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Protecting the Solar System From Contamination

Posted by Soulskill on from the life-will-find-a-way dept.

tcd004 writes "An article at PBS begins, 'Imagine this crazy scenario: A space vehicle we've sent to a distant planet to search for life touches down in an icy area. The heat from the spacecraft's internal power system warms the ice, and water forms below the landing gear of the craft. And on the landing gear is something found on every surface on planet Earth... bacteria. Lots of them. If those spore-forming bacteria found themselves in a moist environment with a temperature range they could tolerate, they might just make themselves at home and thrive and then, well... the extraterrestrial life that we'd been searching for might just turn out to be Earth life we introduced.' The article goes on to talk about NASA's efforts to prevent situations like this. It's a job for the Office of Planetary Protection. They give some examples, including the procedure for sterilizing the Curiosity Rover: 'Pieces of equipment that could tolerate high heat were subjected to temperatures of 230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 144 hours. And surfaces were wiped down with alcohol and tested regularly.'"

121 comments

  1. And in the future... by Press2ToContinue · · Score: 3, Funny

    will the Office Of Planetary Protection will provide condoms in which to encase the astronauts?

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    1. Re:And in the future... by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Funny

      Depends on whether they're down with OPP.

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    2. Re:And in the future... by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      Actually, when two isolated human cultures meet, one of the first things trade are sexually transmitted diseases. The same thing will happen with aliens:

      "Captain, I know it was against orders . . . but I just couldn't resist her green scaly skin, her soft yellow underbelly, and her series of fin-like ridges running down here spine!"

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    3. Re:And in the future... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You and I have similar tastes.

    4. Re:And in the future... by maroberts · · Score: 1

      Actually, when two isolated human cultures meet, one of the first things trade are sexually transmitted diseases. The same thing will happen with aliens:

      "Captain, I know it was against orders . . . but I just couldn't resist her green scaly skin, her soft yellow underbelly, and her series of fin-like ridges running down here spine!"

      Dr McCoy calling James T. Kirk to the Medical Bay - again!

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    5. Re:And in the future... by kirjoittaessani · · Score: 1

      Does the word rishathra still exist?

    6. Re:And in the future... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Requires both participants to be hominids (genus homo).

  2. Too late... by Kenja · · Score: 2

    we're already here.

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    1. Re:Too late... by SourceFrog · · Score: 1

      I don't see how it's a bad thing to seed life on a lifeless planet. We could take a lifeless planet and in a few hundred million years complex life forms might evolve. This is bad how? I thought life is a good thing.

      Actually, thought experiment: If it's "better" to keep a planet lifeless and dead instead of seeding it with life, then wouldn't it also have been "better" if Earth had remained lifeless and dead?

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    2. Re:Too late... by SourceFrog · · Score: 2

      We could take a lifeless planet and in a few hundred million years complex life forms might evolve

      'Correction', I mean also, moons, e.g. Europa is one candidate.

      As far as we can tell, life is precious and valuable in this universe ... to inherently call life "contamination" smacks of some very broken way of thinking. If we see ourselves as "contaminating" other planets by colonizing them, then it is only logical that we must exterminate ourselves on Earth too, as we are a "contaminant". That would be silly.

      Of course, if there are existing complex life forms beneath the ice of Europa, then there can indeed be "contamination", in the sense of unleashing bacteria on them. But if it's just a matter of worrying that we're finding the same life we introduced, that's silly ... seeding life would be awesome.

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    3. Re:Too late... by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 1

      Yes, IF that planet really is lifeless. A single tiny non-terrestrial colony of bacteria would answer some of the biggest questions in biology and xenobiology, you have to know you've not infected the planet to use that data.

      Genesis is a wonderful power, but you've got to make sure you don't overwrite an existing matrix for the science to be any good, even if it's only a Ceti-Alphan earslug.

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    4. Re:Too late... by SourceFrog · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but we already don't really "know", due to meteor-based seeding that has been going on for a long time. I agree it is of course prudent to at least check for existing life before attempting to seed life (the summary implies a lifeless body as a contextual premise here).

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    5. Re:Too late... by SourceFrog · · Score: 1

      Of course, if we do seed life (and ultimately intelligent life) on other planets, we should leave them with some really confusing "guide-books" explaining their origins, as a prank.

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    6. Re:Too late... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If life does not exist anywhere else in the universe, it will be an unthinkable crime against the universe if we have the technology to spread life yet choose not to do so.

    7. Re:Too late... by borrrden · · Score: 1

      This sounds very similar to the plot for "Contact"

    8. Re:Too late... by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 2

      If life does not exist anywhere else in the universe, the universe doesn't care.

      It may be a waste of a good opportunity, but even "life" doesn't care. Except us, and maybe the dolphins.

      So, as the only species capable of having an opinion, it might be a "crime" against humanity to... well, not do whatever we decide is the humane thing to do. If we decide not to pollute the universe with ourselves, then that decision is life's "natural will". If we decide to spread life far and wide in a hostile cosmos, then that too is the natural will of life.

      Cool thing about being the only creatures in existence in existence with morality. We get to decide what is moral.

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    9. Re:Too late... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem is that we don't have decided when enough is enough.
      It is never possible to prove that something that doesn't exist isn't there, if it was we wouldn't have this problem with religion.
      So when do we say that there is no life on a planet and decide that it is OK to introduce it?

