NASA Planetary Protection Policy
planetaryprotection.nasa.govJust to be clear, all of you geeks out there watching the space travel develop and dreaming of a science-fiction type future where people can visit multiple planets and space travel is common? Paging Elon Musk?
Guess what? There are factions that are actively moving to make sure that doesn't happen. As it turns out, many believe that we need to be so cautious that even if we could get in a rocket tomorrow and go to Mars for ten bucks that we shouldn't be allowed to do that. At least not without a few committees meeting first and some ever-growing regulations being consulted. Some, I'm willing to believe, already feel very adamantly that mankind is a pestilence and should be prevented from spreading.
And each year those efforts get more and more organized.
In NASA's defense, this looks like something they've set up in order to head this issue off at the pass. So when somebody says "But what about us contaminating the Solar System!" they can point to some processes and rules that makes sure that the matter was considered appropriately.
But when folks ask me what mankind's future is, to me it looks a lot stagnation by our own hand. Pages like this do not do much to persuade me otherwise.
I suppose I can understand the argument. I know if/when we find life on another planet or moon (Europa, Titan, etc) that no living matter from Earth should touch that world, for fear of mutating / polluting it. But when it comes to others we either know have no life (Mercury, Jupiter, etc) or most likely don't (Venus, Mars, etc), what is the harm in human exploration or even terraforming attempts?
Even if humans "infected" the whole solar system, how can we spread from there? The Centauri system is the next closest star system [1], most likely without planets there, and is over 4ly away. That's roughly 25 trillion miles away. If we could travel at the same speed as New Horizons (36,373mph) [2], it would still take 77.5 thousand YEARS to get there. [3]
We are not gonna pollute the universe and its a silly to think ourselves capable of such a feat.
[1] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Near-star...
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons
[3] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+to+travel+24.7+tri...
The worry isn't about "polluting the universe", it's about contaminating what's basically a big scientific petri dish - Mars. If we start tossing buckets of sludge out there, determining whether there was ever any native life becomes significantly more difficult.
"There are elements trying to keep us from spreading throughout the universe" sounds incredibly paranoid.
Hard to imagine that any life that formed independently on Mars would ever be confused with life tranplanted there from Earth...... unless life on Earth came from Mars to begin with?
Perhaps given a full blown xenobiology laboratory staffed with hundreds of the world's top scientists and every instrument money can buy, it would be easy to distinguish earth-borne bacteria from non-earth-borne bacteria. But since we've only got a car-sized rover with a handful of instruments and no scientists on site, we need to be more careful.
In any event, how exactly do you differentiate earth-borne bacteria from non-earth-borne bacteria? What's your rubric?
dna.
>Guess what? There are factions that are actively moving to make sure that doesn't happen.
Do you have any examples? This is interesting. Reminds me of the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.
It's not exactly a recent one so more of historical interest, but back when people thought interplanetary colonization was actually plausible in the near term, C.S. Lewis was an advocate against it. He wrote a dystopian sci-fi trilogy containing a good amount of satire on the subject [1], which sparked an on-again-off-again correspondence, cordial but without much agreement, with Arthur C. Clarke, initiated when Clarke wrote to object to some passages in Perelandra [2].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Trilogy
[2] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743475186/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
Based on the above, I'm pretty sure you've never actually read the Space Trilogy. Lewis isn't advocating for or against anything. The stories are allegorical.
Setting them on planets other than Earth (although the third book takes place exclusively on Earth) provides an opportunity to examine closely-held beliefs commonly taken for granted.
Clarke may have been reading too much into Perelandra by interpreting it that way, but Lewis didn't seem to object to that reading in the correspondence, and defended a view that Weston really was an accurate portrayal of what what Lewis saw as a likely future outcome of space-travel, an arrogant war of conquest to dominate the galaxy and subjugate any other worlds that might exist, in pursuit of technology and power.
Among other comments from his letters:
I don't of course think at the moment many scientists are budding Westons: but I do think (hang it all, I live among scientists!) that a point of view not unlike Weston's is on the way ... a race devoted to the increase of its own power by technology with complete indifference to ethics does seem to me a cancer in the Universe.
He also liked to sign off his letters to Clarke with comments like, "I wish you every success except a practical realization of space travel".
edit: A bit more in the section "Lewis and space exploration" here: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1754/1
Thanks for the clarification, I see what you're getting at.
I wouldn't interpret his writings as anti-space-travel in any way, but you have to understand Weston's character arc across books 1 & 2. Lewis was arguing against the ideal that motivated many peoples' interests in space travel at the time, and the philosophical underpinnings of their views on morality and humanity.
