He added that NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection sterilizes spacecraft that will land on other planets to ensure our native bacteria doesn’t interact with the organisms elsewhere.
“Will the Earth’s organisms be too adaptable and pollute the Red Planet so much that we can never again understand what its biosphere originally was, or will it not be able to adapt at all?”
While the rest of the world watched in awe as SpaceX launched Elon Musk’s prized Tesla Roadster to space, one person at NASA didn’t share their excitement.
Speaking to Purdue University’s news site, Professor Melosh said: ‘Even if they radiated the outside, the engine would be dirty.
He said government space agencies had estimated humans would land on Mars in the late 2030s, but that commercial space flight “could bring that date forward”. “Cars aren’t assembled clean”.
Planetary protection officer Lisa Pratt slammed the private space firm over possible microbes in the vehicle contaminating Mars as it makes its way through the emptiness of space. “And even then, there is a big difference between clean and sterile”.
You might think that the vacuum of space would be pretty good insurance against anything living on the hull of a spacecraft (or luxury car), but that’s not the case: certain types of Earth bacteria can withstand the cold temperatures, radiation, and lack of oxygen. The auto is in an orbit that crosses Earth’s and Mars’, and it will probably end up striking Earth, but it could be millions of years before that happens.
“Saturation of bacteria in Tesla can be considered as a biogas or a backup of life on Earth”, said Alina Aleksenova, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue, who works in a laboratory specialized in the freezing of bacteria and biological materials. Space’s extreme conditions could kill most, if not all, of the car’s bacteria.
Rogelio Bernal Andreo is a Spanish-American astrophotographer best known for his images of deep sky objects.
Musk’s Roadster can now be found through the online Horizons tool from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Lab.
It launched the first two Starlink internet satellites into space.
Musk’s photo showed the auto in an elliptical orbit around the sun with an increasingly distant crescent Earth in the background.
But what if the bacteria does more than just wipe out bacteria on Mars?
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy’s first flight.
Having a “leave no trace” ethic when it comes to the solar system, Pratt isn’t thrilled by what Elon Musk has done.
It will pass within about 69 million miles of Mars on June 8 and cross the red planet’s orbit in July before reaching its farthest distance from the sun – about 158 million miles (254 million km) – on November 19.
What if the bacteria has a reverse effect ? This is completely my opinion . If it brings life to dry regions ?.we will never know.
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