Nasa Planetary Protection Independent Review Board Ppirb Report To Nasa Smd

The goal of planetary protection is to control, to the degree possible, the biological cross-contamination of planetary bodies. Guidelines developed by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) are used by all spacefaring nations to guide their preparations for encounters with solar system bodies. NASA's Science Mission Directorate has convened the Planetary Protection Independent Review Board (PPIRB) to consider updating the COSPAR guidelines given the growing interest from commercial and private groups in exploration and utilization of Mars and other bodies in space. At the request of NASA, this publication reviews the findings of the PPIRB and comments on their consistency with the recommendations of the recent National Academies report Review and Assessment of the Planetary Protection Policy Development Processes.

NASA released a report Friday with recommendations from the Planetary Protection Independent Review Board (PPIRB) the agency established in response to a recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report and a recommendation from the NASA Advisory Council.With NASA, international, and commercial entities planning bold missions to explore our solar system and return samples to Earth, the context for planetary protection is rapidly changing. NASA established the PPIRB to conduct a thorough review of the agency's policies. Planetary protection establishes guidelines for missions to other solar system bodies so they are not harmfully contaminated for scientific purposes by Earth biology and Earth, in turn, is protected from harmful contamination from space. The board's report assesses a rapidly changing environment where more samples from other solar system bodies will be returned to Earth, commercial and international entities are discussing new kinds of solar system missions, and NASA's Artemis program is planning human missions to the Moon and eventually to Mars.The report discusses 34 findings, and 43 recommendations from the PPIRB, which was chaired by planetary scientist Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute to address future NASA missions and proposed missions by other nations and the private sector that include Mars sample return, robotic missions to other bodies, eventual human missions to Mars, and the exploration of ocean worlds in the outer solar system. "The landscape for planetary protection is moving very fast. It's exciting now that for the first time, many different players are able to contemplate missions of both commercial and scientific interest to bodies in our solar system," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "We want to be prepared in this new environment with thoughtful and practical policies that enable scientific discoveries and preserve the integrity of our planet and the places we're visiting."The PPIRB, comprised of a high-level team of 12 experts and stakeholders from science, engineering and industry, examined how to update planetary protection policies and procedures in light of current capabilities. Such guidelines have periodically been updated and inform exploration by spacefaring nations that have signed the Outer Space Treaty since the 1960s."Planetary science and planetary protection techniques have both changed rapidly in recent years, and both will likely continue to evolve rapidly," Stern said. "Planetary protection guidelines and practices need to be updated to reflect our new knowledge and new technologies, and the emergence of new entities planning missions across the solar system. There is global interest in this topic, and we also need to address how new players, for example in the commercial sector, can be integrated into planetary protection."NASA plans to begin a dialogue about the PPIRB report's recommendations with stakeholders, and international and commercial partners to help build a new chapter for conducting planetary missions, and planetary protection policies and procedures.

Protecting Earth's environment and other solar system bodies from harmful contamination has been an important principle throughout the history of space exploration. For decades, the scientific, political, and economic conditions of space exploration converged in ways that contributed to effective development and implementation of planetary protection policies at national and international levels. However, the future of space exploration faces serious challenges to the development and implementation of planetary protection policy. The most disruptive changes are associated with (1) sample return from, and human missions to, Mars; and (2) missions to those bodies in the outer solar system possessing water oceans beneath their icy surfaces. Review and Assessment of Planetary Protection Policy Development Processes addresses the implications of changes in the complexion of solar system exploration as they apply to the process of developing planetary protection policy. Specifically, this report examines the history of planetary protection policy, assesses the current policy development process, and recommends actions to improve the policy development process in the future.

Under U.S. policy and international treaty, the goals of planetary protection are to avoid both adverse changes in Earth’s environment caused by introducing extraterrestrial matter and harmful contamination of solar system bodies in order to protect their biological integrity for scientific study. The United States has long cooperated with other countries and relevant scientific communities through the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of the International Council for Science in developing planetary protection guidance for different categories of space missions. In the past, achieving planetary protection objectives through science-based, international-consensus guidelines proved relatively straightforward because a small number of spacefaring nations explored the solar system, predominantly through government-led and scientifically focused robotic missions. However, interest in, and the capabilities to undertake, exploration and uses of outer space are evolving and expanding. More countries are engaging in space activities. Private-sector involvement is increasing. Planning is under way for human as well as robotic missions. As recent advisory reports have highlighted, the changes in the nature of space activities create unprecedented challenges for planetary protection. This publication responds to NASA’s request for “a short report on the impact of human activities on lunar polar volatiles (e.g., water, carbon dioxide, and methane) and the scientific value of protecting the surface and subsurface regions of the Earth’s Moon from organic and biological contamination.†It provides an overview of the current scientific understanding, value, and potential threat of organic and biological contamination of permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), lunar research relevant to understanding prebiotic evolution and the origin of life, and the likelihood that spacecraft landing on the lunar surface will transfer volatiles to polar cold traps. It also assesses how much and which regions of the Moon’s surface and subsurface warrant protection from organic and biological contamination because of their scientific value.

