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posted by on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the puerile-plan-purports-to-prevent-pathogens dept.

Of late, [Robert] Zubrin has been bothered by another potential difficulty between humans and the exploration and settlement of Mars—planetary protection. This is the prime-directive-style notion that humans should not contaminate other worlds with Earth-based microbes and, on the flip side, that humans should not introduce any potentially dangerous pathogens to Earth.

[...] This is not a problem that NASA or would-be explorers should take all that seriously with regard to Mars, Zubrin argued during a characteristically fiery talk in late May. He made his remarks at the International Development and Space Conference in St. Louis, which is held by the National Space Society and dedicated to the settlement of space.

Zubrin asserted that Mars almost certainly has no life to be infected by Earth and no extant life which might eventually infect Earth. Mars has no liquid water on the surface, where temperatures are well below freezing, and an ultraviolet light would kill any new life.

[...] An overly zealous Planetary Protection community could also effectively kill human exploration on Mars, he argued, because there is no way to sterilize a crew, especially if the unthinkable happens. "If you maintain this pretense, a human expedition to Mars is impossible," he argued. "You cannot guarantee that a human mission to Mars won't crash, in which case you'll be scattering human microbes all over the surface."

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by mth on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:13AM (5 children)

    by mth (2848) on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:13AM (#522509) Homepage

    I would be surprised if no life was found on Mars. Life is found on earth in places that haven't seen sunlight in millions of years, so why couldn't there be microbes in some underground water on Mars?

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:33AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:33AM (#522520) Journal

      That sounds like a better place to look than the topsoil. And if life can find a way on Mars, it could find a way on (in) Enceladus, Europa, Ceres, Titan, Ganymede, Callisto, Dione, Rhea, Titania, Triton, Pluto, Eris, Sedna, etc.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:46PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:46PM (#522559) Journal
      Life is in the deepest places of Earth because life has been on Earth for billions of years. The problem with your assertion is that we don't have evidence of life on Mars now or in the past. The lack of biological waste products in the Martian atmosphere now is a strong indication of a negative IMHO.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:33PM (#522657)

      Life on Earth started under very specific conditions which have never occurred on Mars. Furthermore, the Martian environment is far more hostile to organic chemistry than Earth.

    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:04PM (1 child)

      by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:04PM (#522789)

      Well, there's not much of an atmosphere ("96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water"), or a magnetosphere at all. Isn't nitrogen a key component of most life on Earth, too?

      I'd guess that doesn't rule out anaerobic bacteria, but after several rovers finding nada on the surface the odds don't seem very good.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @06:32AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 09 2017, @06:32AM (#522953) Journal

        Which means life may very well be alive and well beneath the surface, in caves and in polar ice. Which hasn't been explored.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:30AM (2 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:30AM (#522518) Journal

    Interplanetary Transport System is on the launch pad in 2024, preparing for blast off. Suddenly, the hatch opens from the outside.

    "Elon Musk, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain musky."

    Numerous Mars pregnancies were avoided that day. And the next year, Nibiru collided with Earth and wiped out all of humanity.

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    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:02AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:02AM (#522530) Journal

      You can't leave Earth unless IRS can send their goons ahead of you :p

    • (Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:12AM

      by looorg (578) on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:12AM (#522534)

      So Elon is like Kirk? On a five year mission to impregnate green alien chicks?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:09AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:09AM (#522533)

    Laws smaws, what are they going to do, send the space police?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:22AM (4 children)

      by kaszz (4211) on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:22AM (#522536) Journal

      Prevent people from leaving. Kind of like what the Soviet Union USSR did.. ie "exit visa".

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:04PM (#522543)

        Niggers.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:10PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:10PM (#522545)

        I wonder how doable that is. There are enough corrupted/crazy "leaders" that would allow you to do things in their country when paid enough. Will the world attack "evil country" if someone puts up a launch platform for going to space? I hardly doubt it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:42PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:42PM (#522558)

          I wonder how doable that is. There are enough corrupted/crazy "leaders" that would allow you to do things in their country when paid enough. Will the world attack "evil country" if someone puts up a launch platform for going to space? I hardly doubt it.

          I think the last sentence says the exact opposite of what you wanted to say (it says you are almost sure that they will; I suspect you wanted to say you are almost sure they won't).

          But it is indeed quite possible that they will (assuming they don't succeed in stopping it in an earlier stage by other means). Not because of planetary protection, but because of very down-to-earth reasons.

          Any rocket strong enough to transport humans into orbit is also strong enough to transport spy satellites into orbit. And the same technology can be used for long-range missiles. What do you think the space race actually was about?

