Do you know NASA actually has a Planetary Protection Officer whose task is to
protect Earth from invasion by alien lifeforms?
See:
http://planpro.jpl.nasa.gov/
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/astrobiology/defender.jsp
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codez/nac/ppac.htm
http://calspace.ucsd.edu/marsnow/library/mars_exploration/robotic_missio
ns/landers/sample_return/planetary_protection1.html
Greetings
> At 2:02 PM +0200 7/16/02, KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:
Probably not a bad idea....Haven't you seen the Andromeda Strain?!
I'd hate to think that there was life (toe hold) on Europa until a hardy
species of anerobic bacteria from earth hitched a ride on a probe and wiped it
out.
On Tue, 16 Jul 2002 14:02:08 +0200 (CEST), KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
wrote:
> Do you know NASA actually has a Planetary Protection Officer whose task
I saw on TV recently that the US Army (yes, Army, not Air Force) has an
officer in charge of spotting planet killing asteroids, comets, etc. before
they hit the Earth. I don't think he's an astronomer, but more like the army
liason in case someone finds something heading our way. Not that there's much
that could be done about it...
I also saw, in the same programme, that there's a good chance of a planet
killer striking the Earth in, I think it was, 2840. It was sometime in the
2800s anyway. Not that any of _us_ will have to worry about it, but that
seems awfully close by historically speaking.
> Allan Goodall wrote:
[...]
> I also saw, in the same programme, that there's a good chance of a
Asteroid 1950 DA, tenatively scheduled for Earth Rendezvous And Docking (ERAD)
around 2880*. Beat the rush, get your travel plans and vacation
packages squared away now! On Feb 24/25 GZG ECC DCCCLXXXII will be going
on with a bang!
From: Allan Goodall agoodall@att.net
> I also saw, in the same programme, that there's a good chance of a
If in 600 years we haven't made sufficient progress to cope with that, I'd say
we deserve to get hit.
> At 11:34 AM -0400 7/16/02, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
Heck, in 600 years we ought to be able to grab the sucker, pull it
into geo-synchronous orbit and harvest the metals and silicates off
the bugger. Then turn it into a giant station/tiny moonlet as a
micro-gravity research station and manufacturing base for additional
projects. How I'd love to live to see that stuff.
Sometimes I wish I was a character in an Allen Steele story (one of the less
weird ones at least).
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