Exobiological Illnesses
The risk that martian microbes exist, and could cause disease in humans, is considered to be very small[1].
Precautions to manage this risk include the following[1]:
- rules that limit direct and indirect human contact with the martian environment, particularly when relatively warm and wet conditions are present (e.g. "airlock procedures, sample transportation and handling, and in-situ resource utilization").
- rules that limit where humans may travel, including use of robots to conduct initial evaluation of unexplored sites
- life support systems designed to prevent contamination of air and water supplies
- habitats designed to separate living areas from research facilities
- medical monitoring, including markers of immune system function
- monitoring of normal human microbiomes and free-living microbes inside habitats
- a facility for quarantine of someone who may have been infected with a martian microbe
A related risk is the possibility that microbes carried from earth could evolve to become more pathogenic in a different environment. There is also the possibility that the human immune system could weaken in the absence of the normal scope of interactions with earth microbes, leading to infections with normally benign microbes carried from earth[1].
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Rummel JD, Race MS, Conley CA, Liskowsky DR. (2010). The Integration of Planetary Protection Requirements and Medical Support on a Mission to Mars. Journal of Cosmology 12:3834-3841. Retrieved from http://journalofcosmology.com/Mars126.html
