Genesis-Wildfire

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:20:09 GMT, Henry Spencer
wrote:

I find this discussion difficult to believe.
Genesis collected remnants from the solar wind.
Like the sun is quite hot...
Hardly the most likely place to discover of cesspool of killer viruses
ready to take over the earth.. lol

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(Henry Spencer) :

In article ,
Gallery Neolithica wrote:
Imagine if this payload contained a viable pathogen from Mars. Would we
have
had to nuke the valley in a cheap remake of The Andromeda Strain? Dugway's
containments are useless if the capsule ruptures BEFORE getting there. As
a
helicopter pilot I can tell you that entire scenario is UNSAFE for
biopotential sample returns.

This was obvious from the start, and the mission planners don't need you
to tell them so. There was never any intention of using this method for
sample returns in general. Different requirements yield different
solutions.

The recent concepts I've seen for Mars sample capsules simply don't *have*
a parachute. They have relatively high-drag shapes that will have fairly
low terminal velocities, and they just do a hard landing. When you start
with a non-negotiable requirement that the sample container must remain
intact and sealed despite a parachute failure, you quickly conclude that
there's little point in bothering with the parachute at all...

Sounds like you also get plasma sterilization of the exterior thrown in for
free. Do these shapes tumble on purpose to expose all the surface area to
the plasma during re-entry?

Earl Colby Pottinger.
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Dr John Stockton wrote:
White Sands, for capture by a
truck with outriggers all covered in mattresses?

I seem to recall a Yahoo commercial like that. But it was in the
Australian outback, not White Sands.

--
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http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

In article ,
Earl Colby Pottinger wrote:
The recent concepts I've seen for Mars sample capsules simply don't *have*
a parachute. They have relatively high-drag shapes that will have fairly
low terminal velocities, and they just do a hard landing...

Sounds like you also get plasma sterilization of the exterior thrown in for
free. Do these shapes tumble on purpose to expose all the surface area to
the plasma during re-entry?

No, that's a little too iffy given the lack of any control. However, the
reentry capsule itself generally doesn't go down to the Martian surface; a
smaller sample container, very thoroughly sealed, is transferred to it in
orbit.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

"Gallery Neolithica" wrote:

Keep it off my planet, Henry. And as a matter of fact, the mission planners
do need our input. They (Challenger, Columbia, Genesis, Grissom's Mercury,
etc) are quite fallible and in need of supervision by the people that run
this place. THE TAXPAYERS. The ones who might die if they get this one
wrong.

I find supervision by the uneducated to be a frightening proposition.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

"Gallery Neolithica" wrote:

Keep it off my planet, Henry. And as a matter of fact, the mission planners
do need our input. They (Challenger, Columbia, Genesis, Grissom's Mercury,
etc) are quite fallible and in need of supervision by the people that run
this place. THE TAXPAYERS. The ones who might die if they get this one
wrong.

I find supervision by the uneducated to be a frightening proposition.
If well trained specialists can get it wrong, how will the utterly
ignorant be any better?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

Joann Evans wrote:

G EddieA95 wrote:

What NASA has demonstrated is that biopotential sample return missions
should be delivered NO CLOSER THAN LEO to quarantine in the International
Space Station.

Doesn't make you safer. ISS delivery will require aerobraking, which means
there is a substantial chance the thing will plunge to Earth, anyway.

And would you quarantine the ISS crew up there as well?

The late Martin Caidin did a novelalong that line; 'Four Came Back.'

Sounds like one more than we have been able to keep up there managed to
come back down.




--
"The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits.
They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they
pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected,
they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and
there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways
of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for
tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?"
-+ Richard Adams, "Watership Down"

"Derek Lyons" wrote in message
...
"Gallery Neolithica" wrote:

Keep it off my planet, Henry. And as a matter of fact, the mission
planners
do need our input. They (Challenger, Columbia, Genesis, Grissom's
Mercury,
etc) are quite fallible and in need of supervision by the people that run
this place. THE TAXPAYERS. The ones who might die if they get this one
wrong.

I find supervision by the uneducated to be a frightening proposition.

You are braver than me. I find the idea of supervision by the OP
terrifying.
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

"John Thingstad" writes:

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:20:09 GMT, Henry Spencer
wrote:

I find this discussion difficult to believe.
Genesis collected remnants from the solar wind.
Like the sun is quite hot...
Hardly the most likely place to discover of cesspool of killer viruses
ready to take over the earth.. lol

Well, there *are* theories of dormant life surviving space. And Genesis
*was* quite long exposing it's collectors *and* brought them back without
exposing them to the heat of reentry...


Jochem

--
"A designer knows he has arrived at perfection not when there is no
longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take
away." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Jochem Huhmann wrote:

"John Thingstad" writes:

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 19:20:09 GMT, Henry Spencer
wrote:

I find this discussion difficult to believe.
Genesis collected remnants from the solar wind.
Like the sun is quite hot...
Hardly the most likely place to discover of cesspool of killer viruses
ready to take over the earth.. lol

Well, there *are* theories of dormant life surviving space. And Genesis
*was* quite long exposing it's collectors *and* brought them back without
exposing them to the heat of reentry...

If panspermia is right, then explain about all those spermia floating
down on the Earth each day by the ton. Why haven't they infected us?



--
"The rabbits became strange in many ways, different from other rabbits.
They knew well enough what was happening. But even to themselves they
pretended that all was well, for the food was good, they were protected,
they had nothing to fear but the one fear; and that struck here and
there, never enough at a time to drive them away. They forgot the ways
of wild rabbits. They forgot El-ahrairah, for what use had they for
tricks and cunning, living in the enemy's warren and paying his price?"
-+ Richard Adams, "Watership Down"