Why not contaminate the Moon/mars??

Why are we so concerned with taking bilogical material in sapce. I really
dont understand.
Why shouldnt we be taking biological material into space.. Surely the sooner
we get started doing this the sooner it cleans the planet or moon etc.
I ask after reading the following:-

"The permit process took more than two years and twenty centimeters of
paperwork to complete. TransOrbital had to prove it would not contaminate
the Moon with biological material, pollute the surface, or disturb any
historical landing sites. "
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020902/020902-8.html

Perhaps Im being thick but I see spreading life as a good thing..
What is the logic?

Regards
Mick

Yeah but we went to the moon 30 years ago and still don't know. Why not just
take life there and start changing the planet in a colonisation attempt.
Mars is going to take hundreds of years to develop why worry so much about
it... I think we shoudnt worry so much about it......


"Micky Fin" wrote in message
...
Why are we so concerned with taking bilogical material in sapce. I really
dont understand.
Why shouldnt we be taking biological material into space.. Surely the
sooner
we get started doing this the sooner it cleans the planet or moon etc.
I ask after reading the following:-

"The permit process took more than two years and twenty centimeters of
paperwork to complete. TransOrbital had to prove it would not contaminate
the Moon with biological material, pollute the surface, or disturb any
historical landing sites. "
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020902/020902-8.html

Perhaps Im being thick but I see spreading life as a good thing..
What is the logic?

Regards
Mick

John Savard wrote:

There may be life already on Mars, and contaminating Mars could
forever deprive us of the ability to study it and learn about it.


Which makes this news story rather troubling:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994812

Pat

Micky Fin wrote:
|Yeah but we went to the moon 30 years ago and still don't know. Why
|not just take life there and start changing the planet in a colonisation
|attempt.

Intercourse between the planets almost guarantees that Martian life forms
might even be brought to Earth, and made to flourish.

|Mars is going to take hundreds of years to develop why worry so much about
|it... I think we shoudnt worry so much about it......

Mars may seem to be years from Earth, and protected by a solar wind that
tends to drive Martian molecules away from Earth, but in that respect,
Mars has been subject to 'contamination' from the Earth for millions
of years, and the life forms there may not be so unique after all,
especially if the only places they are still making it, are near hot
springs that are ever so gradually cooling off.

It may well be that God wants us to go to Mars to rescue the poor things.

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
There may be life already on Mars, and contaminating Mars could
forever deprive us of the ability to study it and learn about it.

Which makes this news story rather troubling:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994812

A somewhat misleading story, because most recent landers have *not* been
sterilized. Efforts have been made to reduce their bacterial load,
especially on exterior surfaces, to *minimize* local contamination, but no
attempt was made to get them completely bacteria-free.

(The underlying theory is that the surface of Mars is so hostile that it's
very unlikely for Earth life to grow and spread, so full sterilization --
which is costly and hurts equipment reliability -- is unnecessary.
Except, obviously, on spacecraft carrying life-detection experiments. But
it remains worth minimizing local contamination, which might confuse later
life-detection experiments.)

In any case, there is some doubt that early Russian Mars landers were
properly sterilized... and there is no question at all that the remains of
Mars Climate Orbiter were not.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

Matthew Montchalin ) wrote:
: Micky Fin wrote:
: |Yeah but we went to the moon 30 years ago and still don't know. Why
: |not just take life there and start changing the planet in a colonisation
: |attempt.

: Intercourse between the planets almost guarantees that Martian life forms
: might even be brought to Earth, and made to flourish.

: |Mars is going to take hundreds of years to develop why worry so much about
: |it... I think we shoudnt worry so much about it......

: Mars may seem to be years from Earth, and protected by a solar wind that
: tends to drive Martian molecules away from Earth, but in that respect,
: Mars has been subject to 'contamination' from the Earth for millions
: of years, and the life forms there may not be so unique after all,
: especially if the only places they are still making it, are near hot
: springs that are ever so gradually cooling off.

: It may well be that God wants us to go to Mars to rescue the poor things.

God does not play dice with the Universe!

Oops, sorry, that line is already taken...

Eric

lid (John Savard) wrote in message ...
On Tue, 6 Apr 2004 16:52:52 +0100, "Micky Fin"
wrote, in part:

Perhaps Im being thick but I see spreading life as a good thing..
What is the logic?

There may be life already on Mars, and contaminating Mars could
forever deprive us of the ability to study it and learn about it.

If seeding Mars with a single terrestrial germ were enough to
contaminate the whole planet, the game would already be up,
since many such germs must have landed there through billions of years.

Mars is big, its land area is almost equal to that of the Earth.
Its environment is extremely hostile to terrestrial life.
Contaminating one spot can at worst compromise probes taken at
the same spot - so move a yard away, or an inch deeper.

Or stay put, and go to a little more trouble to
sort out the organisms that are found.
On Earth, life forms limited to particular areas,
sometimes areas just a few yards across, are discovered,
separated and studied all the time - even though the problem of
distinguishing them is incomparably more difficult than it
would be on Mars.

Henry Spencer wrote:

(The underlying theory is that the surface of Mars is so hostile that it's
very unlikely for Earth life to grow and spread, so full sterilization --
which is costly and hurts equipment reliability -- is unnecessary.
Except, obviously, on spacecraft carrying life-detection experiments. But
it remains worth minimizing local contamination, which might confuse later
life-detection experiments.)

In an odd related twist, regarding Earth lifeforms surviving on Mars:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992844


In any case, there is some doubt that early Russian Mars landers were
properly sterilized... and there is no question at all that the remains of
Mars Climate Orbiter were not.


IIRC the Soviet Mars landers incorporated a thermite bomb for
self-destruct at the end of their data transmission from the surface...
their lander design was a lot more enclosed than our Vikings were, in
that they were pressurized capsules- which may have made the exterior
surfaces of them fairly easy to sterilize.
It would be interesting to speculate on whether the self-destruct system
worked or not given their bad landings...we criticized them for
sloppiness at the time.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote in message ...
Henry Spencer wrote:

(The underlying theory is that the surface of Mars is so hostile that it's
very unlikely for Earth life to grow and spread, so full sterilization --
which is costly and hurts equipment reliability -- is unnecessary.
Except, obviously, on spacecraft carrying life-detection experiments. But
it remains worth minimizing local contamination, which might confuse later
life-detection experiments.)

In an odd related twist, regarding Earth lifeforms surviving on Mars:
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992844

This one is about an Earth lifeform (Deinococcus radiodurans)
that some people believe has arrived here *from* Mars:

|| A hardy microbe that can withstand huge doses
|| of radiation could have evolved this ability on
|| Mars.
|| That is the conclusion of Russian scientists who
|| say it would take far longer than life
|| has existed here for the bug to evolve
|| that ability in Earth's clement conditions.[...]
|| The hardy bugs could have travelled to Earth
|| on pieces of rock that were blasted into
|| space by an impacting asteroid and fell to
|| Earth as meteorites.

Here, however, is a refutation:

http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/publi...-96/10bugs.htm
|| "That journey would subject the organism to tremendous
|| temperature extremes, and Deinococcus does not tolerate heat
|| at all," says Battista. "We can inactivate it
|| at temperatures as low as 45 degrees Centigrade.
|| It seems unlikely that this bug could survive
|| a trip through interstellar space and our atmosphere."

This creature, however, can withstand almost everything *except*
heat, including poisonous chemicals and extreme dryness:
it is what they call a "polyextremophile".

So here is a rare candidate for contamination
via spaceship: can't make the trip on its own but can survive there.

There are ideas about using it to help colonize Mars:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...bacterium.html.