and its potential and future. Yes, Galileo has basically lived out its usefulness and monetary budget, so it probably needs to be disposed of somehow, but why opt for the unsafe method? After all, Europa's water (or water-like compounds) may end up being used in the future by Earth space travellers in the future. Why take the time to clean it up then when we can just prevent the problem now?
I'm all for steering Galileo into the sun if everyone is so paranoid about Jupiter and Io also (which they shouldn't be...neither should be able to sustain even basic life on their own, not to mention any that Galileo might be carrying). But, given the options and probably time constraints, I would say Io and Jupiter are probably the best bets for a reasonably safe disposal.
http://slashdot.org/articles/00 /03/02/1236258.shtml
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Why doesn't NASA build something that lasts instead of producing more and more waste.. Here on earth people are trying to put a halt on disposable materials and in space we just dump right on.
Would it not be more usefull to build something that returns after a given period of time so that these things can be recycled or something?
No problem. I made the point further in another post since more people than I thought were really taking that argument. It's really a shame that people feel the way that they do. It's also a shame that money is such an important factor and everyone who doesn't have a lot of money thinks that there's nothing that they can do about the problem overall. At least the NRC is recommending that NASA do the good thing rather than the idiotic thing. Hopefully, NASA will take the recommendation and run with it.
What's this all about? I can't read french, and NASA just crash-landed a satellite on my babelfish(tm)!
The dinosaurs had the bomb?
:wq
...if they missed the crash target?
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
In short, I'd figure we'd be exporting our meanest, toughest, and most adaptable critters (not unlike Australia's earliest English colonists, come to think of it).
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
I think we're more interested in life that has evolved on other planets since it would prove that life is not indiginous only to Earth.
No, it will not "prove" anything. Let me explain.
I see you are turning this into the old religious argument. If we can prove to those stupid Christians that life exists on other planets, then they will run out of arguments for their creationist theories. However to make such a claim is entirely false. The Christians will find a way to interpret their Bible (as they have done so many times in the past in order to cope with new "realities") so that it does not conflict with their beliefs.
As for those logical people who do not believe in God, finding life on another planet will not prove anything. We already know that life does not exist only on Earth. How? By the wonderful science of statistics.
It has been proven that if you take into account:
a. the number of planets in the Universe.
b. the likelyhood of life appearing on a specific planet (this is calculated using the age of a planet, the elements present on the surface, temperature etc).
You will see that the probability of Earth being the only planet with life in the Universe is less than 1E-12.
Let's let Greenpeace and whatever they're called take care of the environment and let NASA send microbes into space.
Yes, I agree with you. NASA are doing their job. I just accuse all of those who think it is just a great story of being biased. Here we are spending out time talking about how to protect (probably non-existant) microbes in Europa, when there are human beings being killed right next to us. Did you ever see a mention of them in Slashdot? Are Eupopan microbes "news for nerds, stuff that matters" and human children not worthy of a mention?
Je vous embrasse,
Philippe
But Europa may already have life on it. The chances are slim perhaps; but Europa's microbes, if they exist, have more rights to Europa than Earth's microbes do.
Does this
The Anti-Satellite weapon:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum
The target:
http://asca.gsfc.nasa
While not strictly part of the SDI program (as development of the ASAT weapon started during the Carter administration), development and successful testing of this anti-satellite weapon losely fell under the "Star Wars" banner of programs that was funded by the Reagan administration.
Yes, we have been testing weapons in space. So have the Soviets, who have conducted similar tests. And while our ASAT program which produced the F-15 based ASAT weapon was canceled in 1987, we are still conducting on-going ASAT weapons tests today, with both ground-based kenetic ASAT weapons (basically missles which are launched into space from the ground and hit satellites in orbit), and space-based and airplane based laser ASAT weapons.
why litter?
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
And besides NASA couldn't crash them even if they wanted -- you see, space is big and spacecraft are very small...
:)
But, NASA is very talented, so anything could happen
Mark Duell
If there is something about panspermia - and there probably is - we have already contaminated half the System, in typical Earth fashion :-)
Think about it: If a piece of rock from Mars can travel to Antarctica, what prevents a hunk of our continental crust, filled with bacteria - which are very good at surviving in harsh climates - from impacting on Mars? Bacteria have been around for some 100 million years, more than enough time for the occasional dinosaur - killer comet whose impact offers a ride out of the gravity well.
I for one would not be surprised to find some E. coli look-alikes on Mars (I don't know about the possibility of low - energy trajecories to places in the Outer System, though)
know that our little Galileo will burn up fast in the gargantuan planets atmosphere, But it's still contamination isn't it? If one's goal is to not unknowingly alter another planet, shouldn't another form of disposal be pursued?
But will it matter? Is there going to be some little piece of life down there to contaminate? Probably not. So Jupiter is the lesser of the evils. Even if someday somebody can get down there and find the reckage (however thin a pancake that reckage has been made into), anyone that advanced would be smart enought to take adaquate percautions. And it would be like finding a lost pyramid or something.
------
Not a typewriter
No way! Offcourse it may look cool for a moment but I don't like traveling 40 up to 80 years to check up on the crime scene in person. :-)
Yep, there is.
We don't want to send a probe to Europa to try to discover life, only to find out that we contaminated the place a dozen years back with strep, and so have no idea if there was life there or not.
OTOH, unless you both don't eat, don't breath and don't take a dump, you don't have room to talk: after all, everytime you eat, you take advantage of the death of animals and plants around you. When you breath, you mindlessly kill millions of organisms as they enter your lungs. And the fecal matter you excrete is part of one of the largest sources of environmental contaminants that man, in his presence on this earth, creates.
All this talk about possible life on Jupiter reminds me of an old sci-fi short story I once read, but I don't remember who wrote it. Basically, it was told from the perspective of 3 robots, sent to Jupiter from Earth. Seems that several years ago, Earth had begun communicating with aliens on Jupiter, and the conversation did not go well. There was some concern that if the people of Jupiter ever developed space travel (no small feat considering Jupiters immense gravity), they would come and conquor the Earth. So, scientists on Earth decided they'd better send up these robotic probes, to get an idea of the intentions/military strength of the Jupitarians(?).