    10. Re:Too late... by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 1

      Yeah, maybe nature made us intelligent and able to build spacecraft precisely to spread life further from Earth. Maybe that is how life on earth originally came to be.

    11. Re:Too late... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      nature did not make us anything with a specific purpose. Intelligence was an "accident de parcours" that survived because it offered an evolutionary benefit. And by the looks of it those benefits are rapidly disappearing.

    12. Re:Too late... by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 1

      >nature did not make us anything with a specific purpose

      Maybe not, but evolution did grow legs and wings and thereby empowered life to expand to ever new territories. I don't see brains and spaceflight being any different in the context of life/nature "wanting" to expand.

    13. Re:Too late... by IndustrialComplex · · Score: 1

      You are missing the point. We aren't trying to keep a dead planet dead, we are trying to keep it dead long enough so that we know it WAS dead. The equipment we currently can send out now, can generally only tell us if there is life, and some basic details about it. So if we accidentally seeded the life, we would have no way of knowing if the discovery was 'real' or not.

      However, there are some very good reasons to not want to contaminate a planet. What if you were trying to evaluate the chemical composition, or soil development process of a 'dead' planet so that you could get a good baseline for what types of chemicals can be produced in the absence of life? Such information would be very useful in scanning for life on other planets. If you know for certain that a 'dead' planet can still produce Methane, then you can save a lot of time and money by NOT running your search for life based only on scanning for methane in the atmosphere. That's just one example, but there are countless tests that you would want to run on a sterile planet which would be impossible to run on a planet that has life (extraterrestrial origin or terrestrial).

      One recent example is when a meteor lands on Earth, it is a huge boon to science if they can get that meteorite before it rains. Once it rains, water seeps into the meteorite and chemical processes change the chemistry, and bacteria begin to grow further changing the composition of the meteorite which makes evaluation of just what chemicals/composition/state or even source of the meteorite much more difficult.

      So keeping things sterile is very important because there is no going back to the original state once life starts changing the environment. That doesn't mean that seeding life is wrong, just that you don't want to destroy evidence before you have a chance to study and record it.

      Another example is the fact that nearly every museum dinosaur fossil on display now is useless from a paleontology standpoint because the original excavators didn't record important information that modern paleontologists now realize is critical. Information that is now permanently lost: What strata was the fossil located, how close was it to other strata? Where was the fossil found (Montana doesn't help, what they want to know is was the fossil discovered in an old extinct stream bed, or 30 meters South, etc.) That information is lost forever because it was never collected before the site was permanently altered. That's what you want to avoid.

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    14. Re:Too late... by Common+Joe · · Score: 1

      Give them a subscription to MSDN

  3. Already done by able1234au · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Meteors from earth have probably peppered the other planets anyway. Some bacteria spores can survive inside them. So they are probably already contaminated. And in any case we could compare the DNA to see if it is from earth.

    1. Re:Already done by the+biologist · · Score: 1

      If we could examine its DNA with any of our advanced tools, we will know it came from earth before we get around to doing any sequencing.

      Though there are good reasons that DNA might be used in other biogenesis events, there is no particular reason that the bases our DNA uses would also be used.

    2. Re:Already done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Meteors from Earth? Sorry, you meteorism can't affect other planets.

    3. Re:Already done by Fluffeh · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, you should read up on the topic before you go spouting nonsense.

      Transfer of Life-Bearing Meteorites from Earth to Other Planets for example.

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    4. Re:Already done by garyebickford · · Score: 5, Interesting

      IANA physical biologist, but I did look into this question a bit from a systems point of view a few years ago. The key thing would be the minimizing of the energy required to sustain the structure while at the same time allowing maximal adaptability. Or, more abstractly, the 'fitness' of each amino acid pairing for the general task.

      There is certainly a large element of chance, but it's probable that the four amino acids that ended up being used are pretty close to the optimal set. This derives from a general evolutionary model, where various things happened by chance, and the ones that worked best for the situation (I could have said 'survived' but that carries too much baggage) would tend to be the ones that were incorporated.

      Otherwise, one is arguing that a single chance pairing of amino acids just happened to work, and no others were (in an analogous sense) 'tried' in the right conditions. To my mind, it's more likely that many combinations came together, and one was more successful. It might even be that there was a sequence of such cases - maybe (hypothetical example) when the G and C bases bond together, they float better in a solution with a pH of 7.2 or some such thing.

      I prefer to think that certain bases were more available, or just happened to work better under the conditions, and so they got used while others that were 'almost as good' didn't, or didn't for very long. In this case (again with little biological background), things like requiring just enough energy to be split apart, or fitting just right together with the splitting mechanism, or any of several other criteria including environmental ones such as 'in this temperature and pH range') would all be factors. I suspect some very interesting analysis and experiments could be done on this.

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    5. Re:Already done by the+biologist · · Score: 4, Informative

      As my handle suggests, I am a research biologist. Mostly, that just means I like to think about this sort of topic. Don't take it as me attempting to shut you or others down.

      Your logic is more or less on the ball... DNA isn't made of amino acids. There are plenty of other nitrogenous bases which could have been used in DNA without any other complications. The paired bases do have to match up in a consistent way. Various forms of synthetic DNA has been made with alternate bases and it seems to behave like DNA in a physical sense.

