Resumen de Go ahead rovers, contaminate Mars
Mars scientists Dirk Schulze-Makuch and Alberto Fairen are behind the controversial new push to relax planetary protection rules--a set of sterilization procedures that Mars-bound spacecraft must undergo to avoid contaminating the planet with terrestrial microbes. The existing rules have made missions that would probe for Martian life costly and inefficient, the pair argues in an editorial published last week in Nature. A compact DNA sequencer is being developed that would be ready in time to fly with NASA's next Mars rover, slated for launch in 2020.
