Conley emphasized that the Curiosity assembly team and technicians did an excellent job of keeping Curiosity cleaner than any robot that NASA' s sent to Mars since the Viking lander in the 1970s.
Still, the decision to not keep the drill bits ultra-clean shows the process needs to be fixed, Conley said.
"It would have been better for them to check with me before they opened the box of bits to confirm that it was okay … rather than trying to ask for it afterwards," she said. "In this case it was fine. But for future missions we want to make sure that they ask beforehand."
Habitable environments
The Mars Science Laboratory is not a life-detection mission. Rather, it will study whether the Gale Crater area of Mars has evidence of past and present habitable environments.
"Direct life detection is inherently difficult, some would argue currently impossible, because there is no uniform agreement on life," said Scott Hubbard, the former "Mars Czar" for NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Hubbard is now a professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., and author of the new book "Exploring Mars — Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery," published by the University of Arizona Press.
"There is no mathematical expression for life as there is gravity … only a series of attributes such as complexity, reproduction, metabolism, responsiveness and so on," Hubbard told SPACE.com. "We don't have a 'Star Trek' tricorder that says 'It's alive, Jim'."
Mars sample return
On-the-spot detection of life is difficult, underscoring the need to return to Earth well-selected samples from the Red Planet for analysis in a lab, Hubbard noted.
There are three reasons for pushing forward on a Mars return sample effort, he said: The best laboratory equipment can be employed, much of which cannot be reduced to spacecraft size; many labs and many scientists can be utilized to cross-check each other with alternate techniques; and discoveries can be followed and rechecked years later with new tools and techniques and hypotheses.
"The treaty-type agreements on planetary protection specify very rigorous levels of cleanliness to prevent forward and backward contamination," Hubbard said. "Spacecraft going to potential habitable zones on Mars must be cleaned to an amazing degree, even sterilized. Samples returned to Earth will be treated as if they were highly infectious until demonstrated otherwise."
Price tag estimates for a "Sample Receiving Facility" here on Earth have ranged as high as $300 million, Hubbard said. "Nevertheless, I think it is all worth it to find out 'Are we alone?'… 'Did life ever arise on Mars?'" he said.
Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is a winner of this year's National Space Club Press Award and a past editor-in-chief of the National Space Society's Ad Astra and Space World magazines. He has written for SPACE.com since 1999.
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8 Comments
Add CommentIf Curiosity's main mission goal is to find trace evidence that life used to, or could, exist on Mars, then why send it to a region that isn't "special"? Seems like Conley was attempting to cover someone's butt. Maybe i'm wrong...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe science goal is to further characterize the climatic and geophysical evolution of the Martian environment itself, not look for life. Thus the landing site wasn't chosen for its current potential habitability but for the range of accessible evidence of past conditions. Lots of formations are exposed there which cover a large timescale and interesting ancient conditions. Nobody is 'covering up for' anyone. If you wanted to go to a site where life might likely exist now you'd mostly care about liquid water/ice that is currently present, but those sites are possibly less likely to tell you much about the history of the planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"That judgment, however, didn't reach NASA's chief protector of the planets until "very late in the game," said Catharine "Cassie" Conley, NASA's planetary protection officer. "They didn't submit the request for the deviation not to comply with their planetary protection plan until several months ago," she emphasized."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk maybe I'm just stupid but she then goes on to add perhaps "they should have asked me first". It seems to me that she should be doing her job..... it appears they did ask MONTHS IN ADVANCE.
I know I'll just read my paperwork AFTER the rocket launches.
Is it any wonder that private companies can outperform NASA with idiots like that working there.
Tricorders would not address Captain Kirk in the familiar. They would say "Captain".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is not clear in the story is WHY the box of sterile drill bits was opened.
Live Long And Prosper
Terry Thomas...
the photographer
Atlanta, Georgia USA
This article relates to a concern that I've long had concerning humans visiting Mars. If you put a human on the planet you put a whole human ecosystem on Mars. Somethings bound to survive out on/under the surface. How then would you ever know if you're looking at Martian or Earth life, especially if Mars seeded Earth long ago. It seems to me a much better procedure would be to go to Phobos or Demos, burrow in and run rovers, planes, chem and bio labs, etc. down on the surface from there. We'll see!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--Michael
So, let me get this straight. By the time we get to Mars, the life we find, slime mold, might have a previous claim to the land?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere's the profit in that? Quizzle me that, Batman!
How many weeks do you think it takes to build a Mars rover? Or maybe you're thinking days?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, so maybe it is just stupidity, but just to clarify, the rover has been in space for half a month - it was shipped to the launch site half a year ago! This didn't happen yesterday.
Most of us Baby Boomers have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into believing that "Mom, apple pie, and launch the Mars Rover!" is the way to go.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn the process, the planet is being trashed by more and more launches, as the industry WORLDWIDE increases, to launch even PRIVATIZED space vehicles, based upon the tried and tested technology of the environmentally-disasterous Space Shuttle era.
At this point, I question the need to go into outer space at all, to accomplish the very thing that we're collectively seeking to do in the first place.
This veil of hypocrisy of the space program being for the 'betterment of all Mankind' must be lifted, to reveal what is REALLY going on with the trashing of the environment at large.
I've just written an article about what I feel are "Four Factual Errors about the Space Program" - including a much better, cheaper and more reliable way that NASA already had to land their 'Curiosity' rover on Mars.
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/4spaceprogramerrors.html
Other follow-up material to study as well:
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/floattospace.html
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/NASASatelliteReEntryDanger.html
http://darinselby.1hwy.com/MonsterMarsRocket.html
Do share with me your thoughts.