Anyway, these 3 incredibly powerful (built to survive Jupiter's environment) robots show up on Jupiter, perform a bunch of feats of strength and endurance that the Jupiterians see as incredible, and at the end reveal they are capable of surviving the absolute zero of space travel. The Jupitarians, mistaking these 3 robots for the common Earth man, immediately disgard their planned invasion of Earth, and request peace.
One of my first introductions to the realms of sci-fi literature; it was an entertaining, albiet highly improbable, story. Can anyone hook me up with a title/author?
All of Nasa's Crafts crash anyway(remember Mars) so why not just say we are crashing it deliberately.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I know the present PPO, and I can tell you that he's competent, capable, and professional. He's also a pompous egomaniacal git. Having worked with him for three years I think it's my right to say that.
Just like the Spaniards gave the Aztecs flu, (which was aparently rewarded by syphilis).
Aliens could learn a lot about our immune systems by studying flu.
Hmmm...
Any pathogen that crosses a species barrier is potentially lethal to it's new host. If that is true from avians to mammals (see the flu epeidemic in the post war years that claimed more lives than the war! which came from asian birds) then contamination from humans could, at most, wipe out the entire ecology. Maybe when the meteor crashed in to the earth during dinosaur times it was a pathogen that killed them all and not nuclear winter.
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
<Job Interview>
</Job Interview>Needless to say, I didn't get the job...
It's Canadian French. It's something somebody seems to have cut and pasted about the history of logging in the Saguenay area of Québec...
On behalf of the great federation of social insects and all the ants and bees of the Universe I strongly object to your potrayal of Cockraches as the only race superior to man hence implying that man is superior to us.You shall be hearing from our lawyers unless we see an appology in this space
**Life is too short to be serious**
Stephen Baxter, one of my favo SciFi authors, theorised that an alien life could be a complex structure of swirls that evolved in a muddy swamp-like planets surface.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
This is meant to be a reply to the Government coverup posting about cockroaches Sorryyyyyy!!
**Life is too short to be serious**
Unfortunately the fuel required to escape from Jupiter is just not there on Galileo.
The only option is to crash it into the giant planet! Jupiter just underwent a large alteration when that comet bombarded it a few years back so it should be ok.
--------------------------------------------- "In the end, we're all just water and old stars."
If my kitchen floor at 3 am is any indication, the cockroaches have ALREADY conquered earth!
seanmeister
Wings clipped, he plummets
Spirit crushed, he soars no more
And yet he does move
------
------
You are in a twisty little maze of open source licenses, all different.
OT FOLLOWS
Hint: when you get to the mission where you have unlimited quad-jump permission, jump to the system where the star has collapsed into a black hole. After berzerker jumps in after you, wait a second until he screams "I am slain!" in your comm unit and is sucked in by the black hole. Then jump to solbase and all is well. For the moment.
The tricky bit is usually when he comes after earth; you have to get on his list personally or the earth goes *boom* in the next mission no matter what you do. Make sure all your weapons hit him or something.
The TV program NOVA on the public broadcasting
network has aired several programs lately about
archeology. It seems to me Galileo is a
prime example of an archeological artifact
and should be preserved by being 'parked'
in some safe orbit for future generations.
Hopefully, we humans will survive long enough
to go out there again, pick up Galileo, and
bring it back for study.
NASA is chartered to learn new things.
Why should NASA deny future generations the
opportunity to learn new things about us?
You're forgetting something important here. When and if we send a probe to Europa it will contain some gadgetry to cut into the ice and run some tests to look for microscopic life. It is likely that the tests will be able to tell if there is life but that's about all.
If we start smashing possibly contaminated probes into the place we will never be able to quiet the skeptics who will say "well it could have been Earth life that spread from an earlier crash".
--
--
Nothing to see here. Mooooove along...
Humor aside, I think that NASA is overreacting. Either Europa has life or it doesn't. If it doesn't, we should hope that it is 'contaminated'. If it does, I would put my money on a planetful of life specially evolved for that planet's conditions over a couple dozen carpet-bagging bacteria from a warm and comfy inner-system world like Earth.
I don't know. I think I might wager a few quid on a hardy band of microscopic badasses that could survive a decade in space and the radiation of Jupiter's magnetosphere.
Does this
Sure, it would be great if NASA could fund every mission indefinitely! But heck, it would be nice if people would pay us humble grad students a million bucks a year, too. That's just not going to happen. In the real world of science, with limited funding, you have to balance the potential return of spending $X on some experiment with the potential return of $X on a -different- experiment. Sometimes it makes sense to extend the lifetime of the first experiment - Witness the fact that the Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft are all still returning valuable data today, witness the DS1 extended mission, witness the fact that Galileo is still working today several years after the "end" of its mission. NASA *does* extend missions, when it makes scientific sense to do so But sometimes you really have gotten as much as you can from a mission, or sometimes you have new projects you want to start that need the money. Then in that case it *does* make sense to terminate older missions and start new ones. Do realize that the decision to extend Mission Y for another two years usually means postponing or even cancelling Mission Y+1. It's not nearly as simple or as one-sided as you seem to think it is.
Most of the posters here seem to be under the impression that NASA wants to avoid Europa and Io do to some kind of twisted environmentalist ethic. That's not it at all, although the reasoning might be a little distorted by the time it's filtered for public consumption.
As the article says, NASA wants to "safeguard the scientific integrity of future studies of Europa's biological potential." Good scientists are naturally skeptical, and as any science knows, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." In order to prove the "extraordinary claim" that native life exists on Europa, scientists would have to eliminate any more mundane possibilities. The claim that said life is not native to Europa, but was carried there by Galileo, would be almost impossible to dispute.