          But of course the officially stated attack reason will likely not be the launch station …

          • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @06:13AM

            by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 09 2017, @06:13AM (#522947) Journal

            It could be worked around by building a base in the sky with a official purpose other than the real one, ie lying. Once all that is needed for a launch to trans Mars orbit is there. They could say "Hasta la vista Earthlies!". What are they going to do about it? ;-)

            Any attempt to launch missiles will necessarily have to outpace the speed of the space ship(s) and that at a very large distance. With a lot of time for countermeasures. Building a Mars planetary defense shouldn't be that hard. Considering that any projectile will take days to reach the planet and signal surveillance may locate it days before it arrives.

            The weak point is getting of the Earth. And the other is presently the need for re-supplies. But once that is solved. Such base could comparatively easily defend against Earthlings. With a industrial base on Mars the case will almost be a done one.

  • (Score: 2) by lx on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:30PM (3 children)

    by lx (1915) on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:30PM (#522553)

    But if you prefer it over human survival, then your priorities are fucked up.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:40PM (1 child)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 08 2017, @12:40PM (#522557) Journal
      What does "human survival" mean here? Even the current space probes have probably resulted in some small number of human deaths from accident.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:28PM (#522804)

        I guess it means that no one is allowed to die ever, even if they themselves accept the risks. Which is insane, because you have to accept some amount of casualties at the very least, or else even countless ordinary jobs would be banned and we'd be unable to actually do anything. I don't see the appeal of being a safety extremist.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:40PM (#522727)

      Yeah, I bet if they asked for qualified volunteers for the first manned mission to Mars telling them that there's only a 60% expect chance of survival that nobody would show up.

      Actually, that is sarcastic and sarcasm does poorly on the net. For many people the opportunity play a major role in something far greater than themselves and something that stands to dramatically aid humanity as a species is a no brainer, even if it comes at great personal risk. There would undoubtedly be hundreds if not thousands of qualified individuals ready to help. Beginning the process of interplanetary colonization is something that will reshape our species forever.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:13PM (2 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:13PM (#522568) Journal

    Proving a negative is extremely hard. Mars could have had native life that died out and is all gone, never had life, or still have life today. We have checked for life on Mars, and so far found nothing, which of course means either that there isn't any, or that we haven't recognized it. We're still finding life in places on Earth that seem improbable. Only recently did biologists decide there was an entire domain of life, the archaea, which had been lumped in with bacteria, and which should be recognized as distinct.

    • (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:30PM (1 child)

      by FakeBeldin (3360) on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:30PM (#522575) Journal

      As far as I know, you're allowed to land anywhere as long as you don't contaminate.
      How unbelievably hypocritical and shallow would the human race be if we recognised that this makes perfect sense for space exploration, but then, for the very first planet we set food on, tossed those protections away for the sake of convenience??

      *if* we think that preventing contamination is important in general, then we must take extra care when it comes to our first steps in space exploration and to our closest neighbors.
      After all, the contamination prohibition is more or less based on the idea that we're not going to be able to do this over if we mess it up the first time. And frankly, on Earth the track record of human intervention in isolated biospheres is rather substantial and the impact is usually permanent (e.g. Australia, Madagascar, etc.). So making every effort possible to minimise that before we might inadvertently expose extraterrestrial life to Earth-life sounds like a good idea.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @06:16AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 09 2017, @06:16AM (#522948) Journal

        That will be hard if a landing vehicle crashes and the guts of the passengers is sprayed all over the planet surface.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:50PM (16 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 08 2017, @01:50PM (#522578) Journal

    No one in their right mind gives a small damn about "contaminating" a barren rock. Ain't nobody there, ain't nobody using it, it's ours by right discovery and conquest. If some body of morons starts blocking the exploration of Mars for such silly reasons, I just might become a "terrist". Firebomb their asses, then launch the next outbound rocket through the wisps of smoke coming off their dead asses.

    • (Score: 2) by Weasley on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:53PM (5 children)

      by Weasley (6421) on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:53PM (#522603)

      Can I just upvote your first and second sentence?

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:52PM (4 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:52PM (#522637) Journal

        LOL, do as you wish. The rest of the post is intended to shock people's sensibilities, and check if anyone is awake at NSA. ;^)

        • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:27PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:27PM (#522653)

          "intended to shock people's sensibilities"

          A.k.a., "being an asshole".

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:32PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:32PM (#522656)

            How perceptive. At least a little more perceptive than most rocks.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:22PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:22PM (#522756)

            But was he wrong?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @03:10AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @03:10AM (#522919)

            -nomsg

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:36PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @03:36PM (#522622)

      That might be how some aliens perceive Earth: No intelligent life found so we can terraform and settle it...

      It's easy to keep the Earth from getting any Mars life: make the trip one way only. Including items and ships.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:00PM (2 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:00PM (#522640) Journal

        "That might be how some aliens perceive Earth: No intelligent life found so we can terraform and settle it..."

