Tom,

I don't see anything objectionable in your post and doubt anyone who has been criticizing Barry does either yet you seem to think you are staking middle ground for a change. Perhaps our heated criticism of Barry's extremist views makes it appear we take the opposite view, but even Zubrin who is the recognized extremist on the other end does not take a position exactly opposite Barry's. I don't know of anyone who posts here who has ever disagreed with NASA's plans to take reasonable precautions to contain samples from Mars and Zubrin has made clear that is not what he is objecting to either.

The strong objections are to overdesigning MSR to deal with alarmists such as Barry such that failure modes multiply and the system actually becomes more likely to fail. While I see Zubrin's point about abandoning a sample if containment fails, I'm afraid that as a practical matter of public concern and strict adherence to scientific protocol that is exactly what we will have to do. I think that point and an assignment of absolute 0 risk to samples from Mars are where most here would disagree with Zubrin. He is quite correct however in stating there is 0 evidence that samples from Mars could contain a hazard capable of multiplying and that we risk contamination without defense by not doing MSR if such a risk does exist due to the proven transfer of material from Mars to Earth and tests demonstrating even Earth microbes could make the trip in such material.

Zubrin and Rummel et al are arguing over minor details and avoiding each others key points when in reality they are far closer to each other than Barry is to anyone besides the alramists in ICAMSR. Zubrin's major points of disagreement on procedure aren't going to happen, but the whole thing may get called off if Rummel and crew continue to focus more on Zubrin than Barry's alarmist exaggerations. Fortunately that last article Barry so conveniently gave a link to was a pretty balanced piece on the issue as were most of Rummel's comments.

The only point that you might get any argument on is what constitutes "landing enough probes to check for as many possibilities as we can before sample returns". We can in fact land robotic probes on every square mile (or even less) of Mars and take hundreds of years before doing MSR so you are rather lacking on detail there. What constitutes a reasonable amount of prework is open to debate. Barry is certain Beagle II will find life, but will not admit his concerns are baseless if it doesn't. As far as I know he has never given an objective criterion for considering Mars safe for MSR. Yet another example of his lack of understanding of science and that he has an agenda driven by something other than data and a thirst for knowledge about Mars.

Regards,
Mark