Let me put this another way: Let's say NASA let Galileo crash into Europa. Now it's 2040, and our first Europa lander finds the moon teeming with life. Any good scientist would say, "So what? It was probably left there by Galileo." And they'd be right. On the other hand, if NASA keeps Europa uncontaminated, any life on Europa would indisputably be extraterrestrial.
Got it?
MSK
Io does actually have a bit of an atmosphere, mostly sulpher gases and other things you don't really want to breath, but you're correct that it wouldn't be enough to burn up the space craft; it would impact the surface and eventually get buried in one of the frequent lava flows. This is considered acceptable because the conditions on Io are harsh enough that we're pretty damn sure (a) there's no native life there (b) even if some bacteria stowed away on Galileo, they couldn't live there either. Both of these hold true for Jupiter, too. And even if you leave them both aside, the impact velocity with Jupiter will be vastly higher (it's next to impossible to hit Jupiter at anything *less* than 70,000 kph due to our old friend Mr. Humongous Gravity Well.) so the impact heating will be that much greater, moving us into the realm of serious overkill sterilization by heating. Which is, of course, precisely what we want.
(rimshot)
(crickets)
seanmeister
There are objects (asteroids, comets, etc) raining down on the various planetary bodies / satellites in our solar system. If there are any living organisms on those objects, they could be considered to be contaminating Europa too (if they land on Europa, that is). Such a situation wouldnt be regarded by us as "contamination".
Consider the following situation : Very primitive life has evolved on Europa. Along comes an asteroid with a virus / bacteria that is harmful to the life on Europa, and wipes out that life. Natural evolution - is it not? Why wouldnt the introducting of lifeforms from earth be regarded as part of evolution. After all, if we ignore the fact that we are "intelligent" / "concious" and look solely at the bottom line (what we do rather than why we do what we do), the event of humans contaminating another planet is nothing drastically different than an asteroid carrying lifeforms crashing into Europa.
Admittedly, it would be of great scientific interest to know that if life arose on Europa, it arose by itself, and without any human intervention. But if we discover life on Europa, it doesnt mean that that life originated on Europa, anyway. So why bother?
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
...instead of destroying it, wash it with some form of anti-bacterial soap. I know that's what I do, all the time, to make sure that my hands are clean. In fact, I've washed my hands 12 times this morning. You can't be too careful with bacteria! But wait -- there are STILL bacteria there! Dammit, get off my hands, you damn bacteria! I know you've survived the vacuum of space, ultra-low and ultra-high temperatures, steam, solvents, and everything else, just GET OFF MY FILTHY STINKING HANDS! WASH OFF, DAMN YOU! I AM CONTAMINATED! GET AWAY FROM ME - SAVE YOURSELVES! AAAIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
--
Yes. Remember Warhead?
Maybe, but the concern is over the possible microorganisms. I would guess that there are some that could survive falling into Jupiter's atmosphere etc? How about simple proteins?
And can Jupiter be said to have a real surface?
This guy is almost as cool as Mujahideen.
As almost everyone knows, we must stay clear of the Europa moon (All these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landings there), however as Jupiter is about to turn into a minor star in, oh say, 9 years it wouldn't realy matter if we dumped it there.
;)
Sidenote: If you didn't get this, you probably need to do some catching up on your sci-fi reading
Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)
We dont want to piss off the natives
Stop the ignorance. Start with yourself!
The puny amount of radiation onboard the Galileo spacecraft pales in comparison to the natural radiation around Jupiter.
If you were getting sad thinking that you'd need to have a protective suite to survive on Europa with all that plutonium from Galileo there, then I've got some news for you!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Isn't Jupiter too small in mass to become a star, even a small star, under any circumstances?
Thanks to any science types who answer. Even if you aren't sure, please speculate. It will be interesting to see if anyone predicts it correctly.
I am not a lawyer.
The article and this whole discussion are about how we need to not contaminate Europa, and you go and suggest that we contaminate Earth. I would feel a lot better if the water sample stopped over at a space station for preliminary examination. If those astronauts didn't die or have alien fetuses grow inside them, then we could do further tests down here.
-B
yes, it's interesting that noone else has mentioned this as an option. the only problem i can see with it, is that the spacecraft would have a faster velocity because of it's lower orbit and may preclude the continuation of imagery science on board b/c of the exposure times needed(blurring)? someone mod the above post up so it gets more attention. why CAN'T we do this.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
I understand your point of view but as a Slashdot account holder of long standing (user 2500) and reader even longer, I feel it would be interesting to know if there are legal issues involved with a Slashdot poster. Slashdot has had trolls and odd people posting since the start and the fact that these are tolerated adds, in some measure, to its charm. These days you can even set your threshold above 0 and miss most of them if you don't like them. For my money, osm is a talented and rarely offensive writer and I'd miss his peculiar brand of humour.
Regards
DSN = the Nasa Deep Space Network, and it's the reason why 3rd parties don't take over deep space satalites when they're done. If there were other installation similar to these facilities (a compeating interest in another country, perhaps) then your plan makes sence. It is the eyes and ears of people here on earth and without it, the satelites would just be another rock in space.
___
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I'm not sire I understood this article fully....
they suggest crashing the satellite to prevent contamination caused by crashing it? But I digress...
1) Wouldn't humans cause more of a contamination risk?
I assume this means "...towards any life potentially on Europa." This could only be true if the life developing on Europa is based on the same protein structure as our planet. We don't even know if there is life on Europa yet, much less if it's carbon-based and has DNA as a carrier of genetic information. Only if those two conditions were true could I belive that any "space diseases" could infect Earth, or vice versa.
2) Wouldn't you like to have "Planetary Protection Officer" on your resume?
Yes. Yes I would. =)
-=The Rimstalker=-
-=The Rimstalker=-
I understand the difficulty the American Working Man has putting food
Toss the jar in a containment facility and let bunny suits who bathe in acid poke at the ice cube and I don't see the problem.
