Invaders from Mars

July 11, 2008

In the 1898 H.G. Wells classic War of the Worlds, invading Martians crash land on Earth, build mechanical war machines, and managed to demolish all armies. But the bellicose Martians have no natural resistance to Earth’s microbes and perish after a few days on our planet – achoo!

A decade from now a war between interplanetary microbes could ensue on Earth, though the odds are infinitesimally small.

Last Wednesday the European Space Agency (ESA), the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES) and NASA got together at the International Mars Exploration Working Group (IMEWG) in Paris, France to announce a planned launch date of 2018 for a Mars sample return mission.

The unmanned mission will pick up soil and rocks from a selected landing site and bring them back to Earth. The experimental and analysis capabilities of an Earth laboratory vastly outweigh what can be done from remotely controlled in situ experiments, like those being done on the Phoenix Mars Lander right now.

A mobile rover or stationary lander would be launched in 2018. It would pick up samples and load them on-board a small ascent vehicle. In 2019 a separately launched orbiter arrives at Mars. The return rocket with Martian rocks aboard boosts to a docking with the orbiter.

 

This sample-orbiter mothership then blasts out of Mars orbit and back toward Earth. The orbiter (which I think should be nicknamed “FEDEXtraterrestrial”) drops off the "Earth Entry Vehicle" which is designed to survive the fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere. The sample would be carefully retrieved and analyzed at a top class 5 biocontamination facility.

The $4 to $8 billion mission will be a huge public relations headache for NASA and ESA. Why? A small but vocal group of opponents will warn that if Mars microorganisms got loose on Earth they could potentially devastate the planet.

All the opponents have to do is hand out books of Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain and DVDs of the 1971 film adaptation. In the story, a satellite designed to capture upper-atmosphere microorganisms for bio-weapons returns to Earth with an alien microorganism. The space virus kills by clotting blood into a powder. Researchers at a secret government biohazard facility determine that the bizarre deaths are caused by a sulfur-based, crystal-structured extraterrestrial microbe on a meteor that crashed into the satellite. Oh, and the organism rapidly mutates, frustrating all attempts to kill it.

Just like the Crichton story, a small reentry vehicle will bring the sample to Earth. Its designers will insist that it is something like 95 percent safe, but a margin of uncertainty of anything more the 0.00 percent will make opponents nervous. This is the ultimate low-probability-but-big-consequence gambit.

This worry will be fueled when opponents resurrect footage of NASA’s Genesis capsule which, after collecting samples of the solar wind, crashed in the Utah desert on September 8, 2004. (Perhaps Exodus was more suitable name for the vehicle.) The craft’s parachutes failed to deploy because of an accelerometer installed backwards. When the parachutes flubbed, the capsule also missed a mid-air retrieval meant to save the spacecraft from hitting the Earth. It shattered on impact.

Even if such a mishap was to occur on the Mars sample return, and live martian microbes were introduced into the biosphere, there would be little danger of large-scale ecological or pathogenic effects, scientists predict.

First, the Mars microbes would simply need to survive in Earth’s comparatively balmy environment. If they did, they'd face fierce competition for food with well-adapted terrestrial organisms. That is, assuming the Mars bugs are similar to Earth's and don’t have and appetite just for Kryptonite or something equally exotic.  You can just imagine the microbe shouting match at the dinner table: “hey, what space rock did you just step off of, squirt?!”

Unlike the Crichton novel, it would be pretty hard for extraterrestrial microbes to become infectious. This requires the help of evolution for specific adaptations to successfully invade the cells of the host organism. What’s more, Earth organisms have elaborate defense mechanisms that the Mars microbes would have no clue how to overcome.

But as baseball legend Yogi Berra once said, "it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future."

Therefore, the sample return craft must be treated as if it contains a biohazard until proven otherwise. If any spacecraft components have been inadvertently exposed to the sample they should be sterilized or the craft not allowed to land on Earth.

I would argue that the International Space Station would be an ideal place to first deposit the sample. Preliminary experiments could assess if the rock contains a viable organism. If so, tests could be performed to see if it is pathogenic.

NASA launched a study in the 1980s that described an orbiting manned lab just for handing a Mars rock. If there were biocontaminants, the lab would be ejected into deep space, crew and all. Ouch! How’s that for melodrama Mr. Crichton?

The real challenge is how to assure the public that the Mars sample return mission is reasonably safe. You can imagine the outrage that any nation or group of nations would have for putting the entire Earth in peril, no matter how slight, for the sake of addressing scientific curiosity.

Back in 1994 I had a lunchtime talk about the potential sample return PR nightmare with planetary protection scientist Margaret Race, who is affiliated with NASA’s Ames Research Center and the SETI Institute. Dr. Race was optimistic that the public could be educated about the comparative risks of bringing Mars bugs to Earth.

The problem is that the thought of contaminating the entire planet will influence people so emotionally,  the response will outweigh the real danger. Apprehension to a variety everyday technological issues, especially those impacting health, yields a similar response.

A good example: The hysteria that accompanied NASA’s launch of the Galileo and Cassini probes to the outer planets because they carried a few pounds of plutonium (“capable of destroying all life on Earth,” according to one opponent’s Web site).

These nuclear “Chicken Littles” overlook the fact that that the plutonium in the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) on the Apollo 13 lunar module reentered the atmosphere in 1970. It is now under six miles of water in the Tonga trench in the Pacific Ocean. The absence of plutonium contamination in atmospheric and seawater sampling confirmed that the RTG cask is intact on the seabed.

Similar protests will accompany the Mars sample return mission. So I can only imagine the nail biting when a potential microscopic visitor from Mars eventually barrels into our atmosphere like a meteorite, just like Well’s invading Martians.

Photos, top to bottom: Universal Pictures; NASA

Comments

[Dave Mosher]

Awesome post! A few responses:

1) When I was really young I read War of the Worlds cover-to-cover in the span of 48 hours. It terrified me, intrigued me, and inevitably helped turn me into a biology and space dork.
2) FEDEXtraterrestrial? Hilarious. Maybe FEDEX could sponsor part of that $4-$8 billion -- ok let's be honest -- $10 billion price tag :)
3) Ejecting a crew into deep space with a contaminant: now THAT would be a public relations nightmare, short of infecting the entire planet.
4) Apollo 13 in the Tonga trench... I forgot there's a wad of plutonium sitting on the Pacific seabed. And I'm glad that it's still sealed in there - for now :)

[Mike Simonsen]

I found this gem on the web, thought I'd share it with you.

"OPEN LETTER TO NASA

Dear NASA,

Please stay on your own planet!
We are sorry to say that we watched the Phoenix’s successful landing on Mars.
Why are you here?
We would like to know if this Peeping Tom behavior will ever end?
Do we spy on you? Well…that’s another story.

PS You’ll never locate your first Polar Lander.
It was just yummy.
It is hard to describe the succulent taste of rare Earth metals.
Please send more wreckage!

PPS A kindly reminder from the Robots From Mars…
The First Law of Robotics only applies to synthetic beings of Earthly origin."

[x-ray fluorescence]

Hi,
Great information.As a science student am very interested to know about the space and its discoveries...Thanks for sharing..