Biological contamination
For several years, the thought of being able to leave the Earth and visiting other planets, moons or asteroids in the solar system has been on the mind of several humans. Several books, movies, etc have examined the idea, showing us various possible outcomes of being able to do this.
Now, technology has come a long way from what it used to be. The moon landings have shown that our fantasies are just about possible. Over the years, we have even been able to build our own sort of mini-worlds, the various space stations and have humans walk on them. If you ask me, despite still having a long way to go technologically, we have done really well for ourselves as a race.
Now, the space stations are made from with materials which originated from Earth and they are kept in orbit around the Earth. Despite the fact that we are not sure whether or not extraterrestrial life exists, we can be assured of the fact that any form of life that may be found on these space stations originated from Earth and will pose no threat to the biosphere if astronauts return to the earth, carrying some of these lifeforms. Also, the moon is of little biological interest and almost definitely contains no form of life.
These days, humans are beginning to look further beyond the Earth's orbit to other planets, moons, asteroids, comets and even beyond the solar system. We have had spacecrafts that have visited Mars and Titan ad there are several other projects which are aimed at landing spacecraft on various moons in the solar system. There are also various organisations that aspire to send people to Mars and ultimately, other locations.
When one looks at all this, a deep thinker begins to wonder if there is a probability of biological contamination. There is the risk of forward contamination (contamination of the body that is traveled to with life from the Earth) or back contamination (contamination of the Earth's biosphere with extraterrestrial life forms.
Forward contamination could cause a lot of complications for biological research on the celestial body being studied. This is because it might make the research incorrect or inconclusive as there is no way of determining whether the results are confirm the existence of native life forms or terrestrial life forms.
If there is a native life form on such a body, contamination of its biosphere with terrestrial life forms might spell doom for such native life. Some might say that the native lifeforms will be much more suited for survival on the body, in comparison with terrestrial lifeforms who didn't evolve there. However, even on Earth, we have seen that that isn't always the case. The mammals which were introduced into Australia performed better than the marsupials which evolved there.
How about backward contamination? That could be really catastrophic for life on Earth. Imagine this scenario.
A spacecraft which is sent to retrieve samples from Enceladus successfully completes it's tasks and returns the samples. While taking the samples, the spacecraft involuntarily takes some native microbe and returns it to Earth along with the samples collected. After being dormant for the duration of the journey from Enceladus to Earth, this foreign microbe gets reanimated and infects humans.
We still struggle with microbes from Earth here when they begin to infect humans. How much more will we be able to contain a microbe whose biochemistry might be entirely different from anything that has ever evolved on Earth?
With the current technology available, it is impossible to entirely make a person free from microorganisms without killing such a person. However, we could try our best to develop a technology that can achieve this complete sterilization without killing the person being sterilized. This would be really cool and help us sleep better whenever there is a space travel.
- FOR FURTHER READING
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_contamination
- https://www.space.com/7410-protect-planets-earth-microbes.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-report-addresses-limiting-interplanetary-contamination-during-human-missions
- https://www.quora.com/Why-does-NASA-avoid-contamination-of-other-worlds
- https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/27/12583772/nasa-planetary-protection-solar-system-aliens
Thank you for sparing your time to go through this. I remain your humble little boy.
I am @Illuminatus, I am a Nigerian and I am neither a terrorist, a scammer nor a spammer.
Several thanks to @rok-sivante for his generosity these past months.
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Excellent, the details were incredible in the explanation of biological contamination. Science has advanced a lot and there are already spacecraft missions that have visited other planets, including the same planet Mars, the closest to the earth, great photographs have been obtained, also the Cassini-Huygens mission sent by NASA that landed on Saturn and I take many pictures. But nothing better than THE APOLLO 13 when the human being stepped on the MOON for the first time. that these studies continue to be carried out in depth, maybe on another planet there is life and we still do not know
I agree with you, the Apollo programs were really incredible. We need to get back there and visit other places as well.
This is an ingenious insight into problems that could arise from our enthusiastic quests, which had clouded our sense of reasoning, sir, this is high level of 'proactiveness' which i have always encouraged
We can never be too careful. It's better safe than sorry.
Yes, you are outrightly right!
I do follow your point @illuminatus. But I feel we have done well for ourselves despite all threats to our lives. If the need for sterilization and preservation from outer space contaminations are needed, we will definitely find our way around it.
Let me ask, are you sure you are not planning to be a space dude or something of that nature someday?
Lol. I don;t think it would be a bad idea to own a piece of real estate on a different world some day.
This is very brilliant, my mind is blown
imressive post i really like this