Eh...
Galileo has been exposed to huge amounts of radiation from Jupiter. Here's a few hundred articles Google(galileo+radiation). Who has better decontamination equipment, nasa or jupiter?
Ryan
Next important question: Can crocodiles climb trees? I'm sure they can, but no-one believes me.
--
--
Donald "Don Juan" Kerr
"All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there"
- 2010 Arthur C Clarke
There is hardly any need to crash it. Just put it in a low Jovian orbit underneath all the moons. From there it wouldn't have the energy necessary to climb back up to where the moons are.
Yes, microbes can survive harsh treatment, but would it be contamination if they survived on Jupiter? I think IO or Europa are right out, but Jupiter is a viable option. I say, if they survive going in there with those pressures and that heat, they're welcome to that planet. :)
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Yes, but according to the books, those little gas-bags are at an evolutionary dead end anyway: incapable of leaving their thin layer of Jupiter's environment either up or down. Since Jupiter is going blow up and turn into another star next year anyway, we might as well crash it there. Ahh, science fiction: survival of the fittest.
a) is there any particular reason why it can't be sent into the sun? i think it would burn up rather nicely before it even got close to the 'surface'. of course the sun is the last entity we should go playing with if we weren't sure of the results.. if we fsck it up, we're all in a right spot of bother. Also, McNealy would probably be majorly pissed when a few 100 tons of nuclear waste lands in his office as well.
b) doesn't this thing have brakes/thrusters or something? can't it just be stopped dead in space? or would other planets' gravity start to drag it about?
Also, if these microbes survive in space, wouldn't that be wonderful for the preservation of earth life? :)
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
My immediate thoughts about this are that whether by accident of design, we will transport 'life' to other planetary bodies anyway. It'll just hitch a lift. One of the supplied links gives details of how small organisms have been transported to the moon. It would seem a reasonable guess to suggest that just about any planetary body we've sent a probe or craft to has probably got them too. Take, for example, the Mars lander craft. Even if it crashed and was broken into millions of little bits, there are probably bacteria and microbes kicking about. We also know that these are resilient little monsters too. Whilst that's got no real big short term implication, in the very long term we may have already started 'life' off somewhere in one form or another. Bacteria/microbes can mutate pretty quickly. It won't be long before they can withstand the environment. True, on hotter planets (Venus ?) the chances are pretty slim due to a pretty nasty atmosphere, but elsewhere, there's a pretty good chance we've done the work ourselves already. Meanwhile, why crash land the craft on Jupiter ? It may be inhospitable for us... but what about the little critters ? A 'self-destruct' button would be a much better idea - as long as nobody says, "What does this do ?". Alternatively, we could just send it out of the solar system into deep space, and see what it sends back... M.
Geez...where're your math skills? I don't care how empty the universe is, given the span of time the thing will drift (forever), it will eventually collide with each and every other body out there (assuming it's not destroyed in any given collision).
Come visit Shell Extension City
DAILY ROTATION
And I would have put your money that rabbits from England would never hack the Australian climate and indigenous life.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
>If it does, I would put my money on a planetful of life specially evolved for that planet's conditions over a couple dozen carpet-bagging bacteria from a warm and comfy inner-system world like Earth.
...life evolving especially for one planet would nessisarily be similar enough to the carpet-bagging bacteria to be at any risk.
-=The Rimstalker=-
-=The Rimstalker=-
I understand the difficulty the American Working Man has putting food
--
Where to start?
/. crowd.
Litter:OK, the probe is comprised of molecules of metal. To say, as many seem to, that these molecules are "unnatural" because they have been re-shaped by man is ridiculous. Look at your premises=Whatever happens (i.e.:meteor strike) NOT as the result of Mans' volition is good. Whatever happens by our actions is "unnatural".
WTF is the justification of this? I think this is an example of contamination of peoples thought processes. What happens naturally, whether it is the inexorable result of a clockwork universe or the Will of GOD, should not be elevated to a "morally" superior position in our considerations. (Morality itself being an "unnatural" and somewhat arbitrary product of evil polluting humans.) If you think it should be, MAKE THE F*ING ARGUMENT-otherwise STFU!!
Biological contamination:To say that because some microbes may have survived the gentle moon landing that some MAY survive the fiery holocaust of a desent into Jovian atmosphere is ridiculous.
And even IF...
IF there are life forms adapted to the wildly different conditions of Jupiter, they will not be threatened by microbes not adapted to those conditions. We don't exactly need a St. George to drive the snakes out of Antarctica, do we?
Time scale: SO WHAT? If you want to consider this probe "pollution" (as opposed to good, "natural" extraplanetary incursions like meteors), what will its' effect be in...2 million years? Because that's the time frame we ought to consider.
Extrasolar trajectory: Again, SO WHAT? Your advanced "math" shows that "eventually" the probe will run into something if we shoot it out of the Solar System? When? Again, millions of years, and I don't think we've done even a million-year study of microbal survival. Also, of all the places the probe might eventually impact (suns, black holes, dense gas clouds, atmosphereless rocks), what percent do you think have ANY chance of supporting ANY type of life? I'm too lazy to do that math, but I'm guessing...pretty close to zero.
"But Mr. Science, we can't be SURE can we?"
"No...not perfectly, exactly, 100% sure, Bobby. "
"Then why can't we bring back that nasty contaminated old probe and put it in a garbage sack and throw it away?"
"You're off the show, Bobby."
I would've expected better than Oprah-level posts from the
Brad
"The enemy of science is not religion, but ignorance."- some famous dead guy.
"To be fair, I was left completely unsupervised." ~Anon
"...it seems a but hypocritical that we as humans, show so much concern about the potential life on a planet so far away (especially when the likelyhood there is life is so small), when we do not give a damn about our own planet."
