They haven't published an explanation of how they plan to colonize Mars without contaminating it - or why in their view it doesn't matter if we contaminate Mars with Earth life. Same is true for SpaceX and for NASA and the US with its long term plans to colonize Mars.
Until someone explains this, it's impossible to assess any of the proposed mission of humans to the Mars surface. This is a potential complete show stopper.
It wouldn't be an issue if they planned to go to Mars orbit and explore the surface via telerobotics, or to the Moon or to use Near Earth Asteroids.
According to current planetary protection regulations, you have to explore the solar system in an environmentally responsible way that does not harm the experiments of other parties to the treaty.
This means we shouldn't contaminate Mars because it is one of the most interesting places in the solar system for study and exploration of past and present life.
There are three places the solar system that we shouldn't contaminate with Earth microbes according to the current internationally accepted COSPAR guidelines
For details, see Planetary protection - Target Categories
Other targets are low risk or provisionally thought to be low risk (including the sun, obviously, and most think Mercury and Io also) - though some targets such as Titan, Ganymede, Pluto, and a few of the asteroids such as Ceres are only provisionally low risk with more study required.
The Moon and comets still need some planetary protection care - in that case - it's because they may have evidence of pre-biotic biochemistry - in case of the Moon that would be mainly the lunar ice at the poles. So though not thought at all likely that present day life could survive there, you'd still need to assess the risks of introduced dead or dormant life - mainly around the landing site - confusing scientific studies.
But with Mars, Europa and Encladus, is generally agreed, in the COSPAR workshops, that there is a possibility of present day Earth life reproducing there on the surface. The consensus is, in the international discussions, that these solar system targets need great care, on the basis of our best understanding to date.
There's increasing evidence that Mars has habitats that present day Earth life could colonize, such as the warm seasonal flows, as well as likely to have had life in the past - ancient oceans now accepted by just about everyone. If it had life in the past it very probably still has it.
This means, a hard landing on Mars with crash of all of those aboard greatly increases risk of contaminating Mars. Target probability for robots is 1 in 10,000 of contamination for any particular mission (in case of Mars then that's the motivating idea behind the COSPAR guidelines, though they no longer do a detailed probabilistic analysis of each mission because that proved too hard to do because we know so little about Mars on a biological level).
The idea is that if you have lots of missions then the accumulated contamination risk of all those missions should remain small. Some would say that 1 in 10,000 per mission level of risk is already too high, e.g. in the workshop discussions of planetary protection requirements for Europa, some of the COSPAR participants gave this as their view. Whatever you think of that, few would say this probability is too small!
It is probably impossible to achieve a less than 1 in 10,000 chance of contaminating Mars with a human mission. Who knows what the risk is of crash of a human occupied new untested ship? Maybe 1 in 2, maybe 1 in 100 - at any rate far higher than 1 in 10,000.
Mars One's idea of seven successful unmanned missions in a row without a crash before a human landing doesn't prove a 1 in 10,000 chance of failure, or a 1 in 100 - it doesn't even prove a 1 in 2 chance of success with any high degree of probability.
If you designed a spaceship with a 1 in 2 chance of success with every single mission, you could easily just by chance, get 7 successful landings. You can throw a coin and get seven heads in a row - unusual but not that rare. The chance of this happening is 1 in 128, and it would not be enough to prove that your coin is biased.
If we do get a hard crash of a human occupied habitat on Mars - then with the Mars dust storms and present day potential habitats on Mars surface - it's an almost complete fail. Microbes from the crash, in highly resistant dormant states, shielded from UV radiation by the iron oxides in the dust - would spread to anywhere on Mars. And a human habitat has hundreds of trillions of microbes in it.
Surface missions are problematical also with leaky spacesuits, airlocks etc. If someone had a solution for the hard crash issue, you could go into ideas for dealing with those risks - is there any way of solving them? But until then, the hard crash scenario gives you a per mission risk of contaminating Mars so high it's not worth discussing it further.
Also, everyone agrees that with present day technology, telerobotic or robotic missions have least risk of contaminating Mars.