      I too prefer to think that the bases our DNA use has do do with which ones were most readily available, or which were most available in the little puddle where the biosystem started. Those basic organisms which started later or used things 'almost as good' got eaten in the endgame.

      Similar logic comes in to play with the amino acids which we use to make proteins. There are many alternatives, several of which have been experimentally introduced into living biosystems. (There are E.coli which now use amino acids not found in any natural biological system; labs at University of Texas-Austin study this topic.) With amino acids, there is even more room for random chance in the initial choise of basic modules. Once that first living system started, it probably ate every other nascent living system. There is good reason to believe that amino acids will be used to form proteins and that a certain diversity of amino acids is needed, covering several basic chemistries, but that the specific amino acids isn't so important. (The E.coli types with chemically novel amino acids grow just fine.)

    6. Re:Already done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The E.coli types with chemically novel amino acids grow just fine.

      The hard question would be whether they grow as well or better, in the whole gamut of conditions - including / especially the original conditions. In the long run if their viability was even 0.0000001 less, over many, many generations they would likely die out - especially as other competitors benefited from prevalence - a 'network effect' of sorts.
      (AC because logging in on my phone would be a PITA.)

    7. Re:Already done by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 1

      This is a real longshot. First off, rocks on Earth typically don't have a lot of bacteria in them. Second, the kind of shocks that could splash Earth stuff into space are... extremely rare. Third, most bacteria could not survive decades to centuries in space. Fourth, very little such material could end up on orbits that intersect other planets. Fifth, it would then have to survive the final crash and find itself in a hospitable environment.

    8. Re:Already done by the+biologist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That is one of the things they're testing. They see an initial growth defect upon adding the new amino acid. Basically, every place the altered codon is found the resulting protein acts somewhat weird. Biology is flexible and the cells keep going anyway. After a short while, the cells get over the issue one way or another and there is no remaining growth defect apparent.

      [A different experimental group...] If you have an ongoing culture and take isolates at incremental time points, the isolates show interesting behavior when compared. Each isolate will outcompete the isolate just prior when in a common culture, as expected. If you compare each isolate to the second back, most (but not all) will win. If you compare each culture to earlier isolates, it is essentially random which one will win. The expectation was that each isolate would outcompete all prior isolates...

      The modified cells will lose to normal ones after the initial change... but once they have had time to get over the shock, it then becomes anyone's guess which way any particular competition experiment will go.

      I think the group modifying amino acids is looking to convert them all to types not found in nature... resulting in E. coli with no natural amino acids. At that point, things start to get real interesting. Lots of aspects of our biology are tuned in some way to deal with the existing distribution of amino acids, so these highly modified cells will have lots of changes to lots of systems. Evolution is a really powerful thing. Once you start feeding the culture with less and less of the new amino acids, the cells will figure out how to synthesize them and do so efficiently. Some metabolic circuits will be tweaked, others will be scrapped and scrambled whole-sale.

    9. Re:Already done by able1234au · · Score: 1

      You may be the one spouting nonsense given that the topic of this discussion is "Protecting the Solar System From Contamination" and the paper you quote says

      "For every object, the number NA and NB are much greater than one. Although
      it is uncertain how rocks enter the presumed sea under the surface, for example,
      of Enceladus and Europa, the probability may be high that micro-organisms trans-
      ferred from Earth would be adapted and growing there."

      I'll accept your apology, thanks. Next time make sure you read what you quote.

    10. Re:Already done by Fluffeh · · Score: 1

      Ummm? The guy was stating that meteors couldn't go from earth to the other planets... I pointed out that they indeed can...? There is a whooosh in here somewhere, I am just uncertain where it is at the moment. I think we are reading the OP in different ways...

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    11. Re:Already done by able1234au · · Score: 1

      woooooops... my bad. Mr AC's comment was hidden to me, so i thought you were replying to me. OK, my apologies to you instead :)

    12. Re:Already done by espiesp · · Score: 1

      reality check:

      Life is a long shot. First off, blah blah blah, and then it would have to evolve into humans.

      And it did and so it can.

    13. Re:Already done by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      And that is exactly one of the theories on how life started on earth: seeded by meteors carrying alien lifeforms.

      So now we can add another theory to the origins of life: bio-contamination left behind by alien visitors.

    14. Re:Already done by theedgeofoblivious · · Score: 1

      4.5 billion years.

    15. Re:Already done by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Once that first living system started, it probably ate every other nascent living system.

      That reminds me a bit of Microsoft. DOS and 16 bit Windows weren't actually very good. However they could run on cheap 8086 and 80286 hardware. Unix really needed an MMU and only really worked well in flat mode, both of which needed a 80386 or later. MS got DOS and Windows out into the market relatively early. They had very good relations with "Developers! Developers! Developers!" too. So most of the world end up with a box running an OEM copy of Microsoft Windows because the hardware was cheap and the software plentiful (and usually cheaper than on Unix).

      So you don't need an optimum solution. You need a solution you can ship. You can fix the bugs in version 2.0 - the problem is surviving that long. Also you need to make sure that version 2.0 can run all the applications that run on 1.0 - even the ones that are buggy.

      Both of these are an anathema in the academic world where it is more important to get things right before shipping and everyone builds from source. So if you need to break compatibility with buggy applications that's fine - it's a problem that the application maintainer needs to fix.

