Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: And lets just say they find "life"

It has already begun
Socrates II — (archived)

Guys like non-scientist Barry DiGregorio have been focused on the threat
that supposed Mars life might do to Earth life if we ever bring back
samples from the Red Planet.

His book Mars: The Living Planet, has all sorts of interesting "evidence"
such as the NASA "conspiracy" that the Martian sky is actually blue in
color but when Viking revealed this they immediately changed the color
to pinkish red so no one would suspect there is life on Mars which a blue
sky would indicate. Apparently Pope John Paul II was also involved in
this conspiracy somehow. Nope, not making this up.

He has Gilbert Levin's support. Levin is a real scientist, but he went off
the deep end regarding Mars life a long time ago and has never let go of
the outdated notions about the Red Planet. He became infamous for
declaring during a big Viking meeting that the green tint on the rocks
seen by the landers was lichen and that the other scientists were
covering this up.

So you can see why they are working together.

Here is an online example of what this is all about:

http://mars.spherix.com/spie2/reprint106a.htm

Here is DiGregorio's Web site on planetary protection. Note he is already
concerned about Phobos-Grunt, even though it will not land on Mars:

http://www.icamsr.org/

Obviously I am not dumping on the idea over the concern for organisms
being transfered to or from Earth and other worlds and harming the
life forms. Neither is NASA. But we've got a non-scientist here who
has already gone the environmental extremist movement, though his
Web site isn't as obvious as say Richard Hoagland's site.

This reminds me of the people who went crazy over Cassini and its RTGs,
claiming all sorts of doom and gloom if something went wrong during the
launch or one of its Earth flybys, even though the RTGs have been
proven to survive a rocket explosion and entry through Earth's atmosphere, plus a plunge in the Pacific Ocean such as the RTGs in the
Lunar Module of Apollo 13.

There is a real concern, but since others have already grabbed the really
juicy causes so these folks have had to go off the planet to make their
names, whether they are ultimately correct or not. All one has to do is
shout nuclear or alien and the fear is automatically there.

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