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Back-contamination
> Some of the biologists working on this, the ones
> with veto power over any Mars projects, disagree with you.
First off, who gave them veto power? First off, there is absolutely no
evidence for life on Mars. Second, the Martian regolith is rich in
peroxides. A great way to sterilize something is to toss some Mars dust
on it. And, if there is life on Mars, it might survive but could in no
way thrive on Earth. This brings up Zubrin's comparison of sharks on the
Serengeti.
The biggest threat is that something on Mars will have population
explosion on Earth. That is doubtful in the extreme. It could never
outcompete life that has evolved here for 3500 million years.
The threat is enough to exercise caution sense with quarantine, but to
veto manned Mars exploration due to unfounded possibilities, is lunacy.
> > And anyway, they didn't stop Apollo.
>
> The Moon is not Mars.
The Moon was percieved as a possible threat in the form of
back-contamination. Unfortuatly, it looks like less sane heads are
running things now. To (roughly) quote the microbiologists you keep
citing, their conclusion is: "While the threat of Mars life is
incredibly small, it is not zero." That phrase is very different from
"Don't go, you'll kill us all!". I think that your biologists know
enough about Mars to say that the threat is tiny, but they said it is
not zero because we don't know anything about it, and they wanted to
cover all the bases. We should go to Mars, hopefully sooner than later.
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