      I.e. like cockroaches Dos and 16 bit Windows were survivors.

      What does all this have to do with biology? I guess it's a reminder that evolution isn't necessarily an algorithm that produces optimum solution. It definitely gets shit done, but maybe like in software you can end up with dominant solution that most academic types regard as being a bit of a hack. In fact by mass evolution produces a lot more subjectively loathsome and extremely limited but objectively highly survivable creatures like cockroaches and bacteria than bald eagles. Or Homo sapiens.

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    16. Re:Already done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is certainly a large element of chance, but it's probable that the four amino acids that ended up being used are pretty close to the optimal set.

      It is worth noting that while DNA uses Thymine to pair with Adenine, RNA contains Uracil instead of Thymine and that double-stranded RNA pairs Uracil with Adenine. This shows that there are there other possible near-optimal sets. In fact both of those two are being used in your body right now in the forms of DNA and tRNA, which is a double-stranded RNA molecule.

    17. Re:Already done by the+biologist · · Score: 1

      And you've now come to the fundamental understanding of biology which evolutionary theory gives us. ;-)

  4. No one on this planet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There are people stating we may have put Streptococcus on the moon. There is no one qualified to begin to tell us how a organism from a unknown planet might work. The reality is the best we have is guesses. 295 degrees Fahrenheit is no wear near the flash point for many living organisms and their progeny. The only safe way is to quarantine permanently everything off planet, until the time needed to research all these possibilities has been done. This may mean life appointments to quarantined research areas for off planet exploration employees.

    1. Re:No one on this planet by hawguy · · Score: 1

      There are people stating we may have put Streptococcus on the moon.

      This is in dispute - many say that the camera was contaminated after its return on earth.

      There is no one qualified to begin to tell us how a organism from a unknown planet might work. The reality is the best we have is guesses. 295 degrees Fahrenheit is no wear near the flash point for many living organisms and their progeny. The only safe way is to quarantine permanently everything off planet, until the time needed to research all these possibilities has been done. This may mean life appointments to quarantined research areas for off planet exploration employees.

      I've never heard "flash point" applied to microorganisms - how does one determine the flash point of a microorganism and how does that relate to its survivability on another planet? Does the progeny of an organism have a significantly different flash point from the original organism?

  5. but rats still got every where by zaax · · Score: 1

    Two centuries ago exploring ships did the same thing (so they thought) anti-rat boards on ships; fumigants etc. but rats still found their way on board, and go off when we got off. Anyway the bacteria we might find could be common across the galaxy.

    1. Re:but rats still got every where by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Pieces of equipment that could tolerate high heat were subjected to temperatures of 230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 144 hours. And surfaces were wiped down with alcohol and tested regularly.

      You're comparing apples to bananas. They knew very well how effective their anti-rat measures were, just as we know very well how our antibacterial measures are. Just because something analogous to what we are doing today failed two hundred years ago (and people even knew it didn't work) doesn't mean what we are doing today will also fail.

    2. Re:but rats still got every where by garyebickford · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the analogy stands. Consider the tardigrade, an animal composed of 40,000 or so cells (every adult has the exact same number of cells). They have been shown to survive freezing to near 0K, heating to over 130C, and the radiation and vacuum of space outside the ISS (or was it the Shuttle?).

      The point is that for a given potential infestation, the bugs only have to succeed once. Sterilization measures have to be 100% successful every time. And they aren't, can't be and won't be. Even if we never actually put humans into space again, every vehicle will contribute it's little pile of DNA. Each halving of the number of impurities left on a surface increases the cost, difficulty and effort by an order of magnitude. (hmm - this is much like the 90% rule of software!)

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  6. Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So what if we send our bacteria to other planets and they affect the local life (if it exists at all)? Basically we're talking about microscopic living things in a well isolated planet/celestial body, why waste the money?

    1. Re:Why bother? by psithurism · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Ok, I'm not a complete nutjob here, and I understand two parts of why they bother, first the agency is there to protect our own planet from samples coming back: if the moon or Mars supported life for a few billion years it might become horribly invasive when brought back into the paradise that is our planet, so there is that. Second, they don't want a bacteria covered microscope looking for Martian bacteria because that would kinda nullify the results.

      But anyway, I care. I personally feel that we have a responsibility to do whatever we can to take life off this planet ASAP. What if earth is rendered uninhabitable by some unforeseeable cosmic event? As far as we know life is unique to this planet and it would be kinda a bummer to see it all get wiped out when there was a chance to let it restart somewhere else. I'm morally opposed to protecting other planets from ourselves.

      The whole article they talk about taking care of the solar system for future research, but fuck future research; if we successfully dropped life onto another planet, that would be way more interesting than our typical: "this rock has more iron than that rock," and I really see no need to save those rocks for our great grandchildren at the expense of creating alien life.

    2. Re:Why bother? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      Given that the determination of life outside our little planet is one the fundamental questions asked of the space program, seeding bits of ourselves, or even the reasonable possibility of contamination muddies the waters. You don't want to be accused of bringing the first novel bit of off planet life with you from the get go.

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  7. Office Of Planetary Protection? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm so glad we put so much effort into protecting other planets.

    Now how about we stop tossing radioactive shit all over our own? kthx.

    1. Re:Office Of Planetary Protection? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm so glad we put so much effort into protecting other planets.

