'Planetary protection' is a term that refers to efforts to prevent Earth microbes from spreading to other planets - and to prevent any hypothetical microbes from other planets from spreading to the Earth. What effect does this policy have on current robotic missions? And what implications will it have for a human mission to Mars? Is it possible that microbes from Mars could pose a danger to human beings on Earth? Or have science fiction and politics 'infected' the minds of NASA officials?

EDITED BY:

Jilyana Solis

REFERENCES:

'The Overprotection of Mars' by Alberto Farien and Dirk Schultze-Makuch (2013)

'Planetary Protection and Regulating Human Health: A Risk that is Not Zero' by Victoria Sutton (2019)

'The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must' by Robert Zubrin (2011)

MUSIC:

"Nonstop" Kevin MacLeod (incomptech.com)

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"Ossuary 1 - A Beginning"

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"Ossuary 6 - Air"

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

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