I don't think it's reasonable to suggest that someone of Lewis' intellect would so readily throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater on one of the greatest frontiers of human exploration.
Here, this guy puts it much better than I did: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1754/1#IDComment332377...
Edit: Adding expository link.
The Georgia Guidestones.
This sort of paranoia is really bizarre to see.
There are 7 billion people on this planet. For every absurd and stupid notion, there are millions of adherents. But people who think that humanity must never colonize other planets don't matter because:
1. They have no power
2. We're not going to colonize anything in the next few decades anyway; sending people to Mars would cost a trillion dollars and no one is interested in paying for that
I mean, you're taking something very simple, namely, a science organization takes some precautions to keep their scientific instrument from ruining the experiment it is going to conduct, and reinterpreting it as part of some vast conspiracy. That's...not healthy.
Kim Stanley Robisons Mars Trilogy is mostly about this (i.e. 'Mankind is a pestilance' vs. 'We are the consciousness of the universe')
I agree with you. This kind of stuff makes me kind of hope we don't find any signs of life on Mars. Hopefully at that point there would be nothing to protect from contamination.
I agree. But here's the conundrum: how you can you ever be sure there isn't life somewhere? From a logistics and logical standpoint, it's impossible. All you can say is "We haven't found life so far" ADD: And are we saying that separately-evolved strains of life should never have interaction with each other unless we can be sure of all of the consequences? Sure, many of the consequences will be catastrophic, but is it better never to leave home or explore? It makes me very sad to realize than many would say yes, it is.
sigh
> how you can you ever be sure there isn't life somewhere?
You can't. You establish a given threshold, after which it's no longer reasonable to maintain a quarantine.
It makes me very sad to realize than many would say yes, it is.
Do you have a cite? Or are you talking about very many imaginary people?
Some, I'm willing to believe, already feel very adamantly that mankind is a pestilence and should be prevented from spreading.
Oh rubbish. It's basic lab protocol that you don't contaminate your samples, and we're at the very early stages of sample-gathering. We're just at the stage of figuring out whether Mars has ever had liquid water or not, so your worries about budget interplanetary travel being held up by interfering bureaucrats are almost comically premature.
I've come to the deep conviction that both the "right" and the "left" -- in their present forms -- are impediments to virtually all progress and must be destroyed.
Humans are a force of Nature, not a force apart from Nature.
IMO this kind of stuff is going to be the biggest hurdle to terra-forming someday.
I think you are seriously under-estimating the complexity of terraforming if you think this NASA policy might be a big hurdle...
never underestimate the power of government regulations
Terraforming is pointless anyway. Space-based habitats are a much more efficient way to expand our living space, and most importantly, when living in one, you don't need to live at the bottom of a gravity well.
To paraphrase someone else, when planet-bound civilizations fall to barbarism, people revert to agrarian societies; when space-based habitats fall to barbarism, everybody dies.
The difference being that maintaining a habitat takes a lot of technology that is constantly kept in working order.
When a planet-bound civilization at our level or above falls to barbarism, almost everyone dies. The planet simply cannot maintain billions of people without pretty advanced technology.
In the end, that last % is probably not that significant, specifically because space-based habitats have a very strong advantage over planets -- planets are much rarer. The solar system can sustain many millions of space stations with >1M pop each, with cheap travel between them. I'd estimate that complete system-wide reversal to barbarism is pretty damn rare in that situation.
Modern farming is also a high tech field, most people will die anyway when you revert to agrarian societies. Once you've spread across multiple planets you're no longer at (significant) risk of extinction, so the effect is pretty much the same.
Gravity wells don't spring leaks.
uh-huh.
To state that another way, some bad-ass aliens come along and decide to terraform Earth to their liking. It turns out they breathe 100% Helium, so they convert Earth's atmosphere to that.
How do you feel about terra-forming now?
Helium is an inert gas, so is extremely unlikely to be part of any chemical reaction (much less a bio-chemical reaction like breathing).
[edit]
Methane or ammonia appear to be much more likely alternative, and no I wouldn't like Earth's atmosphere to be replaced with it.
While I'm being a nitpicker Terra-form means roughly "to make like Earth" so it specifically refers to making a planet more like Earth.
OK sure, Helium was a bad choice. Substitute your own.
> While I'm being a nitpicker Terra-form means roughly "to make like Earth"
Substitute whatever word the aliens have that means "to make like home planet" then.
