![]() Astronauts and lunar samples-plus a recovery engineer and flight surgeon who met returning crews-were all quarantined for 21 days after Apollos 11, 12 and 14. But precautions against back contamination were still put in place, given that unlikely scenario’s potentially catastrophic consequences. Even before the first Apollo landings the possibility of lunar life was still considered remote. “Biological precautions during Apollo were concerned only with preventing back contamination from putative lunar organisms,” says Andy Spry, a senior scientist at the SETI Institute and a planetary protection consultant for NASA. But how should planetary protection’s prohibitions and restrictions apply to the moon, and what lessons from the Apollo era might be applicable in the coming years as we aim to go back? Both then and now forward contamination-the transfer of Earthly life-forms to other worlds-is the most vexing challenge of planetary protection.įorward contamination is a familiar concern for mission planners seeking to preserve the environments of Mars and ocean-bearing icy moons of the outer solar system (such as Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa) so astrobiologists can identify native life there-should it exist. Even so, subsequent research has conclusively shown certain terrestrial organisms- Deinococcus radiodurans and Bacillus subtilis bacteria as well as tiny invertebrates called tardigrades-can indeed survive extended exposure to the harsh conditions of space. mitis came from post-return contamination by human investigators, rather than surviving lunar conditions. At least one bacterial species, Streptococcus mitis, found its way inside the Surveyor 3 camera that had spent some 2.5 years on the moon before the astronauts of Apollo 12 retrieved and returned it to Earth. Keeping Earth’s germs from journeying to the moon proved to be a tall order, however. But by the end of the Apollo program, moon-walking astronauts were only quarantined prior to leaving Earth, simply to ensure they were not incubating an infectious disease that could manifest during their high-risk missions. Those early precautions, now called “planetary protection,” were meant to prevent back contamination-the potentially catastrophic introduction of extraterrestrial organisms to Earth’s biosphere. ![]() That final Apollo lunar landing took place after it became clear the moon was lifeless-a shift from the initial landings, which subjected their crews to quarantine after returning to Earth. The moon and the word “astrobiology” don’t often appear in the same sentence-even with a handful of government space agencies and private corporations planning crewed forays to the lunar surface for the first time since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972. ![]()
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