Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE 9/9/2017
A battleground of debate is brewing regarding the search for life on Mars.
The crux of the discussion is whether or not planetary protection rules are stifling our exploratory space missions.
Last month, in the August 11 issue of Science, staff writer Paul Voosen wrote about the fear of microbial taint that curbs Mars explorers.
In summary, the Science story explains: “In the coming years, NASA’s Curiosity rover will pass rocks on Mars that, seen from orbit, seem to host mysteriously intermittent dark streaks – perhaps marking seasonal water seeps that could host martian life. But NASA’s planetary protection office, charged with keeping earthly microbes from colonizing other bodies, has said it may nix a visit. It fears that Curiosity could contaminate this so-called special region because the rover was not fully sterilized before launch.
Primed for a shakeup
The Science article summary explains that “many planetary scientists, however, believe that now is the time to loosen restrictions on visiting these areas, before human exploration contaminates the planet. And, after years of stasis, the planetary protection office seems primed for a shakeup, thanks to an internal move and potential change in leadership, along with outside review of its policies by independent scientists.”
Humans on Mars: trouble ahead
Kicking up Mars dust on the topic is a forum article that has just been published in the journal Astrobiology. Lead author is Alberto G. Fairén, a visiting scientist at Cornell University.
Co-authors of the article are Victor Parro of the Centro de Astrobiologı´a (CSIC-INTA), Madrid, Spain; Dirk Schulze-Makuch of the Center of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany; and Lyle Whyte of the Department of Natural Resource Sciences, McGill University, Que´bec, Canada.
Titled “Searching for Life on Mars Before It Is Too Late” makes the case that planetary protection policies as we conceive them today “will no longer be valid as human arrival will inevitably increase the introduction of terrestrial and organic contaminants and that could jeopardize the identification of indigenous Mars life.”
More:
http://www.leonarddavid.com/searching-for-life-on-marsbefore-it-is-too-late/
