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Re: [Fwd: contamination]


Hi Gene - 

   Sorry I will not have time for "ALH84001 and Me" 
until the first part of next week, but for the time 
being...

---Gene Marlin  wrote:

> The conclusion that Mars may hold life is commonly held. 

Actually, the conclusion that they commonly hold is that it is going
to take a lot more evidence to 
decide the question one way or another.

>The possibility that Mars life may pose a threat, >however small, is
also good sense.

Agreed.

> As for canceling a Mars flight on that basis, that is >not good
sense. 

Since no Mars flight is funded or currently proposed
by NASA, the NRC committee has not "canceled"
anything.  The next Mars probes will be their next review, and then
maybe the Mars sample return flight will come up. 

>If desired, we can even have reasonable safeguards on >the Marsr hab.
For instance, chemical showers in the >airlocks before and after an EVA.
> 
> The CDC biologists won't argue with this. They have the same
precautions.

Actually, they have samples in cryogenic storage, and living ones are
in in containers in negative 
pressure glove boxes equipped with heavy duty gloves.

Your idea for chemical showers is a good one.  The 
Russians came up with it back in the 1970's. What 
are the chances that Zubrin would consider adopting it?

> If they admit this is inadequate, they are also >publicly stating
that their own safety precautions are >suspect. These people work with
the most deadly >diseases known to man, catching one is worse than
> death. Their labs are near downtown Atlanta, a >significant
metropolitan center. If one of these virii >got out...  

   
> >(Though I willingly concede NASA's Dante robot did > >leave a lot
to be desired, there is really no
> > need to go down canyons in order to get a pretty 
> >good answer to the question of whether anything is
> > living on Mars.)
 
> Betting against robots is not wise, cosidering the >rate of
technological advancement. But humans still >have the dexterity, and
the _adaptiveness_
> to carry out a mission better than any machines we >have now or will
have in the foreseeable future. 

While humans have more dexterity, life support costs for humans for
Mars missions are extremely high.  If 
the scientific questions can be answered by robots, 
they are far cheaper to use.


> > Several (2-3) long range (100 kilometer) rovers, with 1 or
possibly 2
> > sample returns, should be enough to
> > make a pretty good first assesment.  At current funding
> > levels this should take about 10-20 years.
 
> They will make a good surface assesment, but not for >what you are
> specifically looking for, life. Imagine letting Sojourner or any Mars
> rover in the next 50 years loose in the Rocky Mountains. How long will
> it take the rover to find a dinosaur fossil?

Actually, if you used a real rover, something like the Russian
Marsokhod, instead of something dinky, like
Sojourner, you could do the job very quickly.
 
> > Once again, do we really have sufficient evidence to assert that
> > contamination of the Earth is unlikely?

> No, but with reasonable precautions, we can bring the chances to very
> nearly 0. (The chances of anything happening are never exactly 0)

And that is exactly what the biologists intend to do:
Insure that anything that NASA does not raise the chances from where
they are now: 0.

                                Best wishes -
                                    Ed

                                 
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