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?

[Thanshin]

The only potential downside to it that I can see is if it obscures evidence that life existed on other planets.

And wouldn't you say it's a pretty huge downside?

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

Does't seem like a great deal.

Re:Who cares?

[eldavojohn]

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'.

Well, the article cites fear of Forward-Contamination which is

the contamination of other worlds with Earth microbes. The risk of forward-contamination is twofold: that human beings may accidentally seed a previously sterile world, thus creating "extraterrestrials" that are really of terrestrial origin (and which might even make it impossible to determine whether the life later found is terrestric or local); or that an actual alien biosphere could be devastated by Earth's bacteria.

So if these escape on Mars and we land later and find microbes how do we know that 1) they aren't really terrestrial or evolved descendants of our microbes and 2) they didn't inadvertently disrupt or destroy original organisms to the planet.

I think it's more so a caution but scientists and people interested in the idea of life forming independently on other planets care very much so.

infocom tag

[Speare]

With a mission name like Phobos-Grunt, I was immediately tempted to add the 'leathergoddesses' tag. Now if only I could find my "T remover" device.

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"

A ridiculous interpretation of this treaty.

[tjstork]

Read the Treaty Text. The original poster is a retard. The original purpose of the outer space treaty was essentially a deal to keep a great power from "taking over" space, made at a time, when the military importance of space was recognized but no leading nation was willing to bet its future on it winning the space race.

http://www.state.gov/t/ac/trt/5181.htm

There is absolutely nothing that precludes the deposit of life on other planets. Its legal to seed the moon, mars or any other body with life and to terraform it.

Re:A ridiculous interpretation of this treaty.

[Yvanhoe]

From your link, by searching for "contamination"

Article IX

In the exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, States Parties to the Treaty shall be guided by the principle of co-operation and mutual assistance and shall conduct all their activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, with due regard to the corresponding interests of all other States Parties to the Treaty. 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.

The debate is already in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars" novel : should we protect other planets from earth's lifeforms ? While it would be nice to find definite proofs in favor or against panspermia, I would tend to be in favor of as much contamination as possible, as early as possible. Terraformation will eventually be scheduled. The sooner we start, the better.

Re:A ridiculous interpretation of this treaty.

[smoker2]

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.

Re:Not really a downside.

[khallow]

Hey, wouldn't a successful transplant of an organism from one planet to another show that life is more possible?

No. Given that the laws of physics apply everywhere, we expect Earth life to live anywhere there are suitable conditions. We also have a pretty good of what are "suitable conditions". In other words, we know that successful transplant of an organism from one planet to another is possible. Actually doing it is much less useful as a result.

Well, no, because, if you put life on Mars, there would be extraterrestrial life, now, wouldn't it?

Nope. It'd be terrestrial life on another planet. The point remains. If something is living on Mars now that isn't something we dragged from Earth, then that is tremendously valuable, even if it turns out to be equivalent to primitive bacteria. If we put terrestrial life on Mars, we risk destroying this data.

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:Who cares?

[eldavojohn]

the problem with being concerned with forward contamination is that you can't even step off into the bushes and take a shit.

Are we really able to put a person on the moon but not properly dispose of their waste?

these are real issues, but until we actually go to some other worlds and kill them all off with smallpox blankets we can't really be sure who, if anyone, is actually in danger.

I'm not sure why you brought up smallpox blankets ... I thought those were things designed to destroy the populations of already known indigenous peoples? I think a better analogy would be the rats that were on board the ship from Europe that made it to the New World or maybe even the pigs that escaped and made short work of the squash/tuber/corn plant systems the Native Americans depended so heavily upon? Look around you, there are many species in North America that were 'accidentally' brought here. Look at the Kudzu vine that was in resource contention with plants that didn't stand a chance against it? Smallpox blankets were basically germ warfare ... why would we bring germ warfare to another planet?

we can't really be sure who, if anyone, is actually in danger. the big question (other than, is there life out there not based on ours or that we are not based on) is whether life necessarily follows the same lines, or is different enough to where it won't matter.

Well, I have more faith in our current technologies and I am saddened that you don't think we can learn from our errors. You seem to be resigned to the fact that we will destroy whatever we visit but I disagree. We have the ability to manufacture germ free CPUs here on earth and I think we should do our best to keep our external systems and machines also germ free. I think we have even been fairly successful in that.

Lastly, this outer space treaty was signed by many countries and for good reason: all the scientist thought it an absolute necessity.

competition versus cooperation

[khallow]

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.

Re:Who cares?

[Shakrai]

and no realistic hope of ever leaving the Solar System

That's a pretty pessimistic view. Is our knowledge of the universe so complete that you feel safe making that assumption?

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:Not really a downside.

[khallow]

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?

Re:Who cares?

