A plan to charge live germ to the Red Planet ’s largest moon risks wreck our search for extraterrestrial life , debate Barry E. DiGregorio .
We humans have a unequalled endowment for contaminating pristine environments . We put millions of tonnes of pollutants into the atmosphere every year . We envenom our soils , lake , river and streams with chemical substance and radioactive dissipation . We splatter oil color into our seas . We fill the Pacific and Atlantic oceans with island of plastic garbage seeable from space . Is it any surprise that we are also contaminating pristine ethereal bodies with bacterial spore ?
Spacefaring nations have been transmit unsterilised spacecraft to the moon , Mars , Jupiter , comet and asteroid for over 40 years . It has been estimated that about one trillion microbial spores from spacecraft are now scattered around Mars ( Advances in Space Research , vol 35 , p 1648 ) . Yet the search for life in our solar organisation has scarce begun .
It was n’t always so . At the daybreak of the space years , insurance - makers had every purpose to protect blank from contamination . They also set out to protect Earth from textile brought in from other celestial bodies that might contain toxins or pathogens .
These grand destination were enshrined in theUnited Nations Outer Space Treaty of 1967 , now signed by all spacefaring nations . It simply states : “ Parties to the Treaty shall pursue work of outer outer space , include the moon and other heavenly bodies , and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful pollution and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth ensue from the unveiling of extraterrestrial issue . ”
other space vehicle had to be exhaustively and expensively sterilised before they could be sent to the Sun Myung Moon or major planet . However , over the year this requirement has been irrigate down . The Committee on Space Research ( COSPAR ) in Paris , France , has been charged with make adjustment based on new data . COSPAR now appropriate spacecraft to get around any sterilisation as long as they are not carrying life - detecting instruments or down on areas of Mars designated as “ particular neighborhood ” – arena where liquid piddle could exist for short periods that might support mundane microbic growth . The problem with these policy change is that they are premature : our knowledge about the survivability of life on Mars is always changing with each spacecraft mission .
Numerous report have debated whether terrestrial spores might be able to repeat and scatter on Mars . We still do n’t know the answer , so why jeopardy contaminating the most Earth - like satellite in our solar scheme ?
Now a deputation slat to plunge in the 2nd half of 2011 will effectively charge up the treaty . The Russian Federal Space Agency ’s Phobos Sample Return Mission ( formerly sleep with as Phobos - Grunt ) will send not just microbial spore but live bacteria into the solar scheme for the first prison term . If this is n’t a unmediated rape of the Outer Space Treaty then what is ?
The mission will flee to Mars , study it from orbit and then realm on Phobos , the larger of Mars ’s two moonlight . On gameboard will be two sealed capsules stop live micro - organisms . Some months later the guile will embark on the reappearance journeying carrying the still - sealed space capsule , plus samples of soil scoop up up from the surface of Phobos . All being well it will render to Earth in 2014 .
The reason for institutionalise live micro - organisms to Phobos is to investigate if any survive the three - class journey . If they do , the researcher say it would corroborate the theory of transpermia , which hold back that microbic life can be exchanged between planets via stone ejected from their Earth’s surface by collisions .
That theory is tenuous at best . All of the Martian meteorite found on Earth spend million of geezerhood in space before they get in . for apologise their experimental goal , one of the groups involve in the experimentation , The Planetary Society of Pasadena , California , argues that rocks larger than 100 grams are change from Mars to Earth in only two to three days . No verbatim evidence exists for this claim . Is the transpermia interrogative really so of import that it is worth risking the taint that would surely come about if the spacecraft malfunctioned and crashed on Mars ?
This is no little risk . Of 38 craft launched towards Mars , only 19 succeeded . At least three clank - landed on the satellite ’s surface .
Of 38 trade launched towards Mars , only 19 made it . At least three crash - landed on the aerofoil
The Phobos Sample Return Mission has one of the most complex commission profiles ever flown . Not only will the spacecraft have to perform a serial of maneuver in Mars field to set in motion a artificial satellite , it will also have to change its orbit to rendezvous with Phobos . The last fourth dimension the Russians attempted to land on Phobos was in 1988 with the Phobos 1 and 2 spacecraft . Both lose contact en itinerary .
To make matters worse , we already jazz a undecomposed deal about microbial survival in space thanks to experiments done with Apollo , the Mir blank space station , the International Space Station and the space shuttles . like experiments have also been done at space surroundings simulation deftness on Earth . Why not continue to apply these and spare Mars potential taint ?
For those having any doubts about microbes surviving a fiery re - entry , you need only see the happy chance - up of the Columbia quad shuttlecock in February 2003 . One of the microbic experiments on Columbia survive intact , although slenderly charred . After analytic thinking it was make up one’s mind that a rut - tolerant microbe , Microbispora , had survived .
The question “ Is there life sentence on Mars ? ” has sure as shooting been answered by our own ignorant action . Yes , there is life on Mars , because we put it there . The only remaining interrogation is , will it survive and mature , confusing future scientific answer ? mail live bacteria to Phobos can only increase the risk that it will .
Barry E. DiGregorio is director of theInternational Committee Against Mars Sample Returnand generator ofMars : The Living Planet(North Atlantic Books ) . This post primitively appear onNew Scientist .
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