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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."
I don't know why we're so concerned about cross-contamination. The only potential downside to it that I can see is if it obscures evidence that life existed on other planets.
I just find it hard to care about balls of rock and their 'pristine environment'.
If we did discover native extra-terrestrial microbes it would answer a lot of interesting questions. If it had a similar DNA basis it would support the idea of panspermia - that life on earth may have been seeded by space. If it is totally different who knows what we might learn.
It would also be interesting to ask the young earth creationists on which day God created the Martian life and if Noah really had two of every species how did he get the samples form Mars.
Flying to another planet will never relieve overpopulation. Just think for maybe two seconds about the number of babies born every minute, and the resources required to send a kilogram to Mars, or anywhere else.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Unfortunately, The United States is not taking part in Phobos-Grunt."
What's unfortunate about this? Why should everyone participate in everything? As I see it competition remains the best form of cooperation. It is good that there are Mars missions that don't involve the US. That means that they can develope their own technology, procedures, etc without US contamination. We are more likely to see new innovations this way.
I don't really see the "tremendous value" in that knowledge. Or, more accurately, I can't fathom why that knowledge would be more valuable than learning that we can successfully transplant living organisms and watch them thrive.
What is the value of life in the first place? As I see it, it is the culmination of billions of years of evolution. The same goes for native life on Mars with one important exception. It is unlikely that there is any evolution in common with Earth (unless some of the panspermia theories are correct). New biological processes, new knowledge unlike anything seen on Earth. It might even be incorporated into terrestrial life at some point to improve survivability or other properties. That'd be valuable. And if we find evidence of panspermia. Then you have a huge puzzle bigger than merely figuring out how to spread life around.
I don't really care where life came from, I want to know where it can go.
It can go anywhere. So now that you know, can we get back to not erasing important data?
Arrogance and stupidity is a bad combination.
Really, such blatant grouping of an entire country under "arrogant and stupid" really speaks volumes of your own arrogance, and most importantly, your stupidity.
I'm sure some people might not have seen the tremendous value in the mould gave us penicillin. Fortunately someone did.
I find it funny that we are concerned with damaging an extraterrestrial biosphere but are completely ok with trashing our own. I bet those up in arms about some _potential_ mars bacteria being wiped out, give a shrug and a yawn when told of the countless Earth species on the brink of extinction. I'm not saying they aren't worth protecting, but rather, we need to get our priorities straight here on the ground too.
The 'real estate' value of Mars is always so totally overstated. NOBODY WILL EVER LIVE THERE. You want to know why?
1) Because it will make much more sense to live in free space (IE on an asteroid or space colony) where you avoid the huge energy cost of going up and down a gravity well.
2) Mars provides virtually nothing in the way of resources which are not available in places easier to get to.
3) The environment of Mars is actually MUCH harsher than the environment in space, and probably much harsher than the environment of the Moon. So why exactly would we so desire to live there?
4) If environments as harsh as Mars are desirable real estate for people to live on, then why aren't Antarctica and Green Land, and the Sahara Desert all chock full of people already? They are CERTAINLY much less harsh and much cheaper places to live. Good luck selling those Martian building lots...
5) Even speculating about Terraforming is pretty much beyond science. The time and energy inputs required are probably 1000's and maybe millions or billions of times anything we can deploy today. The time frame could easily range into the millions of years no matter how capable you are. There is certainly no sense at all in planning a space program based on a payoff that somehow relies on a technology that is no more than an idle dream which might exist in 200 or 1000 years, if ever.
This does all tie in to some extent to the OP, Mars' value is not ever going to be economic. Its value is purely scientific and there is no reasonable anticipation that it will ever be otherwise. Spoiling the pristine conditions on Mars would seriously degrade the value of exo-biology work done there in the future. So it IS a bad idea, and it would be a costly mistake.
Now, the question of the actual safety of Phobos-Grunt is a whole other thing. We'll just have to leave that to experts. At least they value the principle of avoiding contamination. Maybe they're a little biased, but the risk doesn't seem super excessive to me. OTOH it also sounds like the experiment itself is mostly a PR stunt, so on that basis I'd give it the thumbs down. Not worth making a huge stink about though.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Good luck with creating that Martian atmosphere.
The solar wind will rip it away as it forms.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Ahem,
States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose.
What does "them" refer to in that sentence ?
"And also" is part of the "to avoid" clause.
Surely if "them" or "their" referred to the States party to the Treaty, you wouldn't need the "and also" clause. "Harmful contamination" and "adverse changes in the environment" are almost synonymous. That they phrased it that way implies the separation of the two areas of concern.
Seems pretty clear to me. But then I have comprehension skills.
I don't really see the "tremendous value" in that knowledge. Or, more accurately, I can't fathom why that knowledge would be more valuable than learning that we can successfully transplant living organisms and watch them thrive.
If life happened to happen independently in the very same solar system then that says an enormous amount about the probability of life elsewhere in the galaxy.
just send a robot to go and die there. Really, it would a whole lot cheaper. Why do we need people there again?
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
We (other nations) have also benefited hugely from the US investment into science and space.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!