"The Earth Strain": Could Our Space Missions Infect the Cosmos?

A Mars mission to be launched in October on a Russian robot spacecraft will include specimens of thale cress; tiny water creature tardigrade - or water bear - which can also survive extraordinary extremes of temperature and pressure; samples of brewer's yeast; and permafrost from the Siberian Arctic. Together with several other microscopic organisms, these representatives of Earth life will be carried in a package that will be flown to Mars and are scheduled to be returned to Earth in 2012.

The experiment - Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, or Life - is designed to show if living organisms can survive unprotected in space for long periods and thus support the theory of panspermia, which argues that simple organisms can survive for years as they float through space and that life on Earth could have been wafted here from another world.

The Phobos-Grunt mission will last for 34 months and will carry its samples of life forms in a three-inch-diameter titanium case, including the bacterium deinococcus radiodurans, whose ability to survive intense radiation has earned it the nickname "Conan the Bacterium".

The Russian aerospace company NPO Lavochkin, which is building and launching Phobos-Grunt, has insisted that the Life capsule will not break open in the event of Phobos-Grunt missing its target and plunging into Mars. (Right, and they have a bridge in Brooklyn they'd like to sell us too).

When the Apollo 11 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific they were immediately whisked off into quarantine, spending three weeks in a rather unglamorous steel shell for fear that they'd contracted lethal space-plagues.  The Mars mission lends living credibility a recent paper by Professor Cockell of the Open University points out that the flow of life is more likely to be FROM the vast dirty ball teeming with billions of organisms TO the utterly dead space rocks.  Who could have guessed?

The idea is that hardy hitchhikers on our interplanetary probes could face alien ecosystems with "The Earth Strain", and they won't even have a rugged team of determined scientists to find a cure.  Never mind that anything capable of surviving extended exposure to cosmic rays would have to be King Hardcore of the microorganic kingdom.

One problem with this viewpoint is that it talks about the spread of Terran life as 'contamination', which is like describing painting as 'contaminating' a pristine canvas.  In case you haven't noticed we haven't actually found any life anywhere yet, and if we can bring some to a habitable location then it's not just a good idea - it's our duty. 

In a vast, cold universe we aren't just "Keepers of the Sacred Flame" of life, we are the bloody flame, and like Prometheus before us we must share this infinitely precious resource (hopefully without the subsequent eagle/liver unpleasantness).  There are life-capable habitats out there that just haven't lucked into the right chemical sequence to get the party started.  Bacteria from Earth could be the only trigger needed, the difference between waiting for lightning to strike and using a match.

If we do find alien life then by all means avoid contaminating them with the War-of-the-Worlds-ending common cold, but that's no problem. If there's one thing we've learned from our history of space flight it's that destroying our craft before they get somewhere is easy.  It's preventing the damn things from exploding that's the trick. 

One objection will be the "What's so great about life anyway?" crowd, demanding to know what right we have to spread it.  Luckily these nihilistic losers are usually too overcome with ennui to achieve anything of note and can be safely ignored (I assure you, they are in their own lives).  Another will be the cries that we should not play God, that the seeding of life is His right alone.  To which the only reasonable response is "If we can do it with a tank of fuel and a jar of goo and He doesn't stop us, then we're fairly sure He doesn't mind."

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Sources:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jul/12/mars-mission-conan-bacterium-russian

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"The Great Silence" -A Galaxy Insight
Harvard-Smithsonian Scientists Zero In On Key Sign of Habitable Worlds
Cruising the Goldilocks Zone -The Search for Super Earths
Dead Zones in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Non-Carbon Lifeforms -Why We May Overlook 

Comments

[Dave]

I don't have a problem with seeding Mars with life.

BUT I think the point is that we have to thoroughly explore Mars for any local life before we contaminate it with our own. Because if we don't, we may lose extremely valuable scientific information on any life that's already there.

Sure, we've done a couple rudimentary tests already but hardly any conclusive testing.

And things such as testing whether life may have travelled to Mars independently or even originated on Mars first would be impossible to prove if we went over and infected the place before we did more tests.

[Evan]

Im alright with Lukes sarcasm and often clever rhetorics, but make sure you not just insulting random poeple. I love astronomy AND Im a nihilist.
I simply believe that if humanity died off, the rest of the universe would get along fine wiithout us and possibly better because if you haven't noticed, humans bring problems that we tend not to be able to solve in a timely manner.

And, being a nihilist, I still have a life, a band, a girlfriend whom I love very much and the list goes on. I actually have a relatively happy life and I also am listened to (rather than ignored) when I have something to say (im a rather quiet person)...

With an IQ of 116, and at the age of 17, Im a nibhilist that's pretty for off the mark from what you describe here as "nihilists"
--
Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

That's why we make sure our atmospheric probes & landers are thoroughly scrubbed down, like the ones sent to Jupiter & Saturn & their moons. We don't want to leave any DNA or micro organisms that can change things. Even the viruses & bacteria on 1 stray thumbprint could possibly contaminate a world.
Kind of sobering.

[john thomas]

as with most articles, blogs, newsletters, magazines, or anything else written on subjects such as this, i see the SAME error in logic time after time.

first, let me ask: how long ago did we discover ultraviolet and infrared?

does anyone remember a time when we didn't even know electrons existed, let along quarks, or other such minuscule particles?

the reason i ask these questions is because this article talks about it being our DUTY to deliver life as we know it to other planets... when we don't have any clue about what is ON these other planets. there very well could be life there, but we don't have the capacity to sense it.

we are not infinite in our wisdom, as we prove time and time again. (earth is the center of the universe; earth is flat; etc)

we constantly see our own mistakes, and now, we want to spread life as we know it to the stars... without any idea of what the consequences could be in our solar system, galaxy, and universe.

this is just a thought. are there any other people out there who see the GRAND picture and beyond?

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

john thomas -

This seems to deal with the implications of accidental contamination rather than transplanting life deliberately to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn & / or their rather substantial moon systems. It doesn't sound as unlikely as it seems if you factor in life forms like extremeophiles that can live in the vacuum of space with hard radiation.

Even with precautions like assembling, programming & testing probes in " clean rooms, contamination can still happen.