Russia's Mars Mission Raising Concerns

eldavojohn writes "Space.com has a blog on Russia's Phobos-Grunt project designed to explore the planet further. He voices concerns about part of this exploration that is dubbed LIFE (Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment) and backed by The Planetary Society that involves sending several samples of Earth's hardiest microbes to see if they can survive the round trip voyage. Space.com's correspondent Leonard David did some legwork to ensure that The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 was being upheld as it prevents cross-contamination between planets and receives some interesting responses from experts on this mission. The Phobos-Grunt mission will also deploy a Chinese sub-satellite 'Firefly-1,' which will attempt to figure out how water on Mars disappeared. Unfortunately, The United States is not taking part in Phobos-Grunt."

Comments

Re:Who cares?

[OglinTatas]

"It's the tiny difference between finding extraterrestial life, or not. In exchange for... Absolutely nothing!"

If 1950s scifi movies have taught me anything, it is that "there are some things mankind was not meant to know"

Re:Well a lot of people do care

[eln]

Of course. Everyone knows that the primary difference between almost all intelligent life throughout the universe is forehead appearance.

Re:The "New World"

[Man On Pink Corner]

No, but it can keep overpopulation (and other ills) from destroying every last vestige of civilization.

The dinosaurs died because they insisted on "fixing problems here on Earth first."

Re:The "New World"

[nizo]

Considering they had 165 million years to develop a space program and get off this rock I'd say it is totally their fault.