Mars return options

[scottb50]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=96&e=4&u=/space/20050330/sc_space/pickingupwherethegenesismissionleftoff<br /><br />Message for Mars<br /><br />A message stemming from the Genesis crash has real impact on one future project—the robotic effort to return to Earth samples from Mars. <br />Needless to say, hauling back into our biosphere possibly potent martian microorganisms has long been a much discussed bugaboo. Scientists and engineers have been working for decades on ways to avoid "back contamination" from Mars.<br />"Certainly the lesson from the Genesis crash, which was apparently caused by parts incorrectly installed, is that you've got to be meticulous in your engineering," said NASA's Carlton Allen. "And that's certainly going to be the case for Mars. We are going to have to design any return spacecraft from Mars so that it can handle a hard landing, such as we saw for Genesis," he added.<br />Allen said that any returning capsule chock full of Mars soil and rock will not be designed in such a way that it will split apart if the parachutes don't work. "It just can't work that way," he concluded……<br /><br /><br />Why would you even attempt something like that? I truly hope they have a better way than that to get samples back from Mars. If that’s the best they can do I would say, Please don’t bother.<br /><br />It can’t work that way; there is no way anything removed from Mars should be allowed on Earth until it is fully tested. Not that I think it would be a problem personally. With testing on Mars, in transit and in LEO we can pretty much assure our safety.<br /> <br />The War of the Worlds part two, only this time the Martians win. Science Fiction becomes Science Fact.<br /><br /> Probably wouldn’t sell many tickets though. Not that I expect that to happen. Far from it. But, statistics <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[henryhallam]

I think the probability of any Martian life being potentially harmful to people or other Earth inhabitants is so low as to be negligible. Our immune systems are very good at rejecting anything foreign - The idea that "because it's alien, we won't be adapted to get rid of it" is pretty unfounded. On the contrary, the only things we can't get rid of are those which are adapted to <i>us</i>. Any Martian life would not have done so, so it should be an easy thing for our immune systems to deal with. Look at the problems with transplanted or artificial organs to see how good our bodies are at rejecting anything foreign.<br /><br />Of course we don't want to lose our precious Martian samples either, so it would be nice to engineer a return capsule not to scatter them all over the desert or sea floor! <br /><br /><br />Grooble: Capture into Earth orbit, particularly the unfriendly orbit of the ISS, is likely to require prohibitive amounts of fuel without at least some form of aerobraking. In which case, you may as well land the thing directly.

 

[grooble]

It should be sent to the ISS, that is the only place non earth materials should be allowed until fully tested and analysed.

 

[quasar2]

i think anything which is gonna crash anyway should be sent to the Lunar Surface. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>