Bringing Mars Samples to Earth Sooner—and Safely

April 17, 2024

NASA is seeking faster ways to deliver to Earth the soil and rock samples now being collected on Mars by the rover Perseverance, hoping to move up arrival to sometime in the 2030s. For whenever it happens, Bhavya Lal and Jeff Trauberman maintain in Issues, NASA must be prepared to ensure that the samples will not contaminate our home planet with harmful biological organisms. To this end, the authors call for a comprehensive review of the nation’s approach to planetary protection, and they lay out a set of policy and technology concerns to be addressed, including identifying potential harms and appropriate levels of scrutiny.

Posted by Tom Burroughs