Don't overgeneralize. While it's clear that humans as a set often show very callous and shortsighted behavior, NASA as a subset is in a position not only to seriously consider the impact of its actions on others, but also do something about it. The fact that they are taking advantage of their position to act in a humane way is not hypocritical at all. Would that other subsets did as much, or even half as much!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Yes, Earth's microbes would only take jobs that rightfully belong to Europa's microbes! ;-)
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
on board that thing?
and given the pressures and heat of jupiters
atmosphere.. umm wont it go bang?
hmmm
*ponder*
dms0
You should feel guilty if your just watching - ATR
Well, here goes my karma....
Gee...Animals killing animals and plants. Hmm... that never happened before humans came along.
You know, recently it was discovered that animals were killing each other millions of years before the first humans came along.
More seriously, when I hear something like this, it just starts to fade off into a high-pitched dog whine.
Crashing was just a way of putting it . What is of more concern is that NASA has a limited Deep Space network which is used in turns to control various spacecraft. This network has till now never ever tried to control two spacecraft at the same time and if something goes wrong with Galileo it could hog the network and Cassini could go out of contact .Also their control signals (which are very strong as they have to be to reach Earth) could interfere with each other as obviously such a joint mission was not in the original mission specs and they have not been designed keeping this in mind
**Life is too short to be serious**
And the question is: Can cockroaches fly?
Fuck yeah. I used to live in an apartment on Peterborough Street in Boston and every time I turned on the oven thousands of roaches would pour out of the stove, jumping to the safety of the floor or my clothes. They have vestigial wings and fly about as well as chickens.
It was like something from a horror movie.
I mailed a box of dead roaches to my landlord with the rent check in the middle. He was not amused.
He came over with a cop and I end up showing the cop all of the roaches that were painted over when they redid the walls. Little lumpy white spots under the paint. I kept popping them like bubblewrap until the cop started getting sick. He left after telling the landlord to expect a visit from Inspectional Services.
I finally got the landlord to spring for an exterminator and he gets this guy who must have been the model for Hans Moleman from the Simpsons.
"Watch this," he said, emptying a rubber syringe of yellow powder in the suspended ceiling. What ever that was got every fucking roach's full attention. They start pouring out of the ceiling and walls, out of the stove and under the fridge and sink.
"They don't like that," he said, totally deadpan. It was like Yoda meets the Orkin Man. This guy knew his roaches.
We lived there for two more years until the roof collapsed.
Oh, and we had bats, too.
So, yeah. Roaches fly.
k.
--
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people
are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
The Magellan Venus orbiter was sent in an "aerobrake test" that burned it up - but what if it had detected changes on the surface of Venus on a second mapping run, which would have meant the HUGE discovery of active volcanism there.
The Aerobreaking maneover was a success. It put Magellan in a better orbit to view even more of the planet. Stop speaking unless you know what is actually happening. Besides, Magellean had already mapped/viewed everything it could from it's old orbit (it was rather escentric) so it need to move. It worked for another two years before it finally went dead. Sometimes NASA needs to take some risks with extraterrestally probes. The shutting down of Voyager 2 was discussed because they didn't think that they could get to the other two planets before they really thought about it. And Iridium will come down anyway, regardless of what Motorola does. The orbits are degrading such that they'll all be down in three years anyway. Motorola just doesn't want them to come down on someone's house. I also do see how the satalite was destroyed in an SDI test, since to my knowledge all SDI tests have been on earth and none in space. And further more the satalites belong to them. You wouldn't want someone comming in and taking your stuff, just because you we're finished with them.
Yeah, but what happens when we get over there in X decades (where X is some 2 digit number, IMO) and discover that our "fit" little microbes have destroyed the only extra terrestrial life in the solar system?
It's kinda like all the bunnies in Australia, on an interplanetary scale...
Intolerant people should be shot.
Oh Shit! What if the Earth were to imact some poor uninhabited piece of space debris? Imagine the potential for bio-contamination! Geez, we better crash it into the Sun before anything bad happens!
/. (too lazy to look it up at the moment, maybe later if someone hasn't already) and the discussions were identical.
Seriously, this came up a while ago on
a) probablilty of Galileo crashing into IO - 0.00000000(some few million zeros later) 0001
b) probablility that some few microbes present on the craft still viable - 0.00000(who really knows)0001
c) probablilty that viable microbes present on spacecraft will survive impact on Io and cause bio-contamination - 0.000(even more zeroes right of the decimal)0001
d) given the alternative to destroy the craft in the Jupiter atmosphere and the even more remote probability of doing any damage there, my problem with the whole idea - 0
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Consider if Galileo is placed on a trajectory to exit our solar system. Eventially, someday, in some way our little Galileo will impact something in the inuverse and contaminate it. We're just as much a part of the galaxy as everything else in it and we will "contaminate" no matter how carefull.
Not likely. Perhaps you forget how empty space really is. Consider that two spiral galaxies such as ours can pass *THROUGH* each other, and very few, if any, collisions between stars occur. Now a couple hundred thousand stars in such close proximity never collide, the chances of a single spacecraft running into something, and even further something capable of sustaining life in any degree, I don't think there's much to worry about.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
If you're clever enough to come up with some other place for this ship to go, great, but otherwise cut the Sci Fi fantasizing.
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
I think people fail to realize that NASA has been fairly responsible in their space endeavors. For example, NASA only uses decaying radioactive materials in spacecraft that do not orbit Earth, and only when the power requirements of the craft deem it absolutely necessary (i.e. it is impossible to power it with solar panels due to solar distance and weight). NASA even went as so far as to worry about the tiny ammount of radioactives on the Lunar Module of Apollo 13, as to plot a much more risky (to the crew) return trajectory (with additional corrections) so as to not have the LIM crash into anything but a remote and deep watery grave (see "From the Earth to the Moon: Episode 8" to hear more on "the Nuke Problem" as the media called it).