        All the more reason for the greatest diaspora in the history of mankind.

        "It's easy to keep the Earth from getting any Mars life: make the trip one way only. Including items and ships."

        There are already a lot of volunteers for a one way trip. At any time in my own life, I would have made that choice. I would do it today, if they were recruiting old bastards who have seen their best days already.

        https://www.space.com/24112-private-mars-colony-1058-martian-volunteers.html [space.com]

        http://time.com/3716823/mars-one-space-travel-finalist/ [time.com]

        Hell, you can pick and choose your own links from here: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=volunteers+for+one+way+mars+trip&atb=v63-6__&ia=news [duckduckgo.com]

        There is no shortage of volunteers to make the one way trip now. If we ever get a simple station established, and the people in it report that "life is good", the number of volunteers will multiply a thousand times.

        Besides, travelers here on earth already know that you can never go home. I takes a few thousand miles to understand that. Tomorrow's Martians will understand it before they leave earth orbit.

        • (Score: 2) by deadstick on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:11PM

          by deadstick (5110) on Thursday June 08 2017, @09:11PM (#522794)

          "That might be how some aliens perceive Earth: No intelligent life found so we can terraform and settle it..."

          It's already terraformed.

        • (Score: 1) by charon on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:48PM

          by charon (5660) on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:48PM (#522828) Journal
          I'll just leave this [wikipedia.org] here.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:03PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:03PM (#522642)

      I think it is an entirely reasonable restriction until at least as long as we get to where we can realistically do something about Mars. Right now and for the foreseeable future, all we can do is send some symbolic flag-planting mission, fart around on the surface for a short period of time, then come back. There will not be any sustainable situation there for many decades to come. There aren't enough rich people to keep it going with private funds, and there won't be the will to keep it going with public funds. Remember, we landed on the Moon with Apollo 11 to great excitement, it was pretty neat with 12, and it was ho-hum by 13. If it wasn't for the problems with 13, people would have largely ignored it. The program was dead by 17, and it only did that launch because everything was ready to go. Even the Apollo-Soyuz rendezvous was a grand "meh". Same thing with Mars. The most likely thing will be that we'll stay for a very short time, and biologically fuck up the area with our trash and the people we buried because they died in transit or after arrival.

    • (Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:48PM (4 children)

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:48PM (#522733) Journal

      No one in their right mind gives a small damn about "contaminating" a barren rock.

      I agree. Now for the hard part: prove it's actually barren.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:28PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:28PM (#522759)

        prove it's actually barren

        No.

        Now what? Are you going to try to kill me to stop me from going?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:06PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:06PM (#522817)

          No, because your dumb ass will die from radiation exposure on the way there.

          • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @06:24AM

            by kaszz (4211) on Friday June 09 2017, @06:24AM (#522950) Journal

            Fill the space vehicle walls with moon rock or comet water. Radiation protection solved.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @03:15AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @03:15AM (#522921)

        100% of the proof so far says it's barren, so say varied and repeated experiments.
        If you were betting money on this, there would only be one logical way to bet.

  • (Score: 1) by Revek on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:14PM (1 child)

    by Revek (5022) on Thursday June 08 2017, @02:14PM (#522587)

    The same people probably get upset when you mow you're lawn or plant a non local tree. You have to ignore these people in their quest to keep everything from changing. Don't let their fears prevent progress and a chance for a better tomorrow.

    --
    This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
    • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:29PM

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 08 2017, @05:29PM (#522690) Homepage Journal

      It's pretty important to plant nonlocal trees if we want them to survive despite global warming. Plant southern trees in the north; plant northern trees in the tundra.

  • (Score: 2, Troll) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:07PM (4 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:07PM (#522644)

    Am I missing something? This whole story seems to be about a giant strawman. Some dude named Zubrin is in favor of exploring and settling Mars, which isn't a unique viewpoint by any means, but he's claiming there's going to be some kind of "Planetary Protection" organization which will work to prevent this because of "contamination", so he then loudly argues against this hypothetical organization. This sounds like the ultimate strawman argument to me: "I want to do something, but I'm going to scream and yell about someone trying to stop me, even though no one is!". Is this guy getting paid for these speeches or something?

    There is no "Planetary Protection community"; it's entirely a construct made up by this Zubrin guy AFAICT. So where is there even any debate about it? Does anyone with any real power (not just some hipster living in his parents' basement) actually hold this viewpoint, and intend to use real power to oppose Mars exploration? They haven't do so yet, and we've already sent a bunch of probes and rovers to the planet. This whole thing seems like a tempest in a teapot to me.

    • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:42PM (2 children)

      by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday June 08 2017, @04:42PM (#522663) Journal

      he's claiming there's going to be some kind of "Planetary Protection" organization which will work to prevent this because of "contamination", so he then loudly argues against this hypothetical organization.

      Not an organization per se, but a treaty. "Planetary protection" is a requirement of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, article IX.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection#History [wikipedia.org]

      So the "planetary protection community" would be the 104 nations that have ratified that treaty and therefore agreed to pursue such a policy. I don't think we can quite describe the United States Government as "some hipster living in his parents' basement" yet.. :)

      Of course, we all know what the USG thinks of international law, or law in general. It'll hold only as long as they don't see any real incentive to get up there...

      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:00PM (#522709)

        The US has already sent several rovers and landers to Mars, and the US and other nations (USSR, China, India) have landed on the Moon too, all well after this silly treaty was signed. There's no real "planetary protection community", just some language in an old treaty about being careful to not contaminate any place that might have life. And UN treaties have no real way of enforcing them anyway, unless the major players agree to (which is very rare). With the US, Russia, China, and India all happily sending probes and landers to other worlds, there's no sign that anyone is going to be very aggressive about this.

        • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:09PM

          by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday June 08 2017, @07:09PM (#522746) Journal

          The US has already sent several rovers and landers to Mars, and the US and other nations (USSR, China, India) have landed on the Moon too, all well after this silly treaty was signed.

          That's not a conflict, it's the whole point! Article IX states (emphasis mine):

          "...States Parties to the Treaty shall pursue studies of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter and, where necessary, shall adopt appropriate measures for this purpose..

          Planetary protection isn't about keeping away, it's about exploring without destroying ourselves or the thing we're trying to explore in the process. Yes, we send rovers and even manned missions, but only after careful sterilization processes. They've been doing that since Apollo, and continue to do so with the more recent Mars missions:

          https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19750006598.pdf [nasa.gov]
          https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/technology/is_planetary_protection.html [nasa.gov]

          And UN treaties have no real way of enforcing them anyway, unless the major players agree to (which is very rare).

          Yes, I believe I mentioned that as well...although damn near the entire world has signed on to this, and as most of them don't have space capabilities, they wouldn't have much to lose by trying to push for stringent enforcement. And those that do have space capabilities seem to be obeying it -- we've been doing this on every probe or craft we've sent up there for several decades now. This isn't an unenforced and ignored treaty, it's a treaty that was successfully implemented decades ago. As long as NASA is mostly in charge I expect that it'll be obeyed; but I do agree that if someone like the DoD decides to get more involved then all bets are off...

    • (Score: 2) by Weasley on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:58PM

      by Weasley (6421) on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:58PM (#522858)

      Many in the space community argue that we shouldn't send humans to Mars due to contamination. It's a thing. No I'm not going to provide you sources. The fact you don't know who Robert Zubrin is means you probably don't follow the scene too closely and that's the reason you've never heard this argument before.

  • (Score: 1) by DmT on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:00PM (1 child)

    by DmT (6439) on Thursday June 08 2017, @06:00PM (#522708)

    Just send bacteria before humans go there. Maybe they will survive, and make life easier for future settelers.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 08 2017, @11:41PM (#522848)

      No. Bacteria mutate and evolve very fast. Put bacteria in a hostile environment, and if _any_ of them survive, those survivors will reproduce and their progeny will rapidly become adapted to that environment. Humans who go there would be exposed to bacterial infections the likes of which their immune systems have never encountered before and to which they have no defense. See the history of American natives and smallpox for an example of why that doesn't end well. It applies also to viruses within a human population living within a closed and foreign environment. Evolution is driven by environment. New planet, new environment. This is a fundamental problem with any interplanetary settlements -- each human population will have rapidly divergent strains of flu and other diseases (due to very different environments, plus enforced separation due to distance) which could prove fatal to any other population upon contact. Ripley and Hudson could well be right: if just one of those (microscopic) aliens gets back to Earth, it's game over man. But the same can be true the other way: after a few generations it may be impossible for any humans to visit a Martian colony of humans without getting very sick or dying in that environment. We may spread life to that planet, but it will then diverge and evolve its own way, and there's no guarantee it'll remain compatible with its original source.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @12:03AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @12:03AM (#522859)

    Rocks from Mars have been found in Antarctica, therefore it is logical to presume that they have fallen pretty much all over the Earth. If they didn't introduce the purple-spotted plague here, we probably won't introduce measles there.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @03:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @03:19AM (#522923)

      There is a logic flaw in your reasoning.
      The most likely explanation for why Mars hasn't contaminated Earth is that Mars has no life to contaminate Earth with.
      If we sent people to Mars, we could certainly contaminate it.

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