Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Shucks, I Didn't Really Want Him To Shut Up

You can run, but you cannot hide form the facts. Mars Society religion
BD — (archived)

The facts about meteorites from Mars and transfer of lifeforms (whether you can handle the truth or not):

Mileikowsky et al: calculations for conditions that optimise the chances of lifeforms surviving the journey:

The radius of ejected rock is between 0.67 and 1 metre (mainly to provide protection from radiation in deep space). [note 1]
The core temperature within the rock during ejection or re-entry did not exceed 100 C (two of the dozen or so Martian meteorites that have been found on Earth meet this criterion)
The journey time between planets was 100,000 years or less

"viable transfers only take place within 100,000 years of the impact so there are long periods between impacts when Mars rocks that fall to Earth have remained in space for too long and any hitchhiking microbes are assumed to have died.

There do not appear to have been large impacts on Mars (or the Earth for that matter) over the past 100,000 years so it is unlikely that "hospitable" Mars rocks are reaching the Earth at present, or vice versa."

Mileikowsky C., Cucinotta F.A., Wilson J.W., Gladman B., Horneck G., Lindegren L., Melosh H.J., Rickman H., Valtonen M. and Zheng J.Q. (200) 'Risks threatening viable transfer of microbes between bodies in our solar system', Planetary and Space Science 48 (2000) 1107-1115

Zubrin has been criticized for his outrageous anti-planetary protection views NASA Planetary Protection Officer John Rummel, JPL's Dr. Ken Neason and Margaret Race. Here again are the professional criticisms:

http://www.planetary.org/html/news/opinions/hazardous.html

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