The chances that present day Mars life is identical to Earth life in all respects - or so similar to be not of great biological value to study in its pristine state - most would say is remote. Zubrin's view that it is in all respects identical is a minority view held by perhaps three scientists world wide and not proved, not even remotely close to being proved.
It would be a major discovery of it's own actually if that was proved and would lead to many scientific questions to be answered to understand how that could happen.
There are many other targets for colonization in our solar system without these protection issues, such as near earth asteroids and the Moon - if really keen on colonization, start there while we find out about Mars. Or send humans to Mars orbit.
And not at all clear that colonizing in space is worth doing, at this stage, that it would be of any help in event of some threat to Earth.
We should be doing our best to make sure Earth is saved. E.g. use space resources to map out potential colliding asteroids. The things that are going wrong on Earth at present are nowhere near the levels of change needed to make Earth like Mars - that involves things such as losing all our atmosphere, all our seas, and most of the ice in Antarctica, we aren't doing anything that is close to having that effect, and no asteroid impact would either - nothing could in foreseeable future until several hundred million years from now.
If anything does happen to our civilizations here, despite our best efforts - then Earth remains the best place to restart civilization. We would have survivors here - if nowhere else - for sure in submarines insulated from any surface disaster by the depth of the sea. And if you really think it's important to do, could set up a colony here on Earth insulated from rest of the planet - to both test closed circuit habitats as for space - but they would also be able to survive anything that happens to our biosphere just as on Mars.
When they emerge to restart civilization, chances of success would be far better than Mars with its vacuum and low gravity, cosmic radiation etc and need for high technology spacesuits to go anywhere and need to create all your own oxygen and melt water etc. and all habitats for humans need to withstand tons per square meter outwards pressure on all walls and any windows (windows likely to be small and major engineering challenge) to contain the air and covered with meters layers of cosmic radiation shielding.
Without technology on Earth we have a chance. Without technology on Mars you'd have no chance.
At any rate - that's what I say - but what do you think?
The COSPAR workshops and the Planetary protection office and academic papers all agree on one thing - that this is an important issue. The public needs to be engaged and we need to be encouraged to discuss this. And any plans need to be widely explained and circulated for debate so we can find potential flaws in proposals to protect Mars from contamination.
We need to discuss this.
Neither Mars One, or SpaceX or NASA have done this yet - or at least not with any success, few people are debating this yet.
For instance - none of the other answers here have mentioned this issue so far. (I'm trying to help here).
And I suggest, that this discussion should not be done on the basis that we have to find a way to colonize Mars, with contamination as just one more challenge to overcome to achieve that goal.
We need to be open to the possibility that an attempt to colonize Mars right now might not be the best thing for humanity - depending on what the outcome of our discussions and discoveries.
For instance Chris McKay suggested that we might decide to reverse contamination and remove all Earth microbes from Mars and make it a place suitable for Mars microbes only - depending on what we discover there.
Life on Mars, if it exists - is a potential resource for humanity of immense value for life sciences. Indeed if we find XNA or different biochemistry from Earth life on Mars - that by itself could be of such benefit - not just scientific - but also practical and financial through development of new ideas and techniques in life sciences - as to pay off all our investment in space exploration in one go.
Surely impossible to estimate - but just look at how much of our industry on Earth is based around the life sciences. And don't forget products of life also such as wood, oil, and plastic.
Until someone explains this, it's impossible to assess any of the proposed mission of humans to the Mars surface. This is a potential complete show stopper.
It wouldn't be an issue if they planned to go to Mars orbit and explore the surface via telerobotics, or to the Moon or to use Near Earth Asteroids.
CURRENT INTERNATIONAL REGULATIONS REQUIRE ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE EXPLORATION OF OUTER SPACE
According to current planetary protection regulations, you have to explore the solar system in an environmentally responsible way that does not harm the experiments of other parties to the treaty.
This means we shouldn't contaminate Mars because it is one of the most interesting places in the solar system for study and exploration of past and present life.
