Let's figure out a way to sterilize our equipment first.

Maybe we need to reallocate some money from chronic war syndrome to use on space exploration?

which, I've heard, makes them very very angry.

I can do a dead on impression of Marvin.

One of my favorite WB characters (top 3: Marvin, Foghorn Leghorn, and the Brain). Named my car after him and bought the mudflaps.

What if we did something to harm that water and in turn harmed those Martian children???

Once they are born, they are on their own

And then only until they sign up.

Never mind the children.

I suppose the treaty was signed to prevent any damage and hinder further study...but...

They used to have such a thing, long ago.

not something we deposited there. Also, invasive species are a really bad idea.

I don't know what all the hubbub is about.

So while instruments exist that could say "this is water", this discovery was done with a plain old camera.

Driving an existing rover over to it has the danger of putting an Earth lifeform into that water, thus screwing up the sample. They'll need to send a rover that has been baked at 350 before launch instead of the current rovers that were baked at 250 before launch.

You obviously use one of these:

The fabled "Jet Propulsion Laboratory Pop Up" or "JPLPU" for short.

Forgot about those.

It's not about when it's done, it's about how long it would take. The Mars Rover covering 50K on that terrain would actually longer than Myrtle clogging up aisle 6 with her Medicaid scooter. Come on Myrtle!!! I NEED MY PINTO BEANS!!!!

Ugh!

All this reminds me of this;

Mars Rover Beginning To Hate Mars

http://www.theonion.com/article/mars-rover-beginning-to-hate-mars-2072

How fascinating and something I would have never thought of!

Microbial life survived the trip. And even if it did, you think it'd have already contaminated the planet.

The normal way they do this is to seal the spacecraft into it's capsule, and then bake it at 250 for a while. That kills most Earth life on the probe, and the sealed capsule keeps new things from contaminating it. The capsule is jettisoned near Earth, leaving a "clean" spacecraft.

But you can't guarantee it killed all Earth life. Because there's some absurdly hardy Earth life.

Tardigrades are an example of absurdly hardy Earth life. They can survive temperatures from just above absolute zero to far above boiling. They also can withstand massive doses of radiation. And survive without food or water for more than 10 years.

Experiments have been run putting Earth lifeforms on the outside of the International Space Station for up to 18 months. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2890671/The-zoo-really-world-animals-kept-OUTSIDE-International-Space-Station-help-solve-mystery-life-exists-Mars.html

This photosynthetic bacteria lived on the outside of the ISS for 533 days before being returned to Earth:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-08/bacteria-survive-553-day-exposure-exterior-iss

Thanks got some new reading material! Had no idea, I know there are some tube worms that can survive crazy amounts of heat and pressure. However this other is all new to be so got some reading to do.

I think they were originally seeded from Mars.

According to Curiosity's specifications, it may be too far away from the briny water to investigate it. This is from Wikipedia:

"Based on variables including power levels, terrain difficulty, slippage and visibility, the maximum terrain-traverse speed is estimated to be 200 m (660 ft) per day by automatic navigation. The rover landed about 10 km (6.2 mi) from the base of Mount Sharp, and it is expected to traverse a minimum of 19 km (12 mi) during its primary two-year mission. It can travel up to 90 metres (300 ft) per hour but average speed is about 30 metres (98 ft) per hour."

Regardless, it's smart science to protect an unknown environment from contamination.

covered personnel should refrain from interfering in the natural, unassisted, development of societies, even if such interference was well-intentioned

For no solid scientific reason I believe life permeates this universe.

I certainly don't believe earth or humanity is the center of the universe.

So far as "intelligent life" goes, I think we humans are a dim bunch. We haven't yet recognized the intelligent life we share a planet with, sometimes not even members of our own species.

...too bad that humans don't get that.

People are looking for "space aliens" when we've many fellow intelligent relatives here on earth.

Industrial society is not a measure of intelligence. It may be a measure of hopeless disfunctionality.

A dead end.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/life-could-have-hitchhiked-earth-moons-jupiter-saturn-2D11744227

The researchers calculated that over the course of 3.5 billion years — roughly the amount of time Earth is known to have possessed life — about 200 million meteoroids large enough to potentially shield life from the rigors of space were blasted off Earth. They also estimated roughly 800 million such rocks were ejected from Mars during the same period. More rocks escape from Mars because Martian gravity is a little more than a third that of Earth's.
Past research suggested that moderately sized rocks ejected from impacts could protect organisms from the dangers of outer space for up to 10 million years. The scientist calculated that about 83,000 meteoroids from Earth and 320,000 from Mars could have struck Jupiter after traveling 10 million years or less. Also, roughly 14,000 from Earth should have hit Saturn in that time, and no more than 20,000 from Mars.

