What the NYT article didn't mention was the lack of sterilization of the ISRO spacecraft.
A huge portion of the budget for a probe like MAVEN [1] or JUNO [2] is spent reducing the chance of Earth microbes colonizing Mars or a moon of Jupiter.
It would be a huge shame for us to have doubt whether the first extra terrestial microbes we find in the solar system were really alien or simply Space Age Earth based life
>This comment has nothing to do with India, ISRO, politics or Mars, but I am curious if anyone with expertise can comment on the clean room practices seen applied in this video. Is it odd that the workers don't have on full 'bunny' suits and have (what seems to be) a relatively large amount of skin/hair unprotected? I don't know if it matters that much, it just seems a little lax given the cost of failure.
> Firstly, I've visited ISRO Bangalore(A few years back). And I did see the exact things you mentioned. I did ask the guy(Not sure, if he was the PR guy) who took our class for the tour. His answer was, they were likely assembling some test equipment and not the real equipment that was going to space.
(Which unlikely given parent's NYT article:)
> The modest budget did not allow for multiple iterations. So, instead of building many models (a qualification model, a flight model and a flight spare), as is the norm for American and European agencies, scientists built the final flight model right from the start.
It's unclear whether the room is a particulate controlled up to standard, but they may (hopefully) do sterilization through chemical and heat treatments, but that alone isn't enough for planetary protection.
I didn't downvote, but I felt a mood-affiliation reason to downvote in that trying our darnedest to never contaminate Mars will stop us from colonizing Mars.
Separately:
Over the course of billions of years, rocks have moved from Earth to Mars and back. If colonization were a matter of just moving from one to the other, it would have happened already. In fact, answering that question seems very scientifically useful, so that's a good reason to use sterilization techniques. But since we haven't found any current life on Mars so far, it seems unlikely that it's trivial for life to gain a foothold, especially life adapted for survival in Earth environments.
EDIT It's a Mars orbiter, not a lander. If it somehow incorrectly tries to land on Mars, the Martian atmosphere will incinerate any bacteria that somehow survived the UV environment in space (plus any solar flares). NB: I haven't done the math to determine exactly how much heat would be put out by an unplanned EDL. If someone else could, that would be splefty.
I don't understand why colonizing Mars seems so important and urgent to you (and many other people around these parts, you're not the first one I see taking that approach) that you're willing to risk ruining evidence that could lead us to a better understanding of life itself.
I mean, I'm all for space exploration and everything, don't misinterpret what I'm saying, but let's say we manage to get on Mars, establish a colony. In the long run we manage to terraform the planet, maybe. Now what? We get a new retirement centre on Mars?
I mean, at this point it's just about planting a flag and "go team humans!"
I mean, we're currently in the process of ruining our perfectly fine planet, I'm not so sure I'm willing to believe we would be "improving" Mars in the long run.
As long as we don't have any reasonable solution for leaving the solar system we're basically stuck with a bunch of rock within reach, let's not ruin everything just so that we can build Disneyland Universe on Mars. That would seem a very selfish thing to do. Think of the Dodos.
> In the long run we manage to terraform the planet, maybe. Now what? We get a new retirement centre on Mars?
We might get new resources. There are many wars happening that are all about resources. Also, we might get space, which could reduce tensions on earth.
> I'm not so sure I'm willing to believe we would be "improving" Mars in the long run.
What could we possibly do to Mars, that in practical terms could make it worse? It's uninhabitable already. If it matters so much to you, then I ask you if the same applies to some planet a billion light years away from us.
> As long as we don't have any reasonable solution for leaving the solar system we're basically stuck with a bunch of rock within reach, let's not ruin everything just so that we can build Disneyland Universe on Mars. That would seem a very selfish thing to do. Think of the Dodos.
Or we could also work with what we can reach. I mean it's obviously bad, that Dodos are extinct now, but was life better a thousand years ago, when we were unable to reach and work with oil and gas, even though Dodos still existed?
> We might get new resources. There are many wars happening that are all about resources. Also, we might get space, which could reduce tensions on earth.
The problem is that we grow exponentially. How long would a 2nd earth last us at our current rate or expansion and resource consumption? Not to mention the massive amount of resources we'll have to take from earth in order to reach Mars and make in inhabitable.
> What could we possibly do to Mars, that in practical terms could make it worse? It's uninhabitable already. If it matters so much to you, then I ask you if the same applies to some planet a billion light years away from us.
It's uninhabitable for us alright, but it's not like we already knew everything about Mars. The whole point of my argument (and the reason NASA is careful about not contaminating marsian soil) is because we don't know what we could find.
And no, it wouldn't matter to me if mars was a billion light years away from us. If we could easily reach new and unexplored planets I wouldn't be objecting to messing with Mars (after all, there are billions of other specimen for us to study), but that's obviously not realistic in the short term (for a big value of "short").
> Or we could also work with what we can reach. I mean it's obviously bad, that Dodos are extinct now, but was life better a thousand years ago, when we were unable to reach and work with oil and gas, even though Dodos still existed?