      Now how about we stop tossing radioactive shit all over our own? kthx.

      I don't think that's NASA's department. You'd have to talk to the Department of Energy to ask them to stop letting coal plants emit so much radioactive waste products if your goal is to limit radiation release.

  8. Why not let the bacteria live? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sure, for the first few missions go ahead and sterilize the bacteria. But once it's been pretty well established you're looking at a ball of rock and/or ice, just let the bacteria grow. See if life from Earth can grow in other climates. It might actually help to understand the variability of conditions for sustaining life a whole lot better than aiming a telescope into space and measuring the X-rays and infrared light for Earth-like conditions.

    1. Re:Why not let the bacteria live? by hawguy · · Score: 1

      Sure, for the first few missions go ahead and sterilize the bacteria. But once it's been pretty well established you're looking at a ball of rock and/or ice, just let the bacteria grow. See if life from Earth can grow in other climates. It might actually help to understand the variability of conditions for sustaining life a whole lot better than aiming a telescope into space and measuring the X-rays and infrared light for Earth-like conditions.

      How do you determine that with any certainty? We're just now drilling deep underground into a sealed antarctic lake that may contain bacteria that's been living there for thousands of years.

    2. Re:Why not let the bacteria live? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about instead, just let the bacteria go right from mission 1 because it doesn't really matter if bacteria from Earth contaminates the site. Even if it delays things to cross-check that it isn't alien life, once you find bacteria that's the same as on Earth, you now have a situation where the bacteria is living in non-Earth conditions.

      And alien life is still alien life. There is literally absolutely no need to make sure that a site is sterilized in the search for alien life. If it isn't on Earth in the places that the Rover is built and tested, then it's going to be a positive hit for finding new life. Even if we later find that the alien life is the same as the bacteria found in a sealed Antarctic lake or some such, it doesn't change the fact that it's bacteria that wasn't brought over by the Rover, and then we'd have a situation where identical life formed in two areas.

  9. better to err on side of caution by Bearhouse · · Score: 1

    It's tempting to conclude there's nothing living on Mars, so why not colonise it it with some custom-engineered stuff.
    I would love to believe the SciFi stuff - imagine that by the time we have just about finished destroying Earth, Mars will be waiting for us with an atmosphere full of oxygen, and unlimited meat and veg for all. Ah yes, and the benevolent bugs that turned rock into water are totally not going to mutate into anything that kills you.

    Since we've managed to screw up all of the unique ecosystems we have encountered so far, by ignorence, negligence or "good intentions", probably better to keep things sterile.

    Or try to - life will always find a way. Wanna bet there is nothing living on the Moon or Mars that we sent?

    1. Re:better to err on side of caution by viperidaenz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      First you need to give Mars a magnetic field to shield it from the radiation given off by the Sun, which also strips off any atmosphere that accumulates too. It's also pretty good at killing things too.

    2. Re:better to err on side of caution by runeghost · · Score: 1

      We're rapidly approaching the point (assuming we're not already there) where a well-funded small group will be able to send a tailored package of bacteria to Mars and start trying to terraform it, with or without the permission or knowledge of the rest of the human race.

    3. Re:better to err on side of caution by garyebickford · · Score: 1

      IMHO, from the perspective of the solar system, we are 'life'. There's no evidence of life anywhere else in the solar system. If so, then where we go, we bring 'life' with us. We are the carriers of that seed. So in that sense, we are the fruiting body of the biological entity called 'Terran Life'. It has taken a billion years to develop its fruit, with the capability to carry itself to other soils.

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      It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
    4. Re:better to err on side of caution by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      Any life that is or may have existed on mars at any point in the past is almost certainly already related to life of earth. Either mars seeded earth or the other way around. We'll never know... and if we find life on mars we'll never be totally sure it wasn't some mutated form of bacteria that came off a probe in the early stages of the space program. Because, like I said, it's almost certainly going to be very earth like. How long can you keep mars sterile for? It's the only planet in the solar system that has even a remote chance of humans living on it in the near future. We can spend the next 100 years looking for bacteria that may or may not exist, or we can just say fuck it and put bacteria there on purpose and use the planet for something. The knowledge that bacteria existed on Mars at some point is kind of a moot point. We KNOW life is not unique to this planet. We're just waiting around for proof. But that's just an academic endeavor. We've no real need for the proof.

      Unfortunately, the second we start messing with Mars, earth hippies will have a fit and then God help us all.

    5. Re:better to err on side of caution by SourceFrog · · Score: 1

      You're worried that we can "screw up" a sterile (i.e. lifeless) environment? What does that even mean? If it's sterile, then by definition there is nothing and nobody there to harm - just lifeless dirt, rocks etc. And so who does it benefit to keep it sterile? Do the rocks or dirt benefit?

      If introducing life on to a planet is "bad", then shouldn't you be arguing that we wipe out all life on Earth too? Or is that actually what you're arguing?

      --
      My other UID is three digits.
    6. Re:better to err on side of caution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're worried that we can "screw up" a sterile (i.e. lifeless) environment? What does that even mean? If it's sterile, then by definition there is nothing and nobody there to harm - just lifeless dirt, rocks etc. And so who does it benefit to keep it sterile? Do the rocks or dirt benefit?

