[FPSPACE] Habitable for microbes, Larry

[LARRY KLAES]

I think that if there is any remaining life on Mars - and by life I mean living

simple organisms like maybe bacteria or lichen at best, assuming it even

resembles anything like terrestrial organisms - it is deep underground perhaps

taking advantage of whatever liquid water is left down below.  

 

There may and should be plenty of fossils of past life on the surface and

just below it, but we have only successfully scouted but a few areas on

a world with the land area equivalent of all the dry surface of Earth.  

Though I think a few object the MERs found look awfully suspicious.

 

Of course for all I know there could be creatures like this hiding out

on the Red Planet:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d76fiWRobU4

 

What this means is that any Mars life won't be found until human colonies

are well established and able to dig deep into the planet's surface.  I don't

know how much decontamination will cost for the first manned missions to

return from Mars (and there will only be relatively few before the missions

are geared towards a permanent base - it will be too expensive to keep

doing Apollo-style missions), but it can't be that expensive compared to

the rest of the mission.  Just keep them on whatever space station exists

at the time in Earth orbit and wait until the astronauts are okay, or dead.

Either way they will be in space.

 

I would be more concerned about poor Mars being contaminated, but since

colonizing the Sol system is inevitable, all we can do is examine Mars and

other worlds robotically before our descendants coming marching in.

 

As for when manned Mars missions will start happening, I will be surprised

if NASA can get its collective act together on that one before 2040 the

way things are looking now for even the manned lunar missions.  Maybe

another country (a joint ESA-Russia mission?) or a private space company

might manage something, but at this point I will feel lucky to see a lunar

base let alone even a short visit anywhere else.

 

As for the plan you promote to put NEO observing bases on the lunar

farside, you must know they won't happen until a basic infrastructure

is set up in space first, which means a basic lunar base on the near

side first.  I don't expect the Chinese to have such a thing by the

time NASA is still talking about one in 2024 based on how slowly they

are developing their manned space program.

 

So, if you want yor lunar farside NEO base, you need to promote the

very things you keep dumping on.  Maybe the private space industry

will come to the rescue, but so far I see them barely getting suborbital

flights going, to say nothing of an actual functioning base on another

world.


By the way, this is how I used to think humans going to Mars was

going to be, courtesy of David S. F. Portree's Beyond Apollo blog: 


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_VRIPUQofXu8/SklsVUrszVI/AAAAAAAAF9U/99Own86Hkts/s1600-h/Deimos1.jpg
 

You may or may not like my answers, but they are the honest ones.

And personally I wish we did have all those space bases that we

were promised back in the 1950s and 1960s.  You would have had

your lunar farside NEO observatory by now and I would have had my

lunar farside SETI listening posts.  You should be glad there are NEO

programs happening now - there are probably more of them than

SETI programs running.


Larry
 






From: epgrondine at hotmail.com
To: fpspace at friends-partners.org
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 15:00:27 -0500
Subject: [FPSPACE] Habitable for microbes, Larry



Hi all - 

I wonder why manned Mars enthusiasts do not seem to understand that every time there's a report like the one Larry alerted us to, the hazard of back contamination grows?

Larry, perhaps you'd like to share with us your views on the severity of the back contamination problem, and your estimates as to the costs involved in clearing it as a threat before manned Mars flight can take place?

I am assuming that most of the rest of you here are familiar with Marse Piat, and the solutions proposed for that mission design.

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas








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