"The Earth Strain": Could Our Space Missions Infect the Cosmos?

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/the-earth-strain-spreadi...

A Mars mission to be launched in October on a Russian robot spacecraft will include specimens of thale cress; tiny water creature tardigrade - or water bear - which can also survive extraordinary extremes of temperature and pressure; samples of brewer's yeast; and permafrost from the Siberian Arctic. Together with several other microscopic organisms, these representatives of Earth life will be carried in a package that will be flown to Mars and are scheduled to be returned to Earth in 2012.

The experiment - Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, or Life - is designed to show if living organisms can survive unprotected in space for long periods and thus support the theory of panspermia, which argues that simple organisms can survive for years as they float through space and that life on Earth could have been wafted here from another world.

The Phobos-Grunt mission will last for 34 months and will carry its samples of life forms in a three-inch-diameter titanium case, including the bacterium deinococcus radiodurans, whose ability to survive intense radiation has earned it the nickname "Conan the Bacterium".

The Russian aerospace company NPO Lavochkin, which is building and launching Phobos-Grunt, has insisted that the Life capsule will not break open in the event of Phobos-Grunt missing its target and plunging into Mars.

When the Apollo 11 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific they were immediately whisked off into quarantine, spending three weeks in a rather unglamorous steel shell for fear that they'd contracted lethal space-plagues. The Mars mission lends living credibility a recent paper by Professor Cockell of the Open University points out that the flow of life is more likely to be FROM the vast dirty ball teeming with billions of organisms TO the utterly dead space rocks. Who could have guessed?

The idea is that hardy hitchhikers on our interplanetary probes could face alien ecosystems with "The Earth Strain", and they won't even have a rugged team of determined scientists to find a cure. Never mind that anything capable of surviving extended exposure to cosmic rays would have to be King Hardcore of the microorganic kingdom.

One problem with this viewpoint is that it talks about the spread of Terran life as 'contamination', which is like describing painting as 'contaminating' a pristine canvas. In case you haven't noticed we haven't actually found any life anywhere yet, and if we can bring some to a habitable location then it's not just a good idea - it's our duty.

In a vast, cold universe we aren't just "Keepers of the Sacred Flame" of life, we are the bloody flame, and like Prometheus before us we must share this infinitely precious resource (hopefully without the subsequent eagle/liver unpleasantness). There are life-capable habitats out there that just haven't lucked into the right chemical sequence to get the party started. Bacteria from Earth could be the only trigger needed, the difference between waiting for lightning to strike and using a match.

If we do find alien life then by all means avoid contaminating them with the War-of-the-Worlds-ending common cold, but that's no problem. If there's one thing we've learned from our history of space flight it's that destroying our craft before they get somewhere is easy. It's preventing the damn things from exploding that's the trick.

One objection will be the cries that we should not play God, that the seeding of life is His right alone. To which the only reasonable response is "If we can do it with a tank of fuel and a jar of goo and He doesn't stop us, then we're fairly sure He doesn't mind."