Work on a quarantine facility must begin soon if it is to be ready in time for spacecraft returning to Earth with martian rocks and soil in tow, says a new report from the National Academies’ National Research Council. Although the probability is extremely low that these samples will contain hazardous organisms, prudence dictates that all material must be rigorously quarantined at first.
With current projections indicating that the first sampling mission to Mars could launch in 2011, martian samples could reach Earth as early as 2014. A facility that isolates the samples from terrestrial organisms and chemicals — while safeguarding the Earth’s environment from possible contamination — will probably take seven years or more to design, build, and test.
“Building this type of quarantine facility is a project of enormous complexity,” said John Wood, chair of the committee that wrote the report and staff scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass. “We strongly recommend that this process get under way as soon as possible.”
One major problem in constructing such a facility is the unprecedented need for both biological containment and clean-room conditions. Biological containment is designed to protect the Earth’s environment from possible contamination by the samples. Clean-room conditions are needed to prevent terrestrial organisms, dust, or other foreign matter from getting into the samples and changing their properties. Part of the problem is that contradictory measures are traditionally employed in these two types of facilities. Biological containment facilities enclose samples at lower-than-ambient air pressures so any leakage moves air into the sample chamber and away from the external environment. Clean-room cabinets, on the other hand, are held at greater-than-ambient gas pressures so leakage is outward, protecting the enclosed samples from external contamination.
Because a facility combining these features has never been built, extensive experimentation and testing will be needed to design a system of two-way protection. This must be accomplished before design work on the actual Mars quarantine facility begins. Experimentation also is needed to identify effective sterilization techniques that have a minimal impact on the physical and chemical properties of the samples. The report recommends that a continuing committee of biological and geochemical experts be assembled to oversee all aspects of planning, construction, and operation of the quarantine facility.
To maximize resources and expedite the process of meeting environmental requirements, the quarantine facility should be affiliated with — and located adjacent to — an existing containment facility such as those operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Ft. Detrick, Md., or the facility projected by the medical branch of the University of Texas at Galveston. However, NASA should operate and be responsible for the quarantine facility, the report recommends.
Because operations in a maximum-security containment facility are highly constrained, the report recommends that only the most basic preliminary examination necessary to document the samples and test them for biohazards should be carried out there. Once the samples are cleared for release, a broader range of examinations should be carried out elsewhere. Plans should be in place to promptly sterilize a portion of the samples after they are received so they can be safely transferred out of the facility for study in specialized university laboratories.
The committee proposed specific guidelines for release of samples from the facility. If found to contain no organic matter or other evidence of life, they could be released without sterilization. If the samples contain possible evidence of life, which is the most likely case, portions that have been sterilized by heat or gamma radiation could be certified for release and study elsewhere. If the samples are found to contain unmistakable evidence of life, they should not be released at all until an expert panel of biologists is convened to rethink the situation; the establishment of a research facility dedicated to their study, far more extensive than the quarantine facility, will probably be justified.
The study was sponsored by NASA. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides independent advice on science and technology issues under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows.
Contacts: Jennifer Wenger, Media Relations Associate THE QUARANTINE AND CERTIFICATION OF MARTIAN SAMPLES will be available on the World Wide Web at http://www.nap.edu. The Academies’ Web site also will feature supplemental information and an extended Web treatment at http://national-academies.org/webextra/mars. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).
COMMITTEE ON PLANETARY AND LUNAR EXPLORATION
JOHN A. WOOD* (CHAIR)
WILLIAM V. BOYNTON
W. ROGER BUCK
JAMES P. FERRIS
JOHN M. HAYES*
KAREN J. MEECH
JOHN F. MUSTARD
ANDREW F. NAGY KEITH S. NOLL
DAVID A. PAIGE
ROBERT T. PAPPALARDO
ANNA-LOUISE REYSENBACH
J. WILLIAM SCHOPF*
ANN L. SPRAGUE
RESEARCH COUNCIL STAFF
DAVID H. SMITH * Member, National Academy of Sciences
Mark Chesnek, Media Relations Assistant
(202) 334-2138; e-mail
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
Space Studies Board
Senior Scientist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Cambridge, Mass.
Professor of Planetary Science, Cosmochemistry, and Geochemistry
Department of Planetary Science
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson
Senior Research Scientist
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Palisades, N.Y., and
Adjunct Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Columbia University
New York City
Research Professor
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and
Director
New York Center for Studies on the Origins of Life
Troy
Director, National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility, and
Senior Scientist, Department of Geology and Geophysics
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Woods Hole, Mass.
Associate Astronomer
Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii
Honolulu
Assistant Professor
Department of Geological Science
Brown University
Providence, R.I.
Professor of Space Science
Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences, and
Professor of Electrical Engineering
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor
Associate Astronomer
Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer Instrument Group
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore
Associate Professor of Planetary Science
Department of Earth and Space Sciences
University of California
Los Angeles
Assistant Professor of Planetary Science
Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences
University of Colorado
Boulder
Assistant Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Portland State University
Portland, Ore.
Professor of Paleobiology
Department of Earth and Space Sciences, the Molecular Biology Institute, and the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, and
Director
Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life
University of California
Los Angeles
Planetary Scientist
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson
Study Director