(in extremely high-pitched voice): I for one welcome our new helium-breathing overlords... [passes out]
Are you comparing killing off a whole world's worth of sentient humans with killing off some potential bacteria on Mars?
I am indeed.
As humans, we seem to think we're the most important thing getting around. Even your comment suggests killing off humans is much worse than killing of bacteria on Mars.
Back to my story, the bad-ass aliens might very well look at us just like you're looking at the bacteria on Mars.
What's the difference? (nothing)
How does our staying our hand affect the decisions of your aliens? If someone is going to come exterminate Earth then it is imperative that we put our eggs in as many baskets as possible, regardless.
Turning this into an existential question for the humans does not invoke the morality you are looking for.
This form of argument only works on Earth because humans are the most important thing around, and it can be safely assumed that all human-capable things are humans and therefore you can make moral arguments based on the Golden Rule with the safe assumption that we are all working on the same basic desires. As soon as you introduce true aliens into the mix you can no longer make this assumption. You need to establish from some sort of more basic first principle why this is a bad idea.
Might I also add that from my point of view, the question is, which do you prefer, a bare sterile ecosystem barely hanging on and marking time until the sun sterilizes it, or the sort of rich vibrant ecosystem that we can build by terraforming, bringing life abundant to a place nearly sterile. Even on its own terms the snap "Don't touch anything!" is not the life friendly answer you are probably casually assuming. The ecosystem that will exist AD 100,000,000 is quite different depending on whether we terraform or not. (Again, the snap "Don't touch anything!" is itself a terra-centric viewpoint. On Earth you can assume there's a rich ecosystem pretty much where ever on the planet you point, and you can sort of leap to the conclusion that extensive human interference will at least not make it richer. In space, you can't make that assumption.)
In fact this whole thing ends up cutting to the question of exactly how do you compare two possible ecosystems and decide which is better, a question that environmentalists have to date not really had to face but is one of crucial importance even here on Earth, and completely unavoidable in space. If you're up for a challenge, try to rigorously explain why it's important that we leave a starving, barely-functional ecosystem alone for a hundred million years instead of terraforming the place and then in a hundred million years having a rich, varied Martian ecosystem.
> As humans, we seem to think we're the most important thing getting around. Even your comment suggests killing off humans is much worse than killing of bacteria on Mars.
That's because (according to humans) we are the most important thing getting around. No other species has the mental capacity to even consider this point, though every species acts in its own self interest.
To put it another way, do you think beavers care about disenfranchised fish or animals downstream when they build a dam and reproduce? Should they? According to you beavers should seriously consider the ramifications of their behavior. Haughty beavers...
I'm not saying we should completely disregard other species or go around destroying life needlessly, but that killing off humans is much worse than killing off bacteria, from a human perspective. Your assertion to the contrary is lunacy.
> killing off humans is much worse than killing off bacteria, from a human perspective
Exactly. I introduced another perspective into the picture so that people can see this from a perspective other than a human one.
We're capable of thought, and bacteria aren't. That's a pretty sharp divider. I'd be grumpy if scientists were going to wipe out a planet of earth-plants, but it would be a travesty if they wiped out the planet of moose.
You're still not getting it.
> We're capable of thought, and bacteria aren't.
When the bad-ass aliens come along they'll say "We're capable of faster than light travel, humans aren't."
Think about this from the outside perspective for a second.
1. Our decisions will not impact the decisions of aliens
2. I don't see any reason why eradicating non-sentient bacteria is immoral. Outside perspective doesn't matter on this point; see 1.
This article brings an interesting question to mind -
How will we land humans on Mars without contaminating the planet?
I mean, Mars's atmosphere is mostly CO2, and bacteria are well-known for their ability to survive in harsh conditions. There may not be life on Mars now, but who's to say there won't be after all the astronauts leave...?
Is it wrong to contaminate a space that has no life/use otherwise? I'm not saying Mars as it stands has no use, but if we find no life there, surely spreading life to another planet is "good" right?
Well, we might end up thinking there was life on Mars when we're really the ones that brought it. It might screw with the science.
That burden is on us though. Assume we've taken the proper precautions, searched high and low on Mars, and can definitively say no life currently exists in any form on Mars. What does that make Mars?
- A useful resource for studying terrestrial planets - A geologists dream land - A lifeless rock that will likely never host life unless terraformed - A useful resource for spreading life; extending the Human race's finite time in the Universe
I'm not very educated on the ethics of this topic so I'm looking for reasons you would want to leave Mars be indefinitely.
