I just attended a seminar called Planetary Protection: Policies and Practices. It was not quite as boring as it sounds. They have the best bumper sticker ever. "Protecting all the Planets all the time!"
This would have been a great seminar had it been in Colorado Springs or San Diego. I am sure that all the people enjoyed coming to Cocoa Beach. I enjoyed the Courtyard and the free food and drink. I also enjoyed the speakers. There were seven presenters and thirteen participants. I think it was a nice trip for the presenters and they just happened to be giving a seminar while vacationing.
Believe it or not, there is a group of people looking out for not just this planet but all of the asteroids, moons, satellite worlds or other planets. It is a theoretical game and they take it seriously. Carl Sagan kicked of the mathematical probabilities some years ago. There are probabilities of accidental contact, of transference of viable spores and subsequent infection. Someone calculated the probability difference between a slow decent to Mars and a quick descent and how much sterilization of the craft will occur on each approach. They also calculated the probability that an organism(spores) would be transferred to Martian surfaces and the probability of those surviving to produce life on Mars. If the risk is greater than one chance in ten million, you have to clean your space craft better. The entire Mars Rover, this last one they sent up was the size of golf cart. There was 135 thousand square feet (three football fields) of surface area that could contain viable spores for contamination. It all has to be cleaned to a density of less than 1 spore per cubic centimeter. The entire craft could only have about 500,000 spores on it for launch go ahead. 500,000 spores can quite easily fit side by side on your little fingernail and a spoonful of dirt could contain a million spores.
So lets just say the other planets are safe. An organism capable of reproducing would have to survive the cleaning, the trip in a radiation filled, oxygen less space for a year, then land on Mars without being burned up and land in some place with water, grow, replicate and then Propagate. There is about as much chance of that happening as our government actually doing anything important. I am sure Saturn is safe also.
But lets be clear, they have a great bumper sticker, a good presentation and ethics on their side. Unfortunately, they are a government agency and are covered by a treaty with the United Nations. I am sure at one time that meant something also. But now it is just non-absorbent wiping paper.
This would have been a great seminar had it been in Colorado Springs or San Diego. I am sure that all the people enjoyed coming to Cocoa Beach. I enjoyed the Courtyard and the free food and drink. I also enjoyed the speakers. There were seven presenters and thirteen participants. I think it was a nice trip for the presenters and they just happened to be giving a seminar while vacationing.
Believe it or not, there is a group of people looking out for not just this planet but all of the asteroids, moons, satellite worlds or other planets. It is a theoretical game and they take it seriously. Carl Sagan kicked of the mathematical probabilities some years ago. There are probabilities of accidental contact, of transference of viable spores and subsequent infection. Someone calculated the probability difference between a slow decent to Mars and a quick descent and how much sterilization of the craft will occur on each approach. They also calculated the probability that an organism(spores) would be transferred to Martian surfaces and the probability of those surviving to produce life on Mars. If the risk is greater than one chance in ten million, you have to clean your space craft better. The entire Mars Rover, this last one they sent up was the size of golf cart. There was 135 thousand square feet (three football fields) of surface area that could contain viable spores for contamination. It all has to be cleaned to a density of less than 1 spore per cubic centimeter. The entire craft could only have about 500,000 spores on it for launch go ahead. 500,000 spores can quite easily fit side by side on your little fingernail and a spoonful of dirt could contain a million spores.
So lets just say the other planets are safe. An organism capable of reproducing would have to survive the cleaning, the trip in a radiation filled, oxygen less space for a year, then land on Mars without being burned up and land in some place with water, grow, replicate and then Propagate. There is about as much chance of that happening as our government actually doing anything important. I am sure Saturn is safe also.
But lets be clear, they have a great bumper sticker, a good presentation and ethics on their side. Unfortunately, they are a government agency and are covered by a treaty with the United Nations. I am sure at one time that meant something also. But now it is just non-absorbent wiping paper.
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