This is in stark contrast to numerous Russian Earth orbitals, including even purely scientific ones! Take note of a Russian scientific satellite that contaminated hundreds of square miles (600 mi^2 I believe) of Canadian national forest when its return trajectory was not accomodated correctly. And I need not mention that it is still up in the air whether or not the Russian military, let alone our own, uses radioactives in Earth orbiting platforms.
Give NASA a break guys!
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
No way - that's not until 2010.
Seriously, since the environment of Jupiter is much less earthlike than the environments of Europa or Io, it's probably safer to drop Galileo into Jupiter. None of our bugs will be able to hurt anything that has evolved under those conditions, and the space probe will just be another meteorite out of many in the Jovian system.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
And can Jupiter be said to have a real surface?
Possibly.
As anyone who has read 2010 will know, it seems quite likely that the core of Jupiter may well be a solid diamond the size of the earth.
Look out, De Beers...
Thay just don't want the Jupiterian to get his hands on our technology.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Re:" it seems awful selfish to put the creation of knowledge above the creation of life.
Yes! Life happens. let it.
___
Classic!
Absolutly classic.
I never realized that violating a companies trade secrets could be so easy.
___
We can look at the rentry of these little microbes into a planet as kinda like rush week in college. If you survive, you deserve to stay. survival of the fitest? Only the strong survive? :)
___
Just a little nudge in the right direction should do the trick (eventually). Also we get to restrict all our rubbish to our own solar system.
See this link to read how microbes survived on the moon after a lunar missions.
Jeff
stty erase ^H
So, I'm thinking the roach episode of X-Files didn't make you get all freaked and disgusted like it did to everyone else?
Intolerant people should be shot.
It is a well-documented fact that the only organism capable of surviving the extreme conditions (low temperature, radiation, lack of oxygen and water) that Galileo has experienced are cockroaches. The real reason that NASA want to crash land Galileo is to kill off any cockroaches that had stowed away on Galileo, because they are afraid that the cockroaches will colonize Io and Europa. If the cockroaches were allowed to colonize these moons freely, there is a significant danger that they could develop spacecraft and weapons of mass destruction, and then come back to conquer Earth. The US Government realises the superiority of cockroaches and is so scared about the threat of a Space Cockroach invasion that they are willing to resort to these drastic measures. Remeber, cockroaches are everywhere... they're constantly plotting to overthrow mankind and take control of Earth. Be scared.
--
--
Donald "Don Juan" Kerr
Is a stable orbit around Jupiter feasable? Galileo's not got a lot of fuel left for corrections, and there's some rather large objects whipping about the area that would presumably have enough of an effect to make corrections neccessary...
Intolerant people should be shot.
Big/fast rock slams into Mars and fragments end up as metorites on Anarctica. Maybe they contain Martian microbes? Long ago, this could have seeded life on Earth: "we are all Martians". But: where did/do most of the big/fast rocks end up? - not Mars or Earth, but Jupiter, or it's backyard. So maybe big chunk of infected ice from Europa or one of the other icy moons hits Mars, hits Earth. We are all Europans? Prediction: life on Mars/Europa will be found to contain the same DNA technology as L-o-E. Europa cooler than Earth : also cooler than Mars, probably. Ancient life (ancestor life?) might have changed less there than here. Life in the freezer. It would be an experimental error to introduce Terran organisms before we analyse the aboriginal life. Morality / Greenpeace arguments are not relevant. By0rder
They are certainly right to be the most concerned about Europa, since the probabilty that life is significantly higher than most places. Think about how cool a mission to Europa would be too.
A specially designed space probe lands on the surface of ice covering the ocean and drills (or slams through the ice, much more dramatic). Water is extracted into a sterile vessel, and shot back up and sent to earth for examination.
How cool would a manned mission to space, into another planet, into an artic region, and then underwater be?
Eh...
The article mentions that Galileo wont be destroyed until it takes part in joint observations with Cassini at the end of the year.
;)
Two Questions
1> Is it wise to risk Cassini a craft which has not yet started on its main mission alongside a decrepit old craft like Galileo long past its lifetime. What if Galileo collides with Cassini or causes some interference or the like.
Obviously these craft were not degigned keeping in mind a joint mission and may have interfering control frequencies and like
2>On a lighter note if NASA can mix up feet and meters what if they mix them up and crash Cassini and send Galileo to Saturn
**Life is too short to be serious**
Precisely. Use the word "contamination" and suddenly every Jovian microbe-hugger in the world crawls out and says "Bravo!" Use the word "colonization" or "terraforming", well now that's another story isn't it? I'd imagine every nanotech and biotech nut on Slashdot would have an opinion on how to do it best, wouldn't they? (That's a much better thread too, if you ask me). Really - lets think about this. Yes - I guess we DO want to study extra-terrestial lifeforms if we can. But is it REALLY at all likely that our Terran microbes could live to supplant a Europan ecosystem (if there is one) before we get there to look at it **before** we wipe it out on purpose? No. Not likely and it is not even remotely a real possibility. If it was - then by definition, such lifeform wasn't that different an organism from our native life anyways - and therefore arguably, not so terribly interesting (other than for the critical fact that it IS so similar). So what if there is life there? What if we go there *cough* (which is what this is really all about) *cough* and find out that we could terraform the planet, or at least, seed it for Terran DNA colonization? Don't we mean to do just that? Do you think for ONE MINUTE that our "Official Plan" is REALLY to look for barren rocks to colonize and leave all possible life bearing planets to their native dumn-luck-chances? No. That is NOT the plan and we need to get that clear right NOW. We respect sentient life. But if its Euopropan microbes vs. Terran Algae - the Algae wins every single god-damned time. Same goes for even one Strep Bacillus. Are we clear on this point? Moreover, we only contaminate the planet in some meaningful way if our life-forms supplant native ones. Frankly, the thought that we could get an earthbased microbe to flourish on Europa is the kind of thing that we could justify spending a few generations of our best and brightest minds on together with significant portions of GDP for that VERY EXPRESS PURPOSE. Admittedly - I am not a fan of wiping out a life-form before we can get a chance to study it. But -for the record NASA - Eupropa is NOT for the Europans. That moon is OURS. We clear on that? If you don't agree - find work elsewhere. My honest opinion on this though - it has nothing to do with pollution control, this is SPIN Control. This is about budgets and Congress. Congress won't fund a mission to Mars (or Europa) to go look for rocks. Rocks aren't worth a trillion dollars - not even pretty red ones from Mars. A search for life IS worth that money. Ever since NASA opined that life may be/once was on Mars from some VERY equivocal pictures of a supposed microbial fossil on an old meteorite, NASA has suddenly found itself BACK in the manned space mission game. So. This isn't about saving Europan microbes from a Terran DNA holocaust - its about making people think that NASA reasonably believes there might actually BE microbes there in the first place. And therefore, we all should too. "I WANT TO BELIVE". Nothing more, nothing less. Once people start talking seriously about "saving Europan microbes", its a short hop to persuading them to pay for NASA to go look at them. That's what this whole water/life on Mars slant has been about folks. It's the only hook that NASA knows will get them funding. More power to em. But save Europan microbes from Terran DNA? Puhleeze... .Robert
.Robert
It was a robot story, so you should be able to guess the author -- he's one of the all time top 10 masters. That particular story (starring robots ZZ-1, 2 & 3) is a followup to a previous story about the discovery of forcefields, and both are available in at least two different anthologies.
