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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Geographical discovery & exploration
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When Biospheres Collide - A History of NASA's Planetary Protection Programs (Paperback)
Loot Price: R778
Discovery Miles 7 780
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When Biospheres Collide - A History of NASA's Planetary Protection Programs (Paperback)
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Each time a space vehicle visits another world it runs the risk of
forever changing that extraterrestrial environment. We are
surrounded on Earth by a melange of different microorganisms, and
if some of these hitchhike onboard a space mission, they could
contaminate and start colonies on a different planet. Such an
occurrence would irrevocably alter the nature of that world,
compromise all future scientific exploration of the body, and
possibly damage any extant life on it. And by inadvertently
carrying exotic organisms back to Earth on our spacecraft, we risk
the release of biohazardous materials into our own ecosystem. Such
concerns were recognized by scientists even before the 1957 launch
of Sputnik. This book presents the history of planetary protection
by tracing the responses to the above concerns on NASA's missions
to the Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and many smaller bodies
of our solar system. The book relates the extensive efforts put
forth by NASA to plan operations and prepare space vehicles that
return exemplary science without contaminating the biospheres of
other worlds or our own. As Cassie Conley, NASA's Planetary
Protection Officer, has said, "The public can be proud of the way
that NASA has responded to planetary protection concerns, with its
efforts to act responsibly, communicate openly, and address
effectively the potential for contamination." Humans have a
powerful urge to explore the unknown, but to protect irreplaceable
environments, NASA has committed to conducting space exploration in
a manner that is protective of the bodies visited, as well as of
our own planet.
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