      I don't agree with NASA's paranoia on spreading life to other planets, but we need to be fair and get their justification right. They are not worried about spreading life to sterile environments. Not at all. They are worried about spreading life to fragile environments containing alien life. Once we spread Earth base life to Mars, we may never be able to find out if there was something growing there already. That's the issue with contamination. Now, I think their worrying is overblown, but it's not fair to say they're worried about saving a lifeless environment, because it's just not true.

  10. Native Americans... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just ask them what happens...

    1. Re:Native Americans... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Oh you actually mean the native Hawaiians : a lot of them were decimated thanks to the deseases brought by the European discoverers (and a lot of the rest was decimated by the same people thanks to guns and knives)

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  11. 230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit? by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that'll work

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    1. Re:230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit? by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      It's unlikely that those bugs would be present in a 70 degree clean room with low relative humidity :)

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wasn't aware the rover was smeared in undersea-vent sediment.

    3. Re:230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit? by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

      So those organisms survive when the water turns to steam? I doubt it.

    4. Re:230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit? by c0lo · · Score: 1

      So those organisms survive when the water turns to steam? I doubt it.

      Stop doubting - thermal energy was one of the first to used by bacteria.

      --
      Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
    5. Re:230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit? by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      But at the pressures those bacteria live, water is still liquid at high temperatures.

  12. EOP. OPE. OPP. by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 1

    It's a variation on Peace on Earth or Purity of Essence or Office of Planetary Protection. Mad as a bloody March hare!

    It's incredibly obvious, isn't it?

    1. Re:EOP. OPE. OPP. by Kittenman · · Score: 1

      I'm here for you, General Jack D. Ripper....

      --
      "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    2. Re:EOP. OPE. OPP. by cffrost · · Score: 1

      Ice cream, Mandrake... Children's ice cream!

      --
      Thank you, Edward Snowden.

      "Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
  13. alcohol? doesn't kill them all by rubycodez · · Score: 1

    many types of Clostridium and tetanus bacteria can take 90 percent alcohol solution for *hours*

    1. Re:alcohol? doesn't kill them all by the+biologist · · Score: 5, Informative

      90% ethanol leads to bacterial spores precipitating out of solution, which is why clinical labs use 70% ethanol to sterilize surfaces. The lower dosage leads to faster overall kill rates because the spores stay in solution where the ethanol can disrupt their processes.

  14. Trek by WizADSL · · Score: 1

    I love Star Trek, but this isn't Star Trek. Although we should prevent accidental contamination of another ecosystem, I don't think we should freak out if it happens. Natural cross-contamination (meteors, etc) stand a good chance of being the reason there is life here on Earth.

    1. Re:Trek by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      It's not so much Star Trek non-interference as it is good science. To use the example given in the summary, we land a probe on some icy world which melts the ice. We infect the place with bacteria on the landing gear. We then take samples and find--surprise surprise--bacteria!

      Well, gosh, what did we learn? We can't really say if the bacteria--which looks remarkably like bacteria found on Earth--was native to the planet or that we just brought it along with us. So this $500 million probe doesn't answer a thing. We might as well have used the money to feed the hungry, house the homeless, or blow up a country full of brown people.

  15. So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are 400 billion stars in our Galaxy. Each one of us could take a crap on a different planet, and that would still leave a 1% margin of error when we detect life on another planet.

    Environmentalism belongs in an environment where actual living breathing human lives are at stake.

    ps - those visiting to Mars will have to hold in their farts.

    1. Re:So what? by hawguy · · Score: 1

      There are 400 billion stars in our Galaxy. Each one of us could take a crap on a different planet, and that would still leave a 1% margin of error when we detect life on another planet.

      Environmentalism belongs in an environment where actual living breathing human lives are at stake.

      ps - those visiting to Mars will have to hold in their farts.

      But for the foreseeable future, we're not going to be visiting anything outside our solar system.

    2. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mars and Venus are already likely contaminated with Earth life.

      I really don't get this obsession to discover microbial life on other planets. And with current gene sequencing technology, the probability of us detecting if a microbe originated from Earth is so high as to essentially be assured.

      The main argument here is testing the theory of Panspermia, but that theory is laughable and I have difficulty believing that there is general support for such a theory. This theory doesn't seem to even live up to Occam's razor. And if it were proven to be true, it would simply move the questions on the origin of life from Earth to some other planet. And we'd be left with the same set of questions and the same theories on the origins of life that we already have.

  16. Protecting the Solar System From Contamination by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    As astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross noted, sending a probe to Mars to search for life is pointless if that probe is not programmed to both recognize and ignore earth-based life because our planet "contaminates" the other planets down-solar-wind from us all the time. Indeed, spores and whatnot are able to waft high enough into our atmosphere to be caught by the solar wind and taken into space, to land who knows where.

    1. Re:Protecting the Solar System From Contamination by hawguy · · Score: 1

      As astronomer Dr. Hugh Ross noted, sending a probe to Mars to search for life is pointless if that probe is not programmed to both recognize and ignore earth-based life because our planet "contaminates" the other planets down-solar-wind from us all the time. Indeed, spores and whatnot are able to waft high enough into our atmosphere to be caught by the solar wind and taken into space, to land who knows where.

      But how would you know if the spore originated on earth, or it originated somewhere else and colonized the earth?