One of the Apollo missions (I forget which one) landed near one of the landers, and brought it's camera back. Researchers opened it up, and found bacteria still inside it. They fed the little buggers, and the begin reproducing. So, bacteria could begin reproducing, and we could get the Australia effect as I call it. Where all the little Earth bacteria kill all the native creatures off.
.sdrawkcab si gis siht
It is difficult to form any kind of opinion regarding this "case" whilst so little is known about the problem. It would at least be usefull, considering you have all the facts, to know if you felt that osm has been treated as badly as it appears.
Whatever, I wish him well. He's a talented guy.
Regards
Anyone ever read "Behold a Pale Horse?" by William Cooper. If you had read it, you'd know that it says that Galileo was meant as a means to ignite Jupiter as a sun. Apparently (according to this book), NASA scientists are not only not worried about contamination of other moons, planets, etc. they know that is they were to crash it into anything other that jupiter that the 5 or so megaton bomb on Galileo would'nt make quite the same "boom" as it would if it were to explode on Jupiter. The book also says that that we would quickly have a new star in our solar system after the explosion. I dont share these opinions with the author, who if I remember right claims to be an Ex-Naval Intelligence Officer, but it does make an interesting read. There are others subjects in the book like, the IRS, FEMA, etc... Get info here.
-Gabriel-
Consider if Galileo is placed on a trajectory to exit our solar system. Eventially, someday, in some way our little Galileo will impact something in the inuverse and contaminate it. We're just as much a part of the galaxy as everything else in it and we will "contaminate" no matter how carefull.
In a way this reminds me of animal right activist trying to save only the really cute animals. Cute little io?! noo! ! noo!! ! don't club that little baby seal . .but big nasty mean ol jupiter?? let the hammer fall! !
___
But yes, you are right, it's a new weaker nuclear force. The problem with it is that it is so weak it's hardly detectible in the turbulent surroundings on earth. I'll send you a mail if I found out where I read it.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Wouldn't they be just a little pissed off about us crashing a probe onto their planet.
:)
Anyway i'd reckon nasa probably need a bigger target to aim at
Go ahead and crash it. In 100 years we will be able to fly over there in minutes, beam it aboard, and disentegrate it properly.
Dirk
No, I wasn't turning this into a religious discussion, I'm handling that elsewhere (in the book review of that book about god, whatever it was called, I posted 30 replies in that discussion alone).
I don't care what Christians do to justify their beliefs as long as they don't try to force them on me. It would be nice if I could understand them, sometimes I do, but mostly not.
Now, on the matter of microbes in space being better suited news for slashdot than the killing of human beings on Earth, I must say: Yes.
Harsh as it might seem, this is not a "general" news page. It's a page for news about computers and technology. If you want news about people dying in all sorts of horrid accidents and wars, just turn on the TV. I think that's covered enough in the rest of the media. This media right here is for news about nerds. Or nerdy stuff. :)
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
Open or closed, forever is forever, and everything must occur (infinite times) before eternity ceases, by definition. In other words, nothing can not happen. All you have to think about are the three monkeys eternally at the typewriter. Will they eventually recreate all the literature of the world, or will they just continue to create nonsense? Both. Thus, I stand on my point. Uh...maybe anyway....
DAILY ROTATION
Isn't it sort of depressing to see the spread of life considered
"contamination". The justification is that it could screw up future
experiments for the discover of existing (or past) life forms. I'll
grant that, but it seems awful selfish to put the creation of
knowledge above the creation of life.
I think we should be sending little microbes to Europa by the million,
in hopes that maybe, just maybe, one could mutate into a viable life
form. In the big picture, the odds of mankind maintaining a space
bearing capacity for tens of thousands (or millions) of years is quite
small. In 10,000 years we may not even have a written language. Then
what would be more important, the lost knowledge of past life on
Europa, or the thriving existence of life there from our casting of a
seed.
Look around, life spreads. Thats so much of what it does it could
almost be considered a definition of life. Sending microbes to Europa
isn't pollution, it's as natural as it gets. We should feel obligated
spread the magic of life, while we still can.
Really, mankind should try surviving for a few million years before it thinks itself the crown of creation.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
The idea that keeps bothering me is how exactly we're going to terraform Mars when the time comes. We could start trying to produce a strain of plants that can live in that environment. If we found ice caps though, I was thinking that maybe using a nuke or two on them to melt the ice in to water and get some of the green house gases going to make the place a little bit more hospitable.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
You ran this story in March, Emmitt. NASA may deliberately crash Galileo
While it was interesting then, is it still news now?
