I understand the concern about killing anything that might want to hitch a ride on our Mars landers. But wouldn’t the simple act of reusing a spacesuit in an airlock contaminate the surface, on manned missions?

Understandably, there are not yet any planetary protection procedures for controlling biological contamination on Mars.

But, I don't understand why in your scenario contamination is inevitable. Can there not be a decontamination step to clean the airlock and the outside of the suit just before the external door is opened?

(And re-use is no worse than initial use. It's hard to put the suit on the first time without contaminating its exterior.)

(And, as I recall, they haven't bothered to make our landers sterile so far -- just very very clean.)

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Here is a link stating that they are sterilized.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/inde...-organisms.xml

That says the Phoenix lander was sterlized, not that all mission landers have been.

That is because it is a life-testing mission.

Previous missions that didn't test for life didn't get sterilized. The COSPAR Planetary Protection Policy lays out the levels of protection:

Edit: And, it looks like Phoenix might [Edit: not] be entirely sterilized. TFOT: Phoenix - Scouting for Water on the Red Planet:

Oh, yeah, I forgot: Phoenix doesn't have chemical life-detection equipment, so it's not required to be sterilized. I don't understand what that ScienceDaily article was about.

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When and if we send people to Mars, we'll need to figure out how to prevent contaimination into and out of the spacecraft. I've seen some space suit ideas that allow the user to enter from behind. One possibility might be a two-stage airlock. The space suit never goes into the spacecraft but stays in the outer airlock. The wearer gets into the spacesuit through the wall of the inner airlock.

Another good article, an interview, without the misinterpretations of a reporter: NASA Astrobiology Magazine: Keeping It Clean

300 spores per square meter.

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I'm willing to bet Mars would probably sterilize itself, given the harsh conditions such as low atmospheric pressure, freezing temperatures and UV. Not to mention the almost total lack of liquid water. If any earth life forms to contaminate Mars (othan than humans a few centuries from now), they'd be a tough bunch living below the surface, probably competing with the more adabpted Marian mirco-organisms.

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You might be surprised. Apollo 12 retrieved parts of a Surveyor spacecraft that had landed on the moon a couple years earlier. When examined, scientists found that bacteria was still alive. The moon is a more harsh environment in most ways than Mars.

The contaimination issue is two-fold. First, if you're looking for life on Mars, you don't want false readings from bacteria you brought with you. Second, for human crews, you don't want any possibility that bacteria that might be present on Mars to infect your crew even if the possibility is admittedly remote. After all, while all bacteria isn't harmful to humans, some of it is and the crew wouldn't have any immunity.

There's also the admittedly slight chance that the bacteria might not be harmful to humans but could present a risk to other organisms in our environment. Zubrin is fond of saying "humans don't catch Dutch Elm Disease." That's true, but Dutch Elms do. Humans aren't the only things on Earth that we have to take reasonable precautions to protect.

NASA has high doubt in that conclusion.

NASA Astrobiology.net: Apollo 12 Remembered -- Lunar Germ Colony or Lab Anomaly?

Wikipedia: Reports of Streptococcus mitis on the moon

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This is interesting. Can you point me to the article?

ETA: Never mind. 01101001 posted the link.

Yes. Even ignoring the issues is keeping the outside of a suit sterile or even biologically clean, all suits and spacecraft leak.

This mans that by the time we go to Mars we will need to have decided that such contamination does not matter , either because there is no biosphere to contaminate, or that the Martian surface is self-sterilizing.

Jon

There are NASA sites that haven't tempered the Surveyor results, like Science @ NASA: Earth microbes on the moon (1998, an educational site). That offers it up as undisputed fact.

It's not like there aren't more serious studies, with more trustworthy results, that show tough bacteria from Earth can survive years of exposure to space with slight protection.

Abstract, Responses of Bacillus subtilis spores to space environment: Results from experiments in space

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The idea of attempting to prevent contamination, either into the Martian environment, or from the Martian environment, is patently absurd. Soon enough, whether through accidents, faulty equipment, or deliberate violation of the rules, both will occur. At that point, all previous efforts will be moot, and all the time, energy, and equipment will have been a total waste.

Unless life developed on Mars from life on Earth, or the other way around, or both at once from the same panspermia, bacteria from one world would be highly unlikely to be able to adversely affect life on the other. Pathogens develop very specifically to interact with only with a certain organism, going so far as to not affect other organisms with 99.9% DNA similarity. The chances of having a totally alien life form being able to interact biologically with a life form independently developed on another world would be slim or none.

BTW, the US did have a law dealing with space borne contamination.

Extraterrestrial Exposure Law
Extraterrestrial Exposure Law - Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations was adopted by the US on the same day that Apollo 11 was launched to the Moon. The purpose of the law was to allow the government to quarantine and isolate returning spacecraft and astronauts to prevent possible introduction of potential pathogenic organisms from outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Of course this spawned an Urban Legand that the government passed a law to make it illegal to touch ET Aliens. The "Extraterrestrial Exposure" law was removed from the CFR in 1991

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Wow- for all I've always thought about Viking being shabby and ancient... well, not so much any more.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Shabby? What would make you think that? Because it was done in the 1970s? We went to the Moon in 1969 - do you also feel that the Apollo hardware was shabby? Old tech maybe but far from shabby.

To quote from a story I wrote:
"I do understand the courage of the pioneering missions, but in view of the Martian Invasion, the Vikings in comparision look a bit... shabby."
"Martain Invasion?"
"It's not what you think, in 2003, Mars was closest- well, you know... we 'invaded' with an armada of probes."
Apollo doesn't seem old because we haven't gone to the moon since, so I have nothing new to compare it to.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

KaiYeves,

Here are other examples of old technologies that I don't consider shabby. The complete list would fill many books.

- Wright Flyer
- P-51 Mustang
- Bell X-1
- X-15
- Sputnik

Indeed! The greatest hits of the National Air and Space Museum! Viking is very cool, I was overeacting before.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

2003 armada? Check out the earlier invasions: Wikipedia: Exploration of Mars :: Timeline_of_Mars_exploration

Like 3 in 1962, 4 in 1964, 4 in 1969, 5 in 1971, 4 in 1973. Then came the 2 Vikings and then a long dry spell for whatever reason and then a renewed interest. Yes, there weren't a lot of successes in those early years, but there were a lot of attempts -- and they helped us learn how to do the very difficult.

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__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Don't worry about it, but do imagine what it would be like in three or four decades if you heard someone talk about those "shabby" old Spirit and Opportunity rovers. I remember the Viking landings very fondly, along with the Voyager grand tours. It wasn't just what we learned, but that we saw so much that we had just been able to dream about before.

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Heck, they might still be going! And blogging (at least Opportunity; Spirit seems to have abandoned her livejournal.)

Nick

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--
Nick Theodorakis

Spirit, Opportunity, Cassini-Huygens, Dawn, New Horizons, the ISS, Spaceship 1, Virgin Galactic, Hayabusa, Shenzhou. We live in exciting times now.

Jon

Warm fuzzies all over. Thanks, Jon. :-D
But nobody talks about them except on BAUT.
Glad to hear them speak for themselves. Have they met my friend?

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Really? How about this discussion? Or this one, and this one, and this one?

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

Yes. There are several people where I work and we talk about the latest in space exploration at least once a week.

Why can't they go to my school. I'm surrounded by kids who think Canada's a myth because they've never been there.
I joined BAUT so I could discuss these things. It makes me happy.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

That's a real shame. But don't give up, you may find them keeping a low profile.

Jon