  17. They got it Backwords by detain · · Score: 1

    They should be loading their rovers and satellites up with as many forms of bacteria and simple life forms as they can. We should be encouraging spreading life as much as possible. It might not effect us now but millions of years from now we could have planets in our solar system with lots of carbon based life and atmospheres more hospitable to humans so when we eventually destroy the Earth we have a few fallback plans.

    --
    http://interserver.net/
    1. Re:They got it Backwords by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      You've been watching too much sci-fi.

      It took ever a billion years for early life to produce enough oxygen to saturate the oceans and make its was in to the atmosphere. You also need liquid water on the surface for that to happen too, which requires enough atmospheric pressure and the correct temperatures.
      If Mars could sustain an atmosphere, its a possibility. Venus and Mercury are too close to the Sun and all the other planets are too far.

    2. Re:They got it Backwords by detain · · Score: 1

      It doesn't have to wind up being an atmosphere thats really compatible with human life but life in general would be good, and I acknowledge millions of years might not be enough time, but I don't see humans lasting on earth more than a few million more years at most .

      --
      http://interserver.net/
    3. Re:They got it Backwords by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His point is still valid, even if it's off by a billion years or so. If the only life in the universe is found right here on earth, wouldn't it be a shame to lose it all should something happen to our planet? And while the environments of reachable bodies aren't going to be particularily hospitable for us, it definitely could be possible for some microbial life.

    4. Re:They got it Backwords by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

      If the only life in the universe is found right here on earth,

      "If" is an interesting question. And I'd like to see science be able to take steps towards an answer. Which is why it's stupid to spread Earthly bacteria until we can at least check if the obvious places in the solar system already have their own alien life. Mars, Europa, etc. If they are truly dead, go nuts.

      --
      Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
  18. as Ian sez: by turkeydance · · Score: 1

    life finds a way.

  19. So is alcohol sufficient? by multiben · · Score: 1

    So if they wipe some parts of the craft with alcohol why do they bother heat blasting the rest of it? I assume because heat blasting is better. Which means that some of the craft is bacteria free and the rest isn't. So... what was the goal again here?

    1. Re:So is alcohol sufficient? by slashmydots · · Score: 1

      It's not sufficient to stop: "OMG there's alcohol breakdown residue on the surface of this rock! That's organic! It must have been from the same life that made that chunk of plastic!"

    2. Re:So is alcohol sufficient? by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      Not all the parts can withstand the heat so well. And even heat blasting is not guaranteed to make it all completely sterile, as there is always the outside of the craft that remains in touch with the atmosphere. There are always ways for bacteria to sneak in after all. All they can do is try to make it as hard as possible for germs to get in, and after that make it as hard as possible for those that do, to survive.

  20. What about radiation? by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

    What effect, if any, does constantly being bombarded by ionizing radiation while in space transit have on sterilization?

    1. Re:What about radiation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tardigrades are able to survive in extreme environments that would kill almost any other animal. Some can survive temperatures of close to absolute zero, or 0 Kelvin (273 C (459 F)),[14] temperatures as high as 151 C (304 F), 1,000 times more radiation than other animals,[15] and almost a decade without water.[16] Since 2007, tardigrades have also returned alive from studies in which they have been exposed to the vacuum of space for a few days in low Earth orbit.[17][18] Tardigrades are the first known animal to survive in space.

  21. I for one will welcome by future+assassin · · Score: 1

    our hitchhiking overlords when they return to Mother Earth.

    --
    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  22. Why the fucking care about that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Call me retrograd, but this seems to me like treehugging, but elevated to n.

    Sure, there might be some native microorganisms there and we might be disturbing their natural development. Please tell me what is the big deal.

    We "disturb the development of more microorganisms" every time we eat a yogurt.

    Why should we care?

    1. Re:Why the fucking care about that by the+biologist · · Score: 1

      Though there are some that think we should never disturb the pristine natural environment of other planets... I think the primary concern is that if we're looking for living things on other planets, then it would be better not to contaminate the sites we're studying with random biocrap we brought with us.

    2. Re:Why the fucking care about that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because if you find strains of [wildly-mutated, perhaps] bacteria thriving on Cygnus Omega Tau Upsilon XXVII, it would be very interesting to know if they arose there naturally or if your microscope is just dirty. Earth currently has the distinction of being the only "life"-bearing place we know about, and if/when that is overturned it had better have a good reason.

  23. Does it matter where it comes from? by Nidi62 · · Score: 1

    Does it really matter whether the life comes from Earth or is native to the planet/moon? Wouldn't the more important discovery be the proof that life could actually survive there?

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    1. Re:Does it matter where it comes from? by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      Depends on what you're looking for.

      The immortal question is, "Are we alone in the universe?" Well, to begin answering that question, we have to determine whether or not there is life out there--any kind of life. If we send a probe out to Mars or Europa or a comet or some such place and we look for life and we find it, how do we tell whether or not it was there before us or if we brought it with us? So it makes it hard to tell whether or not the solar system is teeming with life because we brought it there or because it really is out there.

      You're right in that the idea that Mars could support life is interesting. But that's not really the question we're asking. The question we're asking is whether Mars has/had life. So bringing it along kind of fucks up the test.

  24. no brainer by dezent · · Score: 1

    nuke the landing site before and after arrival.