There are three places the solar system that we shouldn't contaminate with Earth microbes according to the current internationally accepted COSPAR guidelines
- Mars
- Europa
- Encladus
For details, see Planetary protection - Target Categories
Other targets are low risk or provisionally thought to be low risk (including the sun, obviously, and most think Mercury and Io also) - though some targets such as Titan, Ganymede, Pluto, and a few of the asteroids such as Ceres are only provisionally low risk with more study required.
The Moon and comets still need some planetary protection care - in that case - it's because they may have evidence of pre-biotic biochemistry - in case of the Moon that would be mainly the lunar ice at the poles. So though not thought at all likely that present day life could survive there, you'd still need to assess the risks of introduced dead or dormant life - mainly around the landing site - confusing scientific studies.
But with Mars, Europa and Encladus, is generally agreed, in the COSPAR workshops, that there is a possibility of present day Earth life reproducing there on the surface. The consensus is, in the international discussions, that these solar system targets need great care, on the basis of our best understanding to date.
HABITATS ON MARS FOR EARTH LIFE TO CONTAMINATE
There's increasing evidence that Mars has habitats that present day Earth life could colonize, such as the warm seasonal flows, as well as likely to have had life in the past - ancient oceans now accepted by just about everyone. If it had life in the past it very probably still has it.
This means, a hard landing on Mars with crash of all of those aboard greatly increases risk of contaminating Mars. Target probability for robots is 1 in 10,000 of contamination for any particular mission (in case of Mars then that's the motivating idea behind the COSPAR guidelines, though they no longer do a detailed probabilistic analysis of each mission because that proved too hard to do because we know so little about Mars on a biological level).
The idea is that if you have lots of missions then the accumulated contamination risk of all those missions should remain small. Some would say that 1 in 10,000 per mission level of risk is already too high, e.g. in the workshop discussions of planetary protection requirements for Europa, some of the COSPAR participants gave this as their view. Whatever you think of that, few would say this probability is too small!
SEVEN SUCCESSFUL UNMANNED MISSIONS TO SURFACE GET NOWHERE NEAR 1 IN 10,000 LEVEL OF SUCCESS NEEDED FOR PLANETARY PROTECTION
It is probably impossible to achieve a less than 1 in 10,000 chance of contaminating Mars with a human mission. Who knows what the risk is of crash of a human occupied new untested ship? Maybe 1 in 2, maybe 1 in 100 - at any rate far higher than 1 in 10,000.
Mars One's idea of seven successful unmanned missions in a row without a crash before a human landing doesn't prove a 1 in 10,000 chance of failure, or a 1 in 100 - it doesn't even prove a 1 in 2 chance of success with any high degree of probability.
If you designed a spaceship with a 1 in 2 chance of success with every single mission, you could easily just by chance, get 7 successful landings. You can throw a coin and get seven heads in a row - unusual but not that rare. The chance of this happening is 1 in 128, and it would not be enough to prove that your coin is biased.
HARD LANDING OF HUMAN HABITAT AS IMMEDIATE ALMOST COMPLETE FAIL
If we do get a hard crash of a human occupied habitat on Mars - then with the Mars dust storms and present day potential habitats on Mars surface - it's an almost complete fail. Microbes from the crash, in highly resistant dormant states, shielded from UV radiation by the iron oxides in the dust - would spread to anywhere on Mars. And a human habitat has hundreds of trillions of microbes in it.
OTHER ISSUES NOT WORTH DISCUSSING IF YOU HAVE NO SOLUTION FOR A HARD CRASH
Surface missions are problematical also with leaky spacesuits, airlocks etc. If someone had a solution for the hard crash issue, you could go into ideas for dealing with those risks - is there any way of solving them? But until then, the hard crash scenario gives you a per mission risk of contaminating Mars so high it's not worth discussing it further.
Also, everyone agrees that with present day technology, telerobotic or robotic missions have least risk of contaminating Mars.
