Amusing article on the launch

[KenWittlief]

Ive always wondered, when they build probes to send to Mars and other planets, and they build them in sterile white rooms so they will be free of all contamination

how do we know they do not pick up things on the way up through the atmosphere? How do we know we have not already unintentionally carried life on our probes to other planets?

The probes that are sent to look for traces of life?

I cant drive my car more than 2 miles in the summer without hitting insects on the windshield and front grill (esp after I wash it). How can you blast a rocket through 60 miles of atmosphere without hitting something on the way up?

[Richard Wallace]

I'm certainly no expert, but it seems to me that planets with atmospheres are fairly well protected against life-material contaminants on the outer surfaces of objects that enter. Those surfaces are going to get very hot.

But it does surprise me to read that bird droppings on the orbiter's surface have survived a trip to the space station. Maybe someone should be studying the application of similar materials as protective coatings?

[Gabe]

Yesterday their was an article on another piece of foam insulation that fell off from the shuttle (liquid oxygen connection) after NASA spends so much time trying to prevent that from happening. Yet bird droppings stay on without a problem? We may be on to something here...

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Gabe

Yesterday their was an article on another piece of foam insulation that fell off from the shuttle (liquid oxygen connection) after NASA spends so much time trying to prevent that from happening. Yet bird droppings stay on without a problem? We may be on to something here...

I think you are on to something!

Step one: Feed foam insulation to Seagulls...

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Richard

I'm certainly no expert, but it seems to me that planets with atmospheres are fairly well protected against life-material contaminants on the outer surfaces of objects that enter. Those surfaces are going to get very hot.

well yeah, but from launch time at earth to landing time on the other planet its often 1 or 2 years - sometimes much longer. Anything that contaminated the probe during launch has a long time to find its way inside the probe, where it will be protected, like the electronics and parachutes are protected.

[TimCraig]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

I cant drive my car more than 2 miles in the summer without hitting insects on the windshield and front grill (esp after I wash it). How can you blast a rocket through 60 miles of atmosphere without hitting something on the way up?

That reminds me of what one of my aero professors told us about the trouble the Germans went through to keep the wings of their planes clean and insect free during WWII. To keept the wings as efficient as possible, they'd polish and wax them on the ground, put a paper sleeve around the wing, and have a resistance wire on the leading edge to burn it free when they'd reached the "bug free" altitude. However, we developed the laminar flow airfoil, put it on the P-51, and the rest is history.