And what does it have to do with the Genesis mission that crashed on the moon? For 50 years, governmental organizations have adhered to the accepted rules and laws for self-defense of the solar system against earthly pollution. Now they are joined by an increasing number of commercial space missions. How to enforce the law on them?
Two Mars landings are expected in 2021. First, NASA's Persistence rover is scheduled to land on the surface of the red planet later this month. Then the Chinese robot Tianwen-1 will land. Both missions are designed to look for signs of life.
But how do we make sure that when our landers touch the Martian ground, hidden passengers will not also land with them? Let's be careful, we can spread all kinds of life - like in 2019, when the Israeli spacecraft Berashit crashed on the surface of the moon with a cargo of tiny and durable life forms known as water bears.
The good thing is that we have policies and laws to prevent this. In fact, there is an entire section of the Space Act, titled Planetary Defense, designed to prevent contamination of planets, moons, comets, and asteroids.
For 50 years, government organizations have adhered to accepted rules and laws. But they are no longer the only players in the game. An increasing number of commercial space missions are taking off.
Planetary protection
There are two versions of planetary protection, called front and rear. The first concerns the contamination of other planets with material originating from Earth. This is of course intended to protect all life on those planets. But this means that scientists can be reasonably certain that any signs of life they detect are actually signs of "extraterrestrial" life and not life transplanted from Earth.
To achieve this, the rooms where spacecraft are manufactured and assembled are among the cleanest places on earth. The facilities are regularly tested for biological contamination and often produce surprising results. In 2013, a completely new type of bacteria was found in two clean rooms located approximately 4,000 km apart. The life form, which survives by eating very little, has not been found anywhere else on Earth.
Retrograde pollution prevents the Earth from being contaminated by extraterrestrial materials that a spacecraft returning to Earth might bring with it. In 1969, when the Apollo 11 astronauts landed back on Earth, they were quarantined for three weeks to make sure they didn't bring anything dangerous back from the moon. Neil Armstrong even celebrated his 39th birthday there.
Since then we have learned a lot more about the moon, and it is considered free of bacteria. The chances of returning something to Earth will be much greater when missions bring back samples, or humans, from Mars.
The rules
Planetary defense has a long history. The Committee on Space Exploration (COSPAR), an international non-governmental organization, began discussing this as early as the XNUMXs, when planned missions to the moon raised concerns about the potential for contamination to disrupt later research.
Since then, Cospar's planetary defense policy, with its scientific guidelines and recommendations, has become the "gold standard" recognized in the world. The standard classifies planets and moons according to their life potential or life signs, past or present. The greater the life potential, the greater the protective measures. According to this classification, Mars is better protected than the Moon.
This means that missions to higher category bodies require deeper sterilization to ensure that no potential infections travel with it. This can also affect end-of-life plans for missions. NASA's Juno spacecraft will be flown to Jupiter this July in order to prevent possible contamination of Europa or any of the other moons if the spacecraft continues to orbit Jupiter out of control. This was also the case with the 'Cassini' spacecraft that circled the planet Saturn and dived at the command of the scientists into its atmosphere.
But as a product of an NGO, the COSPAR policy is not legally binding. This is what lawyers call "soft law". This means that it is not a binding legal agreement, but it is still known as an important guideline to follow.
However, we have an obligation under international law to avoid pollution of outer space, the Moon and other celestial bodies, as well as the Earth. This is due to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.
While the Convention states that "harmful pollution" must be avoided, it does not define what this means. However, the past 50 years establish a fairly strong expectation that future missions will also adhere to these principles.
On top of that, there is a social and moral aspect. Space scientists expect missions to adhere to the principles of planetary defense. Anyone who does not comply with these principles risks condemnation from the scientific community.
Non-governmental space flight
The days when space beyond Earth's orbit was only explored by government science missions are coming to an end. Private companies are getting further and further away from Earth. The lunar landing attempt in 2019 that touched the moon was by a private company, called SpaceIL, but also much larger companies - Elon Musk's SpaceX intends to launch missions to Mars.
This does not mean that space will become a lawless Wild West, as countries are responsible for the activities of their citizens in outer space. They are required to continuously approve and monitor these activities. If damage is caused, the state is responsible and not the private company. But many states require insurance policies as part of licensing.
Future
It is difficult to predict how this will play out, but nevertheless, the general approach taken so far by the US government is encouraging. NASA recently updated its planetary defense policy to explicitly state that it is the implementation of the US's obligations under the Outer Space Treaty.
On this basis, it is likely that any license granted by the US would require them to comply with NASA's Planetary Defense Policy, which is broadly consistent with the COPSAR policy.
This protection is not guaranteed forever. Attempts in the US Congress to exempt private entities from planetary defense requirements have already occurred as part of a bill in 2018 to reduce the "regulatory burden" on the commercial space industry. The efforts failed, but those who support it may try again.
Planetary protection is important for maintaining the scientific value of outer space. But scientific interest is not the only reason for exploring outer space - there are many other reasons for the way in which the balance should be considered, but this is a discussion that requires extensive participation.
For an article in The Conversation
More of the topic in Hayadan:
5 תגובות
Fascinating, regardless of whether it is, or not, the whole space/aliens thing, just fascinating.
I personally saw and photographed an alien ship over Ramat Gan.
I uploaded the video to YouTube.
Fascinating❗️
The claim of water bears on the moon has no basis. The Berashit team itself does not claim this. Only one person claims it there without a shred of proof. To write "the Israeli spaceship 'Bereshit' crashed on the surface of the moon with a cargo of tiny and durable life forms known as water bears" is simply misleading
For Haniel, the main problem of contamination of space with bacteria stems from the very fact that we seek to explore space and the other objects found in the solar system and try to discover life in them. It would be a bit of a problem to sample a rock on the surface of Mars (or elsewhere) and find life quite similar to what we have on Earth, and start wondering if it is something original that has been there for millions of years, or if we brought it ourselves in a previous mission.
Another problem is that if there is already a successful ecology somewhere, and we pollute it with something more aggressive and efficient, it can eliminate all the life that exists there.
In my opinion, we will have to remove the protections from most objects in the Earth's environment, and leave severe restrictions on several places such as Jupiter's moon Europa, Saturn's Titan and Enceladus, and a few others, for a period of about 100 years, until it is determined what is there.
But why fear the spread of bacteria in space?
1. According to the theory of evolution, life began when it was a single-celled creature like an amoeba that evolved into more complex creatures. So according to this theory, if we spread bacteria and other similar creatures in space, who knows maybe in billions of years they will evolve into elephants, zebras, lions and the like?
2. The space environment is extremely difficult to live in, if at all. Both because of the almost complete emptiness, and because of dangerous and strong radiation. So how much chance do bacteria have to survive in it? The chance is zero and in my opinion it is therefore a shame for all the effort invested. Effort = money.
It is simply ridiculous to think that vacuum conditions can be reached without life forms on Earth. Even the most sterile place on earth is stained with life. All the earth and all our air breathe and live. Science prevents man from seeing reality as it is