Bacteria invading earth from Mars?

Question

Now I may have watched one to many Sci-Fi programs, but, with scientist bringing back samples of soil from mars and findidng ice do you feel that if there is bacteria in the ice that it may get out of the lab on earth? If this happened we have no way to control it. What is your opinion?

Answer 1

lol

Answer 2

There is no plan to bring the Mars Rover back to Earth. A

highly intelligent machine can and is doing all of the work

on the surface of Mars and sending its findings back to

Earth via radio telemetry and encoded digital signals. As a

rasult, none of the material there will pollute the Earth.

Now, it is not likely that humans traveling to Mars would be

prevented from returning to Earth. Your scale of worry should go up 100 percent if a manned space flight to Mars is ever launched. Any one of a number of problems might develop, and man is known to be less than perfect when it comes to

making mistakes. I am rather certain that all kinds of tests and wash downs will take place, but I am not convinced that all of the micro organisms will be zapped by the complete cleaning process that is expected to occur. The microbes might, for example enter into the lungs of the astronauts and remain dormant for some period and then regenerate.

If that were to happen, I recommend you locate a suitable log cabin in northwestern Canada, and move there post haste.

Answer 3

<agrees.  It's just one more reason to establish a) moon base Alpha, or b) Mars base Alpha.  Can I go, please please please please?

Answer 4

Scientists have not brought anything back to Earth from Mars. It doesn't look like that will happen for a long time.

There has been planetary exchange of materials for millions of years already. Most notably a meteorite labeled ALH84001 that made the news for containing life signs.

Answer 5

This is a serious concern at NASA.  A Mars sample return mission is being planned.

Chances are, organisms brought back from Mars would not be harmful to humans.  They aren't adapted to the Earth environment.  It's likely that our high oxygen atmosphere would be toxic, for example.  And it's even less likely that Mars bacteria would be a successful infective agent.  They've never seen humans before and would not be effective.

But the chances aren't zero.  One idea is to not bring samples back to Earth, but, for example, bring them back to the International Space Station.  Then the Earth would be completely safe, even if the astronauts were exposed.  The down side of this plan is that getting equipment needed to study the material to the ISS would be more expensive than using it on the ground.  But perhaps the material could be studied long enough to certify that it is sterile before bringing it to Earth.

Answer 6

so far there is no taking back of materials from mars to earth.

Your concern is not ignored by the people involved.  They also have this consideration.

At this point, there is no indication of a hazard, but then we (well, THEY) haven't looked really thoroughly yet.  Probably a good idea for them to wait before coming back with stuff.

Answer 7

There is no sample return mission to Mars at this time, but in any case, the problem of contamination is a horse that has already left the barn. Rocks from Mars have already been found on Earth, and there are certain microbes that could survive being blasted by a meteor impact and thrown into space for a few decades, then enter Earth's atmosphere. This is not to say that Martian bacteria have entered Earth's biosphere, but if any exist, they could get here completely independently of human activities.