[meteorite-list] Mars life concerns

[MexicoDoug at aol.com]

Rob M. wrote:
 
>But I think the point here is that we don't KNOW that Mars is a  dead
>planet.  Given the tenacity of microbes and the possibility  that life
>on earth itself may have been initially delivered by comets or  meteoroids,
>is the possibility of (primitive) life on Mars all that hard  to fathom?
 
Thanks for keeping things in perspective, Rob.  Goran, I just saw your  post 
too.  Rest assured, there is nothing we can do about Europe at this  point, 
and maybe after reading this post, you will re-evaluate all of your  reasons why 
microbes can't survive.  The fact is that they can and have  survived worse 
conditions on primitive spacecraft (less protection):
 
Don't forget the Apollo mission that recovered the camera from the austere  
Surveyor 3 lander, 
after a tough trip and more than 2.5 year vacation on the Moon, in vacuum,  
without any food or water, surviving the conditions of transit and all the  
radiation thrown at them.  Perhaps they didn't reproduce, but the  _Streptococcus 
mitas_ bacteria were sure virulent when they were cultured back  on earth by 
the US Center for Disease Control.
 
In Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad's words:
"I always thought the most significant thing that we ever found on the  
whole...Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever  said 
[anything] about it."
 
It is sad to say that whether there is life on both Mars and the Moon is  
probably a moot question by now.  The questions are, how bad the infection  IS, 
and whether there WAS life on either of those worlds...
 
For more information see:
_http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast01sep98_1.htm_ 
(http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast01sep98_1.htm) 
 
It really isn't in NASA's interest to publicize this too much, of course,  or 
some burocrats could always misuse or heavens, ask for higher standards of  
protection.  Panspermia in action!
 
Saludos, Doug