    1. Re:no brainer by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      may not be effective, some bacteria can take massive dose. if 800 rem can kill a human, 90,000 a cockroach, consider that some bacteria can take 3 million. of course, there are fragile ones that are killed at 100 rem too.

  25. Ha ha!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Contamination is imminent! Scotty beam me up! Give me decontamination or give me death!!

  26. Would this be bad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are we worried that more planets might have life on them? Is there really a huge need to preserve them as pristine, dead rocks?

    If you just want a giant rock garden to stare at, there are plenty of asteroid belts out there....

  27. All I know is... by skelly33 · · Score: 1

    We can't even prevent cross-contamination from occurring here on Earth. The commercial overseas shipping industry has introduced countless, destructive, invasive species into other ports that wreak havoc on the local ecosystems - and have the potential to impact local economies. Off-planet is not going to be any better; spreading Earth dust is unavoidable. As Jeff Goldblum said in Jurassic Park, "Life.... finds a way." I say give it an honest effort, but don't dwell too long on attempting to thwart the inevitable. When some commercial space-entity decides to conquer the heavens and does not adhere to your strict standards, who are you going to call, the Space Police?

  28. computer viruses? by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    So if someone loads a computer virus onto Curiosity, it might spawn robots on Mars?

  29. How would you get them mixed up? by wakeboarder · · Score: 1

    If there was life on another world I would suspect that it would operate on different mechanisims, you wouldn't have the same DNA structure, it would have different protein's, ect. I would be more concerned that our life would wipe out the alien life or vice versa.

  30. Not so fast! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Prepare for Trouble!
    And make it Double!
    To protect the system from contamination!
    To unite all probes within our nation!
    To denounce the evils of truth and love!
    And extend our reach to the skies above!
    Curiosity!
    Opportunity!
    Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
    Surrender now or prepare to fight!

    Spiiiiiiiiiiiirit, that's right!

  31. Why not? by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 1

    If there is no life there already, why no contaminate it with life, get something started there. As long as there is no life there already, it does not violate the prime directive (according to my copy of Starfleet manuals). I cant seem to see the harm in it.

  32. Life finds a way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let us spread our wings and disseminate our virtue upon the heavens!

  33. Andromeda Strain by egcagrac0 · · Score: 1

    So nice to know that we're now catching up to science fiction from 40 years ago.

  34. Planetary Protection Officer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've known two of the Planetary Protection Officers - one of the best titles ever. It's amazing where Earth life can live. Even in the cleanest of clean rooms they could find bacteria and archaea. Of course, those microbes growing in the clean rooms couldn't possibly compete with those viciously competing in the dirty world.

  35. Tested alcohol regularely? by Vitus+Wagner · · Score: 2

    Oh, these engineers only need a slightest exuse to get some alcohol by taxpayers money. They would indeed test it regularily. Because they know that contamination might happen only in the imagination of bad pulp fiction writer, and alcohol has a much better uses than to spill it onto the rover.

  36. what if life doesn't use DNA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is the really, really interesting question. What if that non-earth life we discover isn't DNA based.

  37. Tardigrades by ceview · · Score: 1

    Pretty sure there were a bunch of little Tardigrades stuck on rocks that have been blasted off the surface of Earth at some point and end up roaming around the solar system waiting to crash somewhere. They are likely to have been around for many hundreds of millions of years.

  38. Oh it's bad alright. by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

    It's the places that might already have life that we are trying to preserve. So that if they do have alien life, we can detect that life and do science on it.

    Demonstrably dead things we don't care about getting life all over them. You can splash as much bacteria as you like on the Moon, no one cares. Asteroids? Go nuts. Life away.

    But Mars, Europa, Titan, and comets; we wait until we figure out how to definitively rule out native, alien life.

    --
    Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
    1. Re:Oh it's bad alright. by bjwest · · Score: 1

      Unless there's profit to be made. To hell with everything, if there's profit to be made.

      --

      --- Keep the choice with the user..
  39. I'd be more afraid of... by Codifex+Maximus · · Score: 1

    I'd be more afraid of intelligent extraterrestrial life extrapolating our location using the trajectory of our spacecraft.

    --
    Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
  40. Because. by FatLittleMonkey · · Score: 1

    If there is no life there already,

    "If". That's the question. We don't know. And we can't find the answer if we slime up the test subject before we even run the test. It's about trying to avoid contaminating our samples with the very thing we're looking for. (Imagine if you were an oil surveyor looking for signs of oil, but you were randomly leaking oil everywhere you went.)

    Once we know for sure that a body is lifeless, then yes, go nuts.

    --
    Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
  41. Kickin' Martian Butt! by eugene_roux · · Score: 1

    Ha!

    That's the end of you, then, Earth-invading Martian Scum!

    --
    Part Time Philosopher, Oft Times Romantic, Full Time Unix Geek
  42. Where have the scientists gone? by fatphil · · Score: 0

    "230 to 295 degrees Fahrenheit"

    I know that 1000 F was defined as the temperature of the king of france's lit fart, so it's about a quarter of the temperature of a lit fart.?

    --
    Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
  43. All the beer on Mars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gregory Benford's "All the Beer on Mars" (IASFM, Jan. 1989) would be a good read to accompany this article.

  44. dafuq by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why are we preventing it? Wouldn't it make more sense to intentionally spread bacteria and whatnot to other planets in the solar system thus starting the terraform process?