I don't disagree with you, I was just trying to come up with a reason we might not want to contaminate it.
If there's no life on Mars, I don't see any obvious ethical problems with introducing life to it.
I mean, I guess maybe if it there was some reason it would be bad for the life forms, versus being bad for Mars.
Well, that's the theory. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45511362/ns/technology_and_scien...
Did we contaminate the moon? I think if we can can put people on Mars, we'll like that more than not contaminating Mars.
The atmosphere of Mars is over 95% CO2[1] which I imagine could support the propagation of bacteria. The Moon doesn't have much of an atmosphere at all (a trillionth of what the Earth has).[2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_the_Moon
A bit of cyanobacteria[1] could theoretically thrive on Mars. All it takes is CO2, sunlight, and water.
They also need nitrogen and trace minerals.
The minerals they could get from soil, but without nitrogen they can't make proteins. The atmosphere of mars is 2.7% nitrogen, but I'm not convinced that that is enough for nitrogen fixation to work.
What is wrong in spreading life on a planet which already doesn't have life?
Agreed that first you need to establish that. But once we've searched enough, shouldn't we send tiny ecosystems kind of stuff and try to spread whatever life we can?
As best as I understand it, no other sterilization techniques we have are nearly as effective as launching an object into space for several months or more. So, unless it's directed to portions of a spacecraft that are meaninfully protected from radiation, vacuum, and heat throughout the craft's voyage, pre-launch sterilization doesn't seem to have much purpose.
No sterilization technique is 100% perfect, and whatever contamination might happen is strongly determined by the one mission with the least effective sterilization, which is probably about equal as determined by the interplanetary environment, with variations for duration of flight and strength of solar radiation spikes (and assuming no significant variation over time in cosmic rays). To the extent pre-launch sterilization makes any difference, the earliest landers on other planets probably had the least effective sterilization techniques. For example, the Viking landers were sterilized by exposure to heat at 111 degrees Celsius, but the known upper limit of survival and proliferation temperature for thermophilic archaeans has since increased several times, with the most recent value I'm aware of at 122 degrees Celsius. The Soviet Union landed several probes on Mars and had a program of sterilizing them, but I'm not aware of the details. There was at least one science fiction story where astronauts on Mars discovered microbes that turned out to have evolved from microbes from one of the Soviet landers.
We also know that interplanetary space is not a sterile barrier over long time scales, and that there has been exchange of rocky material between Earth and Mars throughout the history of the Solar System, of which ALH84001 is a recent example. It's conceivable that radiation-hardened microbes such as deinococcus radiodurans could survive the radiation exposure of the trip, while the interiors of such rocks could protect them from the thermal spikes and mechanical shocks of excavation and landing.
Even what precautions our anti-contamination policies have included might have been counterproductive, such as sending the Galileo probe into the atmosphere of Jupiter to prevent the chance of it striking one of the Galilean moons in the future. Even if Europa, Ganymede and Callisto are all teeming with life in sub-surface oceans, it seems like having a 50-ish mile shield of ice between the ocean and a crash-landed probe sitting in the vacuum and hard radiation environment of space is pretty good insurance. But the choice was dictated by humanity's assumption of lots of liquid water as a paramount determinant of the possibility of life. That might be chauvinistic based on our biosphere sample size of one. If you relax your assumptions for the conditions necessary for life to arise and evolve to just a relatively stable space with chemical complexity and energy, the atmospheres of the gas giants become candidates. If you integrate the possibility of life first arising over a volume of space as well as duration of time for the candidate environment, Jupiter becomes overwhelmingly the most likely candidate environment in the solar system for life to have arisen. And unlike the thick ice envelopes of the moons, exposure of the Galileo probe to any portion of the atmosphere of Jupiter is potentially exposure to the entirety of the planet.
It makes sense to take reasonable precautions, but we can't expect to be able to ensure 100% lack of contamination from any spacecraft. And while there are good analytical reasons to believe there is no threat from back contamination to the Earth's biosphere from possible extraterrestrial microbes from a robotic or crewed sample return mission, there's no substitute for experimental evidence, in the form of living things from Earth living and growing on Mars without being hermetically sealed from the Martian environment. It would be fantastic to land at least a robotic greenhouse on Mars, like Chris McKay and then Elon Musk were promoting several years ago, and be able to watch plants and flowers from Earth growing on Mars.
Ultimately, it's not any more unlikely for Earth life to spread to Mars as it was for life on Earth to spread out of the oceans and onto land.