No, I got the key word. How the heck is that decision made? And by whom? Elon Musk gets ready to put a lander on Mars and there's a NASA office now that must give permission?
Sorry, still not making sense.
"Office of planetary probe sterilization" would be much more descriptive. Otherwise we're taking on a helluva lot more authority and prerogative than we probably should.
I'm puzzled about why the existence of guidelines for contamination of other planets would be surprising.
Note, the concept of "Planetary Protection" also applies to contamination in the reverse direction for sample-return missions, which are very much expected to be part of Mars 2020.
I didn't know this before looking, but it turns out there are UN agreements, and something called the "Outer Space Treaty" to which the U.S. is a signatory (1967). This treaty, in essence, prohibits "harmful contamination" of other planets. There is a body of scientists (a panel within COSPAR) which deliberates on contamination and issues guidelines in a timely way. ESA also has a policy. So there do seem to be players here that are larger than Elon Musk.
But these agreements are subject to revision and negotiation as more becomes known. Presumably something will be worked out as the reality comes nearer.
"Presumably something will be worked out as the reality comes nearer."
One would hope so. I must point out that private space travel was entirely out of the question with NASA for many years. It's only been very recently that the idea has started to catch on -- and it's not universally lauded across the agency. Gotta wonder what kind of obstacles we're currently setting up (perhaps without fully realizing it) for anything beyond LEO.
"Strong interest exists among various countries and private industries to send humans to Mars, both for short-term exploration and long-term colonization." (and on for 3 dense pages).
So, private ventures are part of their deliberations.
[Sec. 8, end]
"It will be impossible for all human-associated processes and operations to be conducted within entirely closed systems, so protocols need to be established so (1) human missions to Mars will not contaminate Special Regions nor be contaminated by materials (or possibly organisms) from them and (2) human activities on Mars will avoid converting Non-Special Regions to Special Regions and thus help control the spread of terrestrial microorganisms on Mars."
*
The basic strategy is to identify and avoid "Special Regions".
Since all current private industry space efforts are still organized with NASA, I imagine this part of NASA is involved with efforts such as SpaceX as well.