Since the moons of those giant worlds are relatively close to their planets, many of them might get peppered by these meteoroids as well. The researchers calculated that Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus, and Jupiter's moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, should each have received between one and 10 impacts both from Earth and from Mars.

These findings suggest that the possibility of transfer of life from the inner solar system to the outer moons cannot be ruled out. "When planning missions to search for life on Europa or other moons, scientists will have to think about whether they can distinguish between life that is or is not related to that on Earth," Worth said.

That would explain all those "Mars / Lollapalooza" cardboard signs orbiting in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

the water? There's wind on Mars.

is to seal it inside its capsule and then bake it at 250 for a while (how long depends on how big it is, just like when cooking a turkey). That kills almost all Earth life forms. The capsule is jettisoned near Earth, and the "clean" probe continues to its destination.

But there's some absurdly hardy things that could survive that. If the probe is being sent to somewhere that has a good chance of really having life, it would be a good idea to have tougher sterilization procedures.

This comes from an international treaty. As far as anyone knows, the two countries that actually got things out of Earth orbit (USA and USSR) have followed it.

on the surface wouldnt they have been sterilized by radiation?

to sterilize them all than we used to think.

It's almost as if many are pre-adapted to extreme conditions that do not exist on Earth.

The little atmosphere that remains on Mars still blocks some radiation.

But there's lots of things on Earth that can withstand lots of radiation. An experiment put a photosynthetic bacteria on the outside of the ISS for more than 500 days, and it was still alive when they brought it back to Earth.

Mars doesn't have a magnetic field, so charged particles from the sun can and have stripped away most of its atmosphere. But magnetic fields don't matter for "radiation", since that's light (at least, most of what we usually are worried about is light). Earth's magnetic field protected that bacteria from those charged particles, but x-rays and gamma rays could still hit it.

Well, whaddaya know!

As if earth microbes can't get into the air and then contaminate water sources.
I think this has more to do with not wanting claims of contamination to undermine the identification of extraterrestrial life forms.

If we're worried about the rover being dirty and a threat to Mars, well... Just trace their paths, you'll see that our 'dirty rovers' have already been spreading that contamination around.

But the sterilization procedure (bake at 250 for a long time) doesn't kill everything on Earth.

The things that can survive that are unlikely to be on the rovers, but if you're thinking there's a good chance of Martian life at the target, you should probably be extra thorough sterilizing the probe.

Im sure right now plans are being made to get samples of some of that water. Probably not with curiosity, because it's not designed for that.. But a future probe? For sure.

If there was some ironclad permanent ban on sampling extraterrestrial water, we wouldnt be conducting thought experiments on how to get something under the ice crust of Europa. That '67 treaty is not the final word, at almost 50 years old it is horribly dated given the subject matter, and trust me, as humanity moves out into space (and begins to seriously utilize the resources out there), it will go- or, just be ignored.

With the stupidity of humanity potentially destroying this world one day, I think we should spread it out to other planets so that they don't suffer from our mistakes. It's just as likely that life is completely unique to this one planet alone and might be the most precious thing this universe has ever created.

reading a story years ago about explorers on Mars or Venus (I said years ago) that had lunch before they got back on the spacecraft to leave. They picked up their debris, and left. The part that stuck with me was the end when the story said that after the spacecraft left, a small blob had crawled out from its hiding place and gingerly touched a piece of styrofoam that had been missed, AND DIED. The end was something about how the life on the planet had been ended before it got a chance to progress.

Don't remember the name or author, but it stuck with me because I had never thought of the fact that just contact with humans could end alien life.

So SAD.

my reading of the report on the water indicated that the brine is hydrating perchlorate salts. In that perchlorate salts are known to cause the nearly immediate spontaneous combustion of organic matter, this water would likely sterilize the rover shortly before destroying it.

But this news gives NASA excellent possibilities to receive funding for missions specifically designed to investigate the briny water source findings. Why waste that, by sending a rover that's already on the surface?