Truth huh. What has your post got to do with BD's misleading comments? I fully support the NRC's recommendations, but they do not support BD's claims or his proposals. I do not support anyone who recomemnds no controls. Zubrin himself supports containment as a matter of good science. However, Race and any other biologist that ignores the evidence for potential uncontrolled transport is doing the public a diservice by allowing BD to distort the public's perception of the issues involved.

Personally I consider it a missuse of facts to state as Rummel did that "human's don't get dutch elm disease but humans do" in response to Zubrin. There are no elm trees on Mars and using humans in an example of pathogen specificity does not imply a concern only for humans. The article was written for human's not dutch elm trees after all and an example they can relate to was appropriate. His unprofessional response typified by comments such as "I want to thank Bob Zubrin for providing this week's job satisfaction. His opinion piece in the July/August 2000 issue of The Planetary Report was so off the mark that I found renewed joy in simply contemplating an answer." was unprofessional and uncalled for in light of Nealson's comments. Rummel seemed to take personal offense and respond on a level typical of BD rather than simply state his case logically by pointing out where Zubrin erred. Both Race and Rummel implied Zubrin was against taking PP measures. I did not read that into his article. I thought it was a condemnation of BD's overhype of hazards and against unneeded draconian measures, not against any and all measures.

A more balanced assay based on a member of the NRC team who did not behave as if he was personally challenged by Zubrin are availabel at
http://planetary.org/html/news/opinions/hazardous.html Nealson's had the integrity unlike Rummel and Race to admit that the NRC's conclusions as to the risks involved were similar to Zubrin's assessment. This is in stark contrast to the other two treating Zubrin as if he were some sort of intellectual fraud.

In addition Zubrin did point out some faults in all three replies.
http://planetary.org/html/news/opinions/zubrinresponse.html

The difference in points of view as to how to handle these risks most likely comes from an engineers training to search for a cost effective mission plan's rather than the attitude of many pure scientists to ask for all the bells and whistles they can think of. NASA's original plans were a good compromise between Zubrin's bare bones attitude and one of utmost caution, but it now appears they are leaning toward pandering to over blown fears. The idea that only biologists should determine how to plan a sample return mission is ludicrous. Engineers are involved in all space missions and have saved quite a few from failure including both Voyager 2 and Galileo.

Regards,
Mark