I'm not sure what's the argument, do you think the colonization of Mauritius and the extinction of the dodo made humanity progress significantly?
As in all things, there's a middle ground to be found, we don't need to destroy in order to move forward.
Look, I fully agree with you, that ideally we should find a middle ground and learn not to destroy in order to move forward.
But my view on this issue is based on what is practical and what history teaches us.
We actually always destroy things, to move forward.
I'd rather have us not spending so much energy on dominance and wars and instead on science and social systems, but the truth is that there is no sign that we will ever change our ways.
That's why I applaud any country whenever it puts some energy into something, that isn't just about wars and geopolitics.
Even if it's very limited resources they are investing, it's in my opinion still better than doing nothing at all, or spending the 70 million on a few tanks that will rot away somewhere close to the Pakistani border.
I just don't get why people think they, upon examining a problem for mere moments, think they can dismiss something as unnecessary or frivolous.
I trust the NASA engineers to know more about this problem than you (random commenter on the Internet) or I. Should I not?
Can you explain to me what your thinking is regarding your belief that you can glance at an issue like this and trump the thinking of dozens of field experts in moments?
I'm happy to criticize many NASA design decisions, like the entire Space Shuttle concept. (Which honestly has a lot to do with political requirements but are still bad decisions.)
But what do you think I've said in the comment you replied to that trumps NASA's design decisions? That sterilization is unimportant? I think NASA sterilizing the equipment it uses to detect life is obviously the right design decision. There are results from the Voyager program that are still uncertain because of incomplete sterilization.
I'm referencing specifically around your comments related to sterilization ("If colonization were a matter of just moving from one to the other, it would have happened already.").
It's simply baffling to me, that a person could sit in front of a computer with absolutely no education or understanding in a topic and call a litany of experts in a field all wrong within the same hour as learning of the specific problem in the first place, or even claim to know what is "obviously the right design decision".
It ought to be surprising to me that a total stranger would accuse me of having "no education or understanding of a topic", and then proceed to shit on me for daring to agree with NASA's practice of -- seriously, of all things -- sterilizing the equipment used to detect signs of life.
Firstly, this is about what you did, not about you. Relax, we're just folks talking about stuff on the Internet, I'm not calling you Satan or accusing you of treason! No one's going to die if we can't agree.
Secondly, you said this, "If colonization were a matter of just moving from one to the other, it would have happened already." I'm trying to understand why you feel you're qualified to make a statement like that. Are you an expert on this topic? If not, that's okay!
You say you're agreeing with NASA's practice, but I guess that's just the flip side of the same coin, isn't it?
What I'm trying to get at is why people (not just you, and you've hardly "sinned" at all here) do this broad stating of opinions on scientific topics like this. It seems to lend credence to the idea that all thoughts are equally important, when we all know that's not true.
To me, this feels like the same kind of thing that we get on the news, when we see "experts" deny climate change by pontificating broadly with the same level of apparent airtime as actual experts who argue in favor of it using their expertise and their experimentation results.
I think it should be clear by now that a lot of people think that their expertise in software automatically qualifies them to make authoritative statements on behalf of every other field of science and engineering.
I think there is a 'meta' aspect to software development. We almost work one layer above other branches of engineering.
Which is what gives that feeling that you can ideally work on any problem and solve it. Because that is exactly what we do, look at the diverse domains that benefit from the use of computers and software.
I didn't mean to say that NASA or the Indian engineers know more or less than one another, even if they disagree. It's just not for us, the folks who don't actually know much about this topic, to make determinations.
Or maybe it is. I was hoping to discuss that point.
If we don't sterilize our craft, how do we then verify either that life arose independently on a non-terrestrial surface or that ejecta carried it? Hopefully the value of sterilizing our craft becomes apparent as one considers the scientific value.
You'd think so, but the structures in the rock show it was never heated enough to be entirely sterilized. That was a possibility people had previously hypothesized about, but not something that had previously been proven.
Didn't downvote, but disagree with your assumption about 'lack of sterilization'. The official word from ISRO is that they comply with 'planetary protection' requirements.
"ISRO said the spacecraft was built according to the planetary protection implementation requirements specified for ‘orbiter’ category of missions."
Some articles speculate about the rigorousness but can't confirm. Implying it doesn't exceed them doesn't equate to skipping the sterilization. Besides, it's carrying satellites from developed countries (France, Germany, Canada & Singapore), which I doubt would be complicit in creating an international controversy.
>A huge portion of the budget for a probe like MAVEN [1] or JUNO [2] is spent reducing the chance of Earth microbes colonizing Mars or a moon of Jupiter
I don't know where you got that from? There's documentation that NASA sterilised things but nothing I've seen that says it cost a significant proportion of the budget.
I can't provide evidence of lack of heat and chemical based sterilization treatment post assembly of spacecraft but see my updated post for sources on lack of clean room procedures DURING assembly - particularly the video at http://www.space.com/23199-indias-first-mars-mission-prepare... which shows assembly conditions very clearly
It would be a huge tragedy if we are the only life that has ever evolved in the universe and it all quietly ends on the same planet it started it.
