Earth Life Headed for Mars, page 1

Found this on another forum so thought i would share.

By Leonard David
SPACE.com's Space Insider Columnist
posted: 7 January 2009

Russia is pushing forward on a robotic mission to Mars dubbed Phobos-Grunt - now seemingly on a countdown clock that ticks away for an October launch.

If the project is on track and off the ground by that time, Phobos-Grunt would arrive at the red planet in August of next year.[...]

But what caught my eye was another payload on this heady mission - detailed in a couple of recent articles - that Russia is also dispatching on the flight the "world's hardiest" or "toughest" organisms found here on Earth, sealed up in a bio-container for the Earth-to-Mars/Mars to Earth three year trek. The bio-module will provide 30 small tubes for individual microbe samples. [...]

...It is called forward contamination.

Under The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, planetary protection policies are in place to prevent cross contamination between planets - avoiding both forward contamination on outbound spacecraft, and back contamination of Earth upon return. For this mission, it's the possibility of forward contamination that's raises concerns.

Source

Very interesting stuff, not much i can really add other than speculation so read the full article for more information

Related Simulation Shows Bacteria Could Live on Mars

reply to post by LAUGHING-CAT

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I'm sorry, i know the current theory is that dinosours are what spawned todays modern birds, but i would imagine them being much smaller, i mean, come on, can you really imagine the seagull being a several million years later T-Rex??? I could actually, evil little **snip** that they are, seriously though, no. Dino's dead, whatever caused it, Dinos dead end of story.

reply to post by woogleuk

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lol i seen a seagull eat another bird "pegion" it was alive !!


But back on topic here... didnt nasa say they found life on the lense of the cam or something.. i need to try find the artical..

I was found that it had been happy in ye old space! and came back intact and very much alive..dunno how like but hey just passing on the msg.

Sending life to mars or any other planet is a good idea. Im sure we have bugs here on earth that could put up with mars.

reply to post by enduser

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I'd hazzard a guess that the several previous missions that dropped man-made objects onto Mars have more than likely already contaminated the surface, especially the probes sent during the 1970's.

I recall seeing the project leader of the Beagle 2 mission strutting around his lander wearing nothing more than a paper suit with half of his huge beard and long hair hanging out , If that thing actually touched down, Mars is already doomed

I think the Russian experiment is fascinating, assuming the subect matter isn't accidently dropped from orbit, then it will be no worse than what we've already sent there.

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