Scientists are urging NASA to build a quarantine facility on the moon to protect the Earth from alien biohazards.
A policy paper, released by McGill University, said decades of research on invasive species suggested a “strong precautionary approach” was needed to introducing extraterrestrial materials.
It said, to counter this threat, a biocontainment facility should be part of a planned NASA base on the Moon.
The study raised concerns around catastrophic scenarios involving the crash or malfunction of a spacecraft carrying contaminated material or astronauts exposed to extraterrestrial environments.
The authors say no existing facility on Earth could guarantee absolute containment, eradication or control of an unknown alien micro-organism in the event of an accident.
The Director of Strategic Threat Analysis and Research Laboratories in Idaho, Frederick Moxley, said humanity was entering a new era of space exploration but planetary protection strategies had not kept pace with the risks.
“The proposed facility would essentially act as a firewall between Earth and any potentially hazardous live organisms that could accompany returning future space missions,” he said.
The report authors recommend that all incoming extraterrestrial samples be handled exclusively through advanced robotic systems on the Moon.
They said that, while the existence of extraterrestrial life remained unconfirmed, the introduction of any novel form of life to the Earth’s biosphere would pose unpredictable ecological consequences.
This was demonstrated through the history of invasive species introduced in different areas of the Earth.
Co-author Anthony Ricciardi, a James McGill Professor of Biology and the Director of the Bieler School of Environment at McGill University, said an organism introduced to the wrong place at the wrong time could spread “uncontrollably with potentially devastating and irreversible long-term impacts on ecosystems”.
“This research justifies a strong precautionary approach against introductions of extraterrestrial origin,” he said.
“Protecting Earth from extraterrestrial contamination: The case for a lunar biocontainment facility,” by Frederick I. Moxley and Anthony Ricciardi, was published in Ambio.
The report can be found here
