Report of the Joint Workshop on Induced Special Regions

Publication date: Available online 15 October 2019Source: Life Sciences in Space ResearchAuthor(s): Michael Meyer, Corien Bakermans, David Beaty, Douglas Bernard, Penelope Boston, Vincent Chevrier, Catharine Conley, Ingrid Feustel, Raina Gough, Timothy Glotch, Lindsay Hays, Karen Junge, Robert Lindberg, Michael Mellon, Michael Mischna, Clive Neal, Betsy Pugel, Richard Quinn, Francois Raulin, Nilton RennóAbstractThe Joint Workshop on Induced Special Regions convened scientists and planetary protection experts to assess the potential of inducing special regions through lander or rover activity. A Special Region is defined as a place where water activity and temperature are sufficiently high and persist for long enough to plausibly harbor life.The questions the workshop participants addressed were:1. What is a safe stand-off distance, or formula to derive a safe distance, to a purported special region?2. Questions about RTGs (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), other heat sources, and their ability to induce special regions:3. Is it possible to have an infected area on Mars that does not contaminate the rest of Mars?The workshop participants reached a general consensus addressing the posed questions, in summary.1. While a spacecraft on the surface of Mars may not be able to explore a special region during the prime mission, the safe stand-off distance would decrease with time because the sterilizing environment that is the martian surface would progressively clean the expos...
Source: Life Sciences in Space Research - Category: Biology Source Type: research