If there's a chance we can get even single celled life established on a another planet we should go for it. The loss of a bit of science is small potatoes compared to the fate of life in the universe.
I'm not sure there is a catastrophe big enough to destroy all life (and all hope for future life) on Earth that would not also destroy Mars (think Sun exploding). Even a major asteroid strike wouldn't kill off everything on the planet, as per the dinosaur extinction theory.
In my not so humble opinion I think that's a really naive and ignorant way of looking at it. What if there is life on Mars that's unique to that planet? Introducing our microbes and germs to that planet could potentially wipe out the native fauna.
It's extremely unlikely that germs that evolved under Earth conditions could out-compete the germs that evolved in Mars conditions in the Mars environment.
There are certainly such a thing as an invasive species, but that's survivor-bias. If you move some alligators to the desert they are not going to decimate the local camel population.
Precisely what I was thinking, I wonder what's all the discussion about, the MOM will be inserted into a highly elliptical orbit around Mars, with a planned periapsis of 365 km (227 mi) and apoapsis of 80,000 km (50,000 mi) [1]. It will not even come close Mars's atmosphere. Wouldn't that take contamination out of the question completely?
Is there even any general moral imperativ, that every or at least most cultures agree with, which says that we should not contaminate other planets?
No.
Or is there any entity on this planet, that could claim it has legitimate interests (or even ownership) in keeping the atmosphere of Mars clean, which should prevent India from sending people to Mars in a way that we don't like?
Again, im my opinion the answer is no. Why? Because there are enough planets that every human being on earth could have its own.
We could also look at it from the benefits vs risks perspective.
Here I also reach the same conclusion. The risk of having contaminated one planet with organisms is almost non-existent compared to the potential benefits of making another step towards the colonisation of other planets.
Once our technology gets better, and we can reach to more distant places, you can have any amount of pristine and untouched planets you could ever want.
But first we've got to improve our capabilities by actually trying it.
> Because there are enough planets that every human being on earth could have its own.
Bro, we're never reaching those planets, FTL travel is a fantasy. Are you really willing to bet whatever life is on Mars on the hope that humans will someday be able to travel faster than light? What we could learn from extraterrestrial life, even if it's only microbes, could open vast new areas of biology research - potentially curing diseases or teaching us to survive in a much warmer Earth.
If you accept the ability for people to travel to and live on other bodies in the solar system, it's very plausible to assume that people can move between star systems, without any scifi stuff like warp drives or wormholes.
So your argument is basically "don't do it, because what I believe in is more probable than what you believe in" even though there's no way to calculate those probabilities.
No, my argument is that there is no moral standard regarding this issue, that the majority on this planet agrees with, that there is no legitimate interest or ownership that could force anyone from doing otherwise, and that the potential benefits (colonization, resources, space) outweigh the belief in something that might be on Mars.
Meanwhile your argument is based beliefs where you can't even possibly calculate a probability, just like the belief in god.
What we have is our tools and capabilities to try and work with what we can reach at the moment in our solar system.
A huge portion of the budget for a probe like MAVEN [1] or JUNO [2] is spent reducing the chance of Earth microbes colonizing Mars or a moon of Jupiter.
It would be a huge shame for us to have doubt whether the first extra terrestial microbes we find in the solar system were really alien or simply Space Age Earth based life
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAVEN [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_(spacecraft)
EDIT: Why the downvotes? Is what I'm saying incorrect?
EDIT2: Sources:
NASA cleanroom assembling Curiosity - http://www.nasa.gov/centers/jpl/images/content/482654main_pi... (source:
ISRO assembling the Mangalyaan Mars probe in question http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/01608/vbk-05-mars... (source: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/indias-october-28-m...)
Engineers don't use gloves or facial masks for interplanetary missions.
This jives with this video and the following anecdotes - http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/14/india-to-launch-its-first-... via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6551331
>This comment has nothing to do with India, ISRO, politics or Mars, but I am curious if anyone with expertise can comment on the clean room practices seen applied in this video. Is it odd that the workers don't have on full 'bunny' suits and have (what seems to be) a relatively large amount of skin/hair unprotected? I don't know if it matters that much, it just seems a little lax given the cost of failure.
> Firstly, I've visited ISRO Bangalore(A few years back). And I did see the exact things you mentioned. I did ask the guy(Not sure, if he was the PR guy) who took our class for the tour. His answer was, they were likely assembling some test equipment and not the real equipment that was going to space.
(Which unlikely given parent's NYT article:)
> The modest budget did not allow for multiple iterations. So, instead of building many models (a qualification model, a flight model and a flight spare), as is the norm for American and European agencies, scientists built the final flight model right from the start.
It's unclear whether the room is a particulate controlled up to standard, but they may (hopefully) do sterilization through chemical and heat treatments, but that alone isn't enough for planetary protection.