---
Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
I'm also sure they can climb trees, they just haven't found any good reason to do it yet.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography." - Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)
There are many forms of extremely robust replicator on our planet. I doubt any would survive the firey descent into Jupiter's atmosphere, but some might, and even survive the strange chemical conditions and crushing pressures of Jupiter's atmosphere.
While releasing microbes on Jupiter to see if they survive is an interesting idea, I think doing so when we know so little about that planet is reckless. I would rather pick a moon of Jupiter that we think has extremely slim chances for life existing on it, and crash it there. Perhaps one of the small, rocky ones with very little ice.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
OK, maybe I am missing something here, but isn't our highest duty to the Schizmatrix to bring another world up to the next Prigogenic Level of Complexity?
Humor aside, I think that NASA is overreacting. Either Europa has life or it doesn't. If it doesn't, we should hope that it is 'contaminated'. If it does, I would put my money on a planetful of life specially evolved for that planet's conditions over a couple dozen carpet-bagging bacteria from a warm and comfy inner-system world like Earth.
It is pathetic that the government's retreat from space is so complete that we are now trying to eradicating any evidence that we were even there.
When I get my asteroid-mining operation off the ground, I'm throwing all the profits into expansion and terraforming research. ;)
Some of them do. I have seen some cockroaches fly, but I guess it depends which species of cockroach it is. The ones I saw were in the tropics, in the Indian Ocean.
Galileo has a much too high orbital velocity and not enough propellant to get to the sun.
Does that mean that it can't get to Earth either? I would think that that would be the best solution; since it's Earth crap that's on the probe to begin with, why not send it back to its place of origin?
My Mother wishes to point out that we mitochondria are proof that not all life forms which invade another creature are harmful. Thank you.
Here we go again...crashing spacecraft, but on purpose for a change. In this case, Europa is surely a concern, but NASA and others have crashed plenty of spacecraft just to clear the slate and start on another project. Its about money, just check out this quote from the linked report: "The Io plus Amalthea option is not consistent with Galileo's current budget plan." There are many other examples. NASA allowed a functioning solar observing satellite to be destroyed in a Star Wars test even tho the satellite was observing a whole new category of sun-grazing comets it had discovered. The Magellan Venus orbiter was sent in an "aerobrake test" that burned it up - but what if it had detected changes on the surface of Venus on a second mapping run, which would have meant the HUGE discovery of active volcanism there. The recent Lunar Polar Orbiter was crashed on the day its money ran out, and while sending up a plume of steam after hitting an icepack (it didn't) would have been a spectacular home run, a better plan would have been to fund it long enough to drop the orbit and skim the supposed ice crater at close range as many times as possible. Motorola is ready to let the Iridium system become a $3 billion fireworks display. Back in the 80s NASA seriously considered shutting down Voyager 2 before it got to Uranus and Neptune as a cost cutting measure - the primary mission was only Jupiter and Saturn. Somehow an effort needs to be organized where functioning spacecraft get turned over to interested third parties when the Big Boys get tired of playing with them...
If they don't want to contaminate Io/Europa, why are they happy to contaminate Jupiter? I'm not sure I see the difference. Granted, from current evidence life is far more likely to occur on Jupiters moons that on the planet itself, but until we can prove that I don't see why we should think about contaminating anything.
NASA are of course doing a fine thing by showing their concern, so hats off to them. It would be a shame to destroy any potential life without even having discovered it first.
Having said that, it seems a but hypocritical that we as humans, show so much concern about the potential life on a planet so far away (especially when the likelyhood there is life is so small), when we do not give a damn about our own planet. Our waste kills millions of organisms every day, and God knows how many microorganisms (which is what we will find on these planets, if we find anything) are made extinct every day and we don't even know it.
Are alien organisms more important? To they have a greater right to live than earth organisms?
But, do not allow this act of "space hygiene" to cloud your vision. NASA and all the other space agencies in the world have been leaving tonnes of shit floating round our planet for the past 40 years.
Why this sudden change of heart?
"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach 18" Einstein
Why should we start contaminating another orbiting rock, though? Yes, nobody disagrees that we should stop contaminating this planet, but just because the pollution of Earth is already ongoing, this doesn't excuse the decision to purposely contaminate another "world" that may end up in an evolutionary state eventually. Using the "why start now" excuse is very weak and doesn't even work here on Earth (why not just say "well, in the past, we've experimented on humans without their consent, so why not just keep doing it?"). The damage is done here, but not elsewhere yet, so why start now? If you disagree so strongly with the pollution of this planet, then you should surely object to intentionally polluting another. And, regarding your comments on the inhabitants of Europa getting pissed and saying something about it, I highly doubt that they would or could since conditions on Europa cannot support such a life form in our current estimation.
Doesn't this have less to do with biological contamination than with the plutonium these types of probes use for a power source?
Oops, your right, busted. I guess I'm just pissed because I can't take a Pan-Am flight to the moon, and my computer doesn't sing "Daisy". Arthur C. Clark was a damn liar :)
Of course, there is one ironic thing about quoting 20xx in this thread. IIRC, didn't the aliens on Europa end up using a crashed spaceship to their survival advantage? Initially, the Monolith provided them shelter outside the water. Later, when that ship crashed landed on Europa, the aliens ended up scavanging the ship, making a home out of it? Been a while since I read those books...
What is this non-sense? Galileo is already dead, and the Earth is flat. NASA should just get over it, and accept that...
I think the theory is that both IO and Eurpoa have environments that are similar to ones on earth where we have found life.
Jupiter is a better bet as we can pretty much guarentee that Galileo with be totally burn up if dropped on Jupiter. Also the extreme pressures mean that there are no environments that are similar to those on earth.
But for those who have read 2001/2010/2061 stories, I can say I am worried we will splat some of those gase sac creature things!
"This marks a complete reversal of policy for NASA", he stated, "Currently we crash our spacecraft at the start of the mission".
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------