An in-depth view of the panspermia hypothesis examined against the latest knowledge of planetary formation and related processes. Panspermia is the concept that life can be passively transported through space on various bodies and seed, habitable planets and moons, which we are beginning to learn may exist in large numbers. It is an old idea, but not popular with those who prefer that life on Earth started on Earth, an alternative, also unproven hypothesis. This book updates the concept of panspermia in the light of new evidence on planet formation, molecular clouds, solar system motions, supernovae ejection mechanisms, etc. Thus, it is to be a book about newly understood prospects for the movement of life through space. The novel approach presented in this book gives new insights into the panspermia theory and its connection with planetary formation and the evolution of galaxies. This offers a good starting point for future research proposals about exolife and a better perspective for empirical scrutiny of panspermia theory. Also, the key to understanding life in the universe is to understand that the planetary formation process is convolved with the evolution of stellar systems in their galactic environment. The book provides the synthesis of all these elements and gives the readers an up-to-date insight on how panspermia might fit into the big picture. Audience Given the intrinsic interdisciplinary nature of the panspermia hypothesis the book will have a wide audience across various scientific disciplines covering astronomy, biology, physics and chemistry. Apart from scientists, the book will appeal to engineers who are involved in planning and realization of future space missions.

ASTROBIOLOGY This unique book advances the frontier discussion of a wide spectrum of astrobiological issues on scientific advances, space ethics, social impact, religious meaning, and public policy formulation. Astrobiology is an exploding discipline in which not only the natural sciences, but also the social sciences and humanities converge. Astrobiology: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy is a multidisciplinary book that presents different perspectives and points of view by its contributing specialists. Epistemological, moral and political issues arising from astrobiology, convey the complexity of challenges posed by the search for life elsewhere in the universe. We ask: if a convoy of colonists from Earth make the trip to Mars, should their genomes be edited to adapt to the Red Planet’s environment? If scientists discover a biosphere with microbial life within our solar system, will it possess intrinsic value or merely utilitarian value? If astronomers discover an intelligent civilization on an exoplanet elsewhere in the Milky Way, what would be humanity’s moral responsibility: to protect Earth from an existential threat? To treat other intelligences with dignity? To exploit through interstellar commerce? To conquer? Audience The book will attract readers from a wide range of interests including astronomers, astrobiologists, chemists, biologists, space engineers, ethicists, theologians and philosophers.

Solar system exploration is in an extraordinary state of expansion. Scientific capabilities to search for evidence of extant or relic life outside Earthâ€"among the principal goals of solar system explorationâ€"are advancing rapidly. In this time of rapid transition in exploring solar system bodies, the importance of reexamining planetary protection policies, including the need for clarity in how NASA establishes such policies, has become more urgent. Overall, this study seeks to review the current state of planetary protection policy development, assess the responsiveness of the policy development process to contemporary and anticipated needs, and recommend actions that might assure the effectiveness of NASA's future coordination and execution of planetary protection. This interim report focuses on the goals of and rationales for planetary protection policies and suggests a working definition of planetary protection consistent with those goals. It does not address future commercial planetary missions, human missions to planetary bodies, or roles and responsibilities for implementing policies, but these issues will be addressed in the final report.

Since the dawn of the Space Age, small cohorts of humanity have broadcast signals towards other stars, fabricated "space-time capsules" to "speak for Earth" aboard interstellar probes, deposited collections of "space oddities" on other astronomical bodies, and permanently incised the memory of our species across the deep-time legacy of the Sol System. Many of these purposeful "messages" are the consequence of age-old behaviors, traditions, and material practices using modern aerospace technologies. Most attempt to preserve narratives of human experience in social exchange devices for imagined, exotic audiences. Looking back upon this accumulative history of "messaging from Earth", how do we begin to interpret such an eclectic portrait of Earth for ourselves? Surveying and cataloguing the variety of these artifacts through a series of interdisciplinary essays and visual documentation, this volume chronicles our changing relationships, customs, and assumptions made within this material culture for our own eyes. What do these autobiographical accounts tell us about Terrans and our minds, set against the backdrop of our planetary history?