[mapsjanhere]

The whole "keep Mars sterile" will go out of the window as soon as we put humans on the surface. It's impossible to 100% decontaminate the space suits before every single EVA. So we better figure out first if there's any indigenous life form close enough to our own make-up (if we find living silicon on Mars we probably didn't transfer it, but anything DNA based would be highly suspicious). I've worked on Mars sample return projects, and the requirements are pretty damn strict. But guaranteeing that not a single mold spore survives anywhere is pretty much impossible.

Re:Not really a downside.

[bds1986]

I'm sure some people might not have seen the tremendous value in the mould gave us penicillin. Fortunately someone did.

Protecting Earth's Species

[sherriw]

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.

I love the way

[Giant Electronic Bra]

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.

Re:I love the way

[TWX]

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.

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?

Wouldn't that gravity well be better on the biology of those living there than the microgravity associated with smaller rocky bodies?

Plus, wouldn't even a thin atmosphere be better for protection and help reduce the need for vacuum-proof structures than near-vacuum conditions?

Wouldn't Mars also be more desirable because it has mostly cleared the neighborhood of other heavenly objects such that the risk of one's home being smashed into by another particularly large rock is massively diminshed?

Wouldn't the fact of working in an environment with an up, a down, and other gravity-based rules like that which we have on Earth be easier for workers who have to do things like maintenance, construction, and the like be better than attempting to work in microgravity where accidently losing a tool means that it's probably gone forever instead of being able to just bend down and pick it up off the ground?

Wouldn't it be fairly practical to bore down into Mars to construct a habitat with significantly less materials (like basically a cap at the top of the bore hole) such that materials from Earth aren't depleted nearly as much for space?

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to distill elements from an atmosphere to come up with that which we need to survive as compared to attempting to find them in the vacuum of space?

There are many good reasons for looking at Mars too, beyond the adventuring spirit.

Re:I love the way

[Giant Electronic Bra]

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.

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?

Wouldn't that gravity well be better on the biology of those living there than the microgravity associated with smaller rocky bodies?

What evidence is there to support that hypothesis? Granted, it is not far fetched, but we don't actually KNOW what
level of gravity has what effects. My guess would be that some effects might be mitigated, maybe even completely, others
might not be significantly reduced at all.

Plus, wouldn't even a thin atmosphere be better for protection and help reduce the need for vacuum-proof structures than near-vacuum conditions?

No, because the atmosphere of Mars is already close enough to a vacuum that from a physiological standpoint the
difference is irrelevant. The atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars is 6 millibars, 1/150th of the pressure at
the surface of the Earth. From a standpoint of engineering a structure or breathing, it is no better than a vacuum. Yet
from the standpoint of carrying dust into everything and possibly facilitating corrosion and other equipment damage it
could prove to be quite a serious problem. So, I would, as an engineer, MUCH rather deal with the problems of the Lunar
environment than the Martian environment, since I will avoid all of those problems.

Wouldn't Mars also be more desirable because it has mostly cleared the neighborhood of other heavenly objects such that the risk of one's home being smashed into by another particularly large rock is massively diminshed?

Exactly how often do you think main belt asteroids collide with each other? On average not often at all. In fact such
collisions probably only happen once in many millions of years, possibly billions of years. Those bodies which were in orbits which were likely to collide with things mostly did so billions of years ago and were either sent into orbits where they no longer hit other stuff or were pounded to bits long ago. The chances of an asteroid hitting Mars are actually probably at least as high as those of one asteroid hitting another. Besides, if you have the technology to live on an asteroid, you can probably shift its orbit by a few 100 meters if you ever need to...

Wouldn't the fact of working in an environment with an up, a down, and other gravity-based rules like that which we have on Earth be easier for workers who have to do things like maintenance, construction, and the like be better than attempting to work in microgravity where accidently losing a tool means that it's probably gone forever instead of being able to just bend down and pick it up off the ground?

Oh, it would probably be easier for you or me right now today, no doubt. However zero g assembly IN GENERAL should be
quite easy. No need for massive cranes, scaffolds, support structures, etc. I highly suspect that once we are even 1/8th
as knowledgeable about zero g construction as we are about 1 g construction today we will have a much easier time with it.

Wouldn't it be fairly practical to bore down into Mars to construct a habitat with significantly less materials (like basically a cap at the top of the bore hole) such that materials from Earth aren't depleted nearly as much for space?

And why wouldn't this solution work equally well when dealing with an asteroid? In fact it seems to me it would work much better and be much easier. You don't have to DIG anything, just dump a whole lot of material around your habitat if thats what you need to do. No need to worry about tunneling or weight, etc. It

Re:Spock cares!

[Windows_NT]

then we need a solar wind-shield!

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.

Re:Spock cares!

[pleappleappleap]

That's just wrong. It's not the relative amount of carbon dioxide which is important. It's the absolute concentration of carbon dioxide which is important. Mars is so cold because its atmosphere is so thin. Adding a thicker atmosphere will cause Mars to become warmer.