CHANCES OF MARS LIFE IDENTICAL TO EARTH
The chances that present day Mars life is identical to Earth life in all respects - or so similar to be not of great biological value to study in its pristine state - most would say is remote. Zubrin's view that it is in all respects identical is a minority view held by perhaps three scientists world wide and not proved, not even remotely close to being proved.
It would be a major discovery of it's own actually if that was proved and would lead to many scientific questions to be answered to understand how that could happen.
MANY OTHER TARGETS FOR COLONIZATION AND NOT AT ALL CLEAR IT WILL HELP HUMANITY IN THE FUTURE TO COLONIZE RIGHT NOW
There are many other targets for colonization in our solar system without these protection issues, such as near earth asteroids and the Moon - if really keen on colonization, start there while we find out about Mars. Or send humans to Mars orbit.
And not at all clear that colonizing in space is worth doing, at this stage, that it would be of any help in event of some threat to Earth.
We should be doing our best to make sure Earth is saved. E.g. use space resources to map out potential colliding asteroids. The things that are going wrong on Earth at present are nowhere near the levels of change needed to make Earth like Mars - that involves things such as losing all our atmosphere, all our seas, and most of the ice in Antarctica, we aren't doing anything that is close to having that effect, and no asteroid impact would either - nothing could in foreseeable future until several hundred million years from now.
If anything does happen to our civilizations here, despite our best efforts - then Earth remains the best place to restart civilization. We would have survivors here - if nowhere else - for sure in submarines insulated from any surface disaster by the depth of the sea. And if you really think it's important to do, could set up a colony here on Earth insulated from rest of the planet - to both test closed circuit habitats as for space - but they would also be able to survive anything that happens to our biosphere just as on Mars.
When they emerge to restart civilization, chances of success would be far better than Mars with its vacuum and low gravity, cosmic radiation etc and need for high technology spacesuits to go anywhere and need to create all your own oxygen and melt water etc. and all habitats for humans need to withstand tons per square meter outwards pressure on all walls and any windows (windows likely to be small and major engineering challenge) to contain the air and covered with meters layers of cosmic radiation shielding.
Without technology on Earth we have a chance. Without technology on Mars you'd have no chance.
At any rate - that's what I say - but what do you think?
NEED FOR DEBATE
The COSPAR workshops and the Planetary protection office and academic papers all agree on one thing - that this is an important issue. The public needs to be engaged and we need to be encouraged to discuss this. And any plans need to be widely explained and circulated for debate so we can find potential flaws in proposals to protect Mars from contamination.
We need to discuss this.
Neither Mars One, or SpaceX or NASA have done this yet - or at least not with any success, few people are debating this yet.
For instance - none of the other answers here have mentioned this issue so far. (I'm trying to help here).
DEBATE SHOULD NOT TREAT THIS AS JUST ONE MORE CHALLENGE TO OVERCOME
And I suggest, that this discussion should not be done on the basis that we have to find a way to colonize Mars, with contamination as just one more challenge to overcome to achieve that goal.
We need to be open to the possibility that an attempt to colonize Mars right now might not be the best thing for humanity - depending on what the outcome of our discussions and discoveries.
For instance Chris McKay suggested that we might decide to reverse contamination and remove all Earth microbes from Mars and make it a place suitable for Mars microbes only - depending on what we discover there.
DISCOVERY OF PRESENT DAY EXTRA TERRESTRIAL LIFE ON MARS COULD BY ITSELF PAY OFF ALL OUR INVESTMENT IN SPACE
Life on Mars, if it exists - is a potential resource for humanity of immense value for life sciences. Indeed if we find XNA or different biochemistry from Earth life on Mars - that by itself could be of such benefit - not just scientific - but also practical and financial through development of new ideas and techniques in life sciences - as to pay off all our investment in space exploration in one go.
Surely impossible to estimate - but just look at how much of our industry on Earth is based around the life sciences. And don't forget products of life also such as wood, oil, and plastic.
About the Author
Robert Walker
Writer of articles on Mars and Space issues - Software Developer of Tune Smithy, Bounce Metronome etc.Studied at Wolfson College, Oxford
Lives in Isle of Mull
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