Tom, your argument seems reasonable. However, I can't help but think of the
Hudson River analogy. If a fish is tough enough to live there, it's a
really tough son-of-a-gun. Given the stakes, it is prudent to quarantine
extraterrestrial biological samples.

-- Stinger

"Tom Merkle" wrote in message
m...
(Henry Spencer) wrote in message
...
In article ,
Tom Merkle wrote:
After all, the quarantiners will say, if Nozomi can fail and plow into
Mars, possibly spreading earth bacteria, what's to prevent a Mars
return vehicle from doing the same thing to earth, resulting in
AAAAAAHHHH! The Andromeda Strain!

Under current design notions, the only (possible) Mars bugs aboard the
return vehicle will be within its sample capsule, which will be designed
for reentry and smashdown (undecelerated landing -- no parachute to
fail)
anyway. No other part of the return vehicle will actually have been on
the surface of Mars; the sample can gets transferred from ascent vehicle
to return vehicle in Mars orbit.

Yes, and on NASA's own website, they're talking about sealing the
capsule by developing remote robotic welding that takes place in Mars
orbit to ensure an entirely airtight seal. That's all. How simple! How
cheap!

See what I mean about overkill? Does that seem reasonable?

There's a balance principle in biology that makes it virtually
impossible for an organism that evolves on a world as small and devoid
of resources as Mars to develop something that is devastating to the
very robust earth's biosphere. The vector just moves in the wrong
direction. Evolution just doesn't work that way. It's remotely
possible that something that came from Mars would be mildly successful
in our environment--but that's it. Even the examples that NASA's
'caution' document have of successful 'species invasions', the vector
moves from the more robust, open environment, to the less open, less
robust environment. This is why the majority of species invasions that
you hear about take place in the New World. Australia has it worst,
America second worst, remote Pacific Islands the third... but you
rarely hear about species invasions in Africa or Asia. Why? Africa and
Asia both are bigger, more robust, have more species. African, Asian,
and European species are the ones doing the invading.

We have nothing to fear from Mars. It's the Martians who should fear
us.

Tom Merkle