Mars Exploration Must Consider Contamination

letxa2000 writes: "CNN is reporting that the National Research Council has submitted a report to NASA that recommends certain precautions be taken if NASA is to send astronauts to Mars to guarantee that they don't bring back Mars-based bacteria and contaminate earth; including possibly banning the return vehicle from entering the Earth's atmosphere. What is the likelihood of bacterial life on Mars infecting the earth if we ever get around to visiting Mars in person?"

Comments

It doesn't hurt to take precautions

[Mr. Shiny And New]

A transplanted organism with no 'predators' would be a bad thing. Just look at what happened to Australia after Bart brought his frog there.

Infecting Mars

[txtger]

Another interesting possibility is that we may infect Mars. What if the astronauts get there, and some random bacteria is on their spacesuit? Or some other piece of equiptment for that matter? It 'd be like smallpox in the New World all over again. We could actually see life on Mars destroyed by our visit, before we ever actually get to see much of it.

Re:Infecting Mars

[mpe]

Goodness, let alone so-called Mars bacteria. Let's think about this - if Mars has bacteria on it at all, shouldn't it have evolved at roughly the same rate as Earth's?

You cannot compare. Since Martian bacteria would face different evolutionary preassures. On Mars surviving extremes to temperature is more important than on Earth. On Earth surviving in an oxygen rich environment is important, as is competition with all sorts of other organisms. (Including many which have sophisticated methods of killing bacteria.)

And the other way around?

[ixt]

Shouldn't we be more worried about the other way around first - the contamination of Mars by some Earthly micro-organism?

Lessons

[SkulkCU]

I think great care should be taken.

If I learned anything from the feature film Mission to Mars, it's that I should not have gone to see that movie. That, plus we have to be careful when we go to Mars. Yeah.

My apologies to real films.

How can we avoid it?

[ProfMoriarty]

The only potential way of doing this, would be to do a transfer of personel in space.

Of course the spacesuits would have to be decontaminated.

I know ... why not have the astronauts strip in space, then float over to the awaiting spacecraft ...

Seriously though ... can we prevent it? My bet would be that we can't be 100% guarenteed that we'd get all the bacteria/critters.

Re:Dumb question..Dumb Solution

[Tazzy531]

Sorry..but that is a rather dumb solution.

Remember that the distance between planets and the sun is exceptionally large. It's not like you say you go to the local pizza store on your way home from school. Whenever they try to get something close to Mars, there is a rather small window in which the planets are aligned correctly (mind you, not in a straight line, but in an orbital curve) That is the shortest distance between earth and mars. Now, what you are saying is to burn fuel so that it gets close to the sun, then turn around and burn more fuel to get away from the gravitational pull of the sun back to earth. Meanwhile doing this so that the orbit from mars, around the sun, back to earth is lined up. (Remember that nike's commercial? Over the garage, through the window, nothing but net!)

In addition, you mention a crew. The farthest that manned space missions have gone is to the moon and back. We barely have the resources nor the technology to get to Mars, nonetheless the sun. Anything that can kill bacteria will kill humans first. So exposing the entire ship to the gamma radiations of the sun is near suicide. Secondly, you would need a huge amount of life support system to keep the humans alive for the duration of the entire trip (earth to mars, mars to sun, sun to earth)

Now the thing here is this. You have the right idea. All in all, solar radiation can sterilize just about any bacteria that we know of. Just having a probe fly through the emptiness of space will sterilize the exterior. The part that they are concerned with is the cargo (ie, Martian rocks and stuff).

manned exploration of mars is premature

[j09824]

There is no reason to go through the enormous expense of sending humans to mars for now. It would be much cheaper and safer to send more robotic probes. Robotic probes can also be sterilized much more easily, reducing both the risk of contaminating earth with mars bacteria and contaminating mars with earth bacteria.

Once we know one way or another what kind of life exists on mars, then we can start thinking about sending humans. But that will invariably and irrevocably change mars.

How the hell should I know?

[Get Behind the Mule]

The submitter, apparently addressing the community of Slashdot readers, finishes with this question:

What is the likelihood of bacterial life on Mars infecting the earth if we ever get around to visiting Mars in person?

All right, Mr. Submitter, I'll answer your question: I haven't the foggiest idea. I've learned a little here or there about microorganisms and their possible existence outside of the Earth during my lifetime, and I regard myself as a relatively intelligent person, and tend to have strong opinions about most anything, including stuff I don't know much about. But the awful truth is that I'm not the least bit qualified to speculate on the likelihood of extraterrestrial infections on Earth. That's not an informative answer, I admit, but it's honest, and I daresay a great deal more honest than nearly all of the responses you've received so far.

To be sure, there have been a few replies so far that seem to be thoughtful and well-informed, and perhaps they come from people who really are qualified to answer the question; but like I said, I'm not really qualified to make that evaluation. Almost all of the rest, it seems to me, are comments from people who may be relatively intelligent, may have read a thing or two about the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and have all kinds of strong opinions about anything, and now they are speculating with wild abandon. Which is fun, but they will give you almost no reliable answers to your question, and may lead you completely astray.

You probably wouldn't be having this problem if you had posted this question in a forum about "News for Molecular Biologists, Stuff That Matters to Astrophysicists". Why did you expect you expect to get any useful answers here?