Rusticles, Mars and Human Responsibility

I was reading an article on MSNBC.com today about the Titanic,
http://www.msnbc.com/news/955061.asp?0dm=C12NT. Apparently, there are
microbes called rusticles, that consume the iron in the ship. It is
disintegrating much faster then they initially thought. This got me to
thinking. Mars is red, because of an abundance of iron, correct? So
theoretically, we (humans) could introduce a bacteria on Mars that could be
extremely detrimental. OK, I realize this is a far fetched example. I am
sure there is little chance that rusticles (or whatever the scientific name
is) will harm Mars. BUT...What procedures are in place to ensure our human
visitors do not harm other worlds?

BV.

"BenignVanilla" wrote in message
...
I was reading an article on MSNBC.com today about the Titanic,
http://www.msnbc.com/news/955061.asp?0dm=C12NT. Apparently, there are
microbes called rusticles, that consume the iron in the ship. It is
disintegrating much faster then they initially thought. This got me to
thinking. Mars is red, because of an abundance of iron, correct? So
theoretically, we (humans) could introduce a bacteria on Mars that could
be
extremely detrimental. OK, I realize this is a far fetched example. I am
sure there is little chance that rusticles (or whatever the scientific
name
is) will harm Mars. BUT...What procedures are in place to ensure our human
visitors do not harm other worlds?
Very good ones.
The outgoing ships are most worried about the idea that a detector looking
for life could 'see' a contamination that is actually from Earth. Hence the
ships are sterilised to the limits of possibility (the exception to this,
are some of the earliest Mars/Moon probes etc., where such care was not
taken). Contamination was found on the lunar 'Surveyor' probe, when part was
bought back by a latter Apollo mission. Now the units are assembled in
'clean room' conditions, and sterlisation has to meet very high standards
before the probes are accepted.
The space agencies are sufficiently worried about this, to be investigating
all sorts of new cleaning technologies.
The 1967 UN space treaty, specifically has the two way requirement:
"conduct exploration so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also
adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the
introduction of extraterrestrial matter".
This is to protect us from contamination from any samples bought back, but
also to protect the target object from contamination by us.
If a life form was found by the current generation of probes, it'd raise the
'standard required' for a human trip, a massive amount...

Best Wishes