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Panel Recommends Mars Samples Be Quarantined
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."
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.
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The Apollo moon samples were also quarantined 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.
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.
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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.
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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 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.
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
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.
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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.